7-5-25 The Weekend Hour 2: The One Big Beautiful Bill – Truth vs Fiction

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To night.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Michael Brown joins me here, the former FEMA director of
talk show host Michael Brown. Brownie, No, Brownie, You're doing
a heck of a job.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
The Weekend with Michael.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Brown broadcasting live from the high mountains of the Sangred
to Crystal Mountains in northern New Mexico. It's the Weekend
with Michael Brown. Yeah, I'm on vacation this weekend, but
we're still broadcasting live. Because I love you guys so much,
I decided to go into work anyway. You asked for it,
so I'm going to give it to you. You want
to go through the oh bbbb bbbbbb So we're going

(00:31):
to go through it. But rather than just start out
throwing numbers and different provisions at you, I want to
go to the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal
yesterday posted this editorial, No One is Gutting the Safety Net.
As the headline, the subhead says the GOP will have

(00:52):
to rebut the Democrat and media distortions about their reforms
or they're going to lose the twenty twenty sixth election.
It's a great in house editorial and basically they start
out by saying, look, the coverage of the ob cubed.
I'm gonna call it the ob cube OBBB. So the

(01:13):
ob Cube, they say, has been completely distorted. I don't
want to say they say it's they say it's been
distorted by the media and by the Democrats, and clearly
they have. How many have you how many times have
you heard that so many people are gonna die because
they passed the bill that you know, there's gonna be

(01:33):
millions of people who are going to die. And in fact,
if I can pull it up real quick, here, this
is the former administrator of the Center Centers for Medicaid
Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, who says.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Donald, there are lots of things to criticize in this bill,
but to me, having grown up as a Canadian and
seeing that the strides that we've tried to make in
America with healthcare, this one worries me the most because
it's not just about healthcare if you're on Medicare or Medicaid,
it's about hospitals disappearing, healthcare workers disappearing, standard of life
going down.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Oh my god, is the end of the world. People
are going to die, hospitals are going to close, healthcare
is going to decline. One bill is going to.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Do all of that life expectancy in life.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
If you're over sixty, you might as well just off
yourself now, because you're not going to make it to
sixty five or seventy.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Now.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
This is much bigger than the payment for health services.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
It definitely is coverage matters. This bill will roll back
many of the gains of Obamacare to the tune of
some sixteen or seventeen million people who will lose coverage.
But also, as you said, it's cutting back on the
social safety net more thoroughly. Medicare will be cut under
this spill people. Most people don't realize that, but Medicare
will give about five hundred million dollars a billion dollars

(02:59):
over then next to ten years.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Also, I just want, I want, I want that to
just sit there for a moment. Do you know that
expenditures for Medicare will continue to increase. Yes, because this
is the old trick that we talked. We've talked about
this before on all the other programs I've always done
on radio. That in DC a decrease in the increase

(03:24):
in spending. In other words, instead of spending fifty dollars
next year, you were spending twenty five this year, You're
going to spend fifty next year, but now you're only
going to spend you know, forty next year. Well, that's
a cut. To the idiots in DC, you're still increasing
your spending, but just not as much. Oh, that's a cut.

(03:44):
That's exactly what this a hole is saying.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
The bill and Obama and Trump policies cut back on
some of the really important supports to health in this country.
The food stamp system SNAP is being back by seventy
four percent under other provisions that Trump has proposed, and
states are going to be hurt hard when the patients

(04:09):
aren't going to go away when Medicaid can't coverage goes away,
So you're going to have to make up for deficit
and states or sources of enormous amounts of support to
communities and people for housing and food security. It's a
it's a devastating bill. The estimate is that when Medicaid
cut is cut, you lose about one life for every

(04:30):
eight hundred beneficiaries that drop. Well, that means we're going
to have twenty five thousand deaths a year because of
this bill, just because of the coverage cutbacks.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Just because of less money spent, twenty five thousand of
you are going to start dying every single year. And
that's precisely what the Wall Street Journal addresses they right
by now you've seen the headline and every outlet. The
Republican law will soon toss millions from Medicaid and cut
the program to the bone. But and you'll spending on

(05:00):
the health entitlement will grow over the next decade even
with the bills roughly one trillion dollars in estimated savings.
Medicaid spending has risen by roughly sixty percent since twenty nineteen,
and the bill's intent is to try to bend Medicaid's

(05:21):
trajectory closer to the bad old days of twenty twenty. Yesterday,
my wife and I were we had gone in We
got into town because we live in a we our
home in New Mexico is in a very rural area.
So we got into town and we were walking around.

