November 3, 2025 • 49 mins
Rachel O’Brien, the deputy public policy editor, investigative journalist for OpentheBooks.com reports that $200M in Fed Grants is going to illegals. Illegal immigrants have benefitted from at least $197 million in direct federal healthcare-related grants since fiscal year 2021, according to new research from Open the Books. This figure does not include indirect spending on illegal immigrants via Medicaid, and education spending. You will be astounded, if not frustrated with the waste.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, good afternoon. Well it's time to follow our money. Okay,
how are the Feds handling our money? We're holding them
accountable as we check out, Open the books. Rachel O'Brien
going to be joining us here in just a few
moments every dime online in real time. This is what
accountability looks like it Open the books, and it's not
easy because you got to know, the Feds, like just
(01:00):
about anybody else, doesn't like it. When you're looking into
their checkbook, they think it's their checkbook. They don't realize
it's the people's checkbook, because it's the people's money. Because
after all, this is a government of for and buy
we the people, right, won't you agree? Well, Rachel O'Brien,
as I mentioned, she's the deputy deputy public policy editor
investigative journalists for openthooks dot com, and she joins us,
(01:23):
right now, let's bring uh, let's bring Rachel on.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi, Rachel.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Hey, how you doing, Rachel. Good to have you with us.
We're gonna hold them accountable. Huh absolutely, yeah, every dime online.
I love that at openbooks dot com. All right. Uh,
so we've got several, uh, you know, several things to
look at. H On top of the list is two
hundred million dollars in federal grants going to illegals. So
(01:48):
why should we worry?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Right, Yes, no, illegal immigrants aren't getting any federal money,
right win, Queen. It's employ We've been told, just trust us. Well,
so we looked into it. Of course, this was a
very easy one. We simply did a search for the
word undocumented in grant descriptions and we found two hundred
million dollars worth of grants going to healthcare related projects.
(02:14):
And so this is sort of just the tip of
the iceberg. So these are grants for healthcare research and programming.
Again with that word undocumented in the grant description, there's
likely much more grant spending.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's yeah, you gotta blate, you gotta blieve it. I mean,
look at how arrogant they're not even trying to hide
it anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Rachel, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I mean, and this doesn't even
include the twenty seven billion dollars in federal that the
federal government and state government spend on medicaid services between
fiscal year twenty seventeen twenty twenty three. They provide emergency
medicaid services for people who are ineligible for full Medicaid
coverage because of their immigration status. The twenty seven billion there,
(02:55):
it doesn't include education spending that benefits illegal immigrants in
their chldren that amounts to seventy billion annually. This is
just a tiny portion that we were able to pull together.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, and why should we the people be upset over that,
especially when we're looking what, what have we surpassed now?
Thirty eight trillion dollars in debt?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Right? Well, what's what's two hundred million dollars there? When
you're when you're trillions in debt? I mean, you know,
and these projects are projects that could could you know,
go to other populations. For instance, there was one grant
for four point three million dollars to Stanford.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
UH.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That was to study people who California put in a
pilot to test universal basic income right. So California has
a group I believe it was two thousand people. They
were giving universal basic income just money, just checks, right
to people, and some of that were to illegal immigrants.
And so Stanford has four point three million dollars to
(03:54):
study how that money can impact cancer risk. UCLA, they
got two and a half million dollars to study reprojective
healthcare among Asian immigrant women including undocumented. A million dollars
to the University of Miami to study this one really
through me. This was to study culturally relevant interventions for
(04:14):
drunk driving. They argued that undocumented immigrants were less likely
to understand DWI laws, more likely to binge drink, and
less likely to perceive the associated risks. So University of
Miami is studying that population and.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Probably less likely to understand the signs of the road.
As we're fo you can't read it, sure.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So that's all from the National Institutes of Health. This
is all you know, UH, health funding and there and
there are there's there's so much more. I mean that
four million dollars went to Southern LA County to build
a medical wellness center for low income minorities, refugees and undocumented.
Another two and a half million in e SLA for
community health center including a drug rehab primarily for Latino adults,
(05:00):
including those undocumented. Another million dollars in LA for primary
care services for minority, low income Latino homeless and undocumented.
And and why you lank go in hospitals in New
York City, they have a new cancer center there, again
serving a population that's very large foreign born, with many undocumented.
And there's many, many more examples.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, and the thing is is that every time you
mentioned California, like as if they've been so fiscally responsible
and they've been out of whack at every turn, and
so here we are forty nine or the other states
are are supporting California. I mean they're like, you know,
they're like the poor cousin in the family that is
constantly in need of money, and you just you know,
(05:44):
you get to the point where you resent, you know,
Thanksgiving or any holiday parties that brings them into the fold,
because you know they're going to be coming with hat
in hand, that's right.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And out of this chunk that we found that the
two hundred million, California, of course they got the most funding.
They got sixty six millions, and fistically year twenty twenty one,
you know, Florida is in second place. They got twenty
six million, DC twenty two million, and New York seventeen million.
So and I should say that of this two hundred million,
you know, most of it did go to programs providing
(06:14):
direct services. One hundred and fifty eight million went to
actual you know, services versus scientific research. So there was
some scientific research they were using this for, and most
of it came from the Department of Health and Human Services.
So yeah, next time someone tells you illegal immigrants don't
get any federal money, you'll know the truth.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, keep in mind, it was never the vision of
our founding fathers to be getting into all these little
projects like this, right, and what spurs it on. At least,
what I'm able to understand, Rachel, and you, as an
investigative researcher and reporter, may have found the same thing
(06:55):
is that I'm looking at how much of this money
went to in actuality by votes?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Oh, for sure. I mean, if if you're you know,
if you're looking to to vote based on who's going
to give you something for it, absolutely, you know, pandering
to a population like like immigrants and in this case
specifically undocumented immigrants who should not be voting, right, should
not be able to vote. Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna
(07:25):
say this this particular you know politician or or in
California's case, almost all of them, you know, are working
to get funding for projects that benefit me and my
family and my community.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Absolutely right, I mean it's always as even Nancy Pelosi said,
it's quit pro quote. I mean, she was raised on
that ever since she was seven years old, sneaking into
I think it was her father's mayoral office, and in
fact that I think at one time anecdotally they reported
that she even got on the phone and negotiated the deal.
(07:57):
Basically just said to the guy, Okay, what's in it
for us if we do this for you. I mean,
this is the corruption of the government, and it's been
going on for so long it's become such a tradition
that it's acceptable. Well, you know, how is thirty eight
trillion dollars in debt and just the interest alone is
now surpassing our military budget. How does that feel for you?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, no, it's it's obviously terrible. Right when we're talking
about healthcare spending, you know, it's it's a it's a
huge problem. You know, Medicare and Medicaid alone, those are
those are grossly overspent, not just for actual benefits, but
(08:39):
in terms of fraud as well, and in terms of
improper payments. Medicare and Medicaid are always the culprit for
the largest figure of improper payments every year. I think
it was eighty seven billion last year. I have to
double check that number, but they're always number one, right,
There's there's reason for that.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, Doze did some you know research, and of course
everybody was yelling and screaming about it, but you know,
look at the truth is the truth. And I was
watching the other day Elon Musk was just going down,
you know, when he was talking about Social Security. How
many people uh with birth dates that they haven't even
officially been born, but believe it or not, miraculously they
(09:20):
are receiving Social Security benefits. And I mean we're not
talking one or two as you say. I mean we're
talking millions adding into billions of dollars, and and and
the government just is kind of yawning over this, as
opposed to saying, wait a minute, this is the people's money.
This is uh, you know, grossly uh egregious to the
(09:40):
taxpayer to do this and put this burden upon them,
and then on top of that, well, let's shut down
the government deprive them of needed services on top of that, right.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Right, No, Yeah, that's it's uh, it's certainly a shame,
and it's it's you know, one of the reasons why
we highlight this every year. We talk about payments that
should be something that people should be able to gree
on immediately, that that shouldn't be a partisan issue at all.
If you eliminate the hundreds of billions of dollars in
improper payments every year that go to people for the
(10:14):
wrong amount, the wrong amount, for the wrong reason, or
to the wrong person, that right there, you know, saves
you so much, so much money that could go to
so many other things. But it's but it's it's all
getting wasted, and it's there doesn't seem to be any
interest in fixing that.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And Rachel, what's the chance of clawing that money back
once it goes out to these people, they spend the money,
So what are you going to do? Put them in jail?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You know, a small portion gets gets clawed back every year,
but you're right, it's spent again if it went to
the wrong person for the wrong amount or for the
wrong reason. Sometimes the records aren't even accurate. They don't
even know who got the money. In some cases, the
records themselves can't even tell you who to go after,
and so that's that's obviously you can't claw back money
(11:00):
from someone you don't know who has it.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I mean, how is this acceptable? I mean why I
don't understand why the people just aren't screaming out of
their windows every night yelling at the government saying, wait
a minute, stop, this is absurd. I mean, you know,
we are, you know, basically we're fulling ourselves. Were basically broke,
but we're fooling ourselves because we do everything through through
(11:23):
data and through you know, made up paper and adding
another decimal point. You know, it's like no big deal,
you know kind of thing. But it's like this is unsustainable.
I mean, we're really leaving ourselves open on so many levels.
I mean even now the dollar, which has been under
(11:43):
attack for a long time, which has been the choice
of currency around the world. You know, you've got other
powers that are encroaching on that because of you know,
our lack of efficiency and what it says about our government.
