05-1-25 - *FULL SHOW* US-Ukraine Deal; TABOR Under Assault; Religious Charters

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Very much grateful for your company. Every morning or whenever morning,
whatever mornings, you have some time for me. I just
have to spend a minute on this, even though I
don't want to. I think he'll be obvious why I
don't want to. You know, we heard that story yesterday
covered a lot already on KOA, but about the death

(00:22):
of John Elway's friend and agent and business partner. Jeff
Spurbeck is his name, and I don't know any more
than what we got off the news yesterday, which was
that he fell off a golf cart that John Elway
was driving and hit his head on the asphalt and died.

(00:43):
Elway put out a statement yesterday and I'm just going
to share it with you. I'm absolutely devastated and heartbroken
by the passing of my close friend, business partner, and agent,
Jeff Spurbeck. There are no words to truly express the
profound sadness I feel with the sudden law of someone
who has meant so much to me. My heart and
deepest sympathies go out to Jeff's wife, Corey, his children, Carly,

(01:07):
Sam and Jackson, and everyone who knew women loved him.
Jeff will be deeply missed for the loyalty, wisdom, friendship,
and love he brought into my life and the lives
of so many others. And I'm not doing like celebrity
gossip or whatever, so you know, I'm not really going
to add much. I just felt like I need to

(01:30):
acknowledge it. And you know, obviously we know what Elway
means to the community here in Denver and what he's
meant to the Denver Broncos in Colorado for very very
many years. I note that Spurback and Elway did a
bunch of businesses together, including a winery, and I think
they I think maybe they sold the winery.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I don't remember, but in any case, and I'm also you.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Know, for me personally, having been affiliated with the John
Elway group of cars dealers so long, I've had the
chance to meet Elway a time or two. I've had
the chance to you know, visit with him very briefly
at his house, and you know, I just I don't
want bad things to happen to anybody, but even put
us put aside the you know the fact.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
That it's l Way, I just.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Can't imagine what that must feel like for for anybody
who might feel like their responsibility for the death of
a close friend. And I have no idea. I'm not
close enough to l Way to ever talk to him
about this. Okay, we're not friends. We're not friends.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Don't have a.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Cell phone number, right, I just have met him at
time or two.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
That's all.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
I can't and frankly don't want to imagine what this is,
what this might be like for somebody who, as I said,
that might feel that that he that he's responsible for
the death of a friend. And I hope, I hope

(03:06):
John Elway doesn't feel that way.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
And I don't.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
I don't know whether he is responsible. I have no idea.
I don't really know the story.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
I don't know, but I don't want anybody to go
through life unnecessarily inappropriately, if that's the case, feeling that
they cause their friend's death.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I hope it doesn't. I hope it doesn't happen
with him, all right.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I just I just saw something come by on Fox News,
and I don't know yet if it's true, but they
are saying that Mike Waltz might be out as national
security advisor. That's interesting, that's real interesting, all right. Chad

(03:56):
is just bringing this in from twenty four to seven news,
my Waltz out as National Security Advisor according to multiple reports,
as Deputy Alex Wong, who's a highly respected guy, is
also reported to be leaving his post. I don't know
what to make of this yet. It's way too early,
I will say. Let me put it this way. Okay,
let me put it this way. Waltz was kind of

(04:18):
the least isolationist and least maga of all of the
senior national security and foreign policy team around Trump and
when that whole signal Gate thing happened. So I'll just
remind you of the key details. A bunch of classified
information was shared on a signal chat, which is not

(04:41):
approved for classified information. Pete Hegsath shared a whole bunch
of classified information on a chat that was inappropriately set
up created by Mike Waltz.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
It wasn't set up by Pete.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Hegsath, although it did seem like Pete Hegsath set up
a different one with other people and shared classified information
on the other one, including sharing classified information with his wife.
But that story just sort of vanished, like the mainstream
media realized that nobody got fired over the first one,
which is which was their goal. So they weren't going

(05:18):
to spend a lot of time on the second one.
They just covered it very briefly, and to me, it
just proved that Pete Hegsath shouldn't be in the job.
But of course with that first one, it was Mike
Waltz who set it up. And I said, at the time,
you know, some people were talking about should Mike Waltz go?
And I said, look, he shouldn't have set that up,

(05:39):
But he also isn't the one who shared classified information,
and he might have just set up something that he
thought was some kind of you know, unclassified coordination chat
that was easier than going through the classified communications networks
that the DoD and other parts of government have. And
I said at the time, I sure hope Mike Waltz

