Mark interviews economist Steve Moore.

What did Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gain from shutting down the government, and what are the broader economic impacts? The U.S. reportedly lost about $56 billion during the shutdown. Steve also weighs in on inflation, attributing much of the current rise to the Biden administration.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Mark Simone Show seven. WOI Hey
the great economist Steve Moore. Make sure you get his
new book. His latest book is The Trump Economic Miracle.
It's an excellent book. Also, make sure you sign up
for his daily briefing. It's called the Hotline. You go
to Unleash Prosperity dot com Unleashed prosperity dot com and

(00:23):
you'll get the best daily briefing, news analysis. It's free.
It comes right to your meail. Just sign up for
it Unleash Prosperity dot com. Steve Moore, how you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey, Mark, Good to be with you now. I'm not
doing well. I spent so much time in the last
four days at the airport. This flight castle, that flight castle, delays.
It's just been a complete havoc. And now I hear
that it's probably going to go on for even another
two weeks, even now that they're finally about to reopen
the government. It's just been chaotic. And by the way, Mark,

(00:55):
what exactly did Chuck Schumer achieve from this? I mean
really nothing. I mean it was fifty six billion dollars
of lost tax payer money, caused mayhem, turmoil, frustration for
people around the country and he got nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, did he get nothing? Or was the whole idea
just to screw up the Trump economy a little, maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Screw up the old Well maybe that would be a
very nefarious motivation, you know, if he intentionally sabotaged the
economy to make Trump look bad. But I guess that's
what politicians do this these days. And you know, shame
on him because it really did ruin our whole weekend.
My wife and I we're gonna have a little retreat,
you know, get away for three or four days. We
spent half the weekend in the airports, and people were

(01:38):
so angry all over you know, everywhere we went. And
what a way to score political points is to is
to inconvenience people all over the country.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, if you look back fourteen shutdowns, no party has
ever gained anything from a shutdown the shutdown caucuses, Oh
for fourteen, isn't it? It never does anything?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, that's right. And what and by the way, you
know what what what Chucky Schumer wanted was to you know,
allow the legal immigrants to get healthcare benefits, to add
one hundred and fifty billion dollars a year in cost
to the federal government when we're already running two trillion
dollar deficits. I mean, it was outrageous demands and he
was basically holding the government hostage until in Trump, to

(02:23):
his credit, did not blink. Here he said, you know,
screw you, We're not We're not going to cave into
your blackmail. Uh. And I think Americans should be very
angry about what happened. And that's fifty six to sixty
billion dollars billion with a B that was lost to
taxpayers because of the cost of the shutdown.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Now, Steve Moore, am, I right, Obamacare is a total failure.
If it wasn't, why did you need If it's affordable,
why would you need subsidies?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
You know it is. It would be hard to come
up with something stupider than what we have today. And more,
it's so expensive we pay through the WAHOO with the
with all of these costs, and since we passed Obamacare,
which was supposed to be the Affordable Care Act, the
cost of health insurance is doubled and tripled for most Americans.

(03:12):
You know, it's costing the average family now thirty thousand
dollars a year for healthcare. That's a lot of money,
and so we've got to figure out a better way
to do this. Trump has some very good ideas. I mean,
you know, let's just move to more of a catastrophic
insurance model, where you would, you know, for the first say,
five thousand dollars of costs, you know, you just pay
out of pocket, but you're not going to pay thirty

(03:33):
thousand dollars a year for insurance, and everybody would come
out ahead. I mean, when you go to the doctor
or the hospital mark, you know, do you ask what
it's going to cost?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
No, nobody does, and then you're in there for five
minutes and the bills forty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah. I mean, can you imagine if we all went
to the grocery store and didn't pay for it, I'd
have lobster and steak and champagne every night.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah. But the real reason for this is Obamacare and
the reason Democrats fight to keep it. The money goes
directly to the insurance companies from the government. Yes, so
what do we do about that? How are you going
to break that model?