I mean, how dais you know, it's like we can't
have no moral high ground to stand against these other
(12:03):
third world countries supposedly the way they conduct business when
the United States is almost as bad, if not worse.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, right, Absolutely, it's a real problem. And that is
why we open the books, are so passionate about what
we do. It's it's to put this information out there.
You know, you ask, why aren't people shouting from their
windows and demanding changes. I think a lot of people
don't know how bad it is. They don't want to know, right.
(12:33):
A lot of people, I think feel helpless, like they
don't know any what they can do about it. Right,
It's election day tomorrow in many places, and you can
go and vote, but you kind of sort of feel helpless,
like what am I supposed to do about it? Well,
pay attention. Go to start by going to your local
school board meetings. Some of these meetings that I've attended
(12:56):
as a local news reporter in the past, nobody tends
them and so the school boards don't expect anyone to
ask any questions. They feel they don't they're not accountable
to anyone. Go to your town board meeting, or your
city council meeting or your county board meetings and start
asking questions exactly and know where this money is going.
(13:18):
And that's why we put it out there on our
website for people to thank God.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And I've said this forever, you know, for Open the Books.
You know what was started decades ago with your original
founder and then you know, subsequently with the leadership that
followed and where you are right now. I mean, thank
God for all the great work that you've been doing.
And you know we we have been coming alongside and
(13:43):
supporting and wanting to be an information arm you know,
for Open the Books to make sure that our audience
is informed and they're aware of what's going on. Is
that you know, their lying eyes and their own gut
instincts is you know, is telling them the truth, and
that is that our government is inefficient. Uh. You know
what Elon musk Uh, you know produced in terms of
(14:04):
some receipts early on and of course, you know the reaction,
particularly on the left. I mean that tells you everything
you need to know, is that the forces are strong,
they're diligent. Uh, they're not They're not about to give up,
you know, the goose that's laying golden eggs for them.
This is what has kept them in office, and it's
what has put a lot of pressure on we the people.
(14:27):
And uh, and why we're producing a government with this
kind of inefficiency and this kind of corruption.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, absolutely right. We're we're talking all the time about
the changes that that Congress needs to make, the bills
they need to pass. Why would they take money out
of their own hands?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
And so it's unfortunately, you know, one of these things,
it's it's it's not going to change as long as Congress, uh,
you know, has the choice to say yes or no,
uh to to that change. And we did see a
little bit with Dose right again coming and making those
changes without Congress. But you do need Congress because every
(15:09):
administration can just come in and and erase what the
previous administration did if it's not right, if it's not
in law, if they're allowed to just go back and
all the spending cuts they made last session. They can
bring those all back. And so yeah, I mean it
does start with reform with Congress, and so it does
(15:29):
start at the voting both right to electric exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
And we've got to stay on top of it, remain
vigilant because it's bad enough that you have you know,
Congress at times and I understand look at uh, you know, realistically,
they're in a tough situation because this government's too big,
it has grown. It is an immense bim myth that
they're trying to run here, but they do. They need
(15:55):
to have this sense of discipline and urgency to codify
this so that it minimizes the radical activist judges who
are now interfering in the process.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Right, well, sure, right exactly. You do you do while
there's lack of action from Congress, then we do see
more action again, like you said, from these judges who
are weighing in on things they never used to weigh
in on and of course deciding how our country is
run really in many instances because Congress won't act. And
(16:32):
so right, there's there's there's a lot of reform that's needed. Unfortunately,
it's not an overnight thing that can be solved and
you know, it starts with you know, the the younger
generation right where uh where.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
One of the things that that we did recently was
a report on students and student performance. You know, I
mentioned school boards and going to your school board meetings
and asking questions there about what what the district, the
school district is doing. You know, if our own students
are not performing well, they certainly can't compete with China.
(17:07):
They certainly aren't going to be informed enough to vote
to make solid voting choices at the booth. They're going
to just vote based on party, or they're going to
vote based on maybe who they think is cool, if
it was someone who was endorsed by you know, a
performing artist or something like that. And so we just
did this report on America's public education crisis.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, it's great,
Go ahead, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's it's it all comes down to education when we're
when we're talking about the the you know, where our
country is headed. So you know, the debate about public
school funding sometimes includes the assumption that that more funding
means better student outcomes. And so we challenged that and
we looked at thousands of school districts UH and found
(17:55):
that as pay for teachers and administrators increased, students scores
dropped on standardized tests. Yeah, we looked at almost thirteen
thousand school districts and we came to this conclusion. We
compared the twenty nineteen payroll to the twenty twenty three
payroll for teachers and administrators in each state, and of
course there's an increase in pay everywhere, but at the
(18:17):
same time, the change in each state's ranking by the
National Assessment of Educational Progress they measure reading and math
skills for fourth and eighth graders, those dropped in many cases.
We found that, you know, while many schools hope that
increasing their payroll will help their students perform better, there's
little evidence in the data support that claim. You know,
(18:39):
in fact, the opposite seems to be true on average.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Because the money didn't go into the classroom. Rachel exactly
went to the administrators, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
The BIB rules go up, but it is not associated
with higher test scores for those students. They're not seeing
the impact of that spending. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And this has been going on for decades. This isn't
something you know, you looked at twenty nineteen. But I
dare say, go ahead and run a line over the
last three decades and start watching that dynamic, because as
the administrative courses or the administrative line of public education
has grown, you start seeing the test scores reflecting it,
(19:19):
and a not positive direction.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
By the way, yeah, no, we actually went back to
nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
You can't go back, Okay, good.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
It's referred to as administrative bloat. So the number of
administrators at American schools increased by over seven hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Seven hundred percent had done down our kids.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
From nineteen fifty to two thousand and nine, and in
that same time, the number of teachers increased two one
hundred and fifty percent, and of course during that time,
student scores on the National Assessment's felt so in more
modern day, from twenty ten to twenty twenty two, the
number of administrative staff that rose by forty one percent
on top of the seven hundreds and now were at
(20:00):
seven hundred and forty one percent. Right, an overall school
employment only rose by ten percent, So you have this
administrative bloat of these people who are of course very
highly paid. In twenty twenty three, there were over eighty
eight hundred public school employees across the country who earn
salaries of at least two hundred thousand dollars. Those are
(20:23):
certainly not teachers. Those are administrators, and in many cases,
those are administrators that are not really having an impact
on students learning in the classroom. In many cases, they're
not even school principles or superintendents. In many cases, they're
sort of these new positions that you would not have
(20:44):
heard of even ten years ago. Baltimore is a perfect example.
Baltimore in twenty nineteen, their test scores ranked twenty second
among the twenty fifth largest cities, so they were three
from the bottom, so they're ranked twenty second. By twenty
four they had increased their salaries by forty three percent,
(21:04):
they still ranked twenty second, and so we looked at
their payroll. At less than half of their employees. Just
about almost half of their employees are listed as teachers
or principals. The other half are administrators, some in very
similar roles. There's the senior executive director of equity making
two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. There's also a director
(21:27):
of equity, a director of equity centered principal development. There
are five educational specialists of Equity. There's a staff associate
of Equity. There are directors of environmental health there in Baltimore,
each earning over one hundred and sixty thousand. There's a
senior project manager of environmental compliance, a supervisor of environmental compliance,
(21:49):
all making high six figures. So these are not positions
that are helping students. Students aren't you know, they're not
learning to read, or to write or to do math
on the hiring of any of these people. And they
continue school, just continue to do this, continue to hire these.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's a total scam. Angel I mean they they would
not pass the show what test in the open marketplace,
their business model would not last. But because it's a
government entity and they're able to get away with this.
I mean they go the E I. D. They're into
environmental issues and everything else, and of course, uh you know,
(22:29):
bringing in pornography into the classroom. I mean it's like
have we lost our minds? No? I mean who's who's
who's watching them? I mean why are they to you do? See?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well? And that's why we we say all the time,
Like as I said earlier, you know, go ask questions
to your school board. Stand up at these meetings and
demand and demand answers to whether it's curriculum or spending
or hiring. They they are are accountable, you know if if.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Oh, but they don't think so they don't. I mean
you see you see sometimes where they're arresting parents. I mean,
so yes, go go and you know you may just
have to listen and it may be hard and uh,
but be careful because uh, they feel some sense of
empowerment and uh, you know, what they're doing to parents
is absolutely disgusting. But it starts, first of all, just
(23:25):
as you said, it starts with knowledge. That's power. You've
got to understand what they're doing. And and you're lying
eyes they're not lying to you. I mean the fact
that these uh pornographic books that they even try to
bring them to school board meetings and to read what's
in the libraries, uh, that their kids can be exposed to,
and then they don't even want to hear it.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, I mean, this is of course, that's that's one
one thing among one issue among them many many issues.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, right, But it's all it's all symptomatic of the
problem that exists. And we're only talking education. Yes, we
talked some other things, but it's it's a consistent model
of incompetency and acceptance here.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Sure, yeah, oh, of course, especially in you know, we're
talking about administrators and administrative bloat. But of course teachers
and teacher unions are incredibly powerful. It's it's incredibly difficult
to get you know, a tenured teacher removed, and they
know that, they know that they are protected, and they
(24:32):
sort of can do to a degree, you know, what
they want. You know, just going back to the data
when we were looking at there were there were some
success stories. While we saw you know, six states increase
their payroll by at least twenty three percent in the
time period we were looking at from twenty nineteen to
twenty twenty three, Virginia, Vermont, Oregon, Missouri, they all saw
(24:55):
student performance decrease and New Mexico saw no change. Only
Utah moved up very slightly in the rankings. But we
saw the converse in some cases. Miami Dade County Public
Schools in Florida, they had the second best exam scores
in twenty twenty four and they spent just about sixty
four hundred dollars on payroll per students the fifth lowest
(25:17):
among twenty twenty five cities among the twenty five largest cities,
and also in Florida Hillsboro County, those students they had
the fifth best exam scores among those cities, and the
district only spent fifty three hundred dollars on payroll per student.