(06:02):
doesn't get fired, because he's the best of the bunch.
He's the one with the clearest sense of right and
wrong and who the bad guy is.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
And we're going to talk a little bit later in
the show. Actually we will talk quite.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Soon in the show about the fact that Trump and
Zelenski or more actually they weren't direct involved in the
signing of a deal. But you will recall I'm tying
together a lot of stories from the recent past here
that a few days ago Trump and Zelenski met by
themselves and with a very dramatic photo that I think

(06:35):
will win some awards of the two of them sitting
face to face, like knee to knee, with their chairs
right up against each other, right, you know. And I
assume they were talking about this minerals deal and getting
a peace process back on track.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
And all that.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
And so yesterday we learned that the minerals deal and
a related investment fund deal were in fact signed. So
I'm going to get to that in a minute. So
that that's great new news. I've always I've thought of,
of course, Mike Waltz's trumpy, right, he wouldn't have been
in the administration at all if he weren't. I thought
he was the best one of the group. I thought

(07:11):
he had the clearest sense of who the enemy is,
namely Vladimir putin China as well, and he just he
understood what's right, what's wrong, who's right, who's wrong, who
the enemy is, whereas Pete haig Seth I don't think
understands very much in terms of big picture, like he's

(07:31):
good on DEI and he's good. He's not a dummy.
Pete haig Seth isn't a dummy. He just doesn't have
relevant experience for that job. I think Mike Waltz did
have relevant experience for his job, and it looks now
like he's out. I think that's bad news for the country.
I think that's bad news for the world. I think
it's good news for our enemies. We will see who

(07:52):
Donald Trump picks to replace Mike Waltz if this story
is true that he is out.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
I suspect that it is, and we will.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
See who he gets replaced he gets replaced with. I'll
tell you naw, I'll throw out a long shot name.
I'll throw out a long shot name to you.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Ready for this? Elbridge Colby, Elbridge Colby.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
I'm gonna throw that name out to you as somebody
who might be the next national security advisor. He was
going to be some kind of assistant national security advisor
with a particular focus on China.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Right.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
Elbridge Colby is a guy and I know him a
little bit. He's a guy with a very very intense
focus on China as the key enemy. And he's very
very smart. There's been a little pushback on him because
he's he has seemed to be a little bit softer
on Iran than a lot of people might like. And
I don't yet have an opinion on that because I

(08:45):
haven't read a lot of his Iran stuff. Could be right,
could be wrong. But that's one name to look at.
The other name I'm gonna throw out at you to
keep an eye on. Who might Trump pick as new
national security advisor? What about Katie McFarland. Those two are
pretty tight. They like each other. She's been an enormous

(09:06):
supporter of Trump's even going through the election and all
that will And I like Katie McFarlane and I think
she would be an excellent national security advisor.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
So we'll keep an eye on it. We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Security advisor Mike Waltz and other staffers are out at
the National Security Council, sources confirmed to Fox News. Fox
News confirmed that walt and his deputy Alex.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Wang were purged.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
That's a very Soviet kind of word, or maoist kind
of word. They were purged Thursday. That's today. Walts, who
previously served as a Florida congressman and as a decorated
combat Green Beret has come under fire from Democrats and
critics since March, when The Atlantic magazine's editor in chief
published a first hand account of getting added to a

(09:52):
signal group chat of top national security advisors. YadA, YadA, YadA.
So look, Waltz did make a big mistake there. He
never should have created that group. He should have known
who he was adding to the group. He is not
the one who shared classified information on the group. I
actually think the much bigger offense was Pete heg Seth's.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
But Trump was always tighter with heg.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Seth because heg Seth was on TV and Trump loves
people who have been on TV. Mike Waltz was just
a congressman who was a guest on TV. But heg
Seth had a job on TV, which must mean he's
better for a national security job than Mike Waltz. That's
how the brain of Donald Trump works in any case.

