Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Probably one of the worst shows you've done so far.
I mean, it makes no sense about taxation and how
you're saying that grants don't benefit the community.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I mean, Jesus, a grant benefits of community. A grant
comes with a cost. A grant is you know, let
me go the text line because somebody said it pretty well.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Seventeen twelve.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The transfer of deficit funding from the Feds to state
and locals allows state and locals to participate in deficit
spending even though they're required to be balanced by law.
And in Colorado above and beyond the Tabor limits and
fifty sixty six, Mike is like, I'm paying for some
scenic overlook with a beautiful path that I will never
see in some little town in the Appalachians, while we
(00:58):
can't afford to have smooth, pops free, pothole free streets
in our own neighborhood. It socializes all government spending. Now,
to say that a grant doesn't benefit a community is shortsighted.
(01:19):
If a community wants to build a a rec center,
let's just pull out something stupid a rec center, and
they don't have the money for it, but they can.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Get a grant.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, they get the grant, and now they have the
rec center to build the rec center. The rec center grant, however,
more often than not, in fact, almost always doesn't come
with any money to finance the operation or the maintenance
or the upkeep of the rec center. So now you've
(01:54):
taken on an obligation that you couldn't even afford to
build the facility, and now you're going to have to
find the money to operate it. Now you would hope
that would come from revenues generated by fees and posed taxes,
fees and posed through the use of that facility, but.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Maybe you don't.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So now you've got a rec center that is underutilized
because you've got to only operate it three days a
week instead of seven days a week because you don't
have enough money to pay for it. Then it gets
worse than that. So now a taxpayer, and let's say
that the rec center is going to be right here
in Denver, right here in the Tech Center, one of
the wealthiest areas of Denver. So now the people in
(02:39):
the Tech Center don't have or Denver don't they don't
have to defenitive spend or issue bonds, revenue or general
obligation to finance that rec center, because now taxpayers all
across the country have now paid for that rec center
here and to goober number fifty five fifty six, fifty
(03:03):
five to fifty six, if they live in Sterling, they
may never ever use that rec center. Or if you
live in Boston, you'll never use that rec center or la.
So you now socialize some facility that the local government
couldn't afford, and you've made taxpayers all across the country
(03:24):
pay for it. Now, taxpayers all across the country are
paying taxes out the wazoo, and yet the federal government
still has a multi trillion.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Dollar deficit every year.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So the federal government is borrowing money on top of
the taxes there they're they're extorting from you to pay
for as it drivels down all the way to the bottom.
That stupid rec center that Denver couldn't afford. So that
rec center that Denver couldn't afford, the federal government really
(04:02):
can't afford it either. Because the federal government's borrowing almost
not quite but almost fifty cents of every dollar that
they spend. It's fiscal monetary insanity. So I don't know
whether you're trying to be sarcastic or not in that
talk back, but you were certainly ignorant in it, because
(04:27):
there is nothing free. Do you really believe that a
grant benefits a local community when you take into consideration
where that money comes from. Now, if the federal government
were totally balanced and revenues did not or expenditures did
(04:53):
not exceed revenues, you would still have the problem that
taxpayers and other parts of the country are financing something
that benefits a tiny, little geographical area for which ninety
nine percent or more of the American public will never
benefit from none whatsoever. So you're socializing it. You're socializing
(05:18):
something that you can't afford to begin with, because you
are either unwilling to go to your taxpayers in your
community and say, look, you want to you want a
rec center, then we need raise taxes. Otherwise, where you're
gonna get the money? Oh, according to you, well, we're
gonna get it from the federal government. Where the f
do you think the money? I honestly cannot believe that
(05:42):
I have to explain this for the fifteen millionth time
on on on radio, that the federal government gets money
from you.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
So is here where we jump in and say I
think that talkback was meant as a joke because because
I mean in the face over there and you take
a breath, but my.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Feet, but dragon. My sincere fear is that there are
people that still believe that, oh, these grants are a
great thing. Why we can open Kacera the ski area,
and that'll bring money to the economy as it takes
money out of other places of the economy. It might
(06:24):
bring money into that economy, but it never balances out you.
If you want the federal government to provide you grants
because you think it's going to benefit your community, then
you might as well just turn your community over to
the federal government and slash your local property taxes. Because
(06:50):
the federal government is going to do one of two things.
They're going to increase their deficit spending, or they're going
to increase corporate taxes, which are paid by individual and
they're going to increase individual income taxes, which are paid
by individuals. So you're going to get a double whammy.
I sincerely believed. Prove me wrong, not you dragging as anybody,
(07:15):
but you can prove me wrong to that people still
think that if we get money from the federal government
that somehow that's free money, when actually taxpayers all across
the country are paying for that little grant that you've
got to build your little whatever you're going to build.
And according to at least one individual who's on city
(07:36):
council up North says that on based on his research,
there are some and I bet that this doesn't include
all grants, but there's some five hundred billion dollars in
grant programs. I bet there's much much more than that
in a in what's become what was a four trillion
(07:59):
dollar federal budget and now has because we have rained
it back in, has become a seven trillion dollar budget.