That's the second lowest.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So they can be So it can be done, right, Rachel,
that's what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Absolutely, it can work. Yeah, and it's you know, it's
because those districts are investing in the right things.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Just increasing the dollar figure of what you're spending per
student means nothing. And we know that. We see that
where I am in New York and New York City,
we have the highest, if not one of one of
the highest, if not the highest spending per pupil on
students in New York City, and a huge portune of
(26:04):
students can't read or write at their grade level. So,
you know, I think, at what point are people going
to say, don't talk to me about spending per pupil.
It's a nonsense way of measuring success. I don't care
how low the spending per pupil is. What are you
spending it on Are you spending it on these administrators,
(26:26):
the director of equity, the assistant director of equity, the
senior executive director of equity. If so, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter for students and what they can achieve.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, if you can't attach it to a matrix that
has a direct effect on results, then it needs to
be gone. Right. You know, this isn't about warm and fuzzies.
You know, this is about producing a bottom line here
and then you know you speak that you're there in
New York. I mean, I was just again seeing this
morning that in Queens alone, you've got one hundred and
(26:59):
sixty different languguages that are spoken in the borough there, Absolute, Rachel,
how do you teach these kids with that kind of language,
different entuation? And when I was in California, we were
in a community that was mostly Hispanic, about seventy percent.
And you know, all it took was two kids in
the classroom to occupy the teacher's time and then the
(27:21):
rest of the kids were, you know, left to their
own devices because the teachers had to spend more time
with the two kids that couldn't speak English.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, that's that's that's the perfect example of where you
know districts and even portions neighborhoods of districts like New
York City is all one large school district. So you're
talking about Queens in particular, right, there has to be
a very large and there is, but there should be
more a large investment in these ESL classes English English
(27:49):
as a second language class, right, so that the students
who have English as their primary language are being taught
and then those who are not, who don't have English
as their first language, are being taught properly. And nobody's
sort of getting left behind there, either the English language
students or those who are learning English. Yeah, I mean
(28:11):
New York We are ranked I believe, thirty first from
this from the National Association of the Educational Association that
ranks the largest cities and then states. So talking about
New York State, we're ranked thirty first. California is ranked
(28:32):
forty third. And when you look at how people are paid,
California has about twenty eight hundred employees who made two
hundred thousand dollars or more in the schools. New York
has about fifteen hundred people making two hundred thousand dollars
or more in the schools. And again it's just you
see this metric all the time about per pupil spending
(28:53):
and how states or school districts need to raise their
per pupil spending, and it is really just a red
heiring for what really needs to be done to help
these students. It's nothings that were going to accomplished if
you keep going back to the same well over and
over again and not looking at the real problem.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Well again, what open the books is bringing to the
front here, ladies and gentlemen. Are the receipts? And is
this okay with you? Is acceptable? I mean this generation
that we're raising right now, I mean the odds are
against assist is also Rachel. Why when we talk about education,
why so many people are homeschooling these days? Right?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
You have a homeschooling increase. You also have an increase
in charter schools and parochial schools. States that give out
vouchers for those things for either for charter schools or
homeschooling are incredibly popular, you know, especially those that are limited,
those are they're gone immediately. You have these wait lists
(29:54):
of people looking to get vouchers to get their kids
out of public schools. And it is it's a very
Instead of the instead of the teachers' unions saying what
can we do to improve our schools, How can we
better serve our students and help them learn better? They're
they're fighting, right, They fight these voucher programs, they fight
(30:16):
the creation of charter schools. They fight, they fight it
tooth and nail and and that's obviously not the way
to help students.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So it well, it's about their survival, not the students.
The priorities are off and that's, unfortunately, is the nature
of how the union works, and it's about survival for them.
It's not about the kids. So they're upside down in
their priority and uh, you know this is why there's
so much pressure now and conversation about dismantling, you know,
(30:51):
the public education system. I mean, it's not in the constitution. Uh,
you know, we have, we we should on all levels, Rachel.
You know, things we touched on, whether it's healthcare, immigration,
America can do better than this, but we can't do
better if the interest is for you know, a politician,
(31:14):
a political interest, and not for the interest of the
immigrant who comes here. That basically comes here illegally. You know,
we got millions of illegals coming into the country, so
they operate in the shadows. I mean, how is that
successful for them? I mean they have to rely on
a sanctuary state. And then what they're finding out is
(31:36):
as the nets are going out to get these people
the good I mean, you know, the terrible immigrants who've
come in with felonies and you know what have you
and have killed American citizens and all. Well, then these
people are caught up in the net, and everybody's upset.
But you know, even you know, our Homeland Security is
(31:56):
saying seventy percent of those caught are felons. There's going
to be thirty percent that are caught in that. You
might say, well, they're not as bad. Well, but you
broke the law. You came here illegally. We don't want
you to be here illegally. Want you to be here
to be a legal citizen there so that you can contribute,
that your children, your future family can be a part
(32:16):
of this incredible mosaic of human potential and energy and
success that we call the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
And of course, and back to our whole you know
what we do and open the books. Is the spending
associated with all of it? Yes, right, So you know,
it's one thing to promise all of these wonderful things
that America has to offer. In America has a lot
of wonderful things to offer, and it is a country
(32:46):
of immigrants, right, We are country immigrants. We all came
from somewhere else legally of course, right. And so that's
of course the distinction here, and it's one of the
reasons why we do have such such debt and spending
out of control because, as you mentioned earlier, the country
(33:07):
was never intended by the founders to do or the
federal government was never intended to do all the things
that it does and pay for all the things that
it does.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right, you know, well, well they're they're they're writing checks
on our backs. They're not paying for anything. I mean,
if it was their money, it'd be a different ball
game altogether. But it's our money, and so they can
make promises do whatever, and their policies are what is
created this, uh, this environment of in affordability that we're
(33:36):
dealing with, that you're dealing with, particularly in New York.
I mean, you know, my friend Liz Peek's Fox News contributor.
You know she's telling me and you could verify it
that you know, a one bedroom in New York is
now five thousand dollars a month. That that's how do
you afford that? Now?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
You don't? You don't, right, And that's why there's there's
people flee New York for other states. You know, Florida
up is the number one uh place where you will
find transplanted New Yorkers, the Carolinas.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
You know, we we welcome by the way, I'm I'm
in Florida now, I've been here for fourteen years. We
welcome people from New York where we say leave that
New York state of mind in the politics back at
the border, do not bring it here, you know, because
we operate a little bit differently as you cited. I mean,
we have a successful track record with education, you know,
managing you know, the illegal immigration situation, all things considered.
(34:30):
I mean, it's hard for anybody to get a deluge
of illegal immigrants and find a way to manage it perfectly.
But Ron DeSantis and our officials here are pretty vigilant
about these things to make sure that you know, they're
being wise and prudent about the people's money.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Right, you know, one of the things that that you know,
as I mentioned earlier about Medicare and Medicaid being the
worst spender of improper payments and and the what was
what was the figure I think I gave in terms
of illegal immigrants getting that that uh spending for medicaidor
I think.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I think it's forty two. I think it's forty.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Seven billion, twenty seven million dollars on emergency MEDICAIDE services.
Right for those who are who are here you know, illegally.
You know that's not to say that, you know, we
can't we can't blame illegal immigrants for everything, right, this
is this is a problem we created on our own.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
No, no, you're you're exactly right. I don't blame I
don't blame the people. I mean, look at if I
was outside and I thought, hey, you know, it was
outside America, and I wanted to do something for my family,
and and you had an administration and says, hey, when Benitos,
you know, we got T shirts, we got Obama phones,
we got all We'll take care of you. Hey, I'm
I'm I'm on the boat, I'm on the plane, I'm
(35:49):
whatever it is for the sake of I don't blame them,
but the fact of the matter is is that, uh,
you know, we had irresponsible governance, right and uh and
shame on them, and we're having to clean clean all
this mess up in in in the midst of a
very uh divided government. Uh, you know, instead of just saying,
(36:12):
look at this problem, saying look at we've got to
do right by everybody, by the citizen, by the immigrant,
you know, and if we do that then it'll be
win win. But you know, right now, they're not they're
not ready to really deal with this in a responsible
way because that's not the way our government works.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Unfortunately, Yes, we have we we have a larger issue
with these uh these safety net programs. We have a
large larger issue with mandatory spending, especially healthcare spending in
the in the US. It's it's grossly inefficient and wasteful.
We recently did a report where we looked at Medicare
(36:51):
Part D, just one small portion of Medicare. This is
the prescriptions and what is costing taxpayers for prescriptions under
Medicare Part D. For sure, people are not paying this
out of their pocket. They're certainly not paying it when
they have private insurance. So we looked at just the
top one thousand prescribing doctors, and in twenty twenty three
(37:16):
they wrote eleven billion dollars worth of prescriptions. Woll you know,
we saved nine billion on the July recision package. So
it doesn't even it doesn't even cover one year of
Medicare prescriptions. So tackling something like that, obviously, again is
one of these very large issues that you can't solve overnight,
(37:37):
but is worth what is worth attacking?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Well, yeah, I've long said look at Obamacare, supposedly the
Affordable Healthcare What a misnomer that was. That was like,
you know, this whole ruse that Biden tried to sell
us on, you know, the Inflation Reduction Act, and I
mean all these things say the Democrats speak, you know,
double speak. What they tell you it is is the
(38:01):
exact opposite. As long as you realize what they're telling
you and it's the exact opposite, you'll maintain some sanity.