(05:42):
We were walking around TOAs New Mexico, and I made
the comment that HM tasks doesn't seem to be doing
that well, and my wife, without any hesitation, said, COVID.
Nothing's recovered since COVID and I got you know, I
think she's right. I think she's exactly right. COVID so

(06:04):
destroyed the economy. When you go from an economy like
Trump's economy was, when you're going one hundred miles an
hour and you just kill the engine to where you
go to zero, it takes you forever to get back
to one hundred miles an hour. That's exactly what they did.
They go on to say that the Wall Street Journal

(06:25):
does this. CBO, in a letter last month about the
House Bills, said that four point eight million won't comply
with the bills part time work requirement. Well, that should
be a warning about the country's social condition. They say,
the work requirement doesn't apply to anyone who is disabled, pregnant,
or caring for a young a child younger than the
age of fourteen, volunteering twenty hours a week, or enrolled

(06:49):
in school. You can get medicaid, So don't buy the
Democratic talking point about the working poor will be lost
in red tape as they try to prove they're on
the job. States have handled work requirements in food stamps
and Cassius distance assistance for decades as a foundation for
government accountability. Notes when Arkansas experimented with such requirements In Medicaid,

(07:12):
quote enrollies only had to report work once, and it
was easy to do. The state simply cross referenced wage
and employment data, and folks could also self attest online
or they could call a hotline. The Democratic position is
that Medicaid should be a free, universal benefit for men
who refuse to work. The hyperbole is out of control.

(07:42):
The Wall Street General writes that the Republican bill also
includes sensible measures, such as asking states to check their
Medicaid expansion roles every six months, and more scrutiny on
Obamacare subsidies. That is necessary because the Biden Minute waived
millions onto health in titlements. They just willy nilly let

(08:09):
people onto the program without any verification of their qualifications
or not. Are they entitled to it or not? The
Wall Street journalist Sites says the Paragon Institute estimates that
six point four million people are enrolled in fully subsidized
Obamacare plans but do not meet the eligibility of criteria.

(08:32):
You know what, Excuse me, I think that's what Democrats support.
Democrats don't care whether they're qualified or not. This is
their backhanded way, as they saw with Obamacare and then
carried out during the Biden administration. We just want to
get as many people as possible onto medicaid because why

(08:54):
because now we control socialized Medicine's a way of controlling people.
I won't go through the rest of them. The Ball
Street Journal, it's in yesterday's paper. If you have access
to it, I'd highly encourage you to read it because
it points out that most of this is just an
absolute hyperbolic exaggeration of everything going on, designed to scare

(09:22):
you all for political purposes so that they can win
in the midterm elections. So let's go through the provisions.
This is not going to I'm just warning you right now.
This is not going to be easy and it's not
going to be simple because this is a multi thousand

(09:42):
page bill. But we'll go through them. We'll go through
the highlights. It's the Weekend with Michael Brown. Text the
word Michael Michael thro three three one zero three follow
me on X at Michael Brown USA. I'll be right back. Hey,

(10:03):
welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad to
have you with me. I appreciate you tuning in. So
you've been begging and bitching and moaning about it. And
you want me to go through the ob cube. So
we're gonna go through the one big, beautiful bill, and
we're gonna start with taxes. Now, one caveat, and I'm
just gonna say this one time. I say that, and

(10:24):
I'll repeat it. You're going to hear me as I
describe some of the tax provisions. I'm going to tell
you that some of these are effective through say twenty
twenty eight, or some expire in twenty twenty eight, or
they change after five years, whatever it may be. Well,

(10:45):
then why why are we doing this? Why do we
make a tax change and say that it's only good
and through twenty twenty eight, less than three years from now.
Because this is how they score the bill. This is
how they figure out how much the bill is going
to cost in terms of lost revenues versus how much

(11:10):
is it going to increase based upon growth, and they
that's how they ultimately come up with. You know, Senator
Lindsey Graham gave a floor speech in the Senate about
how when you take into account growth, this bill actually
reduces the deficit by five hundred and seven billion dollars
or something. Well, I take all of these numbers with

(11:33):
a grain of sault because it depends on what growth
actually turns out to be and whether or not Congress
ends up. Let's say we have phenomenal growth. Let's say
we reach three or four percent GDP growth during the
Trump years. Well, just like during the Kennedy years or

(11:54):
the Reagan years, when we cut taxes and we produce
more tax payers or we produce more revenue into the treasury,
what does Congress do. Well, they spend it. Rather than
applying it against the deficit or applying against the debt,
they spend it. Rather than returning to you in terms
of a rebate, they spend it. So some of these

(12:16):
provisions you'll see ind dates, and the reason for those
end dates are because they need to stop counting the
tax cuts then go back to what they would estimate
under the old rate would be so that they can say,
at the end of the day, well, this is going
to save us so much money on the debt. Well,
this is going to reduce the deficit by so much money.

