April 15, 2026 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time times luck and load. The Michael
Berry Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is Hank Hill and there's only one thing I
like more than propane, and that's Michael Berry.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Good morning, Zar one of Michael zay Zalen. Good morning,
Michael Berry. It's Sean Connery. But you had a little
radio show, Vidy, I wash it and find it.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Good morning, Michael Berry. I'm all jaked up on Mountain dew.
Good morning Michaels, Sam Elliott. Looking for Uncle Jerry's pinky too.
This is Uncle Jerry's perky too. Wishing you a very
good morning.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Good morning, says listen to this, Good morning says. Morning
your car hardy Texas ownness.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
On this day.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
We're happy here, just talking about everything.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Good morning, we're not wearing.
Speaker 6 (01:13):
Good morning taxes, good lording taxes, Good lord exen.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Good morning, we go.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Strict gone, damn well, it's tax day.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Democrats continue pushing the lie that the quote wealthy don't
pay their share in the hopes of more income redistribution.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Here are the numbers.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
The top one percent of income tax filers in twenty
twenty two contributed forty point four percent the revenue. It's
the top one percent. The top ten percent of filers
contributed seventy two percent, the top quarter contributed eighty seven
(02:13):
point two percent. And that's of filers. There are a
lot of people who don't even file. From the Wall
Street Journal, compare that with the bottom half of filers
seventy six point nine million returns in twenty twenty two.
They paid three percent of income tax revenue. Their average
(02:36):
rate was three point seven percent. Those percentages also are
an overstatement because refundable credits are categorized as spending and
aren't reflected in the IRS data. The Treasury Department's Office
of Tax Analysis estimates average income tax rates are effectively
negative for the bottom forty percent. In other words, the
(02:56):
US system is already highly progressive, which is where you
tax more as they go higher, is already highly progressive.
No matter the false accusations at President Trump's twenty seventeen
tax reform was a whole passed for the rich, it wasn't.
(03:16):
Democrats keep telling workers and voters that they can have
European benefits and the tax bill will be covered by
Uncle FatCat, But the reality is that the europe that
pays for big government by taxing its middle class is hurting.
The reason the left loves the fair share languages that
(03:38):
excuses Democrats from ever having to define it. If the
top ten percent of income tax filers are already paying
nearly three quarters of the burden, what would Senators Corey
buck Booker and Chris van Holland consider equitable eighty percent?
Eighty five percent? I guess they'd take it if they
(04:03):
could spare George Soros and their donors. You know, it's
it's a fascinating thing. How many people walk around laboring
under lies and they don't even know it. Most of
the people at these protests are either paid to be there,
(04:24):
excited to have something to do and they're on the
email list so they show up, or the true believers,
and there are some are there under the under the.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Lie that things aren't fair.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Wow, it's interesting to consider on tax day.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Who pays what, who gets what? There's your breakdown.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Republicans pay, Democrats get It's just that simple. And yet
whoever talks about cutting the government, I mean, really talks
about it. I don't mean an off handed statement. Let's
make it more uncomfortable and bring it closer to home.
State of Texas you've got most every you've got the governor,
(05:13):
lieutenant governor, state reps, state senators talking about cutting eliminating
the property tax. Really, okay, how does that work exactly?
Help me understand that it's popular. Eliminate the property tax.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, that's like me telling you we're going to eliminate.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Your house note, your truck note, your electricity bill, and
your health insurance. Oh wow, okay, thanks, Well, who's going
to pay it? I'm all for eliminating every tax, But
then you've got to eliminate spending. You never ever hear
(06:03):
them talk about eliminating spending. It does not come up
because any spending that you talk about eliminating has a
voter attached as a recipient. And that's fine, all right,
You're never going to cut spending. Stop lying and saying
you're going to cut property taxes. Are we collecting money
(06:27):
we don't spend? Is that what's going on in the
state of Texas because what they get, they spend. So
what are you going to do? What are you going
to do without this massive revenue you get from us?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Where are you going to fill that gap?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Because no one has said we're going And by the way,
my views would be considered harsh. I think you cut
every welfare program and you're gonna have a lot of people,
including some republic Hey wait, whoa, well my friends on that,
Hey whoa, hey, I got a contract on that. It
(07:03):
wouldn't be until you eliminated every form of anything related
to welfare spending that you could start to build back
and start to realize if you could have one year
where people could have their money back. Because everybody when
you talk about eliminating programs, everybody says, oh, wait, but
I benefit from that one over there, not nearly as
(07:26):
much as you pay in. So you have a system
where everyone resents paying in, but it's scrounging around for
how much can I get coming back? And it's a
whole racket. It is a whole dirty racket. How much
can I get coming back? The other direction and the waste.
I mean, look what we saw in Mogadishu, Minnesota. The
(07:50):
level of fraud that we witnessed there. That's not only there.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
There's some of that going on in Texas. Absolutely positively.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I don't know, I don't know where that is, but
I assure you it's here. I assure you because it's
it's the same framework of fraud. Houston City Council got
to what for after realizing that they were going to
lose funds from the state. So they're going to have
a meeting on Friday, and we had a nice.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Little blow up. Good for you, Doug Griffith about that
coming up. I'm a n g R.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
The first time we booked Eddie Money, I got a
call from Kenny Duncan, junior at US Finds, and he said, Hey,
how much to sponsored Eddie Money show? And I just
(08:49):
booked it. I hadn't done anymore and I said it's
either fifteen or twenty five. He was twenty five either way.
He said, I'm in. I said, wow, okay, all right, cool,
that's one thing off my mind.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
That way, we didn't have to think it wouldn't be high.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
We could do it really cheap that because we had
covered from our sponsor. And he said the money Man.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I got a sponsor, the money man. I thought it
was got him funny.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So say three years goes by and I shoot him
a message, Hey, Kenny, Eddie Money's on a tour and
we can pick him up on this day.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Same deal on sponsorship. I'm in. I mean, he just
he couldn't miss it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
By the way, I don't know if it's officially open
to the public. I know they're doing a friends and
family and high rollers deal in a couple of weeks,
but I think I think the new US Coins may
be open to the public.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Now you've seen it. Oh man, it is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I know.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
He is so proud.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
They were upstairs in their building before, but a lot
of it was the back office because they had to
be secure space and they got all the you know,
they they take in rare coins, they take in goal
and so they had to have a lot of space
that wasn't available to the public, so that the as
they say, public facing side of the business was relatively small,
(10:24):
not by retail standards, but by what their dreams were.