And you're trying to tell me that we only spend
five hundred billion dollars on grants. I just find that
number hard to believe. I didn't intend to go down
(08:21):
this path, except I want you to think about everybody
that gets a grant. Everybody gets funding from the federal government,
whether that's a grant or that's a contract. I want
you to think about defense contractors. I want you to
(08:41):
think about the labs, the pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I want you to think.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
About every constituent that looks to the federal government for
either regulatory protection or regulatory relief. All of the lobbyists
that represent those people.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Then all of.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The employees, the bureaucrats, the civil servants that are involved
in writing the regulations, administering the programs, distributing the money,
distributing the grants, you know, approving the grants, I mean
reading the grants, deciding which way you're going through a
competitive process. If there is a competitive process, all of
(09:31):
those constituencies and now Musk and Ramaswami are going to
come in and they're going to say, hey, you could
do this more efficiently. One of the things that we
were told mandated actually, which shows you how stupid mandates
(09:52):
are on When Congress passed the Homeland Security Act and
said to the Bush administration, you're going to create this
department and it's going to be budget neutral, I remember
just laughing to myself because there's no way in hell
(10:14):
you can take an existing group of organizations twenty two
different departments and agencies, combine them into one and have
it be budget neutral.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
The very first thing they did was they started reaching
into I would say that the one area that escaped
this death was the United States Secret Service. But in
order to create systems to integrate with the legacy system,
(10:52):
so the pre existing systems that existed for HR, procurement, contracting, operation,
human resources, research and development, everything that a department or
cabinet agency does. And then you're going to create on
top of that a bureaucracy and you're going to say,
(11:13):
and you can do that, and it has to be
budget neutral. In other words, we're not going to appropriate
any money for you to do that. Where does that
money come from. It comes from the existing departments and agencies,
So then they have less money to operate on, and
that has consequences. So those consequences are good because some
(11:36):
of that money, Like what I would try to do
is I would try to find places they come to
me and say, hey, we need we need you know,
twenty five million dollars from FEMA. So I'd have to
try to find twenty five million dollars that I could
legitimately cut without affecting services, and then say, okay, here's
(11:56):
your twenty five million dollars. Well, that's not budget neutral,
that's a shell game. And of course, subsequent to March third,
two thousand and three, when DHS actually became operational. What
do you think happened? What do you think happened? Do
you think it remained budget neutral? Do you think it
(12:19):
remained at one hundred eighty thousand total number of DHS employees?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
According to.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
SO on March third, two thousand and three, the day
that DHS became operational, which is now what twenty one
years ago, the number of employees that the four of
US oversaw was one hundred eighty thousand employees. According to
AI overview on Google, the US Department of Homeland Security
(12:57):
has over two hundred and sixty thousand employees and is
now the third largest cabinet department after Defense and Veterans Affairs.
Budget neutral hardly. It grew like a metastatic cancer, and
it grew fast.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
What does this say?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Oh, this comes from DHS dot gov, the Department of
Homeland Security as a vital mission to secure the nation
from the mini threats we face. How's that working out?
We get cyber threats, we get cyber attacks. We have
an invasion on all of our borders and our ports.
We have, whether it's a threat or not, we got
(13:42):
drones flying everywhere. DHS says, Oh, we don't have the
authority to do anything.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
This is why I go back to the question I
asked earlier, Are we salvageable? Are we.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Because too many Americans? Well, I would guess that most
Americans don't even know how much they pay in taxes.
I honestly believe you, if you you know, do you
what did you I'm not asking what your refund was.
What did you actually pay in federal income taxes? What
(14:20):
did you pay in your fighting taxes, your Medicare, your Medicaid?
What did you pay in local income taxes? What'd you
pay in property taxes? Do you know how much money
you spend on sales tax every single day when you
go to lunch, or you go to the grocery store,
or you buy a piece of clothing, or you have
a repair done on your auto, or you have your
(14:42):
auto service, or you go How much did you pay
in fuel taxes when you put gas in your car?
When you think about every activity that you do, it
is there is either a tax or a fee attached
to it. I think I can fart without being taxed,
but I'm not quite sure. There may somewhere be a
fart tax involved. For all I know, If people understood
(15:08):
how much they actually pay in taxes versus what their
take home. Now, I'll tell you what their take home is.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
You know that, and you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Might even be able to tell me what your allary
rate is or your annual salary is. But do you
ever stop and think about, oh, my take home is X.
But if I take X times two thousand and eighty
the number of hours and a forty hour week per year,
or you take it times twelve the number of months,
(15:39):
and you multiply your take home times whatever however you
get paid versus what you know your annual salary or
your annual pay is supposed to be. And you see
that difference. That's just one picture, because that's just the
money they took that they with held. With helding was
(16:01):
one of the most devious things that the federal government
ever did.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I longed for the day. I dread the day, but
I longed for it.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
When you have to pay your federal income tax, your
Medicaid and Medicare, Medicaid tax, social Security, you pay all
of that on April fifteen, it's not withheld. If people
had to cut a check every April fifteen for their taxes,
(16:34):
if you kept track of how much you spend on
sales tax. Add in your property taxes, look at your
utility bills, look at your autoregistration fees and taxes. If
you looked at everything that you get taxed on, then
you'd understand that local governments, county governments, eight governments, federal
(17:01):
governments are bloated, way bloated. And then I would ask
you this, for the amount of money that you pay
on taxes, are you getting your money's worth? How's that
drive on the two two five today? How many potholes
have you hit? How's your drive on Broadway? How's your
(17:22):
drive over on Santa Fe? How's your drive on sixth Avenue?