(10:38):
In any case, it does seem pretty clear at this
point that Hegg said that Waltz is out, And you know,
we'll just keep an eye on who Donald Trump nominates
to fill in that to fill that job. So I'm
gonna see if I can make this work. So yesterday
we learned, and I think this is fantastic news. Yes,

(11:00):
we learned that the government of the United States and
the government of Ukraine reached an agreement on a minerals deal,
and they signed a minerals deal, and they signed another
related deal that creates an investment fund called the United
States Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. And I don't have all

(11:22):
the details in front of me, but basically, this thing
is going to give the United States the ability to
profit from Ukraine's sales of various natural resources and not
just you know, hard minerals in the ground, and they
have stuff like aluminum and graphite, and we think they
have rare, rare minerals as well, but potentially also oil.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
And natural gas.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
And so it is still unclear to me, although it
doesn't matter very much for my purposes, whether what the
United States is going to get is the actual minerals
or cash from a share of Ukraine selling the minerals
and oil and gas, or.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Both, or maybe the US will have a choice. I
just don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
The National Review says an established investment fund would create
a fifty to fifty partnership between Ukraine and the US
and would assist the embattled nations reconstruction and development efforts
following its war with Russia.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
So this is a win for both sides.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Right, the Ukraine will likely be able to develop mineral
resources with the help of America that they would not
be able to develop without America, and certainly not able
to develop as quickly. Right, you get the American engineers
in there, the American miners, the American petroleum engineers, they're

(12:46):
going to be able to develop stuff much faster than
Ukraine could by themselves, and actually faster than Ukraine could
working with Europe. We're just better at it. So it's
going to help Ukraine develop this stuff. They'll tell the
minerals to whoever needs them. They'll take in some billions
of dollars, and Ukraine will be able to use that
money to develop their to redevelop their country, and the

(13:10):
US will get its share of this to recover to
recoup costs that have been born so far by the
American taxpayer to help Ukraine defeat Russia.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
So it's a win for everybody.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
What's going to be interesting now, because the deal does
not include explicit security guarantees, it's going to be an
interesting thing to see just how Trump plays this rhetorically.
But you would think that since Trump is motivated by
financial considerations more than anything else, and that's.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
His own business life.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
But also when he thinks about the country, right, he
talks about trade as if.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
We're getting ripped off when we're not.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
But he's all about making money, including money for the country,
and so to the extent that he thinks that getting
these things developed will make money for the United States,
and it will. I mean that's true, it definitely will.
He is gonna have some focus on that, and it
will make him much more interested in getting this war

(14:12):
stopped and protecting Ukraine, especially because a lot of these
minerals are in eastern Ukraine in parts that are either
controlled by Russia or within reach of Russia. So we're
gonna have to see one last thing on this. Trump
made some comments about about how Russia is gonna have
to be pretty careful. They better be very careful what

(14:32):
they do when there are Americans in there working on
developing mines and maybe mills and maybe processing plants, who knows,
and maybe oil and gas.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Right, And that's true.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
I mean, you wouldn't want to be Vladimir putin on
the day that the first American engineer gets killed. But
you might also not want to be the first American
engineer to get killed. And I don't know how many
American private companies are going to want to be there
functioning as a trip wire.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
So we'll see how it all plays out.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
But I am very, very glad that this deal got signed,
and I'm grateful to Donald Trump that he kind of
pushed away his personal dislike for Vladimir Zelenski and agreed
to do this deal. I'm gonna jump into this story
a bit here, and I want to be a little
bit careful with it. I don't want people to think
that I'm insulting somebody for having mental health issues. So

(15:28):
that's not what this is about. So here's the headline
from a remarkable bit of reporting from Jesse Paul over
at the Colorado Sun. And actually the headline, the headline
kind of buries the lead. Okay, the headline doesn't cover
what's really important in this article. So the headline is

(15:50):
Yadira Caraveo's former aides say they were mistreated and traumatized
by the Colorado congresswoman. So you may recall that in
twenty twenty two, Yadira Caraveo, the Democrat, beat Barb Kirkmeyer,
who was the Republican nominee, to become the first ever
member of Congress to represent Colorado's brand new eighth congressional district.

(16:13):
We had seven, we got an eighth because of increased
population into.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
The state of Colorado.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
She lost her reelection very narrowly to Republican Gabe Evans,
who holds the seat now, and Yadira Caraveo has announced
that she is going to run to try to win
her seat back. Now, let me just say all el
not her seat, but to win the seat back, all
else being equal, and when you hear this article you

(16:41):
will understand why all else is very much not equal.
But all else having been equal, I would have thought
that Yadira Caraveo would have a very strong chance of
winning that election next year, because it's Colorado, and because
Trump is president right now, and Coloraden's demonstrated in Donald

(17:02):
Trump's first mid term in twenty eighteen that you know,
suburban Coloradin's in particular, and that district is not There's
plenty of rural stuff in that district, but it also
includes Thornton Westminster.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know, suburban Adams County stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
In twenty eighteen, the suburbanites just ran out and voted
for every Democrat they could find. It didn't matter if
you had if you had to d buy your name,
they voted for you.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
That That's how we got Jenna Griswold.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Right, they were completely un discriminating. Right, you could have
put up not just a Ham sandwich, but you could
have put up an old Ham sandwich with mold growing
on it, and they did with Jenna Griswold. And these
suburbanites in Colorado just hate Trump so much they took
it out on every Republican and they voted for every Democrat.