And now it's a big, open, beautiful, glorious place. I'll
find out when they're open. But that they I don't
think they want your pennies. They don't make them anymore,
you know what. That's a good point. That's a rare deal.
Astros break. They're losing straight last night, so that was good.
(10:46):
It was a seven to six win. Houston City Council
to reconsider the ice non cooperation ordinance. This idiot girl,
Alejandra Selina's I had heard she was going to be
a price when she was running. Oh my goodness, she
has become the next Lena hd Algo. She is a
little mess. My goodness, she's going to be Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
She's going to be something.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Mayor O Whitmeyer has called a special City Council meeting
to consider repealing the recently passed ordinance that limits HPD's
coordination with ice hbo used Doug Griffith went before Houston
City Council and blasted the members who supported Prop A,
telling them, y'all play in politics with our officers. If
something happens and we don't take somebody in on one
(11:34):
of those warrants and they go and kill somebody tomorrow
or rape or rob somebody, guess what.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
We're on the hook, and so is.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
The City of Houston because y'all wanted to enact this ordinance.
Good for you, Doug Griffith. The cops have your back,
the citizens have your back. Who doesn't have your back?
These turds on Houston City Council that are trying to
run for higher office as Democrats who are willing to
(12:01):
let our neighbors be murdered by illegal aliens, and we're
going to remember. We're going to remember, and we're going
to let them know when the murders pile up. This
is Joscelyn Nungerai. This is the result of illegal aliens.
This is Lake and Riley. This is the result. This
is the young lady, the college student who was walking
(12:23):
along the water in Chicago and an illegal alien came
up and murdered her, innocent young lady. And we're going
to see more of those. And that's what the Democrats want.
That's what these bastards want. They do not care. There
is no idea of consequences. It is doing what they
(12:46):
want because that's they have to sell their soul to advance. Look,
these are not smart people. These are not accomplished people.
This is all they have running for office, elected to office,
holding office. The fact is people who are successful in
their private careers don't have the time or the energy
(13:10):
and turns out the willingness to go and run for
these offices, to file the documents, to stand around and
say vote for me, And so this is what you're
left with. You're not a left with accomplished people. When
I was on Houston City Council. I could say five
people who I would say would be able to succeed
in the private sector and the rest. Anyway, here is
(13:33):
Doug Griffith, who deserves a round of applause, who deserves
our support, who's the president of the Houston Police Officers Union,
who actually was a street officer, who actually cares about
public safety, and done founds.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Me that none of y'all called me in acting this.
The only person I stood with us a bear, and
I honestly believe y'all do too.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But that's on me. That's what I believe.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
This is nothing more. Did you playing politics? Counsmember Pollard,
cous members Lean US counsemember came in.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You are playing politics with our ulcers. That's what you're doing.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Our ulcers are out there doing a job every freaking day,
working that beats off.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
To protect this city.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
We had over two million contacts with assistans last year,
less than two hundred fifty cisy complaints. We had over
two million contacts with cistans last year, and we only
had seventy four incidents where we had ice detainers on
someone and we turned them over to ice don't tell
me we don't have bigger issues in this city.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
We can't get our water.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
See, we cannot get a heavy tracks picked up, we
can't get a fair housing market, We can't all kinds
of issues that city councilor should be dealing with. And
know we're worried about this seventy four traffic stops last year.
It's not about politics for us, It's about make sure
people are safe. You don't know with those wars appot, ma'am.
(15:01):
You have no clue what those wars are for. That
guy could have beat his wife three or four times
and they falled.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
On and sitting back.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
That may be what that administrative war is for.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You don't know.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
And mister boss, see that's it right there. You keep
talking about how you support law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Go to Edvard.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Let me catch you say that again, because you last
week you said.
Speaker 8 (15:27):
We were raising Michael Barry's show brought to you by
Houston Number one Steam Cleaner oopsteam dot com.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Jeff, you're on the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 9 (15:36):
Go ahead, sir, Hey Michael, good morning. I told Ramon
and I just have n't asked you the question because
you want to talk to him. I said, yeah, I'd
love to met you once or twice and called once before.
So you talked about this a great day to talk
about it. With the tax free, talked about the all
the stuff, as far as one percent. I don't remember
(15:58):
the number one percent of the taxes. I was just
curious because you hear things, I'm not a tax with
I understand finance and things like that, but you hear
Rush doesn't pay any I mean, Trump doesn't pay any taxes.
And you hear Sean Hannity saying I'd pay every single
nickel because I know that I'm going to quote unquote
be randomly selected for an audit. What is you know,
(16:22):
what what do you say to one percent? What is
the effective tax rate of this one percent versus the
lower guys, the lower fifty percent that you know pay
three percent of the taxes. You know, what is it? Actually?
What does it cost him? I'm kind of a numbers guy,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Let me let me take that question in just a moment.
Ramon see if you can find Chappelle had a bit
called I knew Present, I knew Trump was going to win,
and he's talking about Trump and Hillary and the tax rates.
What is the effective tax rate would depend You would
have to back into that number because no matter who
(17:03):
you are, you get deductions. Everybody gets deductions, right, the
non self employed. So the guy that pulls a check
from a plant, that guy's going to get a homeowner's deduction.
You're going to get a child, a dependent deduction. You're
going to get a lot of those. So I don't
know what the effective rate would be. You start with
(17:23):
your rate, and then the richer you are and the
more far flowing your enterprise, the more ways you're going
to look to reduce your taxes. Right, So the effective
rate would would then be calculated based on what you
paid in what your I suppose gross earnings, deducting the
(17:44):
exemptions that you're going to get. So that's where you're
going to get what would be a rate I don't know.