How's your drive up by seventy or two eighty five?
How are your drives today? Oh? Been to a park lately?
Clean the needles, clean the homeless. Are you getting your
(17:45):
money's worth? If you are, I got a bridge to
sell you.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
I went to my HOA meeting last month and they
complained and complained about an increase in our age way fees.
I couldn't believe it, But then I asked them all,
how many of you voted for the d taboring measure
in the Rappahole County or the RTD detaboring measure. They
had no idea what I was talking about, but ten
to one they all voted for that, But yet they
complained about a couple of bucks in our h away.
(18:16):
It's amazing, but people don't know what they're voting on.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
And I still think it's amazing how much people, or
how many people don't know how much they're paying in taxes.
You know I did, and so don't hold me to
this number, but I because it depends on the Google's
search terms. But the return that I got, the number
was almost eighteen thousand dollars. Now I don't know what
(18:41):
that includes, but the average family pays eighteen thousand dollars
per year in taxes. What could you do with the
next eighteen thousand dollars a year?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
It does hit you hard first when you get that
first job. Because when my kids were growing up and
they got their first job and they're like, oh, I
made wait, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I told I was I told, I was told I
was making twenty two dollars and fifty.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Cents an hour.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Then it fades away as they just get used to it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Like where we are right now?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Right? You just you don't. That's the evilness. I mean,
I think it's truly evil. And somebody just sent me
an email which I think is spot on. Where's the email?
Uh Phil rights, Michael? No, not on April fifteen. Pay
by check tax day should be October fifteen. Then you
(19:32):
can vote the first week in November.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
And it also hurts you in that Christmas time because
you're looking for getting those Christmas presents in November.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Exactly. It's a double whammy. So you're gonna suddenly there'll
be a revolt. Suddenly there'll be a real tea party,
pitchforks and knives. That's what we need. So the sixth,
I'm going to go back to this idea that where
the six highest regulated state in the country.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We're in the top ten. Yay baby, Yay Colorado.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well, how much do all those regulations cost the US economy?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
You know?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
How a MLA in Argentina, in his short what's he
been in office maybe a year two years most, he
has already turned these huge budget deficits into a budget surplus.
He has dramatically cut the number of civil servants. And
(20:36):
I think I don't recall this specifically, and I think
he's also already reduced you know, Argentine is like Argentine's
used to like two hundred percent inflation and he's already
cut that.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Well, it's actually unknown.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
How much all these stupid regulations cost the economy. So
Mary O'Grady, who writes a lot for the Wall Street Journal,
said this about President Malay's reforms in Argentina. Argentina's deregulation.
Czar Federico Sturzenegger has discovered a rough rule of thumb
(21:18):
where deregulation happens. Price has declined in the range of
thirty percent. He has seen it in textiles, logistics, and
some agricultural products. Now, the other thing they did in
Argentina was they got rid of rent controls. Buenos Aires
(21:38):
has lowered rents by about the same amount. The supply
expansion overwhelmed the actual price control just by lowering rents
getting removing rent controls. You would actually think that rents
went up. It actually lowered rints by about thirty percent. Now,
(22:01):
if you have a price decline of thirty percent, that
should tell you that the economic benefit of deregulation is
at least thirty percent of current income. Now real GDP
real gross domestic product is price time's quantity. So even
if the quantity of the deregulated goods does not change,
(22:25):
a thirty percent reduction in prices gives people that much
more real income that they can go spend on other things.
And if they've suddenly got thirty percent to spend on
other things, and they spend that money on other things,
or let's say they don't spend on other things, Hey honey,
(22:47):
we've got an extra thirty percent in income. Let's invest it,
or let's save it, let's put it. I don't know it,
just even a savings account. Now there's more capital for
institution investors or banks to loan out or to invest,
which grows the economy, creates more jobs. It's you know,
(23:11):
economics is really quite simple when you think about it,
And it's if rents, textiles, and logistics, the ones that
this deregulations are mentioned, If if those decline in price
by thirty percent, then rent paying businesses, clothes makers, anybody
(23:35):
who sends something anywhere by truck can now expand their
business because not only are their costs lowered, but that
means that when someone buys those products or uses those services,
they're spending less, which is more money for them. And
(23:56):
when they get more money, they're going to spend it
or they're going to invest. You know, thirty percent is
a lot. That's a decade of three percent extra growth.
That's the difference between this country and most of Europe.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
I've tried to explain that, and here's a way to
quantify it. I've tried to explain that. If you've really
spent any significant amount of time in Europe, you realize
that it really is well, it's a beautiful place to visit,
it's a wonderful place to go be a tourist, and
for some people it's a great place to live. But
I just couldn't do it because the economy is just well.
(24:41):
Germany's in turmoil, France is in turmoil, the UK is
in turmoil. I mean, all of the continent is essentially
in economic turmoil right now. Europe is also one of
the most heavily regulated countries or regions in the entire world.