(17:52):
So my thinking was, Yadira Caraveo would be a little
better than fifty to fifty to win the seat. Even
though she's not an incumbent anymore, she still has the
name recognition and it's a.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Swing district in YadA, YadA, YadA.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
But now let's move on to this, and here's the
sub head of the article. This is the important part. Again,
this is remarkable reporting by Jesse Paul coloradosun dot com.
The Thornton Democrat twice appeared to attempt suicide last year

(18:26):
in situations witnessed by staffers while she was running for
reelection and serving in Congress. Aides asked that a safety
plan be implemented, but say they were rebuffed and given
an ultimatum. This is a crazy story. And again, I

(18:46):
just want to make something really clear. Lots of people
deal with mental health issues. I don't dislike people because
they deal with mental health issues. I want them to
get help. I don't want someone to commit suicide. I
don't want someone to die, but someone who was in
a position where they might commit suicide. And beyond that
some of the conversation about how she treats her employees.

(19:12):
I'm sorry, but Yadira Caraveo is not fit to be.
Not only not fit to be in Congress, shouldn't be
a candidate. Should get out of whatever this ego thing
is that's driving her and get on with getting help
and focus on getting help for God's sake. She's a doctor.

(19:34):
She should know better than so let me share a
little more in this article.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
US Rep.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Dadera Caraveo's behavior last year while serving in Congress and
running for a reelection was so frightening and traumatizing to
staff that AIDS proposed a safety plan requesting that sharp
objects be removed from her offices. They also wanted assurances
that subordinates would not be responsible for talking her quote

(20:06):
through suicidal thoughts or quote keeping her company during a crisis.
The plan, a copy of which was obtained by The
Colorado Sun, was dismissed, and staffers say they were told
they had a choice either commit to contending with her
mental health challenges or resign within a day. This story
is based on nearly a year of reporting in conversations

(20:28):
with more than twenty people, including interviews with four caraveoaids,
as well as documents and audio recordings from first responders
obtained by the Sun through both public records requests and
from a law enforcement source. Wow now, a little later
in this article, it says that in fact, let me

(20:52):
let me go, let me go find this right now,
Let me go find this right now. The Sun first
learned about how care Rao's mental health issues were affecting
her AIDS in the lead up to the last election
on the Saturday before election day last year, so that
would be what three days before the election. The Sun

(21:14):
found out about the apparent February eighth, twenty twenty four
suicide attempt and I'll come back to the details of
that in a second. After obtaining an emergency mental health
hold application from a law enforcement soorts. The document showed
that responders were called by AIDS two Caraveos home that
night and found her expressing suicidal thoughts. A police officer

(21:36):
wrote in the application the Caraveo said she had taken
nineteen sleeping pills and was drinking alcohol, and she said
something to the effect of this will put me to
sleep for a while. The then congresswoman was placed on
a mental health hold and transported to Saint Anthony North
Hospital by the Thornton Fire Department.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Wow. Now, The Sun.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
Asked some questions about this, and Caraveo's team responded with
a cease and desist letter from a lawyer that was
sent to the Sun the day before the election, threatening
a lawsuit if The Sun went ahead with the story.
They're a little wishy wash you hear about whether they

(22:25):
would have gone ahead with it, but they say they
were unable to complete their reporting before election day. After all,
they did get this letter a day before. They were
unable to complete the reporting before election day. And then
this next bid is kind of interesting. As a matter
of journalistic decision making. When Caraveo lost to Evans and
stepped out of the public eye, the Sun ceased reporting

(22:48):
on the incidents, But in light of Caraveo's decision to
run for Congress again, the Sun resumed the reporting, which
led to interviews with the former staffers.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
The former staffers said they were also driven to come.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Forward now in part because of a recent interview Caraveo
did with Colorado Public Radio and how she characterized her
two apparent suicide attempts and situations witnessed by aids. The
staffer said she downplayed those events. Caraveo, speaking on the radio,
characterized the response to the February incident as a staffer