(12:36):
It's all smoke and mirrors, it's all you know. It's
the guys with the cups trying to get you to
find the whatever they're hiding into the cups playing that
three cup game on the streets of Manhattan. They're just
shuffling it around so that you can't really see where
it is. Oh, I just hate the way Washington works.

(13:01):
But that's how that's how, that's how they play it.
That's how that's how they get elected. So let's go
through the taxes. It obviously permanently extends the individual and
the corporate tax rates from Trump's twenty seventeen tax cuts,
including the twenty one percent corporate rate and the reduced
individual brackets that we all pay under now, the standard deduction.

(13:24):
If you don't itemize your deductions, that increases by seven
hundred and fifty dollars for single individuals, fifteen hundred dollars
for heads of households, and it increases to two thousand
dollars for married couples through twenty twenty eight. Then it
reverts back. The Child tax Credit goes from two thousand

(13:45):
to twenty two hundred dollars per child. Seventeen hundred dollars
of that is actually refundable, and it's index for inflation
starting next year. The tip income deduction, everybody all all
no taxes on tips? Really, why look, I understand politically,

(14:07):
why but why should tips be exempt from taxation. That's income,
So that's income that you're not going to tax anymore.
Well how about let's not tax Say okay, so I
get I get paid. I get one paycheck, but I
get money from tech technically two different companies, one from

(14:28):
Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates the weekend program. I get
paid a certain amount for that, and then I get
paid from iHeartMedia actually another name, but it's iHeart Media
for doing the weekday program Monday through Friday. Well, why
don't we just consider the weekend program a tip? Well,
just that's that's a tip I get just for coming

(14:50):
in and working on Saturdays. Uh, you go work on
a Saturday. Well that's why not? Why not that call
that a tip? So someone who works for tips is working,
whether they work five days a week, six days a week,
or seven days a week, they're working for tips, and
that tip is income. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm saying, hallelujah,

(15:13):
good for you. What about the rest of us? Tip
income Deduction allows up to twenty five thousand dollars in
tip income to be deducted from federal income taxes. So
you can. Depending on how your employa will work it out,

(15:36):
you will either not get tax on your tip, you
will still pay FICA, you'll still pay your Social Security
Medicare taxes out of your tip income, but you won't
pay a income taxes. But it allows up to twenty
five thousand dollars in tip income to be deducted from
your federal income taxes. Now it phases out for indoe

(16:00):
visuals earning more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
or couples over three hundred thousand dollars. And then here's
what nobody tells you. This provision expires in twenty twenty eight,
So enjoy all you who earn tips, enjoy it. While
you can overtime pay deduction. It permits up to twelve thousand,

(16:22):
five hundred dollars in overtime pay to be deducted from
federal income taxes, and that also expires in twenty twenty eight.
The State and local tax deduction. This one really irritates
me because if you live in a high income tax
state like California or Colorado or New York, it raises

(16:46):
the state and local tax deduction cap from ten thousand
to forty thousand dollars for taxpayers earning less than five
hundred thousand, but after five years it reverse back to
the ten thousand dollars level. The government giveth and the
government taketh away the senior deduction. This is where I remember

(17:09):
we were. We were Oh, seniors were promised no taxes
on Social Security. Well that's bull crap, because what it
really does, it's simply for seniors. It adds four thousand
dollars to the standard deduction, which has also been increased,
but it adds an additional four thousand dollars to the
standard deduction for those sixty five and over between twenty

(17:34):
twenty eight. Oh yes, it expires. Two is the Weekend
with Michael Brown. We're going through the ob Cube Texas
where Michael Michael at thirty three one oh three will
finish or keep going through it. Next tonight Michael Brown

(17:57):
joins me here.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
The former FEMA director of talk show host Michael Brownie. No, Brownie,
you're doing a heck of a job The Weekend with
Michael Brown.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown. Glad
to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning in.
You asked for it, So, by golly, I'm going to
give it to you. You want to know the details
of the obqbe the one big beautiful bill. And so
we're walking through it, and apparently I'm touching a nerve
because I just glanced at the text line and ooh,
some of you didn't know some of this stuff. I