So thirty percent a decade of three percent extra growth,
(25:05):
which is I say, that's the difference between this country
and most of Europe, and that's orders of magnitude more
than most conventional economists will ever allow us the cost
of regulation. You know, I've seen a chart. I forget
who did the chart, but the chart was about the
(25:26):
ease of doing business compared to the GDP per person,
And the chart was at about the graph was about
a forty five degree angle, and the USA was near
the top. So the ease of doing business was somewhere
(25:47):
in the eightieth percentile, and the GDP per person was
slightly under one hundred thousand dollars per person. But then
you get to a place like China and India and
the ease of doing business gets closer and closer to
I think I think the I think the baseline was
(26:10):
at thirty versus is like on a baseline of like
thirty to one hundred. Well, China and India, we're getting
close down to that thirty point. And India's GDP per
person was only around one thousand dollars per person, and
China's was under ten thousand dollars per person. Remember, ours
(26:31):
is getting close to somewhere between eighty and one hundred
thousand dollars per person. We're still the largest and strongest
economy in the world. Think about what an extra thirty
percent decline in prices would do to this economy. If
Trump can pull this off, if they can really deregulate
(26:55):
this economy, Oh my god, this guy is the limit.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
The point being is there is a correlation between the
level of GDP per person per capita and ease of
doing business that the World Bank Measures puts out every year.
One hundred is the best observed policy in every category,
and I think thirty was the worst. Mary O'Grady also
says this price differentials between the international and domestic market
(27:26):
are one of the measurements. That is you that Malay's
deregulations are uses to prioritize his agenda because there are
wide variations off, because wide variations often signal barriers to competition.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
What does it mean?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Well, where we This country is already comparatively less regulated
than other countries, so this approach wouldn't be easy for us.
So perhaps what we got to do is look at
inexpensive Chinese imports instead of just screaming the usual subsidy,
unfair or over capacity currents, manipulate, currency manipulation, whatever we
(28:07):
scream about, you know, inexpensive Chinese junk. We got to
realize some of that reflects our regulatory roadblocks to getting
anything done. So if we have regulatory roadblocks to getting
anything done, China does not because they're not overregulated, then
(28:28):
quit bitching about unfair competition or overcapacity or currency manipulation,
quit bitching about any of that, and realize, let's look
at our selves. Forget China, look at ourselves. Why are
we not producing some of these things? You know, just
as I said that, the very first thing I thought
about was minimum wage. Because we have a minimum wage,
(28:54):
you can't work for less than that. There may be
some people in the country that would work for less
than that, making aspirin, or making baby diapers, or making
whatever it might be some whatever kind of inexpensive junkie
might buy from China. There might actually be a group
of this population that would do it for minimum wage
(29:15):
or take away some of the regulatory confines that make
it so expensive to produce aspirin or baby diapers, and
you might see that return to this country. Why do
economists not pay a lot more attention to Now, Again,
(29:36):
I'm not a regulatory anarchist, but why don't we be
smarter about why don't we deuce our regulations and then
realize what regulations we have, we ought to be smarter
about them. Deregulation, Yes, I want deregulation, but again I
emphasize maybe I shouldn't use that term because I think
(29:57):
people think I'm an anarchist.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's very hard to measure the economic damage or regulations,
but the deregulations are in Argentina.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Is beginning to show us.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
It's hard to see all the business products, all the
services that might be there if regulation had not stifled them.
In other words, we don't know what could be because
regulations prevented what could be from ever being. So it's
kind of hard to measure. And then too many studies
(30:34):
of regulation just count up the number of regulations or
the member there's a paperwork Reduction Act notice on government forms,
or oftentimes it will tell you like how much time
you might spend complying with this regulation. We focus I mean,
that may be a good start, but we focus too
much on that because it's obviously a scratch on the
(30:56):
surface is a tip of the iceberg of the economic
damage is caused by the reg That's where we ought
to be bothering ourselves to really look at what's the
economic impact of this regulation, not how much time. I mean,
I understand that my time might be a measure, but
what does it cost a business? And it might be
(31:16):
time to take a break.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
Local volunteer fire department is always looking for grants to
pay for things like a new tender or bunker gear.
SEMA grants all sorts of grants, and they all act like, well,
if we get this grant, it's free money. We don't
have to pay for these things. And I'm always like, well,
you are paying for it along with everybody else in
(31:37):
the country.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And it always used to bug me about the equipment
grants that we would give out. I mean, it was
it was a huge competition because we would pay for
all sorts of equipment, but there was never any guarantee
that there was any follow on money for the maintenance
(32:02):
to repair that equipment, or for that matter, even the
training on the equipment. And so a fire department, local
fire department would apply to get say a new truck
or some you know, some new turnout gear or something,
and then they would win the competition and they would get,
you know, all sorts of stuff, and then they come
(32:23):
to us and say, we need some money for training, Well,
we don't have any training money. Congress doesn't authorize that.
You got to go you got to go to your
city council and get your training money. Or we don't
have any money to uh to do repairs, Well you
got to put that in your in your maintenance budget.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
We don't do that.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Or like when Bill Clinton always wanted to issue grants
to state and local governments to hire law enforcement officers. Well,
those grants would be good for two or three years.
So you hire a cop for two or three years,
the money runs out.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
What do you do now?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
You fire the up, or you try to find another grant,
or you raise taxes, or you cut services elsewhere. Now
in Denver, we wouldn't do that. We just get rid
of the cop so we could build a bike lane.
That's what we'd do here. Where's a hotel's a an
illegal alien, That's what we'd really do with it in
(33:20):
Denver
Probably one of the worst shows you've done so far.