(23:22):
misunderstanding a text message she sent about not waking up
in time to keep her schedule. The following day, she
told now, listen, listen, how crazy this is, and I
mean literally crazy. She told CPR Colorado Public Radio, that
she took enough sleeping pills to leave her a quote
just shy of those are her words, needing to be

(23:43):
put in intensive care.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
What there's a quote from Caraveo.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
I remember going online and ever the doctor looking up
the dose that would land me in intensive care and
taking just shy of that. So she's okay, So just
imagine this. She's a doctor. She's a doctor. This isn't
Ross or Shannon or your kid or she's a freaking doctor.

(24:13):
So she goes online and looks up the dose of
I think it's adavan laaza pam is the generic, and
goes apparently and looks up how much of this would
I need to take to end up in intensive care?
And I don't know, maybe it says twenty pills. So
she decides to take nineteen because she's such a good doctor.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
What what as for another incident?

Speaker 1 (24:44):
April sixth, twenty twenty four, that's the other one that
is being characterized as a suicide attempt or potentially a
suicide attempt. Caraveo said that she was dealing with a
foot injury and she took a quote handful of medication,
which led to an ambulance being called to her congressional
office in a trip to the emergency room. A North

(25:04):
Metro Fire Rescue report obtained by the Sun said first
responders were called to her office in North Glen to
care for a person suffering a medical crisis. Emergency responder
radio traffic archived on a website called Broadcastify, indicates the
call was for an overdose where a woman had reportedly

(25:25):
taken about twenty lorazepam, a benzo diazepine that's prescribed to
treat anxiety and sleep disorders. And as I mentioned to
you a moment ago that is commonly known by the
brand named Adavan, and the Sun has confirmed that the
woman that they were talking about was Caravel. On that day,
she was supposed to meet in her district office with

(25:46):
local Latino leaders and then going to an event at
another office actually, but the other office was in the
same building, but so the meeting with the Latino leaders
was cut short when the medication she had taken started
to take effect.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
You imagine that you're sitting.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
There with a member of Congress and you're having a
conversation about whatever you're having a conversation about, and then
suddenly she starts acting all weird, all spaced out or
high or or falling asleep or whatever it would be.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
But whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
That medicine kicked in and they had cut the meeting short,
and then first responders arrived and she was taken to
the hospital. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, there's also
a question out there. I guess it was a question
from the Sun that Caraveo didn't answer. Did you take
these drugs? Did you take these pills before you drove

(26:41):
to your office, in which case, if the effect of
the medication had started to kick in while you were driving,
you could have killed somebody.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
She didn't answer that question, Oh.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
My Gosho said, many times, my staffers were the only
ones I felt like I could be open with and
not pretend to be okay all the time, because that
was the rest of my life pretending I was okay.
I know that it placed undue pressure on them, and
I've apologized to them many times, but also I needed
them to understand and acknowledge that it was an illness

(27:17):
and that I couldn't completely control how I was reacting
to that illness until I finally got help. And again,
let me just interject here, now, this person has no
business being in Congress or running for Congress. It doesn't
mean I don't like her, okay. In fact, as a politician,
I don't like her, but not because of this.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
I don't like her.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Because she's what the Democratic Party is here in the
twenty first century.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
And I don't like that. Back to the article.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Former staffers who spoke with the son said they never
received an apology.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Some said they.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Had to enter therapy to cope with what they experienced
while working for Caraveo Woo who staffers said they felt
mistreated by Caraveo soon after beginning their jobs. Former aids
reported that she would frequently snap at them or have
mental health struggles that would lead her to cancel events
on her calendar, and when those cancelations happened, she would
blame staff.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Gosh. She would often.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Complain about the responsibilities of being in Congress and running
for reelection in a swing district. The former staffers said
that left aid's unsure of how to do their jobs.
One of the former aids said she always had a
she was always a tough boss because she had shifting
expectations and.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Didn't like her job.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
I never saw her enjoy it, even when she was
good at it.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
This is a long article.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
I mean, I've shared with you a lot already, but
I actually skipped quite a bit as well.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
But that gives you a sense of it.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
And I mean, can you imagine there are a lot
of people who are famously terrible bosses in Congress. Right,
Sheila Jackson Lee famously bad boss. Amy Klobash are famously
bad boss. Yader A Caraveo now famously bad boss. I
don't I don't know why the people are famous who