Otherwise you're going to get brain bruised in the process.
Because that has been consistent with them, is what they
tell you one way, it's not, it's exact opposite. And
so the Affordable healthcare. We knew from the very beginning.
Anybody that had half a brain could do some math, said,
(38:22):
this is not going to pencil out it. And it
hasn't all for supposedly thirty million people that were part
of that donut hole. And I've been asking the question
all these years. Oh God, shame on me for doing this,
you know, but inquiring minds we don't want to know.
And my question is, and I ask all these officials,
I go, so of the thirty million that you estimated
(38:45):
that you kept quoting time and time again, how many
of them are still on Obamacare? How many of them
actually went to Obamacare? Well, we know Obamacare, what did
it get up to? About about eight million, maybe twelve
million people, so it barely made it dent. And most
of the people that are thirty million that they said,
there was a lot of those people just said I
(39:06):
don't want your staking healthcare, right, you know. And so
I mean, this whole deal was such a such a farce,
and it was one it was, you know, built on lies,
and now here it is. I mean, it's so affordable
and such a great plan that it requires government subsidy.
And it's one of the reasons why our government is
closed right now.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
That's exactly right. Yeah, I was. I was just going
to say, to bring it back to where we are now, right,
That's why. That's why the government is closed over of
the debate of this this this program that is not
is not certainly not worth closing the government over.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, Rachel, I see, I maintain, whether it's healthcare, you know,
Medicaid that we're talking about, education, go down the line, immigration,
We're better than this. And if you got people together.
I mean, it's almost like I want to say, I
don't want to politicians involved. We're going to have, you know,
a normal group of citizens get together in a room
(40:03):
and design a world class, you know, healthcare program, and
we're going to negotiate. I mean's Trump's been doing. He's
negotiating you know, drug prices. He did that, you know
before he left office. Of course, we were able to
realize benefits that Joe Biden said, see what I've done
for you going. You didn't do that, that was Trump.
You just happen to be in office. You get to
(40:25):
claim some sort of credit, But it was Donald Trump
that did that. You don't know how to negotiate those things.
But Trump has been continuing to negotiate drug prices. But
that's only part of the you know, part of the
elements of what needs to be dealt with. And you've
got to get all these middlemen, these what prescription what
do they called benefit PBMs or something managers. Yeah, they
(40:47):
get they get a special cut out of everything for
what they didn't do anything. But they're just in the
middle collecting money like trolls.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
That's exactly right. Yeah, the thousand doctors that we looked
at with these prescriptions that cost eleven billion dollars. Oh, absolutely,
I mean these are these are money makers. The top
prescriber in twenty twenty three was responsible for one hundred
and sixty million dollars worth of drugs paid by Medicare
part dy. The second person was responsible for one hundred
(41:17):
and thirty seven million dollars. You know the reason you said,
you know, what would happen if we got regular people
in a room and ask them to design these things?
Of course it would look far different from what we
have here. What we have is, you know, from years
of having special interests and lobbyists and donors and industry
(41:43):
impacting how our government is run, and it is it
is certainly not how the founders would have expected it
to be, and it is it is. It is certainly
something that every American should should be aware of and
should shouldn't you know, read about and learn about and
go to openbooks dot com and we're reporting and you'll
(42:05):
be shocked every day what you see that that we've written,
that we've that we've investigated, all through public records. By
the way, this is all spending that the federal government
and state government and local governments are required to report.
This is your money. They're required to tell you how
they're spending it. And so yeah, we make it digestible
(42:26):
so people can be informed and maybe come up with
some good ideas to pitch to the government for once.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Ladies and gentlemen. Rachel makes it seem so easy. It's
not easy because the resistance is thick, it's long, and
they're well practiced. You know, there's all kinds of foyer
requests that are involved. You've got to go to the
courts to get this information. Uh, you know, open the books.
You know, hey, hey i'm here, I'm from I'm with
(42:56):
Open the Books. It's almost like they just they slam
the door in their face. Then I want to talk
to him because they know, you know, they're there to
find out the information which we're entitled by our constitution.
They owe us this information and open the books. God
bless them, and God bless you know, Tom Comburn, Adamanjiaski,
(43:16):
the team over the years, John Hart, now your self, Rachel,
everybody that's involved in holding to the cause on behalf
of the American people, because if not you, then who.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Well, thank you, Bill. This is very kind of you.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
And right, I'm honest about it. I mean, I just
I mean going back to the Coburn years and everything
and just saw it was going on. I mean, it
was just to me, it just is so much common sense.
But what's happened over the years because of all the
work that you've done, it exposes the fraud, the delinquency,
the corruption, and the American people look at if you
(43:52):
want to have in America that your great grandchildren can enjoy,
your grandchildren can enjoy, you've got to take a stand
and say enough is enough. Because this is a government
of for and by we the people. And guess what
it's not. It's not reflecting that crado that is in
our Declaration of Independence or our constitution, is it no?
Speaker 3 (44:14):
And you mentioned Senator Coburn. Absolutely, you know, he helped
found open the books, and he was one of those
unique people who refused to just go along to get along.
He put up a fight against everything that he that
he believed was wrong, the wrong spending, the wrong programs,
(44:35):
the wrong way to do it. And he was he
was a man all all unto himself. He was. He
was certainly unique. Jony Ernst, Senator Ernst is similar in
her fight to say, we're not going to just continue
funding this. We're not going to u increase this spending.
(44:56):
We're this isn't something that should be funded to begin with.
This is waste or fraudulent or abusive. And unfortunately they
are very few and far between, and there need to
be more Senators Coburn and senators are in Congress. We
need more of those people.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Well, without a doubt, we need to increase the megaphone
and the pronouncement. And it's up to we the people
to make those changes to get the right people in
there so that we can have an efficiently run government.
And look at this is not easy. This has been
going on for decades. They're well entrenched as you realize,
(45:36):
and for them to without any kind of conscience whatsoever,
to run up a bill of thirty eight trillion dollars
and just kind of shrug over it, and you just go, well,
you know, we just you know, just because America keeps
you know, it just keeps on living, doesn't mean that
it will always be this way, right.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Well, I hope not in terms of spending out of control,
I hope not. You know, there has to be some
into it. We can't keep borrowing from China, which we
are doing, right. We can't keep kicking the can down
the road. You know, we say our children will pay
for it. It's not just our children, it's our grandchildren and
(46:17):
our great grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
We're borrowing from them. They're not even born yet, born yet,
I mean, and it is the result.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
And I borrowed from his children, right absolutely.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And they're not even getting Social Security checks to see
other people somehow, you know, with the right I guess
birthdate or whatever scam they've been able to work, you know,
and like Elon Musk, has you know, has anybody even
called them to say, hey, you know, we may have
the wrong birthday here. What is your right birthday? You know,
(46:49):
it can't be thirty thousand, you know, threey ten. I'm sorry,
there must have been a type or something. Help me
understand why you're getting a check, right, Yeah, we've.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Seen this, especially with the COVID nineteen funding, you know,
during the pandemic that was given out so freely, no
questions asked. PPP loans money to businesses that don't exist,
to people that don't exist. Yeah, and if Social Security
checks can be given to people who are long dead
(47:18):
or who have yet to be born, clearly there's a
little bit of record keeping that needs to be done here.
It's it's very basic stuff, right, it's it is. It
is very upsetting when you when you think about the
lack of care that is that is taken when overseeing
our money. There's there's no care in making sure that
(47:39):
that money is being spent prudently. You certainly wouldn't act
that way with your money. You certainly wouldn't hand it
out to to anybody who asks. Right. If someone calls
you and asks for money and claims to you know
you owe them a bill. You want some proof. You
want to see a bill. What is it for? What
did I buy? What did it go to? Right? And
there's there's no similar responsibility taken when it comes to
(48:02):
American tax payer money.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Well, Rachel O'Brien, we got to leave it there. I'm
thankful for you. And as I mentioned Open the Book,
she's a deputy public policy editor investigative journalists for openthbooks
dot com. As we wrap things up, I'm gonna give
you the final word. We've got about a minute left,
you know, bring us home and encourage the people what
they can do to activate and stay in touch. And
(48:24):
knowledge is power, and you've got a lot of information
that will empower the everyday American right there at open
the Books dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
So go ahead, Yeah, I mean our website. We have
a newly revamped website. We've been around for over a
decade now. But you can go to our website and
find your state or your municipality. You can search for
the companies that have been paid by your city or
your state. You can know who's getting paid, you can
know what the pueral is of public employees, and so
(48:55):
there's a lot of great detail on our website. Also
our substack substack dot com Open the Books, that's where
we post our long form writing. Check it out, and
I hope people find it helpful because that's our job
here is to inform and put every dime online in
real time. That's our motto.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I will say this, Rachel, sometimes when I go to
open the books, I have to have a stiff drink
with me. I just mean, just me, That's all I'm saying. Rachel,
thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate
all the help and information. And take care be well.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
Thank you, Bill, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Hey, our thanks to Rachel O'Brien, the deputy Public policy
editor investigative journalists for openthooks dot com, and thank you
for joining us. May God bless you and keep you.