You get to forty percent. Honestly, the rich pay. The
really rich, the billionaire plus is going to pay a
lower percentage of his taxable income percentage not net, because
(18:06):
he's going to pay a lot a guy that's worth
you know. So Elon's the largest individual taxpayer in history,
there's no doubt about that, and he has said that
multiple times.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But a guy who's who who makes earns ten.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Billion dollars versus a guy who earns one hundred million dollars,
The ten billion dollar guy is going to pay more
than one hundred billion dollars one hundred million dollar guy,
even if he pays a much smaller, smaller percentage. But
a couple of things you have to remember when you
look at taxable income, capital gains are taxed at I
(18:42):
think fifteen percent, whereas normal regular earnings are taxed on
a graduated scale all the way up to just shorter
forty percent.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Let's say forty percent for the sake of argument.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So in terms of a percentage of rate of taxes
of earnings, and remember, if this isn't your wealth, it's
your earnings. As a percentage of your earnings, the poor
slub that makes a salary from a corporation, a high
salary from a corporation, is going to pay the highest taxes.
The billionaire might pay a gross number that is high
(19:19):
based on his capital gains, but it's still a lower
percentage than the taxes on earnings of a guy who
makes a million dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That guy gets popped hard.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
As a percentage of earnings But again, we're having a
conversation on structuring tax policy in an environment where a
great number of people simply have this opinion they had
to pay a bunch of taxes because they're rich, And
there's absolutely no understanding, even among some of our audience
(19:56):
of how awful that would be if you did that. Sure,
take everything a billionaire house, literally leave them nothing. Take
the planes, the houses, the staff, the investments, take.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It all, literally take it all.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Eedy, I mean, did that to the Indians in Uganda
and the country collapse and the Indians.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Weren't necessarily rich.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
When you do that, they will respond, and it will
be that response that will destroy your economy because you
want to attack their capital gains, They'll find other ways
to hide their money. People don't want to pay taxes,
whether they're rich or not. People don't want to pay taxes,
and whatever you put in place to take more of
(20:37):
their taxes, they're going to find ways to behave differently.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And that's you.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Look, we see this with Kathy Hokele begging people to
come back to New York. We're seeing this with now
ten states considering or having imposed an exit tax.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Because if you tax people enough they'll leave.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And that's the state taxes that are, say nine point
nine percent in California.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
But this was a very.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Interesting comedy bit by Dave Chappelle talking about Trump telling
Hillary Clinton when she's talking about the rich don't pay
their fair share and that Trump doesn't pay taxes, he said,
I comply with the law.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I'm following the law.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
You don't stop saying that it's horrible that the rich
or horrible change the.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Law, which she won't do.
Speaker 10 (21:20):
And I'm watching the news now that declaring the end
of the Trump era. Now, okay, I can see how
in New York you might believe this is the end
of his era. I'm just being honest with you. I
live in Ohio amongst four whites. A lot of you
don't understand why Trump was so popular, but I get
it because I hear it every day. He's very loved,
(21:42):
And the reason he's loved is because people in Ohio
have never seen somebody like him. He's what I call
an honest liey'all. Well, I'm not joking right now. He's
an honest lie. That first debate, that first debate, I've
never seen anything like it. I've never seen a white
male billionaire screaming at the top of his lungs. This
(22:05):
whole system is rigged, he said, and carols. The stage
was white woman Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama is in
no way looking at him like, no, it's not. I said,
now wait a minute, bro, that's what he said. And
the MONTERI said, well, miss Trump, in fact, the system.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Is rigged, as he suggests, what would be your evidence?
Remember what he said, bro, He said, I know the
system is rigged because I use it.
Speaker 8 (22:34):
Did you use that nine hundred and sixteen million dollar
loss to avoid paying personal federal income taxes? Of course
I do, of course I do, and so do all
of her donors, or most of her donors. I know
many of her donors.
Speaker 10 (22:45):
No one ever heard someone say something they're true. And
then Hillary Clinton had a punch in the taxes.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
He said, this man doesn't pay his taxes. He shot
right back, that makes me smart.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
See, I understand the tax code better than anybody that's
ever run for president, Hillary Clinton, and it's extremely complex.
Speaker 11 (23:00):
And then said, if you want me to pay my taxes,
then change the tax code. But I know you won't
because your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax
breaks that I do.
Speaker 8 (23:13):
Hillary Clinton has friends that want all of these provisions,
including they want the carried interest provision, which is very
important to Wall Street people. But they really want the
carried interest provision, which I believe Hillary's leaving, and very
interesting why she's leaving carried interests will tell you that
Number One, I pay tremendous numbers of taxes. I absolutely
(23:34):
use it, and so did Warren Buffett, and so did
George Sorows, and so did many of the other people
that Hillary is getting money.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
From the dead. My friend the star was born the
Michael Berry show.
Speaker 8 (23:49):
Low can't last long, So hurry into circut cities.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Whether you are a long worn having visited campus from Houston,
or you've got a longhorn as a child, or you
visited a state capital. If you you can choose two
to ninety go up northwest and come over west or
the more. If you're central to west Houston, it makes
(24:14):
more sense to go I ten west and then you
take seventy one, otherwise you'll end up in San Antoni.
You take seventy one, you start heading northwest from there
and you go through Lagrange, and in my opinion, the
prettiest part of that whole drive.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
You go through Lagrange and Fayette County right.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Through there, and if you were to cut back east
on two thirty seven, one fifty nine and then two
thirty seven, you'd be in Round Top, one of my
favorite parts of the state.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Anyway, So you're on it.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You take seventy one northwest, you go through Lagrange in
West Point, and then you get just before you get
to Bastrop, there's a little town called Smithville. It's about
forty five hundred people. It's a wonderful little place. I
don't know that it always will be because a lot
of people have figured it out, and Elon's bringing a
lot of industry to that area, and people are going
(25:00):
to find this wonderful, idyllic little place to live.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
It's glorious. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's wonderful, low crime, pretty open pastures, blue skies.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
It's a great place to live.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
We got a message from a listener about a story
that was written in the Smithville paper, the Smithville, Texas News,
that the city of Smithville has been collecting a five
dollars fee on every utility bill for the volunteer fire Department.
But it's not going to the volunteer fire department. It's
not the biggest fraud you're going to hear about, but
it sounds to me like fraud. Kristin Merriweather is the
(25:35):
reporter for the Smithville, Texas News who broke the story.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
She's our guest. Welcome.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, what happened here?
Speaker 7 (25:44):
Uh yeah, well I love that how you described it, Silen.