(18:27):
remember speaking the text line, the numbers three three one
zero three three three one zero three. Key worders Mike
or Michael, if you would please go follow me on
x formly Twitter. It's at Michael Brown USA. So let
me just give you a couple of other ones. So
the ones that kind of peau my curiosity. The Business
and CENTI provision now that restores full first year deductions

(18:49):
for equipment and R and D costs. It allows immediate
deductions for new manufacturing facilities. And that's retroactive until January
nineteenth of this year, but it's only good through twenty
twenty nine. Why why, why, why why why do we
keep putting limitations in these? Just make it permanent and
then in some congressation, see all we're doing. We're just

(19:11):
setting up future fights. We're setting up future fights. And
I know that many these things were done because it
was the only way to get you know, some Republicans
because remember, no Democrats voted for this, no one single Democrat.
So all of these compromises were among Republicans themselves. So

(19:32):
you can imagine what a pile of poop this would
have been had Democrats actually been you know, wanted to
be involved in the process, but they wanted nothing to
do with it. The Trump accounts, those tax deferred savings
accounts for rug rats, Yes that exists, but it expires
in twenty twenty eight. What about kids born after that? Well,

(19:54):
I thought the whole idea was to teach kids and
give them, you know, a leg up in some sort
of secure financial future. Well, okay, whatever. Then there's the
estate tax exemption. It increases from about fourteen million thirteen
point nine Let me just read it to you. Specifically,

(20:16):
it increases from thirteen point ninety nine million, which is
fourteen million to fifteen million for a single individual. He
goes from twenty seven point nine eight million, which is
twenty eight million to thirty million for a married couple
in twenty twenty six, and it's indexed for inflation. Well,

(20:36):
loddied all, what a huge increase. You increase it for
individuals from by about about a million and about almost
two million for couples. The estate tax exemption. Wow, well,
you guys are really generous, aren't you. Immigrations and Border Security.
It funds ICE. It allocates one hundred billion dollars over

(21:00):
three years, actually four years, because it goes through twenty
twenty nine to expand immigrant detention capacity into higher new agents.
It provides four billion dollars for three thousand border patrol agents,
five thousand customs officers, and two point one billion dollars
for sign on and other bonuses. Asylum fee. There's now

(21:23):
one thousand dollars fee for immigrants that are seeking asylum. Okay,
you want to you wanna asylum? Before we can process
your application, we need a thousand bucks. I don't oppose it,
but I'm not sure how much effect it's going to
have border security. This is actually pretty amazing. Three hundred

(21:46):
and fifty billion dollars over several years. I haven't quite
figured out how many years, but three hundred fifty billion dollars,
let's just say over three or four years for border
wall construction and related technologies. So those are that's up
bad in terms of spending defense spending, it allocates one
hundred and fifty billion dollars, including twenty five billion for

(22:06):
missile defense, twenty one billion for ammunition, thirty four billion
for naval expansion, and five billion dollars for border security. Now,
the thirty four billion for naval expansion, we're already behind,
so I have no way of judging whether that thirty
four billion dollars is going to catch us up. And
if we're already behind, I'm not sure it will catch

(22:27):
us up with China. We're already hundreds of ships behind China,
beyond what we should be, and are we going to
be able to streamline the procurement process. So thirty four
billion dollars sounds like a bunch of yeah, and it
is a bunch of money, don't get me wrong, But
what's it going to accomplish. I'm more interested in that

(22:48):
Secret Service if funds signing and retention bonuses for agents
that will commit to five years of service, so good,
because we do need more Secret Service agents because the
threat to elected officials, particularly in the executive branch, is
even worse than worse than it's ever been. In my opinion,
the social safety net listen closely Medicaid adjustments. It reduces

(23:12):
federal Medicaid spending, and let me rephrase that, it reduces
federal Medicaid increases in spending and introduces work requirements eighty
hours a month. Most people work that in two weeks.
For adults eighteen to sixty four who have no disabilities

(23:35):
and don't have kids under the age of fourteen food stamps,
it reduces the increase in food stamp funding. In other words,
it's still an increase, but you'll hear it as a cut.
And it also applies work requirements, which I'm totally for.
If you're an able bodied person between the ages of

(23:57):
eighteen and sixty four and you want me to help
you you buy your groceries, then go to work, go volunteer,
go do something. Just don't sit in your assh all day.
That's all I ask. And for those of you who
are staunchly anti abortion, it prohibits Medicaid funds to planned parenthood. Now,