May He make his face shine upon you. May He
be gracious unto you and give you peace. Take care.
God bless
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, good afternoon. Well it's time to follow our money. Okay,
how are the Feds handling our money? We're holding them
accountable as we check out, Open the books. Rachel O'Brien
going to be joining us here in just a few
moments every dime online in real time. This is what
accountability looks like it Open the books, and it's not
easy because you got to know, the Feds, like just
(01:00):
about anybody else, doesn't like it. When you're looking into
their checkbook, they think it's their checkbook. They don't realize
it's the people's checkbook, because it's the people's money. Because
after all, this is a government of for and buy
we the people, right, won't you agree? Well, Rachel O'Brien,
as I mentioned, she's the deputy deputy public policy editor
investigative journalists for openthooks dot com, and she joins us,
(01:23):
right now, let's bring uh, let's bring Rachel on.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi, Rachel.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Hey, how you doing, Rachel. Good to have you with us.
We're gonna hold them accountable. Huh absolutely, yeah, every dime online.
I love that at openbooks dot com. All right. Uh,
so we've got several, uh, you know, several things to
look at. H On top of the list is two
hundred million dollars in federal grants going to illegals. So
(01:48):
why should we worry?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Right, Yes, no, illegal immigrants aren't getting any federal money,
right win, Queen. It's employ We've been told, just trust us. Well,
so we looked into it. Of course, this was a
very easy one. We simply did a search for the
word undocumented in grant descriptions and we found two hundred
million dollars worth of grants going to healthcare related projects.
(02:14):
And so this is sort of just the tip of
the iceberg. So these are grants for healthcare research and programming.
Again with that word undocumented in the grant description, there's
likely much more grant spending.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
That's yeah, you gotta blate, you gotta blieve it. I mean,
look at how arrogant they're not even trying to hide
it anymore.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Rachel, Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I mean, and this doesn't even
include the twenty seven billion dollars in federal that the
federal government and state government spend on medicaid services between
fiscal year twenty seventeen twenty twenty three. They provide emergency
medicaid services for people who are ineligible for full Medicaid
coverage because of their immigration status. The twenty seven billion there,
(02:55):
it doesn't include education spending that benefits illegal immigrants in
their chldren that amounts to seventy billion annually. This is
just a tiny portion that we were able to pull together.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, and why should we the people be upset over that,
especially when we're looking what, what have we surpassed now?
Thirty eight trillion dollars in debt?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Right? Well, what's what's two hundred million dollars there? When
you're when you're trillions in debt? I mean, you know,
and these projects are projects that could could you know,
go to other populations. For instance, there was one grant
for four point three million dollars to Stanford.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
UH.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
That was to study people who California put in a
pilot to test universal basic income right. So California has
a group I believe it was two thousand people. They
were giving universal basic income just money, just checks, right
to people, and some of that were to illegal immigrants.
And so Stanford has four point three million dollars to
(03:54):
study how that money can impact cancer risk. UCLA, they
got two and a half million dollars to study reprojective
healthcare among Asian immigrant women including undocumented. A million dollars
to the University of Miami to study this one really
through me. This was to study culturally relevant interventions for
(04:14):
drunk driving. They argued that undocumented immigrants were less likely
to understand DWI laws, more likely to binge drink, and
less likely to perceive the associated risks. So University of
Miami is studying that population and.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Probably less likely to understand the signs of the road.
As we're fo you can't read it, sure.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
So that's all from the National Institutes of Health. This
is all you know, UH, health funding and there and
there are there's there's so much more. I mean that
four million dollars went to Southern LA County to build
a medical wellness center for low income minorities, refugees and undocumented.
Another two and a half million in e SLA for
community health center including a drug rehab primarily for Latino adults,
(05:00):
including those undocumented. Another million dollars in LA for primary
care services for minority, low income Latino homeless and undocumented.
And and why you lank go in hospitals in New
York City, they have a new cancer center there, again
serving a population that's very large foreign born, with many undocumented.
And there's many, many more examples.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, and the thing is is that every time you
mentioned California, like as if they've been so fiscally responsible
and they've been out of whack at every turn, and
so here we are forty nine or the other states
are are supporting California. I mean they're like, you know,
they're like the poor cousin in the family that is
constantly in need of money, and you just you know,
(05:44):
you get to the point where you resent, you know,
Thanksgiving or any holiday parties that brings them into the fold,
because you know they're going to be coming with hat
in hand, that's right.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And out of this chunk that we found that the
two hundred million, California, of course they got the most funding.
They got sixty six millions, and fistically year twenty twenty one,
you know, Florida is in second place. They got twenty
six million, DC twenty two million, and New York seventeen million.
So and I should say that of this two hundred million,
you know, most of it did go to programs providing
(06:14):
direct services. One hundred and fifty eight million went to
actual you know, services versus scientific research. So there was
some scientific research they were using this for, and most
of it came from the Department of Health and Human Services.
So yeah, next time someone tells you illegal immigrants don't
get any federal money, you'll know the truth.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Well, keep in mind, it was never the vision of
our founding fathers to be getting into all these little
projects like this, right, and what spurs it on. At least,
what I'm able to understand, Rachel, and you, as an
investigative researcher and reporter, may have found the same thing
(06:55):
is that I'm looking at how much of this money
went to in actuality by votes?
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Oh, for sure. I mean, if if you're you know,
if you're looking to to vote based on who's going
to give you something for it, absolutely, you know, pandering
to a population like like immigrants and in this case
specifically undocumented immigrants who should not be voting, right, should
not be able to vote. Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna
(07:25):
say this this particular you know politician or or in
California's case, almost all of them, you know, are working
to get funding for projects that benefit me and my
family and my community.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Absolutely right, I mean it's always as even Nancy Pelosi said,
it's quit pro quote. I mean, she was raised on
that ever since she was seven years old, sneaking into
I think it was her father's mayoral office, and in
fact that I think at one time anecdotally they reported
that she even got on the phone and negotiated the deal.
(07:57):
Basically just said to the guy, Okay, what's in it
for us if we do this for you. I mean,
this is the corruption of the government, and it's been
going on for so long it's become such a tradition
that it's acceptable. Well, you know, how is thirty eight
trillion dollars in debt and just the interest alone is
now surpassing our military budget. How does that feel for you?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, no, it's it's obviously terrible. Right when we're talking
about healthcare spending, you know, it's it's a it's a
huge problem. You know, Medicare and Medicaid alone, those are
those are grossly overspent, not just for actual benefits, but
(08:39):
in terms of fraud as well, and in terms of
improper payments. Medicare and Medicaid are always the culprit for
the largest figure of improper payments every year. I think
it was eighty seven billion last year. I have to
double check that number, but they're always number one, right,
There's there's reason for that.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Well, Doze did some you know research, and of course
everybody was yelling and screaming about it, but you know,
look at the truth is the truth. And I was
watching the other day Elon Musk was just going down,
you know, when he was talking about Social Security. How
many people uh with birth dates that they haven't even
officially been born, but believe it or not, miraculously they
(09:20):
are receiving Social Security benefits. And I mean we're not
talking one or two as you say. I mean we're
talking millions adding into billions of dollars, and and and
the government just is kind of yawning over this, as
opposed to saying, wait a minute, this is the people's money.
This is uh, you know, grossly uh egregious to the
(09:40):
taxpayer to do this and put this burden upon them,
and then on top of that, well, let's shut down
the government deprive them of needed services on top of that, right.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Right, No, Yeah, that's it's uh, it's certainly a shame,
and it's it's you know, one of the reasons why
we highlight this every year. We talk about payments that
should be something that people should be able to gree
on immediately, that that shouldn't be a partisan issue at all.
If you eliminate the hundreds of billions of dollars in
improper payments every year that go to people for the
(10:14):
wrong amount, the wrong amount, for the wrong reason, or
to the wrong person, that right there, you know, saves
you so much, so much money that could go to
so many other things. But it's but it's it's all
getting wasted, and it's there doesn't seem to be any
interest in fixing that.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And Rachel, what's the chance of clawing that money back
once it goes out to these people, they spend the money,
So what are you going to do? Put them in jail?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
You know, a small portion gets gets clawed back every year,
but you're right, it's spent again if it went to
the wrong person for the wrong amount or for the
wrong reason. Sometimes the records aren't even accurate. They don't
even know who got the money. In some cases, the
records themselves can't even tell you who to go after,
and so that's that's obviously you can't claw back money
(11:00):
from someone you don't know who has it.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I mean, how is this acceptable? I mean why I
don't understand why the people just aren't screaming out of
their windows every night yelling at the government saying, wait
a minute, stop, this is absurd. I mean, you know,
we are, you know, basically we're fulling ourselves. Were basically broke,
but we're fooling ourselves because we do everything through through
(11:23):
data and through you know, made up paper and adding
another decimal point. You know, it's like no big deal,
you know kind of thing. But it's like this is unsustainable.
I mean, we're really leaving ourselves open on so many levels.
I mean even now the dollar, which has been under
(11:43):
attack for a long time, which has been the choice
of currency around the world. You know, you've got other
powers that are encroaching on that because of you know,
our lack of efficiency and what it says about our government.
I mean, how dais you know, it's like we can't
have no moral high ground to stand against these other
(12:03):
third world countries supposedly the way they conduct business when
the United States is almost as bad, if not worse.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Right, right, Absolutely, it's a real problem. And that is
why we open the books, are so passionate about what
we do. It's it's to put this information out there.