It's exactly what you're saying, like, this is exactly what
it is. It's a small, sleepy little town about four
thousand people, and a couple of years ago, inflation skyrocketed,
and I'm sure this happened to a lot of other people,
where all of a sudden, the cities needed a lot
more money to pay for pay for payroll. And so
(26:07):
the solution for us was to raise a lot of
fees at that time. And so one of the fees
that they ended up raising was they raised the fee
on the utility fee on the utility bill from one
dollar voluntary and they made it five dollars mandatory. At
the time, nobody questioned the legality of the fee, but
(26:28):
that fee is actually it's illegal to do that, and
so we've gone through. They've now collected over a quarter
million dollars to turn fifty nine thousand. And when I
looked at the budget documents for this physical year, the
current fiscal year, we are projected to collect one hundred
and forty thousand, but we only budgeted one hundred and
five thousand for the fire department. So that was a
(26:50):
huge red flag to me. So yeah, pulled the expenses
and the reports.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And to be clear, hold on christ this is a
volunteer fire department. So we're only talking about a supplement
to guys that are doing this on their own time,
out of the goodness their own heart.
Speaker 7 (27:06):
Yeah, I mean, and these are great guys. This was
like one of those weird stories where you've got to
break a story about something that you know, you love,
you want to support. Nobody that I've talked to in
the community is like, oh, we don't want to pay
this because we don't like the fire department. But everybody
that I've talked to about this, particularly the stories broking
through town, is like, well, wait a minute, what are
they spending it on then? And that was not something
(27:28):
that we could understand. So they're the volunteer fire department,
which these are a little kind of old school. I
guess you don't see a lot of these very much anymore.
But yeah, it said nonprofit, and so this non profit
kind of uses city funds as well to fund the
fund their expenditures. And for a while it was seventy
(27:49):
five thousand dollars annually, like you know, give or take
within some things. But then we put in this fee.
In that first year, after the fee, it's shot up.
We budgeted one hundred and ninety three thousand and they spent
one ninety seven. What I actually pulled what did they
spend it on? Because we were promised eighty thousand dollars
in bunker gear, which is like the you know, the
(28:10):
equipment the firefighters used. I didn't see that in the expenses.
They budgeted a lot for it, but they only spent
about half of it in those two categories. And then
if you actually look, the vast majority of the new
expenses were for what they called maintenance, so like did
they fix the building, fox equipment, that kind of stuff.
(28:31):
And when I went to the hearing yesterday, they did
not have any answers on what those big buckets actually
mean and did we actually spend eighty thousand dollars on
bunker gear. No one has answered that yet.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Classic case.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I served on Houston City Council in the early two
thousands and it's the exact same thing. So they wanted
more money to play with, that's it.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
They wanted more money.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
They probably gave themselves pay raises, and so they want
more money. But to ask for more money, they would
have to justify why they need, why they deserve more
money to be paid more money. So City of Smithville says, yeah, well,
here's what we do. Volunteer fire department is very popular.
So we'll just tack on a fee, which is basically
a tax increase. We'll tack on a fee for every
(29:13):
utility bill and we'll say it's for mother Teresa and
the volunteer fire department. And anyone who complains is a
crank who doesn't appreciate volunteer fire department. When your house
is on fire, shame on you. And then you find
out that what they're doing is they're actually covering city
core city expenses, which means the core city expenses are
(29:34):
being used for their own salaries. So in effect, they're
probably if they're paying themselves more or whatever else they're
doing with this extra money that they have to play with.
They're doing it on the backs of the volunteer fire
department because nobody wants to criticize that except for me
and old Christian Merriweather at the Smithville, Texas News.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
You know how those reporters are.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
We're terrible people.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
How did you end up in Smithville?
Speaker 7 (29:58):
So I came back to Central Texas. I grew up
born and raised in Texas, and then I went and
actually started my career. I've did my career backwards. I
started in New York, was a city hall reporter in
New York, and then went back to City County of
Denver was where my folks were living. They lost their
business with the pandemic, and then I came back with
them and came back to Central Texas and been bouncing
(30:20):
around since the pandemic so for about six years now.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ramm tells me that you have a tattoo on your
forearm that says come and take it, and it's a pen.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Are you some sort of hippie?
Speaker 10 (30:33):
You know?
Speaker 7 (30:33):
I did spend some time in Colorado. I'm born and
raised in Texas, so I do have that Texas thing,
but a little bit of hippie. But yeah, I did
the come and take it. I mean that was obviously
from Gonzalez, but I love that it's that saying is
from twenty five hundred years ago, and it was the Spartans.
They it was the story you see in the movie
three hundred. You know, they were completely outnumbered and no
(30:55):
matter what, they were not going to give up. And
you know, so they said, hey, lay down your weapons,
you know, we'll let you go. And they're like, no,
come and take them. And so that's kind of the
way I approached my reporting, which has been tested this
past week, the past couple of weeks actually with the story.
But yeah, it takes courage to do what we do.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Do you think the public, the Smithville voting public and
the taxpayers, utility bill payers, do you think they're on
your side?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Do you get the sense that there is a swell
of support.
Speaker 11 (31:24):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (31:25):
I have not had a lot of people, like packed
tax paying public that are upset about this story. I
mean there are a few. I think, I would say
probably the former city managers and a super big fan
of mine because I did talk about his decision making
in this But yeah, taxpayers are very happy that we're
breaking this story because you know, it was kind of flay.
(31:46):
I didn't think that this sea was illegal. That's the
whole reason this story even got broken. Somebody sent this
to me and it's like, hey, I don't think this
is illegal. And my initial thought was, well, what if
it's not. If it is, if it's illegal, how are
we going to pay for the volunteer fire department? And then,
you know, months later, after actually digging into it, and
turns out we're not really actually doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Good on you, Kristine.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
This is the role the press is supposed to play
and historically has. This is what Thomas Jefferson envisioned. Kristin Merriweather,
the Smithville, Texas News, keep.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Up the good work.
Speaker 7 (32:20):
All right, thanks sir, appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
You heard of Brandon Gill.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
He's been quite quote worthy on the floor of Congress
for the past few months. He has some news regarding me,
Digny dodd At that he has come out against regarding
illegal immigration.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
You're going to want to hear his conversation coming up
It's that time time times luck and load. The Michael
Berry Show is on the air.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is Hank Hill and there's only one thing I
like more than propane, and that's Michael Berry.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Good morning, Zar one of Michael zay Zalen. Good morning,
Michael Berry. It's Sean Connery. But you had a little
radio show, Vidy, I wash it and find it.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Good morning, Michael Berry. I'm all jaked up on Mountain dew.
