Robert Romano - Americans For Limited Government Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So in the seventy six days between President Trump's election
and the end of the Biden administration, the Energy Department basically,
and we just found this out from Energy Secretary Christopher Right,
they dropped ninety three billion in loans and commitments during
the final seventy six days. That is more money than

(00:21):
they had loaned out in the previous fifteen years combined.
And the worst part of it all is that very
few of these businesses were vetted in any way, shape
or form. These are, no doubt political payouts. Robert Romano
joins as Americans for Limited Government. Haven't heard a lot
of talk about this yet, Robert, but I'm suspecting we
will in the days they had.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, the Overhaut site hearing with Senator Kennedy and Secretary Wright,
I think was very informative, but also very disappointing and
yet not very surprising that lots of loans went out
during the lane duck period. After the Biden administration, everyone
knew they were on the way out the door, so
they said, let's spend and loan as much money as

(01:01):
possible to our political cronies in the green energy industry
as possible. Whatever these sol or win companies that obviously
the Trump administration was going to defund on their way in.
But what it tells us is that, you know, Dosee
was right a Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk, President Trump,
they were right to want to come in and then

(01:25):
have at the executive re examine all of these federal
contracts that go out, you know, whether it's someone receiving
a loan or someone who's receiving a grant, that these
need to be reviewed and that there needs to be
higher standards to ensure that the people are really people
in some cases, that these businesses are actually going to

(01:45):
conduct the work if they say they were going to,
and I don't think they. I mean, depending on the
terms of the loan, I think you start to get
into contract law about whether you could call these back.
But certainly Congress can act as they're preparing the budget
to and as a matter of fact and Energy and Commerce,
there's about nine hundred and thirty billion dollars of reduced outlays,

(02:10):
assuming from the tax credits and undoing the Inflation Reduction
Act Green subsidies that went out the door. To make
sure that no more of those go out the door.
In the future. But clearly this is disappointing and there
should be an investigation and if appropriate Justice Department action.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, no doubt about it. I know that Stacy Abrams
was one of the names that came up early in
all of this. Have you determined who some of these
other entities are that receive this money?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well that you know, we actually were looking at some
of this on the while it was happening. But what
we also determined was that there weren't really spending more
money in general out of the federal government. That there
was a lot of loans and brands and everything. Oh,
they're spending more money than usual at all of these departments,
but that when you looked at the monthly Treasury statement,

(02:57):
there wasn't a dramatic increase in the deficit from what
had been previously projected. So my thought was that at
the time was that this was money that would have
been spent anyways. Then maybe maybe a few months earlier,
a few months later, but that generally speaking, this money
was probably going to end up going out the door
either way. That the they had planned on asking for

(03:18):
this money now where they fully prepared. That's a really
good question. That's what the investigation will determine certainly, lots
of you know former uh you know, you know, a
candidate for office like Stacy Abrams are going to be
CEOs at these companies and organizations who are requesting grants
and loans. That's actually not unusual, but it could be inappropriate,

(03:39):
and it could show that they have an inside track
that uh, it just shows you this is the way
they do business in Washington. D. C. Doze was right.
They need to Congress needs to implement the Doge cut
and stop stop running for cover when there's a clear
case that we need to cut spending more, particularly with
the CBO report on the on the tax bill, you

(04:01):
know there's about two point three trillion dollars more of
cuts they could make if they wanted to make it
deficit neutral in the CBO's eyes. I bet you that
would help in the House when they need to pass
it again. But we'll see. I think that it's a
disappointing process right now, but I think everything will work
out in the end.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
I hope you're right about that. Elon Musk is you
know his time is up, he's leaving. I hope the
momentum continues. Thank you, Robert appreciate it. Robert Romano Americans
for limited government. It's five fifty seven