I mean, it makes no sense about taxation and how
you're saying that grants don't benefit the community.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I mean, Jesus, a grant benefits of community. A grant
comes with a cost. A grant is you know, let
me go the text line because somebody said it pretty well.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Seventeen twelve.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
The transfer of deficit funding from the Feds to state
and locals allows state and locals to participate in deficit
spending even though they're required to be balanced by law.
And in Colorado above and beyond the Tabor limits and
fifty sixty six, Mike is like, I'm paying for some
scenic overlook with a beautiful path that I will never
see in some little town in the Appalachians, while we
(00:58):
can't afford to have smooth, pops free, pothole free streets
in our own neighborhood. It socializes all government spending. Now,
to say that a grant doesn't benefit a community is shortsighted.
(01:19):
If a community wants to build a a rec center,
let's just pull out something stupid a rec center, and
they don't have the money for it, but they can.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Get a grant.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, they get the grant, and now they have the
rec center to build the rec center. The rec center grant, however,
more often than not, in fact, almost always doesn't come
with any money to finance the operation or the maintenance
or the upkeep of the rec center. So now you've
(01:54):
taken on an obligation that you couldn't even afford to
build the facility, and now you're going to have to
find the money to operate it. Now you would hope
that would come from revenues generated by fees and posed taxes,
fees and posed through the use of that facility, but.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Maybe you don't.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So now you've got a rec center that is underutilized
because you've got to only operate it three days a
week instead of seven days a week because you don't
have enough money to pay for it. Then it gets
worse than that. So now a taxpayer, and let's say
that the rec center is going to be right here
in Denver, right here in the Tech Center, one of
the wealthiest areas of Denver. So now the people in
(02:39):
the Tech Center don't have or Denver don't they don't
have to defenitive spend or issue bonds, revenue or general
obligation to finance that rec center, because now taxpayers all
across the country have now paid for that rec center
here and to goober number fifty five fifty six, fifty
(03:03):
five to fifty six, if they live in Sterling, they
may never ever use that rec center. Or if you
live in Boston, you'll never use that rec center or la.
So you now socialize some facility that the local government
couldn't afford, and you've made taxpayers all across the country
(03:24):
pay for it. Now, taxpayers all across the country are
paying taxes out the wazoo, and yet the federal government
still has a multi trillion.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Dollar deficit every year.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
So the federal government is borrowing money on top of
the taxes there they're they're extorting from you to pay
for as it drivels down all the way to the bottom.
That stupid rec center that Denver couldn't afford. So that
rec center that Denver couldn't afford, the federal government really
(04:02):
can't afford it either. Because the federal government's borrowing almost
not quite but almost fifty cents of every dollar that
they spend. It's fiscal monetary insanity. So I don't know
whether you're trying to be sarcastic or not in that
talk back, but you were certainly ignorant in it, because
(04:27):
there is nothing free. Do you really believe that a
grant benefits a local community when you take into consideration
where that money comes from. Now, if the federal government
were totally balanced and revenues did not or expenditures did
(04:53):
not exceed revenues, you would still have the problem that
taxpayers and other parts of the country are financing something
that benefits a tiny, little geographical area for which ninety
nine percent or more of the American public will never
benefit from none whatsoever. So you're socializing it. You're socializing
(05:18):
something that you can't afford to begin with, because you
are either unwilling to go to your taxpayers in your
community and say, look, you want to you want a
rec center, then we need raise taxes. Otherwise, where you're
gonna get the money? Oh, according to you, well, we're
gonna get it from the federal government. Where the f
do you think the money? I honestly cannot believe that
(05:42):
I have to explain this for the fifteen millionth time
on on on radio, that the federal government gets money
from you.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
So is here where we jump in and say I
think that talkback was meant as a joke because because
I mean in the face over there and you take
a breath, but my.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Feet, but dragon. My sincere fear is that there are
people that still believe that, oh, these grants are a
great thing. Why we can open Kacera the ski area,
and that'll bring money to the economy as it takes
money out of other places of the economy. It might
(06:24):
bring money into that economy, but it never balances out you.
If you want the federal government to provide you grants
because you think it's going to benefit your community, then
you might as well just turn your community over to
the federal government and slash your local property taxes. Because
(06:50):
the federal government is going to do one of two things.
They're going to increase their deficit spending, or they're going
to increase corporate taxes, which are paid by individual and
they're going to increase individual income taxes, which are paid
by individuals. So you're going to get a double whammy.
I sincerely believed. Prove me wrong, not you dragging as anybody,
(07:15):
but you can prove me wrong to that people still
think that if we get money from the federal government
that somehow that's free money, when actually taxpayers all across
the country are paying for that little grant that you've
got to build your little whatever you're going to build.
And according to at least one individual who's on city
(07:36):
council up North says that on based on his research,
there are some and I bet that this doesn't include
all grants, but there's some five hundred billion dollars in
grant programs. I bet there's much much more than that
in a in what's become what was a four trillion
(07:59):
dollar federal budget and now has because we have rained
it back in, has become a seven trillion dollar budget.