Good morning Michaels, Sam Elliott. Looking for Uncle Jerry's pinky too.
This is Uncle Jerry's perky too. Wishing you a very
good morning.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Good morning, says listen to this, Good morning says. Morning
your car hardy Texas ownness.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
On this day.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
We're happy here, just talking about everything.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Good morning, we're not wearing.
Speaker 6 (01:13):
Good morning taxes, good lording taxes, Good lord exen.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Good morning, we go.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Strict gone, damn well, it's tax day.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Democrats continue pushing the lie that the quote wealthy don't
pay their share in the hopes of more income redistribution.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Here are the numbers.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
The top one percent of income tax filers in twenty
twenty two contributed forty point four percent the revenue. It's
the top one percent. The top ten percent of filers
contributed seventy two percent, the top quarter contributed eighty seven
(02:13):
point two percent. And that's of filers. There are a
lot of people who don't even file. From the Wall
Street Journal, compare that with the bottom half of filers
seventy six point nine million returns in twenty twenty two.
They paid three percent of income tax revenue. Their average
(02:36):
rate was three point seven percent. Those percentages also are
an overstatement because refundable credits are categorized as spending and
aren't reflected in the IRS data. The Treasury Department's Office
of Tax Analysis estimates average income tax rates are effectively
negative for the bottom forty percent. In other words, the
(02:56):
US system is already highly progressive, which is where you
tax more as they go higher, is already highly progressive.
No matter the false accusations at President Trump's twenty seventeen
tax reform was a whole passed for the rich, it wasn't.
(03:16):
Democrats keep telling workers and voters that they can have
European benefits and the tax bill will be covered by
Uncle FatCat, But the reality is that the europe that
pays for big government by taxing its middle class is hurting.
The reason the left loves the fair share languages that
(03:38):
excuses Democrats from ever having to define it. If the
top ten percent of income tax filers are already paying
nearly three quarters of the burden, what would Senators Corey
buck Booker and Chris van Holland consider equitable eighty percent?
Eighty five percent? I guess they'd take it if they
(04:03):
could spare George Soros and their donors. You know, it's
it's a fascinating thing. How many people walk around laboring
under lies and they don't even know it. Most of
the people at these protests are either paid to be there,
(04:24):
excited to have something to do and they're on the
email list so they show up, or the true believers,
and there are some are there under the under the.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Lie that things aren't fair.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Wow, it's interesting to consider on tax day.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Who pays what, who gets what? There's your breakdown.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Republicans pay, Democrats get It's just that simple. And yet
whoever talks about cutting the government, I mean, really talks
about it. I don't mean an off handed statement. Let's
make it more uncomfortable and bring it closer to home.
State of Texas you've got most every you've got the governor,
(05:13):
lieutenant governor, state reps, state senators talking about cutting eliminating
the property tax. Really, okay, how does that work exactly?
Help me understand that it's popular. Eliminate the property tax.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Okay, that's like me telling you we're going to eliminate.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Your house note, your truck note, your electricity bill, and
your health insurance. Oh wow, okay, thanks, Well, who's going
to pay it? I'm all for eliminating every tax, But
then you've got to eliminate spending. You never ever hear
(06:03):
them talk about eliminating spending. It does not come up
because any spending that you talk about eliminating has a
voter attached as a recipient. And that's fine, all right,
You're never going to cut spending. Stop lying and saying
you're going to cut property taxes. Are we collecting money
(06:27):
we don't spend? Is that what's going on in the
state of Texas because what they get, they spend. So
what are you going to do? What are you going
to do without this massive revenue you get from us?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Where are you going to fill that gap?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Because no one has said we're going And by the way,
my views would be considered harsh. I think you cut
every welfare program and you're gonna have a lot of people,
including some republic Hey wait, whoa, well my friends on that,
Hey whoa, hey, I got a contract on that. It
(07:03):
wouldn't be until you eliminated every form of anything related
to welfare spending that you could start to build back
and start to realize if you could have one year
where people could have their money back. Because everybody when
you talk about eliminating programs, everybody says, oh, wait, but
I benefit from that one over there, not nearly as
(07:26):
much as you pay in. So you have a system
where everyone resents paying in, but it's scrounging around for
how much can I get coming back? And it's a
whole racket. It is a whole dirty racket. How much
can I get coming back? The other direction and the waste.
I mean, look what we saw in Mogadishu, Minnesota. The
(07:50):
level of fraud that we witnessed there. That's not only there.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
There's some of that going on in Texas. Absolutely positively.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
I don't know, I don't know where that is, but
I assure you it's here. I assure you because it's
it's the same framework of fraud. Houston City Council got
to what for after realizing that they were going to
lose funds from the state. So they're going to have
a meeting on Friday, and we had a nice.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Little blow up. Good for you, Doug Griffith about that
coming up. I'm a n g R.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
The first time we booked Eddie Money, I got a
call from Kenny Duncan, junior at US Finds, and he said, Hey,
how much to sponsored Eddie Money show? And I just
(08:49):
booked it. I hadn't done anymore and I said it's
either fifteen or twenty five. He was twenty five either way.
He said, I'm in. I said, wow, okay, all right, cool,
that's one thing off my mind.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
That way, we didn't have to think it wouldn't be high.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
We could do it really cheap that because we had
covered from our sponsor. And he said the money Man.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
I got a sponsor, the money man. I thought it
was got him funny.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So say three years goes by and I shoot him
a message, Hey, Kenny, Eddie Money's on a tour and
we can pick him up on this day.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Same deal on sponsorship. I'm in. I mean, he just
he couldn't miss it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
By the way, I don't know if it's officially open
to the public. I know they're doing a friends and
family and high rollers deal in a couple of weeks,
but I think I think the new US Coins may
be open to the public.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Now you've seen it. Oh man, it is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I know.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
He is so proud.