You know, you ask, why aren't people shouting from their
windows and demanding changes. I think a lot of people
don't know how bad it is. They don't want to know, right.
(12:33):
A lot of people, I think feel helpless, like they
don't know any what they can do about it. Right,
It's election day tomorrow in many places, and you can
go and vote, but you kind of sort of feel helpless,
like what am I supposed to do about it? Well,
pay attention. Go to start by going to your local
school board meetings. Some of these meetings that I've attended
(12:56):
as a local news reporter in the past, nobody tends
them and so the school boards don't expect anyone to
ask any questions. They feel they don't they're not accountable
to anyone. Go to your town board meeting, or your
city council meeting or your county board meetings and start
asking questions exactly and know where this money is going.
(13:18):
And that's why we put it out there on our
website for people to thank God.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And I've said this forever, you know, for Open the Books.
You know what was started decades ago with your original
founder and then you know, subsequently with the leadership that
followed and where you are right now. I mean, thank
God for all the great work that you've been doing.
And you know we we have been coming alongside and
(13:43):
supporting and wanting to be an information arm you know,
for Open the Books to make sure that our audience
is informed and they're aware of what's going on. Is
that you know, their lying eyes and their own gut
instincts is you know, is telling them the truth, and
that is that our government is inefficient. Uh. You know
what Elon musk Uh, you know produced in terms of
(14:04):
some receipts early on and of course, you know the reaction,
particularly on the left. I mean that tells you everything
you need to know, is that the forces are strong,
they're diligent. Uh, they're not They're not about to give up,
you know, the goose that's laying golden eggs for them.
This is what has kept them in office, and it's
what has put a lot of pressure on we the people.
(14:27):
And uh, and why we're producing a government with this
kind of inefficiency and this kind of corruption.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Yeah, absolutely right. We're we're talking all the time about
the changes that that Congress needs to make, the bills
they need to pass. Why would they take money out
of their own hands?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
And so it's unfortunately, you know, one of these things,
it's it's it's not going to change as long as Congress, uh,
you know, has the choice to say yes or no,
uh to to that change. And we did see a
little bit with Dose right again coming and making those
changes without Congress. But you do need Congress because every
(15:09):
administration can just come in and and erase what the
previous administration did if it's not right, if it's not
in law, if they're allowed to just go back and
all the spending cuts they made last session. They can
bring those all back. And so yeah, I mean it
does start with reform with Congress, and so it does
(15:29):
start at the voting both right to electric exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
And we've got to stay on top of it, remain
vigilant because it's bad enough that you have you know,
Congress at times and I understand look at uh, you know, realistically,
they're in a tough situation because this government's too big,
it has grown. It is an immense bim myth that
they're trying to run here, but they do. They need
(15:55):
to have this sense of discipline and urgency to codify
this so that it minimizes the radical activist judges who
are now interfering in the process.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Right, well, sure, right exactly. You do you do while
there's lack of action from Congress, then we do see
more action again, like you said, from these judges who
are weighing in on things they never used to weigh
in on and of course deciding how our country is
run really in many instances because Congress won't act. And
(16:32):
so right, there's there's there's a lot of reform that's needed. Unfortunately,
it's not an overnight thing that can be solved and
you know, it starts with you know, the the younger
generation right where uh where.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
One of the things that that we did recently was
a report on students and student performance. You know, I
mentioned school boards and going to your school board meetings
and asking questions there about what what the district, the
school district is doing. You know, if our own students
are not performing well, they certainly can't compete with China.
(17:07):
They certainly aren't going to be informed enough to vote
to make solid voting choices at the booth. They're going
to just vote based on party, or they're going to
vote based on maybe who they think is cool, if
it was someone who was endorsed by you know, a
performing artist or something like that. And so we just
did this report on America's public education crisis.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I was going to ask you about that. Yeah, it's great,
Go ahead, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's it's it all comes down to education when we're
when we're talking about the the you know, where our
country is headed. So you know, the debate about public
school funding sometimes includes the assumption that that more funding
means better student outcomes. And so we challenged that and
we looked at thousands of school districts UH and found
(17:55):
that as pay for teachers and administrators increased, students scores
dropped on standardized tests. Yeah, we looked at almost thirteen
thousand school districts and we came to this conclusion. We
compared the twenty nineteen payroll to the twenty twenty three
payroll for teachers and administrators in each state, and of
course there's an increase in pay everywhere, but at the
(18:17):
same time, the change in each state's ranking by the
National Assessment of Educational Progress they measure reading and math
skills for fourth and eighth graders, those dropped in many cases.
We found that, you know, while many schools hope that
increasing their payroll will help their students perform better, there's
little evidence in the data support that claim. You know,
(18:39):
in fact, the opposite seems to be true on average.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Because the money didn't go into the classroom. Rachel exactly
went to the administrators, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
The BIB rules go up, but it is not associated
with higher test scores for those students. They're not seeing
the impact of that spending. That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
And this has been going on for decades. This isn't
something you know, you looked at twenty nineteen. But I
dare say, go ahead and run a line over the
last three decades and start watching that dynamic, because as
the administrative courses or the administrative line of public education
has grown, you start seeing the test scores reflecting it,
(19:19):
and a not positive direction.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
By the way, yeah, no, we actually went back to
nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
You can't go back, Okay, good.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
It's referred to as administrative bloat. So the number of
administrators at American schools increased by over seven hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Seven hundred percent had done down our kids.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
From nineteen fifty to two thousand and nine, and in
that same time, the number of teachers increased two one
hundred and fifty percent, and of course during that time,
student scores on the National Assessment's felt so in more
modern day, from twenty ten to twenty twenty two, the
number of administrative staff that rose by forty one percent
on top of the seven hundreds and now were at
(20:00):
seven hundred and forty one percent. Right, an overall school
employment only rose by ten percent, So you have this
administrative bloat of these people who are of course very
highly paid. In twenty twenty three, there were over eighty
eight hundred public school employees across the country who earn
salaries of at least two hundred thousand dollars. Those are
(20:23):
certainly not teachers. Those are administrators, and in many cases,
those are administrators that are not really having an impact
on students learning in the classroom. In many cases, they're
not even school principles or superintendents. In many cases, they're
sort of these new positions that you would not have
(20:44):
heard of even ten years ago. Baltimore is a perfect example.
Baltimore in twenty nineteen, their test scores ranked twenty second
among the twenty fifth largest cities, so they were three
from the bottom, so they're ranked twenty second. By twenty
four they had increased their salaries by forty three percent,
(21:04):
they still ranked twenty second, and so we looked at
their payroll. At less than half of their employees. Just
about almost half of their employees are listed as teachers
or principals. The other half are administrators, some in very
similar roles. There's the senior executive director of equity making
two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. There's also a director
(21:27):
of equity, a director of equity centered principal development. There
are five educational specialists of Equity. There's a staff associate
of Equity. There are directors of environmental health there in Baltimore,
each earning over one hundred and sixty thousand. There's a
senior project manager of environmental compliance, a supervisor of environmental compliance,
(21:49):
all making high six figures. So these are not positions
that are helping students. Students aren't you know, they're not
learning to read, or to write or to do math
on the hiring of any of these people. And they
continue school, just continue to do this, continue to hire these.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
It's a total scam. Angel I mean they they would
not pass the show what test in the open marketplace,
their business model would not last. But because it's a
government entity and they're able to get away with this.
I mean they go the E I. D. They're into
environmental issues and everything else, and of course, uh you know,
(22:29):
bringing in pornography into the classroom. I mean it's like
have we lost our minds? No? I mean who's who's
who's watching them? I mean why are they to you do? See?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Well? And that's why we we say all the time,
Like as I said earlier, you know, go ask questions
to your school board. Stand up at these meetings and
demand and demand answers to whether it's curriculum or spending
or hiring. They they are are accountable, you know if if.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Oh, but they don't think so they don't. I mean
you see you see sometimes where they're arresting parents. I mean,
so yes, go go and you know you may just
have to listen and it may be hard and uh,
but be careful because uh, they feel some sense of
empowerment and uh, you know, what they're doing to parents
is absolutely disgusting. But it starts, first of all, just
(23:25):
as you said, it starts with knowledge. That's power. You've
got to understand what they're doing. And and you're lying
eyes they're not lying to you. I mean the fact
that these uh pornographic books that they even try to
bring them to school board meetings and to read what's
in the libraries, uh, that their kids can be exposed to,
and then they don't even want to hear it.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, I mean, this is of course, that's that's one
one thing among one issue among them many many issues.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, right, But it's all it's all symptomatic of the
problem that exists. And we're only talking education. Yes, we
talked some other things, but it's it's a consistent model
of incompetency and acceptance here.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Sure, yeah, oh, of course, especially in you know, we're
talking about administrators and administrative bloat. But of course teachers
and teacher unions are incredibly powerful. It's it's incredibly difficult
to get you know, a tenured teacher removed, and they
know that, they know that they are protected, and they
(24:32):
sort of can do to a degree, you know, what
they want. You know, just going back to the data
when we were looking at there were there were some
success stories. While we saw you know, six states increase
their payroll by at least twenty three percent in the
time period we were looking at from twenty nineteen to
twenty twenty three, Virginia, Vermont, Oregon, Missouri, they all saw
(24:55):
student performance decrease and New Mexico saw no change. Only
Utah moved up very slightly in the rankings. But we
saw the converse in some cases. Miami Dade County Public
Schools in Florida, they had the second best exam scores
in twenty twenty four and they spent just about sixty
four hundred dollars on payroll per students the fifth lowest
(25:17):
among twenty twenty five cities among the twenty five largest cities,
and also in Florida Hillsboro County, those students they had
the fifth best exam scores among those cities, and the
district only spent fifty three hundred dollars on payroll per student.