(24:18):
before you get all excited about that, it prohibits Medicaid
funds to planned parenthood. I have not been able to
ascertain whether there are other funding streams in the federal
government still going to plan parenthood or not. I just
know that medicaid funding has been cut off. The energy

(24:40):
and environment sectors. It phases out the tax credits for
electric vehicles by September thirtieth and for clean energy appliances,
so those are going away. It delays methane pollution fees.
It relaxes vehicle emission standards. It accelerates fossil fuel project approvals,

(25:03):
and it gives new tax and cities for coal production
part of drill, Baby drill. And it expands leasing on
federal lands and waters. Now that's going to take time,
but at least we've cut the roadblock. Then there are
other things. Some are good, some are bad. I would

(25:23):
consider these miscellaneous. The debt ceiling increases by five trillion
from thirty six point two trillion. The debt ceiling is artificial.
We're always going to be spending in debt until we
balance the budget. So this is just something to have

(25:43):
a future fight over. But they put it off for
at least well, depending how how much money we spend,
they at least put that fight off for a while. Now.
For those of us who have opposed the tax on
suppressors repeals the two hundred dollars tax on suppressors also

(26:04):
known as silencers under the National Firearms Act. It allocates
ten billion dollars for a MARS mission, three hundred and
twenty five million to deorbit the International Space Station, you
know before it comes crashing down, And it allocates eighty
five million dollars to relocate a space shuttle. It's see

(26:24):
real healthcare. There's funding in this bill for technology for
chronic disease management, rural hospital upgrades, and workforce recruitment for
rural hospitals. In the agricultural sector, it expands sections one
seventy nine and one nine nine eight, deductions funds animal
disease prevention, and updates farm bill programs. I just haven't

(26:47):
been able to dig in to find out more about it.
It did take some things out. The proposal to sell
public lands gone, the ten year moratorium on state artificial
intelligence regulations gone, the excise tax on wind and solar
projects gone. So I would say that the tax cuts

(27:11):
are probably the most discussed provision. It reduces those individual
and corporate tax rates. It I guess I would say,
when you think about the tax cuts, it's simply the
tax cuts is a continuation of the policies adopted in

(27:31):
twenty seventeen, and the debate over whether it's going to
cost money or bring in money. That depends on who
you talk to. I think it will actually increase money
revenue to the treasury, but whether we spend that or
not is the big issue. The Medicaid and the snap adjustments, look,
I think we should have work requirements. As the Wall

(27:52):
Street Journal reports, this does not eliminate the social safety
then people are not going to die. It simply says
if you're an able bodied man or woman and you
don't have any other disabilities, you don't have any kids,
we expect you to have some skin in the game.
There's nothing wrong with that. The tech deduction, well, it's
expires in twenty twenty eight, so before you get all

(28:14):
excited about it, you better make as much tip as
you can between now and twenty twenty eight. The what
I did. I looked at the bills text, but I
honestly I had to skim through it. I looked at
the Congressional record. I looked at some posts on X

(28:36):
from some people I actually trust to you, like the
Tax Foundation and others. The CBO is referenced because it's
the budget estimator, so you've got to look at what
the CBO does. But there are alternative analysis about revenue projections.
So this this bill eight hundred and eighty seven pages

(28:58):
reconciliation covers taxes, immigration, defense, social programs, signed yesterday by
the President. I would just encourage this, I invite you
and encourage you to weigh competing views economic growth versus
the deafest concerns regarding the tax cuts. Research it further

(29:20):
because the complexity of this bill is enormous. They're good
things and they're bad things in the bill. The key
takeaway that I would encourage you to remember is this
many of these provisions expire in the next three or

(29:42):
four years. So get ready for the same old fight
once again. It's the Weekend with Michael Brown. The text
lines always open three three one zero three, keyword Mike
or Michael. If you would please go follow me on
X formally Twitter, It's at Michael Brown USA. I'll be
right back. Hey, welcome back to the Weekend with Michael Brown.

(30:08):
Glad to have you with me. I appreciate you tuning in.
So we were just talking about OBQBE, the big beautiful bill,
and what it really means. Let me go back to Trump,
because because Trump yesterday, as he celebrated the fourth of
July and the signing of the bill, was full of
praise for the Republicans. He was as he should be,

(30:30):
and they got this thing through with you know, whether
you like all of it dislike all of it, the
political machinations that it took to get this done by
July for and just having been inside that the belly
of that beast, I know what a heavy lift that was.
And it shows that the Republican Party of twenty twenty

(30:50):
five is the party of Donald Trump. And he was
in the vein of a Lyndon Vanes Johnson or an
FDR or Ronald Reagan, he was able to really get
through Congress what his agenda was. It's it's it is
one of the biggest bills of its types in history.