Speaker 7 (10:03):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
They were upstairs in their building before, but a lot
of it was the back office because they had to
be secure space and they got all the you know,
they they take in rare coins, they take in goal
and so they had to have a lot of space
that wasn't available to the public, so that the as
they say, public facing side of the business was relatively small,
(10:24):
not by retail standards, but by what their dreams were.
And now it's a big, open, beautiful, glorious place. I'll
find out when they're open. But that they I don't
think they want your pennies. They don't make them anymore,
you know what. That's a good point. That's a rare deal.
Astros break. They're losing straight last night, so that was good.
(10:46):
It was a seven to six win. Houston City Council
to reconsider the ice non cooperation ordinance. This idiot girl,
Alejandra Selina's I had heard she was going to be
a price when she was running. Oh my goodness, she
has become the next Lena hd Algo. She is a
little mess. My goodness, she's going to be Uh.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
She's going to be something.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Mayor O Whitmeyer has called a special City Council meeting
to consider repealing the recently passed ordinance that limits HPD's
coordination with ice hbo used Doug Griffith went before Houston
City Council and blasted the members who supported Prop A,
telling them, y'all play in politics with our officers. If
something happens and we don't take somebody in on one
(11:34):
of those warrants and they go and kill somebody tomorrow
or rape or rob somebody, guess what.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
We're on the hook, and so is.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
The City of Houston because y'all wanted to enact this ordinance.
Good for you, Doug Griffith. The cops have your back,
the citizens have your back. Who doesn't have your back?
These turds on Houston City Council that are trying to
run for higher office as Democrats who are willing to
(12:01):
let our neighbors be murdered by illegal aliens, and we're
going to remember. We're going to remember, and we're going
to let them know when the murders pile up. This
is Joscelyn Nungerai. This is the result of illegal aliens.
This is Lake and Riley. This is the result. This
is the young lady, the college student who was walking
(12:23):
along the water in Chicago and an illegal alien came
up and murdered her, innocent young lady. And we're going
to see more of those. And that's what the Democrats want.
That's what these bastards want. They do not care. There
is no idea of consequences. It is doing what they
(12:46):
want because that's they have to sell their soul to advance. Look,
these are not smart people. These are not accomplished people.
This is all they have running for office, elected to office,
holding office. The fact is people who are successful in
their private careers don't have the time or the energy
(13:10):
and turns out the willingness to go and run for
these offices, to file the documents, to stand around and
say vote for me, And so this is what you're
left with. You're not a left with accomplished people. When
I was on Houston City Council. I could say five
people who I would say would be able to succeed
in the private sector and the rest. Anyway, here is
(13:33):
Doug Griffith, who deserves a round of applause, who deserves
our support, who's the president of the Houston Police Officers Union,
who actually was a street officer, who actually cares about
public safety, and done founds.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
Me that none of y'all called me in acting this.
The only person I stood with us a bear, and
I honestly believe y'all do too.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
But that's on me. That's what I believe.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
This is nothing more. Did you playing politics? Counsmember Pollard,
cous members Lean US counsemember came in.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You are playing politics with our ulcers. That's what you're doing.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
Our ulcers are out there doing a job every freaking day,
working that beats off.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
To protect this city.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
We had over two million contacts with assistans last year,
less than two hundred fifty cisy complaints. We had over
two million contacts with cistans last year, and we only
had seventy four incidents where we had ice detainers on
someone and we turned them over to ice don't tell
me we don't have bigger issues in this city.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
We can't get our water.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
See, we cannot get a heavy tracks picked up, we
can't get a fair housing market, We can't all kinds
of issues that city councilor should be dealing with. And
know we're worried about this seventy four traffic stops last year.
It's not about politics for us, It's about make sure
people are safe. You don't know with those wars appot, ma'am.
(15:01):
You have no clue what those wars are for. That
guy could have beat his wife three or four times
and they falled.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
On and sitting back.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
That may be what that administrative war is for.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You don't know.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
And mister boss, see that's it right there. You keep
talking about how you support law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Go to Edvard.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Let me catch you say that again, because you last
week you said.
Speaker 8 (15:27):
We were raising Michael Barry's show brought to you by
Houston Number one Steam Cleaner oopsteam dot com.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Jeff, you're on the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 9 (15:36):
Go ahead, sir, Hey Michael, good morning. I told Ramon
and I just have n't asked you the question because
you want to talk to him. I said, yeah, I'd
love to met you once or twice and called once before.
So you talked about this a great day to talk
about it. With the tax free, talked about the all
the stuff, as far as one percent. I don't remember
(15:58):
the number one percent of the taxes. I was just
curious because you hear things, I'm not a tax with
I understand finance and things like that, but you hear
Rush doesn't pay any I mean, Trump doesn't pay any taxes.
And you hear Sean Hannity saying I'd pay every single
nickel because I know that I'm going to quote unquote
be randomly selected for an audit. What is you know,
(16:22):
what what do you say to one percent? What is
the effective tax rate of this one percent versus the
lower guys, the lower fifty percent that you know pay
three percent of the taxes. You know, what is it? Actually?
What does it cost him? I'm kind of a numbers guy,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Let me let me take that question in just a moment.
Ramon see if you can find Chappelle had a bit
called I knew Present, I knew Trump was going to win,
and he's talking about Trump and Hillary and the tax rates.
What is the effective tax rate would depend You would
have to back into that number because no matter who
(17:03):
you are, you get deductions. Everybody gets deductions, right, the
non self employed. So the guy that pulls a check
from a plant, that guy's going to get a homeowner's deduction.
You're going to get a child, a dependent deduction. You're
going to get a lot of those. So I don't
know what the effective rate would be. You start with
(17:23):
your rate, and then the richer you are and the
more far flowing your enterprise, the more ways you're going
to look to reduce your taxes. Right, So the effective
rate would would then be calculated based on what you
paid in what your I suppose gross earnings, deducting the
(17:44):
exemptions that you're going to get. So that's where you're
going to get what would be a rate I don't know.