And you're trying to tell me that we only spend
five hundred billion dollars on grants. I just find that
number hard to believe. I didn't intend to go down
(08:21):
this path, except I want you to think about everybody
that gets a grant. Everybody gets funding from the federal government,
whether that's a grant or that's a contract. I want
you to think about defense contractors. I want you to
(08:41):
think about the labs, the pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
I want you to think.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
About every constituent that looks to the federal government for
either regulatory protection or regulatory relief. All of the lobbyists
that represent those people.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Then all of.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
The employees, the bureaucrats, the civil servants that are involved
in writing the regulations, administering the programs, distributing the money,
distributing the grants, you know, approving the grants, I mean
reading the grants, deciding which way you're going through a
competitive process. If there is a competitive process, all of
(09:31):
those constituencies and now Musk and Ramaswami are going to
come in and they're going to say, hey, you could
do this more efficiently. One of the things that we
were told mandated actually, which shows you how stupid mandates
(09:52):
are on When Congress passed the Homeland Security Act and
said to the Bush administration, you're going to create this
department and it's going to be budget neutral, I remember
just laughing to myself because there's no way in hell
(10:14):
you can take an existing group of organizations twenty two
different departments and agencies, combine them into one and have
it be budget neutral.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
The very first thing they did was they started reaching
into I would say that the one area that escaped
this death was the United States Secret Service. But in
order to create systems to integrate with the legacy system,
(10:52):
so the pre existing systems that existed for HR, procurement, contracting, operation,
human resources, research and development, everything that a department or
cabinet agency does. And then you're going to create on
top of that a bureaucracy and you're going to say,
(11:13):
and you can do that, and it has to be
budget neutral. In other words, we're not going to appropriate
any money for you to do that. Where does that
money come from. It comes from the existing departments and agencies,
So then they have less money to operate on, and
that has consequences. So those consequences are good because some
(11:36):
of that money, Like what I would try to do
is I would try to find places they come to
me and say, hey, we need we need you know,
twenty five million dollars from FEMA. So I'd have to
try to find twenty five million dollars that I could
legitimately cut without affecting services, and then say, okay, here's
(11:56):
your twenty five million dollars. Well, that's not budget neutral,
that's a shell game. And of course, subsequent to March third,
two thousand and three, when DHS actually became operational. What
do you think happened? What do you think happened? Do
you think it remained budget neutral? Do you think it
(12:19):
remained at one hundred eighty thousand total number of DHS employees?
Speaker 3 (12:29):
According to.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
SO on March third, two thousand and three, the day
that DHS became operational, which is now what twenty one
years ago, the number of employees that the four of
US oversaw was one hundred eighty thousand employees. According to
AI overview on Google, the US Department of Homeland Security
(12:57):
has over two hundred and sixty thousand employees and is
now the third largest cabinet department after Defense and Veterans Affairs.
Budget neutral hardly. It grew like a metastatic cancer, and
it grew fast.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
What does this say?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Oh, this comes from DHS dot gov, the Department of
Homeland Security as a vital mission to secure the nation
from the mini threats we face. How's that working out?
We get cyber threats, we get cyber attacks. We have
an invasion on all of our borders and our ports.
We have, whether it's a threat or not, we got
(13:42):
drones flying everywhere. DHS says, Oh, we don't have the
authority to do anything.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
This is why I go back to the question I
asked earlier, Are we salvageable? Are we.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Because too many Americans? Well, I would guess that most
Americans don't even know how much they pay in taxes.
I honestly believe you, if you you know, do you
what did you I'm not asking what your refund was.
What did you actually pay in federal income taxes? What
(14:20):
did you pay in your fighting taxes, your Medicare, your Medicaid?
What did you pay in local income taxes? What'd you
pay in property taxes? Do you know how much money
you spend on sales tax every single day when you
go to lunch, or you go to the grocery store,
or you buy a piece of clothing, or you have
a repair done on your auto, or you have your
(14:42):
auto service, or you go How much did you pay
in fuel taxes when you put gas in your car?
When you think about every activity that you do, it
is there is either a tax or a fee attached
to it. I think I can fart without being taxed,
but I'm not quite sure. There may somewhere be a
fart tax involved. For all I know, If people understood
(15:08):
how much they actually pay in taxes versus what their
take home. Now, I'll tell you what their take home is.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
You know that, and you.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Might even be able to tell me what your allary
rate is or your annual salary is. But do you
ever stop and think about, oh, my take home is X.
But if I take X times two thousand and eighty
the number of hours and a forty hour week per year,
or you take it times twelve the number of months,
(15:39):
and you multiply your take home times whatever however you
get paid versus what you know your annual salary or
your annual pay is supposed to be. And you see
that difference. That's just one picture, because that's just the
money they took that they with held. With helding was
(16:01):
one of the most devious things that the federal government
ever did.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I longed for the day. I dread the day, but
I longed for it.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
When you have to pay your federal income tax, your
Medicaid and Medicare, Medicaid tax, social Security, you pay all
of that on April fifteen, it's not withheld. If people
had to cut a check every April fifteen for their taxes,
(16:34):
if you kept track of how much you spend on
sales tax. Add in your property taxes, look at your
utility bills, look at your autoregistration fees and taxes. If
you looked at everything that you get taxed on, then
you'd understand that local governments, county governments, eight governments, federal
(17:01):
governments are bloated, way bloated. And then I would ask
you this, for the amount of money that you pay
on taxes, are you getting your money's worth? How's that
drive on the two two five today? How many potholes
have you hit? How's your drive on Broadway? How's your
(17:22):
drive over on Santa Fe? How's your drive on sixth Avenue?