(29:09):
are famous for being bad bosses. They're all Democratic women,
but they are. Being a bad boss doesn't disqualify you
from being in Congress, though, but being suicidal, taking a
handful of downers just before a meeting that you're an
official meeting that you're having as a member of Congress,

(29:30):
putting your your staff in position of having to support
you somehow to try to keep you from killing yourself,
and when you're unable to do your job because you're
so depressed or whatever. Again, I'm not angry at her
for having mental health issues, but I'll tell you what
I am angry at her, And the reason I'm angry

(29:51):
at her is she knows all this, obviously.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yader A Caraveo knows that she.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Either tried to commit suicide a couple of times or
did things that could easily have resulted in her death
a couple of times because she's so wildly out of control,
and yet she decided to run for Congress again, and
that's what I'm upset with her about. It'll be very
interesting to see whether she drops out now that this

(30:19):
stuff has gone even more public, because remember, it was
a little public already. She already went on you know,
friendly Democrat loving public radio about it. She has been
on Colorado's Morning News with Marty and Gina.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
They talked a little bit about.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Mental health struggles, but I don't think anybody really understood
the degree of it. So I think she was hoping
to kind of fly under the radar and people would think, oh, everybody,
you know, it's twenty twenty five. Everybody's got a therapist
these days. You're not cool unless you can claim you've
got some kind of mental health struggle these days, I
don't claim that.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
By the way, you're not cool unless you're going to therapy.
You know what it's like.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
How about this, I'll give you a As president of
the Bad Analogy Club, I'll give you this. Do you
remember not that many years ago, but I'll say more
than ten, maybe closer to twenty.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
It was kind of.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
A badass counterculture.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Expressing yourself.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Thing to do to get a tattoo right in the
old days is like sailors and pirates and and Hell's Angels,
and you know a few others and gang members had tattoos.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
And then some people.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Who thought they'd be a little edgy thought I'm gonna
get a tattoo too, and that's fine, I don't care.
But now now your edgy if you don't have a
tattoo like everyone's got them, it's gone from being counterculture

(32:00):
to so commonplace that it's boring. So I feel the
same way about mental health. Right having a significant mental
health issue and going to a therapist and being willing
to talk about it in public was a very unusual
aggressive almost I don't mean aggressive in a bad way.

(32:22):
Somebody who was willing to go out in public and
say I'm really having this struggle and if you're having
it too, you should get some help.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
I was proud of those people.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
I was proud of those people, and I thought they
should have been proud of themselves. I realized they were
expressing a problem. You've got a mental health issue. That's
not a character flaw. It's not a character flaw. And
if somebody had a mental health issue and they'd come
out in public and say I got help and you
should too, or I'm getting help, or I'm stepping away
from this, that and the other thing so I can

(32:51):
go get help. That good. But now in twenty twenty five.
Now in twenty twenty five, everybody does it. There's people who,
I bet you, there's literally millions of people in the
United States right now who are spending money on therapists
and freaking life coaches who are just fine, normal people

(33:15):
who don't need any of that. But it's their own
form of virtue signaling these days, just like claiming you're
a vegan is a form of virtue signaling and all
this other freaking nonsense.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
I'm neither I'm.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Neither proud nor not proud that I think that I
don't really have any significant mental health issues. But I
am actually kind of proud that I'm not caught up
in all of this. I won't quite call it peer pressure,
but this cultural tide of feeling like you need to

(33:53):
go get a therapist and then tell everybody about it,
it doesn't make you cooler, It doesn't make you more interesting.
It might have ten or fifteen or twenty years ago,
but not now.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Now you're just following the herd.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Now you're just another you know, boogie suburbanite with a
sleeve tattoo. You're boring. You're boring. Don't like people who
bore me, yader A Caraveo. That's why I said boohoo

(34:27):
when I read the thing about how her staffers had
to go get therapy themselves, like suck it up, butter cup.
But yadar A Caraveo probably thought to just finish up
this conversation, probably thought that people would see her as
just another person in this silly tide of everybody talking
about mental health stuff and nobody thinking it's particularly serious,

(34:49):
and just thinking of hers just like anybody. We've all
got our struggles. Everybody could use a therapist now and then.
And she's like that too.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
She's just like us.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
But she's not because most of us haven't tried to
commit suicide. Most of us haven't taken pills before an
important business meeting and needed to be rushed to the hospital.
Most of us didn't have that important business meeting when
we were actually an elected office and representing a few
hundred thousand people in a state, taking those pills and