You get to forty percent. Honestly, the rich pay. The
really rich, the billionaire plus is going to pay a
lower percentage of his taxable income percentage not net, because
(18:06):
he's going to pay a lot a guy that's worth
you know. So Elon's the largest individual taxpayer in history,
there's no doubt about that, and he has said that
multiple times.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
But a guy who's who who makes earns ten.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Billion dollars versus a guy who earns one hundred million dollars,
The ten billion dollar guy is going to pay more
than one hundred billion dollars one hundred million dollar guy,
even if he pays a much smaller, smaller percentage. But
a couple of things you have to remember when you
look at taxable income, capital gains are taxed at I
(18:42):
think fifteen percent, whereas normal regular earnings are taxed on
a graduated scale all the way up to just shorter
forty percent.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Let's say forty percent for the sake of argument.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
So in terms of a percentage of rate of taxes
of earnings, and remember, if this isn't your wealth, it's
your earnings. As a percentage of your earnings, the poor
slub that makes a salary from a corporation, a high
salary from a corporation, is going to pay the highest taxes.
The billionaire might pay a gross number that is high
(19:19):
based on his capital gains, but it's still a lower
percentage than the taxes on earnings of a guy who
makes a million dollars a year.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That guy gets popped hard.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
As a percentage of earnings But again, we're having a
conversation on structuring tax policy in an environment where a
great number of people simply have this opinion they had
to pay a bunch of taxes because they're rich, And
there's absolutely no understanding, even among some of our audience
(19:56):
of how awful that would be if you did that. Sure,
take everything a billionaire house, literally leave them nothing. Take
the planes, the houses, the staff, the investments, take.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
It all, literally take it all.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Eedy, I mean, did that to the Indians in Uganda
and the country collapse and the Indians.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Weren't necessarily rich.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
When you do that, they will respond, and it will
be that response that will destroy your economy because you
want to attack their capital gains, They'll find other ways
to hide their money. People don't want to pay taxes,
whether they're rich or not. People don't want to pay taxes,
and whatever you put in place to take more of
(20:37):
their taxes, they're going to find ways to behave differently.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And that's you.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Look, we see this with Kathy Hokele begging people to
come back to New York. We're seeing this with now
ten states considering or having imposed an exit tax.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Because if you tax people enough they'll leave.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
And that's the state taxes that are, say nine point
nine percent in California.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
But this was a very.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Interesting comedy bit by Dave Chappelle talking about Trump telling
Hillary Clinton when she's talking about the rich don't pay
their fair share and that Trump doesn't pay taxes, he said,
I comply with the law.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I'm following the law.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
You don't stop saying that it's horrible that the rich
or horrible change the.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Law, which she won't do.
Speaker 10 (21:20):
And I'm watching the news now that declaring the end
of the Trump era. Now, okay, I can see how
in New York you might believe this is the end
of his era. I'm just being honest with you. I
live in Ohio amongst four whites. A lot of you
don't understand why Trump was so popular, but I get
it because I hear it every day. He's very loved,
(21:42):
And the reason he's loved is because people in Ohio
have never seen somebody like him. He's what I call
an honest liey'all. Well, I'm not joking right now. He's
an honest lie. That first debate, that first debate, I've
never seen anything like it. I've never seen a white
male billionaire screaming at the top of his lungs. This
(22:05):
whole system is rigged, he said, and carols. The stage
was white woman Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama is in
no way looking at him like, no, it's not. I said,
now wait a minute, bro, that's what he said. And
the MONTERI said, well, miss Trump, in fact, the system.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Is rigged, as he suggests, what would be your evidence?
Remember what he said, bro, He said, I know the
system is rigged because I use it.
Speaker 8 (22:34):
Did you use that nine hundred and sixteen million dollar
loss to avoid paying personal federal income taxes? Of course
I do, of course I do, and so do all
of her donors, or most of her donors. I know
many of her donors.
Speaker 10 (22:45):
No one ever heard someone say something they're true. And
then Hillary Clinton had a punch in the taxes.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
He said, this man doesn't pay his taxes. He shot
right back, that makes me smart.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
See, I understand the tax code better than anybody that's
ever run for president, Hillary Clinton, and it's extremely complex.
Speaker 11 (23:00):
And then said, if you want me to pay my taxes,
then change the tax code. But I know you won't
because your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax
breaks that I do.
Speaker 8 (23:13):
Hillary Clinton has friends that want all of these provisions,
including they want the carried interest provision, which is very
important to Wall Street people. But they really want the
carried interest provision, which I believe Hillary's leaving, and very
interesting why she's leaving carried interests will tell you that
Number One, I pay tremendous numbers of taxes. I absolutely
(23:34):
use it, and so did Warren Buffett, and so did
George Sorows, and so did many of the other people
that Hillary is getting money.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
From the dead. My friend the star was born the
Michael Berry show.
Speaker 8 (23:49):
Low can't last long, So hurry into circut cities.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Whether you are a long worn having visited campus from Houston,
or you've got a longhorn as a child, or you
visited a state capital. If you you can choose two
to ninety go up northwest and come over west or
the more. If you're central to west Houston, it makes
(24:14):
more sense to go I ten west and then you
take seventy one, otherwise you'll end up in San Antoni.
You take seventy one, you start heading northwest from there
and you go through Lagrange, and in my opinion, the
prettiest part of that whole drive.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
You go through Lagrange and Fayette County right.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Through there, and if you were to cut back east
on two thirty seven, one fifty nine and then two
thirty seven, you'd be in Round Top, one of my
favorite parts of the state.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Anyway, So you're on it.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You take seventy one northwest, you go through Lagrange in
West Point, and then you get just before you get
to Bastrop, there's a little town called Smithville. It's about
forty five hundred people. It's a wonderful little place. I
don't know that it always will be because a lot
of people have figured it out, and Elon's bringing a
lot of industry to that area, and people are going
(25:00):
to find this wonderful, idyllic little place to live.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
It's glorious. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's wonderful, low crime, pretty open pastures, blue skies.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
It's a great place to live.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
We got a message from a listener about a story
that was written in the Smithville paper, the Smithville, Texas News,
that the city of Smithville has been collecting a five
dollars fee on every utility bill for the volunteer fire Department.
But it's not going to the volunteer fire department. It's
not the biggest fraud you're going to hear about, but
it sounds to me like fraud. Kristin Merriweather is the
(25:35):
reporter for the Smithville, Texas News who broke the story.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
She's our guest. Welcome.
Speaker 7 (25:40):
Well, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah, what happened here?
Speaker 7 (25:44):
Uh yeah, well I love that how you described it, Silen.