How's your drive up by seventy or two eighty five?
How are your drives today? Oh? Been to a park lately?
Clean the needles, clean the homeless. Are you getting your
(17:45):
money's worth? If you are, I got a bridge to
sell you.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
I went to my HOA meeting last month and they
complained and complained about an increase in our age way fees.
I couldn't believe it, But then I asked them all,
how many of you voted for the d taboring measure
in the Rappahole County or the RTD detaboring measure. They
had no idea what I was talking about, but ten
to one they all voted for that, But yet they
complained about a couple of bucks in our h away.
(18:16):
It's amazing, but people don't know what they're voting on.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
And I still think it's amazing how much people, or
how many people don't know how much they're paying in taxes.
You know I did, and so don't hold me to
this number, but I because it depends on the Google's
search terms. But the return that I got, the number
was almost eighteen thousand dollars. Now I don't know what
(18:41):
that includes, but the average family pays eighteen thousand dollars
per year in taxes. What could you do with the
next eighteen thousand dollars a year?
Speaker 4 (18:52):
It does hit you hard first when you get that
first job. Because when my kids were growing up and
they got their first job and they're like, oh, I
made wait, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I told I was I told, I was told I
was making twenty two dollars and fifty.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Cents an hour.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Then it fades away as they just get used to it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Like where we are right now?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Right? You just you don't. That's the evilness. I mean,
I think it's truly evil. And somebody just sent me
an email which I think is spot on. Where's the email?
Uh Phil rights, Michael? No, not on April fifteen. Pay
by check tax day should be October fifteen. Then you
(19:32):
can vote the first week in November.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
And it also hurts you in that Christmas time because
you're looking for getting those Christmas presents in November.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Exactly. It's a double whammy. So you're gonna suddenly there'll
be a revolt. Suddenly there'll be a real tea party,
pitchforks and knives. That's what we need. So the sixth,
I'm going to go back to this idea that where
the six highest regulated state in the country.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We're in the top ten. Yay baby, Yay Colorado.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well, how much do all those regulations cost the US economy?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
You know?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
How a MLA in Argentina, in his short what's he
been in office maybe a year two years most, he
has already turned these huge budget deficits into a budget surplus.
He has dramatically cut the number of civil servants. And
(20:36):
I think I don't recall this specifically, and I think
he's also already reduced you know, Argentine is like Argentine's
used to like two hundred percent inflation and he's already
cut that.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
Well, it's actually unknown.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
How much all these stupid regulations cost the economy. So
Mary O'Grady, who writes a lot for the Wall Street Journal,
said this about President Malay's reforms in Argentina. Argentina's deregulation.
Czar Federico Sturzenegger has discovered a rough rule of thumb
(21:18):
where deregulation happens. Price has declined in the range of
thirty percent. He has seen it in textiles, logistics, and
some agricultural products. Now, the other thing they did in
Argentina was they got rid of rent controls. Buenos Aires
(21:38):
has lowered rents by about the same amount. The supply
expansion overwhelmed the actual price control just by lowering rents
getting removing rent controls. You would actually think that rents
went up. It actually lowered rints by about thirty percent. Now,
(22:01):
if you have a price decline of thirty percent, that
should tell you that the economic benefit of deregulation is
at least thirty percent of current income. Now real GDP
real gross domestic product is price time's quantity. So even
if the quantity of the deregulated goods does not change,
(22:25):
a thirty percent reduction in prices gives people that much
more real income that they can go spend on other things.
And if they've suddenly got thirty percent to spend on
other things, and they spend that money on other things,
or let's say they don't spend on other things, Hey honey,
(22:47):
we've got an extra thirty percent in income. Let's invest it,
or let's save it, let's put it. I don't know it,
just even a savings account. Now there's more capital for
institution investors or banks to loan out or to invest,
which grows the economy, creates more jobs. It's you know,
(23:11):
economics is really quite simple when you think about it,
And it's if rents, textiles, and logistics, the ones that
this deregulations are mentioned, If if those decline in price
by thirty percent, then rent paying businesses, clothes makers, anybody
(23:35):
who sends something anywhere by truck can now expand their
business because not only are their costs lowered, but that
means that when someone buys those products or uses those services,
they're spending less, which is more money for them. And
(23:56):
when they get more money, they're going to spend it
or they're going to invest. You know, thirty percent is
a lot. That's a decade of three percent extra growth.
That's the difference between this country and most of Europe.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
I've tried to explain that, and here's a way to
quantify it. I've tried to explain that. If you've really
spent any significant amount of time in Europe, you realize
that it really is well, it's a beautiful place to visit,
it's a wonderful place to go be a tourist, and
for some people it's a great place to live. But
I just couldn't do it because the economy is just well.
(24:41):
Germany's in turmoil, France is in turmoil, the UK is
in turmoil. I mean, all of the continent is essentially
in economic turmoil right now. Europe is also one of
the most heavily regulated countries or regions in the entire world.