That's the second lowest.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So they can be So it can be done, right, Rachel,
that's what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Absolutely, it can work. Yeah, and it's you know, it's
because those districts are investing in the right things.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Just increasing the dollar figure of what you're spending per
student means nothing. And we know that. We see that
where I am in New York and New York City,
we have the highest, if not one of one of
the highest, if not the highest spending per pupil on
students in New York City, and a huge portune of
(26:04):
students can't read or write at their grade level. So,
you know, I think, at what point are people going
to say, don't talk to me about spending per pupil.
It's a nonsense way of measuring success. I don't care
how low the spending per pupil is. What are you
spending it on Are you spending it on these administrators,
(26:26):
the director of equity, the assistant director of equity, the
senior executive director of equity. If so, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter for students and what they can achieve.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, if you can't attach it to a matrix that
has a direct effect on results, then it needs to
be gone. Right. You know, this isn't about warm and fuzzies.
You know, this is about producing a bottom line here
and then you know you speak that you're there in
New York. I mean, I was just again seeing this
morning that in Queens alone, you've got one hundred and
(26:59):
sixty different languguages that are spoken in the borough there, Absolute, Rachel,
how do you teach these kids with that kind of language,
different entuation? And when I was in California, we were
in a community that was mostly Hispanic, about seventy percent.
And you know, all it took was two kids in
the classroom to occupy the teacher's time and then the
(27:21):
rest of the kids were, you know, left to their
own devices because the teachers had to spend more time
with the two kids that couldn't speak English.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, that's that's that's the perfect example of where you
know districts and even portions neighborhoods of districts like New
York City is all one large school district. So you're
talking about Queens in particular, right, there has to be
a very large and there is, but there should be
more a large investment in these ESL classes English English
(27:49):
as a second language class, right, so that the students
who have English as their primary language are being taught
and then those who are not, who don't have English
as their first language, are being taught properly. And nobody's
sort of getting left behind there, either the English language
students or those who are learning English. Yeah, I mean
(28:11):
New York We are ranked I believe, thirty first from
this from the National Association of the Educational Association that
ranks the largest cities and then states. So talking about
New York State, we're ranked thirty first. California is ranked
(28:32):
forty third. And when you look at how people are paid,
California has about twenty eight hundred employees who made two
hundred thousand dollars or more in the schools. New York
has about fifteen hundred people making two hundred thousand dollars
or more in the schools. And again it's just you
see this metric all the time about per pupil spending
(28:53):
and how states or school districts need to raise their
per pupil spending, and it is really just a red
heiring for what really needs to be done to help
these students. It's nothings that were going to accomplished if
you keep going back to the same well over and
over again and not looking at the real problem.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Well again, what open the books is bringing to the
front here, ladies and gentlemen. Are the receipts? And is
this okay with you? Is acceptable? I mean this generation
that we're raising right now, I mean the odds are
against assist is also Rachel. Why when we talk about education,
why so many people are homeschooling these days? Right?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
You have a homeschooling increase. You also have an increase
in charter schools and parochial schools. States that give out
vouchers for those things for either for charter schools or
homeschooling are incredibly popular, you know, especially those that are limited,
those are they're gone immediately. You have these wait lists
(29:54):
of people looking to get vouchers to get their kids
out of public schools. And it is it's a very
Instead of the instead of the teachers' unions saying what
can we do to improve our schools, How can we
better serve our students and help them learn better? They're
they're fighting, right, They fight these voucher programs, they fight
(30:16):
the creation of charter schools. They fight, they fight it
tooth and nail and and that's obviously not the way
to help students.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
So it well, it's about their survival, not the students.
The priorities are off and that's, unfortunately, is the nature
of how the union works, and it's about survival for them.
It's not about the kids. So they're upside down in
their priority and uh, you know this is why there's
so much pressure now and conversation about dismantling, you know,
(30:51):
the public education system. I mean, it's not in the constitution. Uh,
you know, we have, we we should on all levels, Rachel.
You know, things we touched on, whether it's healthcare, immigration,
America can do better than this, but we can't do
better if the interest is for you know, a politician,
(31:14):
a political interest, and not for the interest of the
immigrant who comes here. That basically comes here illegally. You know,
we got millions of illegals coming into the country, so
they operate in the shadows. I mean, how is that
successful for them? I mean they have to rely on
a sanctuary state. And then what they're finding out is
(31:36):
as the nets are going out to get these people
the good I mean, you know, the terrible immigrants who've
come in with felonies and you know what have you
and have killed American citizens and all. Well, then these
people are caught up in the net, and everybody's upset.
But you know, even you know, our Homeland Security is
(31:56):
saying seventy percent of those caught are felons. There's going
to be thirty percent that are caught in that. You
might say, well, they're not as bad. Well, but you
broke the law. You came here illegally. We don't want
you to be here illegally. Want you to be here
to be a legal citizen there so that you can contribute,
that your children, your future family can be a part
(32:16):
of this incredible mosaic of human potential and energy and
success that we call the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
And of course, and back to our whole you know
what we do and open the books. Is the spending
associated with all of it? Yes, right, So you know,
it's one thing to promise all of these wonderful things
that America has to offer. In America has a lot
of wonderful things to offer, and it is a country
(32:46):
of immigrants, right, We are country immigrants. We all came
from somewhere else legally of course, right. And so that's
of course the distinction here, and it's one of the
reasons why we do have such such debt and spending
out of control because, as you mentioned earlier, the country
(33:07):
was never intended by the founders to do or the
federal government was never intended to do all the things
that it does and pay for all the things that
it does.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Right, you know, well, well they're they're they're writing checks
on our backs. They're not paying for anything. I mean,
if it was their money, it'd be a different ball
game altogether. But it's our money, and so they can
make promises do whatever, and their policies are what is
created this, uh, this environment of in affordability that we're
(33:36):
dealing with, that you're dealing with, particularly in New York.
I mean, you know, my friend Liz Peek's Fox News contributor.
You know she's telling me and you could verify it
that you know, a one bedroom in New York is
now five thousand dollars a month. That that's how do
you afford that? Now?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
You don't? You don't, right, And that's why there's there's
people flee New York for other states. You know, Florida
up is the number one uh place where you will
find transplanted New Yorkers, the Carolinas.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
You know, we we welcome by the way, I'm I'm
in Florida now, I've been here for fourteen years. We
welcome people from New York where we say leave that
New York state of mind in the politics back at
the border, do not bring it here, you know, because
we operate a little bit differently as you cited. I mean,
we have a successful track record with education, you know,
managing you know, the illegal immigration situation, all things considered.
(34:30):
I mean, it's hard for anybody to get a deluge
of illegal immigrants and find a way to manage it perfectly.
But Ron DeSantis and our officials here are pretty vigilant
about these things to make sure that you know, they're
being wise and prudent about the people's money.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Right, you know, one of the things that that you know,
as I mentioned earlier about Medicare and Medicaid being the
worst spender of improper payments and and the what was
what was the figure I think I gave in terms
of illegal immigrants getting that that uh spending for medicaidor
I think.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I think it's forty two. I think it's forty.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Seven billion, twenty seven million dollars on emergency MEDICAIDE services.
Right for those who are who are here you know, illegally.
You know that's not to say that, you know, we
can't we can't blame illegal immigrants for everything, right, this
is this is a problem we created on our own.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
No, no, you're you're exactly right. I don't blame I
don't blame the people. I mean, look at if I
was outside and I thought, hey, you know, it was
outside America, and I wanted to do something for my family,
and and you had an administration and says, hey, when Benitos,
you know, we got T shirts, we got Obama phones,
we got all We'll take care of you. Hey, I'm
I'm I'm on the boat, I'm on the plane, I'm
(35:49):
whatever it is for the sake of I don't blame them,
but the fact of the matter is is that, uh,
you know, we had irresponsible governance, right and uh and
shame on them, and we're having to clean clean all
this mess up in in in the midst of a
very uh divided government. Uh, you know, instead of just saying,
(36:12):
look at this problem, saying look at we've got to
do right by everybody, by the citizen, by the immigrant,
you know, and if we do that then it'll be
win win. But you know, right now, they're not they're
not ready to really deal with this in a responsible
way because that's not the way our government works.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Unfortunately, Yes, we have we we have a larger issue
with these uh these safety net programs. We have a
large larger issue with mandatory spending, especially healthcare spending in
the in the US. It's it's grossly inefficient and wasteful.
We recently did a report where we looked at Medicare
(36:51):
Part D, just one small portion of Medicare. This is
the prescriptions and what is costing taxpayers for prescriptions under
Medicare Part D. For sure, people are not paying this
out of their pocket. They're certainly not paying it when
they have private insurance. So we looked at just the
top one thousand prescribing doctors, and in twenty twenty three
(37:16):
they wrote eleven billion dollars worth of prescriptions. Woll you know,
we saved nine billion on the July recision package. So
it doesn't even it doesn't even cover one year of
Medicare prescriptions. So tackling something like that, obviously, again is
one of these very large issues that you can't solve overnight,
(37:37):
but is worth what is worth attacking?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Well, yeah, I've long said look at Obamacare, supposedly the
Affordable Healthcare What a misnomer that was. That was like,
you know, this whole ruse that Biden tried to sell
us on, you know, the Inflation Reduction Act, and I
mean all these things say the Democrats speak, you know,
double speak. What they tell you it is is the
(38:01):
exact opposite. As long as you realize what they're telling
you and it's the exact opposite, you'll maintain some sanity.