It's exactly what you're saying, like, this is exactly what
it is. It's a small, sleepy little town about four
thousand people, and a couple of years ago, inflation skyrocketed,
and I'm sure this happened to a lot of other people,
where all of a sudden, the cities needed a lot
more money to pay for pay for payroll. And so
(26:07):
the solution for us was to raise a lot of
fees at that time. And so one of the fees
that they ended up raising was they raised the fee
on the utility fee on the utility bill from one
dollar voluntary and they made it five dollars mandatory. At
the time, nobody questioned the legality of the fee, but
(26:28):
that fee is actually it's illegal to do that, and
so we've gone through. They've now collected over a quarter
million dollars to turn fifty nine thousand. And when I
looked at the budget documents for this physical year, the
current fiscal year, we are projected to collect one hundred
and forty thousand, but we only budgeted one hundred and
five thousand for the fire department. So that was a
(26:50):
huge red flag to me. So yeah, pulled the expenses
and the reports.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And to be clear, hold on christ this is a
volunteer fire department. So we're only talking about a supplement
to guys that are doing this on their own time,
out of the goodness their own heart.
Speaker 7 (27:06):
Yeah, I mean, and these are great guys. This was
like one of those weird stories where you've got to
break a story about something that you know, you love,
you want to support. Nobody that I've talked to in
the community is like, oh, we don't want to pay
this because we don't like the fire department. But everybody
that I've talked to about this, particularly the stories broking
through town, is like, well, wait a minute, what are
they spending it on then? And that was not something
(27:28):
that we could understand. So they're the volunteer fire department,
which these are a little kind of old school. I
guess you don't see a lot of these very much anymore.
But yeah, it said nonprofit, and so this non profit
kind of uses city funds as well to fund the
fund their expenditures. And for a while it was seventy
(27:49):
five thousand dollars annually, like you know, give or take
within some things. But then we put in this fee.
In that first year, after the fee, it's shot up.
We budgeted one hundred and ninety three thousand and they spent
one ninety seven. What I actually pulled what did they
spend it on? Because we were promised eighty thousand dollars
in bunker gear, which is like the you know, the
(28:10):
equipment the firefighters used. I didn't see that in the expenses.
They budgeted a lot for it, but they only spent
about half of it in those two categories. And then
if you actually look, the vast majority of the new
expenses were for what they called maintenance, so like did
they fix the building, fox equipment, that kind of stuff.
(28:31):
And when I went to the hearing yesterday, they did
not have any answers on what those big buckets actually
mean and did we actually spend eighty thousand dollars on
bunker gear. No one has answered that yet.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Classic case.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I served on Houston City Council in the early two
thousands and it's the exact same thing. So they wanted
more money to play with, that's it.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
They wanted more money.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
They probably gave themselves pay raises, and so they want
more money. But to ask for more money, they would
have to justify why they need, why they deserve more
money to be paid more money. So City of Smithville says, yeah, well,
here's what we do. Volunteer fire department is very popular.
So we'll just tack on a fee, which is basically
a tax increase. We'll tack on a fee for every
(29:13):
utility bill and we'll say it's for mother Teresa and
the volunteer fire department. And anyone who complains is a
crank who doesn't appreciate volunteer fire department. When your house
is on fire, shame on you. And then you find
out that what they're doing is they're actually covering city
core city expenses, which means the core city expenses are
(29:34):
being used for their own salaries. So in effect, they're
probably if they're paying themselves more or whatever else they're
doing with this extra money that they have to play with.
They're doing it on the backs of the volunteer fire
department because nobody wants to criticize that except for me
and old Christian Merriweather at the Smithville, Texas News.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
You know how those reporters are.
Speaker 7 (29:52):
We're terrible people.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Man.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
How did you end up in Smithville?
Speaker 7 (29:58):
So I came back to Central Texas. I grew up
born and raised in Texas, and then I went and
actually started my career. I've did my career backwards. I
started in New York, was a city hall reporter in
New York, and then went back to City County of
Denver was where my folks were living. They lost their
business with the pandemic, and then I came back with
them and came back to Central Texas and been bouncing
(30:20):
around since the pandemic so for about six years now.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Ramm tells me that you have a tattoo on your
forearm that says come and take it, and it's a pen.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Are you some sort of hippie?
Speaker 10 (30:33):
You know?
Speaker 7 (30:33):
I did spend some time in Colorado. I'm born and
raised in Texas, so I do have that Texas thing,
but a little bit of hippie. But yeah, I did
the come and take it. I mean that was obviously
from Gonzalez, but I love that it's that saying is
from twenty five hundred years ago, and it was the Spartans.
They it was the story you see in the movie
three hundred. You know, they were completely outnumbered and no
(30:55):
matter what, they were not going to give up. And
you know, so they said, hey, lay down your weapons,
you know, we'll let you go. And they're like, no,
come and take them. And so that's kind of the
way I approached my reporting, which has been tested this
past week, the past couple of weeks actually with the story.
But yeah, it takes courage to do what we do.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Do you think the public, the Smithville voting public and
the taxpayers, utility bill payers, do you think they're on
your side?
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Do you get the sense that there is a swell
of support.
Speaker 11 (31:24):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (31:25):
I have not had a lot of people, like packed
tax paying public that are upset about this story. I
mean there are a few. I think, I would say
probably the former city managers and a super big fan
of mine because I did talk about his decision making
in this But yeah, taxpayers are very happy that we're
breaking this story because you know, it was kind of flay.
(31:46):
I didn't think that this sea was illegal. That's the
whole reason this story even got broken. Somebody sent this
to me and it's like, hey, I don't think this
is illegal. And my initial thought was, well, what if
it's not. If it is, if it's illegal, how are
we going to pay for the volunteer fire department? And then,
you know, months later, after actually digging into it, and
turns out we're not really actually doing that.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Good on you, Kristine.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
This is the role the press is supposed to play
and historically has. This is what Thomas Jefferson envisioned. Kristin Merriweather,
the Smithville, Texas News, keep.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Up the good work.
Speaker 7 (32:20):
All right, thanks sir, appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
You heard of Brandon Gill.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
He's been quite quote worthy on the floor of Congress
for the past few months. He has some news regarding me,
Digny dodd At that he has come out against regarding
illegal immigration.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
You're going to want to hear his conversation coming up
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