So thirty percent a decade of three percent extra growth,
(25:05):
which is I say, that's the difference between this country
and most of Europe, and that's orders of magnitude more
than most conventional economists will ever allow us the cost
of regulation. You know, I've seen a chart. I forget
who did the chart, but the chart was about the
(25:26):
ease of doing business compared to the GDP per person,
And the chart was at about the graph was about
a forty five degree angle, and the USA was near
the top. So the ease of doing business was somewhere
(25:47):
in the eightieth percentile, and the GDP per person was
slightly under one hundred thousand dollars per person. But then
you get to a place like China and India and
the ease of doing business gets closer and closer to
I think I think the I think the baseline was
(26:10):
at thirty versus is like on a baseline of like
thirty to one hundred. Well, China and India, we're getting
close down to that thirty point. And India's GDP per
person was only around one thousand dollars per person, and
China's was under ten thousand dollars per person. Remember, ours
(26:31):
is getting close to somewhere between eighty and one hundred
thousand dollars per person. We're still the largest and strongest
economy in the world. Think about what an extra thirty
percent decline in prices would do to this economy. If
Trump can pull this off, if they can really deregulate
(26:55):
this economy, Oh my god, this guy is the limit.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
The point being is there is a correlation between the
level of GDP per person per capita and ease of
doing business that the World Bank Measures puts out every year.
One hundred is the best observed policy in every category,
and I think thirty was the worst. Mary O'Grady also
says this price differentials between the international and domestic market
(27:26):
are one of the measurements. That is you that Malay's
deregulations are uses to prioritize his agenda because there are
wide variations off, because wide variations often signal barriers to competition.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
What does it mean?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Well, where we This country is already comparatively less regulated
than other countries, so this approach wouldn't be easy for us.
So perhaps what we got to do is look at
inexpensive Chinese imports instead of just screaming the usual subsidy,
unfair or over capacity currents, manipulate, currency manipulation, whatever we
(28:07):
scream about, you know, inexpensive Chinese junk. We got to
realize some of that reflects our regulatory roadblocks to getting
anything done. So if we have regulatory roadblocks to getting
anything done, China does not because they're not overregulated, then
(28:28):
quit bitching about unfair competition or overcapacity or currency manipulation,
quit bitching about any of that, and realize, let's look
at our selves. Forget China, look at ourselves. Why are
we not producing some of these things? You know, just
as I said that, the very first thing I thought
about was minimum wage. Because we have a minimum wage,
(28:54):
you can't work for less than that. There may be
some people in the country that would work for less
than that, making aspirin, or making baby diapers, or making
whatever it might be some whatever kind of inexpensive junkie
might buy from China. There might actually be a group
of this population that would do it for minimum wage
(29:15):
or take away some of the regulatory confines that make
it so expensive to produce aspirin or baby diapers, and
you might see that return to this country. Why do
economists not pay a lot more attention to Now, Again,
(29:36):
I'm not a regulatory anarchist, but why don't we be
smarter about why don't we deuce our regulations and then
realize what regulations we have, we ought to be smarter
about them. Deregulation, Yes, I want deregulation, but again I
emphasize maybe I shouldn't use that term because I think
(29:57):
people think I'm an anarchist.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's very hard to measure the economic damage or regulations,
but the deregulations are in Argentina.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Is beginning to show us.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
It's hard to see all the business products, all the
services that might be there if regulation had not stifled them.
In other words, we don't know what could be because
regulations prevented what could be from ever being. So it's
kind of hard to measure. And then too many studies
(30:34):
of regulation just count up the number of regulations or
the member there's a paperwork Reduction Act notice on government forms,
or oftentimes it will tell you like how much time
you might spend complying with this regulation. We focus I mean,
that may be a good start, but we focus too
much on that because it's obviously a scratch on the
(30:56):
surface is a tip of the iceberg of the economic
damage is caused by the reg That's where we ought
to be bothering ourselves to really look at what's the
economic impact of this regulation, not how much time. I mean,
I understand that my time might be a measure, but
what does it cost a business? And it might be
(31:16):
time to take a break.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
Local volunteer fire department is always looking for grants to
pay for things like a new tender or bunker gear.
SEMA grants all sorts of grants, and they all act like, well,
if we get this grant, it's free money. We don't
have to pay for these things. And I'm always like, well,
you are paying for it along with everybody else in
(31:37):
the country.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And it always used to bug me about the equipment
grants that we would give out. I mean, it was
it was a huge competition because we would pay for
all sorts of equipment, but there was never any guarantee
that there was any follow on money for the maintenance
(32:02):
to repair that equipment, or for that matter, even the
training on the equipment. And so a fire department, local
fire department would apply to get say a new truck
or some you know, some new turnout gear or something,
and then they would win the competition and they would get,
you know, all sorts of stuff, and then they come
(32:23):
to us and say, we need some money for training, Well,
we don't have any training money. Congress doesn't authorize that.
You got to go you got to go to your
city council and get your training money. Or we don't
have any money to uh to do repairs, Well you
got to put that in your in your maintenance budget.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
We don't do that.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Or like when Bill Clinton always wanted to issue grants
to state and local governments to hire law enforcement officers. Well,
those grants would be good for two or three years.
So you hire a cop for two or three years,
the money runs out.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
What do you do now?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
You fire the up, or you try to find another grant,
or you raise taxes, or you cut services elsewhere. Now
in Denver, we wouldn't do that. We just get rid
of the cop so we could build a bike lane.
That's what we'd do here. Where's a hotel's a an
illegal alien, That's what we'd really do with it in
(33:20):
Denver
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