Otherwise you're going to get brain bruised in the process.
Because that has been consistent with them, is what they
tell you one way, it's not, it's exact opposite. And
so the Affordable healthcare. We knew from the very beginning.
Anybody that had half a brain could do some math, said,
(38:22):
this is not going to pencil out it. And it
hasn't all for supposedly thirty million people that were part
of that donut hole. And I've been asking the question
all these years. Oh God, shame on me for doing this,
you know, but inquiring minds we don't want to know.
And my question is, and I ask all these officials,
I go, so of the thirty million that you estimated
(38:45):
that you kept quoting time and time again, how many
of them are still on Obamacare? How many of them
actually went to Obamacare? Well, we know Obamacare, what did
it get up to? About about eight million, maybe twelve
million people, so it barely made it dent. And most
of the people that are thirty million that they said,
there was a lot of those people just said I
(39:06):
don't want your staking healthcare, right, you know. And so
I mean, this whole deal was such a such a farce,
and it was one it was, you know, built on lies,
and now here it is. I mean, it's so affordable
and such a great plan that it requires government subsidy.
And it's one of the reasons why our government is
closed right now.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
That's exactly right. Yeah, I was. I was just going
to say, to bring it back to where we are now, right,
That's why. That's why the government is closed over of
the debate of this this this program that is not
is not certainly not worth closing the government over.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, Rachel, I see, I maintain, whether it's healthcare, you know,
Medicaid that we're talking about, education, go down the line, immigration,
We're better than this. And if you got people together.
I mean, it's almost like I want to say, I
don't want to politicians involved. We're going to have, you know,
a normal group of citizens get together in a room
(40:03):
and design a world class, you know, healthcare program, and
we're going to negotiate. I mean's Trump's been doing. He's
negotiating you know, drug prices. He did that, you know
before he left office. Of course, we were able to
realize benefits that Joe Biden said, see what I've done
for you going. You didn't do that, that was Trump.
You just happen to be in office. You get to
(40:25):
claim some sort of credit, But it was Donald Trump
that did that. You don't know how to negotiate those things.
But Trump has been continuing to negotiate drug prices. But
that's only part of the you know, part of the
elements of what needs to be dealt with. And you've
got to get all these middlemen, these what prescription what
do they called benefit PBMs or something managers. Yeah, they
(40:47):
get they get a special cut out of everything for
what they didn't do anything. But they're just in the
middle collecting money like trolls.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
That's exactly right. Yeah, the thousand doctors that we looked
at with these prescriptions that cost eleven billion dollars. Oh, absolutely,
I mean these are these are money makers. The top
prescriber in twenty twenty three was responsible for one hundred
and sixty million dollars worth of drugs paid by Medicare
part dy. The second person was responsible for one hundred
(41:17):
and thirty seven million dollars. You know the reason you said,
you know, what would happen if we got regular people
in a room and ask them to design these things?
Of course it would look far different from what we
have here. What we have is, you know, from years
of having special interests and lobbyists and donors and industry
(41:43):
impacting how our government is run, and it is it
is certainly not how the founders would have expected it
to be, and it is it is. It is certainly
something that every American should should be aware of and
should shouldn't you know, read about and learn about and
go to openbooks dot com and we're reporting and you'll
(42:05):
be shocked every day what you see that that we've written,
that we've that we've investigated, all through public records. By
the way, this is all spending that the federal government
and state government and local governments are required to report.
This is your money. They're required to tell you how
they're spending it. And so yeah, we make it digestible
(42:26):
so people can be informed and maybe come up with
some good ideas to pitch to the government for once.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Ladies and gentlemen. Rachel makes it seem so easy. It's
not easy because the resistance is thick, it's long, and
they're well practiced. You know, there's all kinds of foyer
requests that are involved. You've got to go to the
courts to get this information. Uh, you know, open the books.
You know, hey, hey i'm here, I'm from I'm with
(42:56):
Open the Books. It's almost like they just they slam
the door in their face. Then I want to talk
to him because they know, you know, they're there to
find out the information which we're entitled by our constitution.
They owe us this information and open the books. God
bless them, and God bless you know, Tom Comburn, Adamanjiaski,
(43:16):
the team over the years, John Hart, now your self, Rachel,
everybody that's involved in holding to the cause on behalf
of the American people, because if not you, then who.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Well, thank you, Bill. This is very kind of you.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
And right, I'm honest about it. I mean, I just
I mean going back to the Coburn years and everything
and just saw it was going on. I mean, it
was just to me, it just is so much common sense.
But what's happened over the years because of all the
work that you've done, it exposes the fraud, the delinquency,
the corruption, and the American people look at if you
(43:52):
want to have in America that your great grandchildren can enjoy,
your grandchildren can enjoy, you've got to take a stand
and say enough is enough. Because this is a government
of for and by we the people. And guess what
it's not. It's not reflecting that crado that is in
our Declaration of Independence or our constitution, is it no?
Speaker 3 (44:14):
And you mentioned Senator Coburn. Absolutely, you know, he helped
found open the books, and he was one of those
unique people who refused to just go along to get along.
He put up a fight against everything that he that
he believed was wrong, the wrong spending, the wrong programs,
(44:35):
the wrong way to do it. And he was he
was a man all all unto himself. He was. He
was certainly unique. Jony Ernst, Senator Ernst is similar in
her fight to say, we're not going to just continue
funding this. We're not going to u increase this spending.
(44:56):
We're this isn't something that should be funded to begin with.
This is waste or fraudulent or abusive. And unfortunately they
are very few and far between, and there need to
be more Senators Coburn and senators are in Congress. We
need more of those people.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Well, without a doubt, we need to increase the megaphone
and the pronouncement. And it's up to we the people
to make those changes to get the right people in
there so that we can have an efficiently run government.
And look at this is not easy. This has been
going on for decades. They're well entrenched as you realize,
(45:36):
and for them to without any kind of conscience whatsoever,
to run up a bill of thirty eight trillion dollars
and just kind of shrug over it, and you just go, well,
you know, we just you know, just because America keeps
you know, it just keeps on living, doesn't mean that
it will always be this way, right.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Well, I hope not in terms of spending out of control,
I hope not. You know, there has to be some
into it. We can't keep borrowing from China, which we
are doing, right. We can't keep kicking the can down
the road. You know, we say our children will pay
for it. It's not just our children, it's our grandchildren and
(46:17):
our great grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
We're borrowing from them. They're not even born yet, born yet,
I mean, and it is the result.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
And I borrowed from his children, right absolutely.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
And they're not even getting Social Security checks to see
other people somehow, you know, with the right I guess
birthdate or whatever scam they've been able to work, you know,
and like Elon Musk, has you know, has anybody even
called them to say, hey, you know, we may have
the wrong birthday here. What is your right birthday? You know,
(46:49):
it can't be thirty thousand, you know, threey ten. I'm sorry,
there must have been a type or something. Help me
understand why you're getting a check, right, Yeah, we've.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Seen this, especially with the COVID nineteen funding, you know,
during the pandemic that was given out so freely, no
questions asked. PPP loans money to businesses that don't exist,
to people that don't exist. Yeah, and if Social Security
checks can be given to people who are long dead
(47:18):
or who have yet to be born, clearly there's a
little bit of record keeping that needs to be done here.
It's it's very basic stuff, right, it's it is. It
is very upsetting when you when you think about the
lack of care that is that is taken when overseeing
our money. There's there's no care in making sure that
(47:39):
that money is being spent prudently. You certainly wouldn't act
that way with your money. You certainly wouldn't hand it
out to to anybody who asks. Right. If someone calls
you and asks for money and claims to you know
you owe them a bill. You want some proof. You
want to see a bill. What is it for? What
did I buy? What did it go to? Right? And
there's there's no similar responsibility taken when it comes to
(48:02):
American tax payer money.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Well, Rachel O'Brien, we got to leave it there. I'm
thankful for you. And as I mentioned Open the Book,
she's a deputy public policy editor investigative journalists for openthbooks
dot com. As we wrap things up, I'm gonna give
you the final word. We've got about a minute left,
you know, bring us home and encourage the people what
they can do to activate and stay in touch. And
(48:24):
knowledge is power, and you've got a lot of information
that will empower the everyday American right there at open
the Books dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
So go ahead, Yeah, I mean our website. We have
a newly revamped website. We've been around for over a
decade now. But you can go to our website and
find your state or your municipality. You can search for
the companies that have been paid by your city or
your state. You can know who's getting paid, you can
know what the pueral is of public employees, and so
(48:55):
there's a lot of great detail on our website. Also
our substack substack dot com Open the Books, that's where
we post our long form writing. Check it out, and
I hope people find it helpful because that's our job
here is to inform and put every dime online in
real time. That's our motto.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
I will say this, Rachel, sometimes when I go to
open the books, I have to have a stiff drink
with me. I just mean, just me, That's all I'm saying. Rachel,
thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate
all the help and information. And take care be well.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
Thank you, Bill, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Hey, our thanks to Rachel O'Brien, the deputy Public policy
editor investigative journalists for openthooks dot com, and thank you
for joining us. May God bless you and keep you.
May He make his face shine upon you. May He
be gracious unto you and give you peace. Take care.
God bless
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