(31:12):
There's so much in there, and he's not wrong about that.
It makes the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts permanent. It
gives ice thirty billion dollars, It splashes forty six million
dollars on tightening border control. It restricts medicaid access, so
we just keep throwing people on there. It temporarily gets

(31:34):
rid of taxes on tips. It increases the state and
local tax deduction temporarily. It raises the debt seating by
five trillion dollars, so we won't be fighting about that,
you know, next year. So the big part of the
bill is not in doubt. It's the beautiful part that
I think remains highly contested. The President doesn't have any
qualms about it, though he you know, he made fun

(31:58):
of the Democrats, and the Democrat I think really did
blow it. Much like Republicans can stand back and say
we had nothing to do with Obamacare. I still resent
Republicans for not at least fighting Obamacare, for not least
putting up a fight. The Democrats here didn't put up
a fight. They just gave speeches. That's all they really did.

(32:20):
And I think that, you know, we're suffering from that.
That's why Medicare continues to explode. That's why health insurance
costs continue to explode. I mean, for example, if there
was one thing that I would like to have seen
in here, how about something to drug about drug costs,

(32:40):
and I don't mean price controls. How about reforming pharmacy
benefit management. How about allowing the government to negotiate for
drug costs for Medicare Medicaid recipients. How about doing something
that says, you know, if, for example, any of you
who are on ozempic or any of these GLP one
drugs for waight loss or for you know, type one

(33:02):
or type two diabetes, well a monthly do siege in
Europe averages one hundred dollars or less. The same dough
seage in this country is one thousand dollars or more
per month. What's the difference. The difference is the pharmacy
benefit managers, the middlemen in between US and the pharmaceutical companies.

(33:24):
Let's get rid of them. Let's reform that, Let's change that.
Why shouldn't Why should the government not be able to
negotiate drug prices for people on Medicare of medicaid. Not
that I would trust them to do a very good
job of negotiating, but at least try so. There are
lots of other things that had I been in Congress,
I would have been trying to throw into this bill,

(33:45):
because there's a lot of things that need to be
fixed in this country. And then we've got this, We've
got Elon Musk, he's out there tweeting again yesterday and
today about his third party. Again, he wrote, this day
is the perfect time to ask if you want independence
from the two party, some would say uniparty system. Should

(34:06):
we create the American Party? He then penned that post.
He made it a paid ad, so it appeared in
everybody's ex feed and it came just two days after
the South African born former Trump advisor and former BFF
pledged to primary any Republican who voted for it. Stop it,

(34:31):
just stop it. We don't need a third party. A
third party would have to create all the infrastructure, would
have to do everything to put a party together. And
we have a Republican party that just has too many rhinos,
has too many people in it that are just willing
to say whatever it takes to get elected. And you
know whose fault that is. It's mine and it's yours.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
I went through a long die tribe on the local
pro I think just this past week about why is
it the Republicans simply cannot find decent candidates to run
for public office? And yes, I'm talking about Senate and
the House, but I'm also talking about in the state capitals, governorships,

(35:19):
all the way down to dog catcher. We need to
do a better job of recruiting really good candidates who
can appeal to a changing electorate, who can maintain their
conservative principles and explain to them why these principles work,
why cutting taxes, for example, increases revenue. We don't have

(35:42):
a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Now we
have a spending problem because we haven't explained to people
that we're on the financial cliff of insolvent. Well, I
guess we're not in solvent insolvent. I guess we could
pay off the national debt. We could decide that the
Grand Canyon is worth thirty nine trillion dollars and we
can sell it to the Chinese Communist Party. But I

(36:03):
don't want to do that. I instead rather see us
grow our way out of this debt, which may be difficult,
it's going to have to be done. Growth is the key.
And the one thing that I would say is absolutely
fantastic about Trump is he understands that too. He understands
that we need growth and sometimes you got to spend

(36:24):
money to grow and make more money. I just hope
it all works out, Geeto, I hope it works out.
We can't keep going down the same path, and so
Weekend with Michael Brown. The text lines open as always
three three one zero three keyword Mike or Michael. Hang tight,
I'll be right back