(35:22):
doing that before a meeting.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
I'm sorry, you, dear Caraveo. I am not mad.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
At you for having a problem, but I'm very mad
at you for trying to run for office again. You
may recall I mentioned one or two or three times
that I have the privilege of being this year's Mike A.
Loprino Free Enterprise Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. I
know that's a mouthful. The Common Sense Institute is a
great research and public policy analysis organization, nonpartisan organization, right

(35:52):
here in Colorado. They've done so much great work for
a year after a year, and I was just very
very honored to be asked to be involved. And today
is the release of the first report that I'm involved with.
Joining us to talk about it, DJ Summers, DJ as
Director of Communications and Research Operations at the Common Sense Institute.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Welcome back. You were here just a couple of weeks Agoach.
Good to see you. It's great to see you, and
it's great to be here discussing these findings. I mean,
this is what it's all about.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
We're bringing heads together who want to talk about the data,
who want to talk about how it's impacting our public discourse,
our public lives. So this could not be a better
outcome for us.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Well, So tell people what our first report together is about, well,
this report is just kind of in response to where
the public conversation is right now around TABOR. You know,
the Colorado legislature has started talking again about maybe mounting
a legal challenge against TABOR. So we felt that it
would be a really good input to the public discourse

(36:56):
for the service of Colorado's to talk about what TABOR is,
what it does, how it's impacted the economy, how it's
impacted lives in Colorado, what it's contributed to in terms
of state spending and our state's economy. And I mean,
this was something that we really vibed on with you
because it's been a topic of conversation for you for

(37:18):
a long time. So it kind of just checked a
lot of boxes together and felt like it would be
a good report. It would be a good addition to
what we're talking about at the state level right now.
So I have posted this on my blog today at
Rosskominsky dot com.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
If you just scroll down.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
A little bit to this section that says today's guest,
and you'll see DJ's name just a couple of lines down.
It says, you know, here's my first report, and there's
the link, and it's called the legislative assault on TABOR,
how Colorado lawmakers are rewriting the rules. And this was
very important to me because part of what makes Colorado

(37:58):
special is the fact fact that we have the taxpayer
Bill of Rights that limits the ability of the government
to grow. And you know, you can read the report
and you probably know a lot of the mechanics of it,
but I'm talking about the philosophy of it, especially when
you have a state that is completely controlled by a
party that always wants to grow government as much as

(38:19):
it can. And I believe that a massive growth of
government reduces both freedom and prosperity. And so I think
that TABOR tends to maximize to the extent that you
can freedom and prosperity. And this report is about what
the legislature essentially democrats in this case, although if Republicans

(38:41):
were doing it, we'd call them out too. Are are
changing the rules to attack that? You encapsulated it pretty well.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
I mean, we could flip the script here and let
me prompt a little bit, because this is your.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Report, man, So while I do want to go through
some numbers, some numbers too, so let me ask you
one and we'll do that.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Let's go back.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
So, yeah, so in this report, some of the fabulous
researchers at CSI have put together some numbers about the
economic benefits of TABOR, of having these limits on spending
and in particular of the refunds that come back to taxpayer.
So just tell us a little bit about the quantitative

(39:22):
findings and then we'll do what you just said for
a couple minutes.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Absolutely, I mean the quantitative findings that we were able
to generate here were really substantial.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Through twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Just in the last four years, the economic benefit of
TABOR surpluses has been up to twenty six thousand new jobs,
two point nine billion of GDP, and two point five
billion in personal income. So when we're talking about TABER,
we're talking about that distribution of refunds, we're talking about

(39:56):
that cap on revenue. We are talking about something that
has potentially generated massive amounts billions of dollars both in
personal spending and in state economic activity.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
That is what the what the the gist of it
is here.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
That's the big, the big impact statewide.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
I'll add one more thing and then you can ask
me a question, and we've got about we've got about
three minutes. So one of the things you'll see in
this in the report, there's a chart that shows the
revenue and the surplus, and the surplus is the amount
that we get back. A lot of the rest of
the report goes on to talk about why our surpluses
are going to be less, why you're going to get

(40:38):
less money back, And it's because there have been so
so many pieces of legislation passed by Democrats or referred
by Democrats to the ballot and then passed by voters
that have the effect of redirecting those tabor surpluses to
their pet programs. So, for example, next year there may

(40:59):
be little or no tabor surplus where there might have
been if all these laws hadn't been passed. All right,
we got a couple of minutes, So why don't you
do what you want to do?