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah? The insurance companies have become the real villains here.
So when they know they wanted these expansions, of Obamacare subsidies,
which is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Guess where seventy percent of the money goes?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Insurance companies.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, insurance companies they just put in the bank, so
they're making so much money hand over fists. And they
were the chief lobbyert. They were the group that, more
than any other group on Capitol Hill was lobbying for
these extensions because they have made a fortune off of Obamacare,
whereas there's no evidence that Obamacare has had any positive

(04:46):
impact on people's health.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah. Hey, Steve More, let me ask you another question.
If you are watching TV, listening to radio, reading stuff,
going to the news sets, and all you hear about
is the affordability crisis. This is all you hear a
thousand times an hour, You're going to start to think
there is an affordability crisis. It propaganda works that way.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well, there isn't affordability crisis. There's no question about it.
I mean, prices are up, you know, thirty percent since
Joe Biden was present. Thirty percent. It's unbelievable. Now, guess
what twenty five percent of that thirty percent was under Biden.
I mean, you know, so I'm angry about the cost
of groceries. I'm angry about the cost of you know,
buying things. Today, it's health insurance costs, housing cost, grocery

(05:30):
costs up up, up, up up. But folks, remember the
vast majority of this insurance, of this inflation and higher
costs and higher interest rates was under Biden because he's
spent about five billion dollars we didn't have with this
massive spending spree. So we are seeing costs come down.
I mean, you know, the rate of inflation come down.
It was remember when it hit nine point one percent

(05:51):
under Inflace under Biden. That was in I think twenty
twenty one, twenty two. You know, now it's down to
about two point eight percent, which is still too high.
You know, we'd like to bring it down some more.
But Trump is doing that. The inflation rate is coming down.
But remember, you know, he's only been in office for
nine months and Biden, we just blew a hole in

(06:13):
the budget in the inflation rate, and it's going to
take some time. But by the way, I was traveling
last week, as I mentioned, and I was in the
Midwest for a couple of days. Two sixty nine a
gallon for gas. Yeah, that's the last time you saw that.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, we don't see it in New York at California.
But in between, gas prices are ready down, and I mean,
it's just a mess. But inflation is down since Trump
took over, and you always said it is. You always
said it's going to take him a year or so
to really fix the problem. So we're only about halfway there,
right right, And.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
But look we have the numbers, and what's happened to
people's real income? In other words, when you take inflation
into account, people things are more affordable today for most people,
not less affordable. So the average family about twelve hundred
dollars more after inflation income. Another point I want to
make about this is that, you know, the big beautiful

(07:08):
tax bill we passed, most Americans have not felt the
effect of that yet because they didn't change their withholding
on their taxes. So what that means, and Trump has
made this point you know several times. Next year, Next year,
people are going to see a big reduction and the
taxes withheld from their paychecks because they didn't do it
this year. So you know, relief is coming, folks.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah. Hey, Steve Moore in Florida. Ron DeSantis. He's talking
about getting rid of property tax, and he's saying that
everybody should, everywhere, every state, get rid of property tax.
And he makes the point, it's your land, you own it.
How's the government taxing you on this? But then what
do you do to make up for that needed money?

(07:51):
You have growth?

Speaker 2 (07:51):
You know, I mean Florida has imported one trillion dollars
of capital from and disposable income from other states. And
guess where most of that money is coming from? New York,
New York, New York and California. And so they have
so much money coming in that they're able to cut
their you know, Florida has no income tax, and now

(08:12):
they're cutting their property tax. They've cut this tax, that tax.
The only tax that's kind of high in there are
sales tax, but everything else is pretty low. It's a
very affordable state. That's the other thing about the affordability issue,
Mark that you were asking me about. Yeah, if you
live in New York, everything's expensive. If you move to
a red state, things cost a lot less. Why because
they have high taxes in the blue states, they have

(08:33):
high regulations, they have you know, energy costs are much
higher in the blue states. So if you want more
affordability and you want your paycheck to go further, move
to a red state.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
I'm not leaving. I'm staying right here.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
How do you I know you're not? You know, we
need you there in New York and that in Northeast.
But a lot of people are and the problem is
that that tide will increase dramatically. I had a piece
of New York post on this the other day that
you know, if Mondami does what he said he's going
to do and continues to raise the tax rate, you know,

(09:09):
I think sixteen percent they want, Well, you can go
to Florida or Texas pay zero. You know, people don't
get rich by being stupid, right, and they're not stupid
if they see, Hey, I could pay sixteen percent in
New York or zero in Florida. What do you think
you'd do, Especially if you're a billionaire. I could save
one hundred million dollars a year by moving to you know, Florida. Unfortunately,

(09:29):
a lot of the billionaires are going to leave, and
then who's Mondomi going to get the tax money from?

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Well, at least he's going to solve the traffic problem.
The good luck, will be dress.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Steve Moore, great stuff. Everybody. Get his book, The Trump
Economic Miracle. You really love this book and sign up.
You put out this that's the best daily briefing, every day,
best issues and analysis. Go to Unleash Prosperity dot com
and sign up for it. Steve Moore, thanks for being
with us.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Okay, Mark, have a great weekend.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Take care, Hey, don't forget Buck and Clay. Excellent show
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