Speaker 2 (41:08):
I think one of the.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
Big portions of this conversation just revolves around Tabor itself,
that guard rail, and what would happen if that guardrail
didn't exist. What exactly is in our report to give
some sense of that if Tabor had not been in play,
what would have happened?

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Right, So, again, your researchers have done this hard work
after we all sat down and talked about what do
we need to focus on here, And you can actually
go through and look at the changes on a year
by year basis and the overall aggregate changes of how
much money would have ended up being spent slash wasted

(41:54):
by government in ways that tend not to generate private
sector jobs. And I don't need to explain to this
audience the benefit of private sector spending versus government spending.
So essentially we're talking about billions of dollars that would
have filtered through government's grubby little hands and gone to
you know, projects where you know what government does, rather

(42:17):
than getting refunded back to taxpayers to buy what they
want to buy and generate and generate private sector jobs.
And you mentioned some of the numbers before, and I
won't go through a lot of numbers right now, but
qualitatively that that's the idea, that's exactly the idea. I mean,
if this had been repealed before twenty twenty one, it

(42:37):
would have meant I mean, almost ten tillion dollars more
in state government spending since then. So when you talk
about TABOR potentially being an effective guardrail against the growth
of government spending.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
That is true.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
Now, at the same time, there's been a lot of
movement to try to circumvent some of that. You know,
we are in a budget crunch and state legislators, as
you mentioned, are looking for more dollars to spend, and
there's been a lot of increase in those kinds of movements,
those kinds of things that reclassify exempt tabor spending or

(43:18):
they'll take it, put it into tax credits, redistribute it
like that. Yeah, so's there's a lot of working around
tabor that does exist even right now.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
I'll just make one other comment and then, you know,
I ask people to read the report and maybe we'll
get you back at some point, you know, in another
week or two and go through it in some more details.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
But I just want to make one other point.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
You know, we the report talks about roughly ten billion
dollars that would have been spent slash wasted by government
rather than going back to the people who paid too
much in tax. But that ten billion dollar number massively
understates the actual benefit of tabor in this sense. In
twenty twenty two, for example, there was a tabor surplus

(43:59):
of three point seven billion dollars. If that money had
been allowed to be spent by government, that would have
become the new baseline for the amount of money that
government would spend. And so what the Tabor surplus, What
the Tabor mechanism does not just give us back where we,
you know, paid too much in tax but the restraint

(44:19):
in the in the cost of government is it's very
difficult to describe, and you just got to go look
at these charts, but if you imagine that three point
seven billion dollars would have been think about what's going
on with the federal government. I got to do this
quickly because we're running out of time here, but think
about what's going on with the federal government. We had
all of this crazy spending for COVID that in people's

(44:43):
minds was one time spending, but in fact, the actual
amount of federal government spending has never come back down
below that, and so it became the new baseline, and
it's massively blowing up the federal budget and the federal
deficit and our national debt. And what TABOR does for
us is to prevent that kind of thing from the
higher amount of taxes that they collected when they overtaxed

(45:05):
us becoming the new baseline, and this is what democrats
are trying to destroy.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
I'll give you the last word.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
I think that's one of the things that we were
able to find here is that in the last couple
of years, taper has been a really, really big part
of the conversation, specifically because we had one time federal
spending that just.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Poured into the state coffers.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
And one of the things that happened is that state
leaders ended up putting a lot of that to ongoing expenses.
They didn't spend it on one time expenses. They set
up ongoing expenses. So when you talk about expanding the
baseline to a very real degree, that did happen here
in the state of Colorado too.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
Folks go to Common Sense Institute US dot org, or
just look up common Sense Institute and you'll find the link,
Or go to my blog at Rosskominsky dot com and
the link is right in there. My report is called
the Legislative Assault on Tabor, How Colorado lawmakers are rewriting
the rules. Read it, share it, or with it with

(46:06):
everybody you know who lives and votes in Colorado. DJ Summers,
thanks so much for joining us again.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Thanks a million for having me. This is great.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
We'll be right back, And I want to respond to
two quick listener texts. One there's a listener who is
very upset with me, sent to this isn't sarcasm.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Sent a really angry email saying.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
I've been seeing a psychiatrist for thirty five years for
depression and anxiety.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Three members of my.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Family have committed suicide, and I would have been the
fourth if not for my doctor. And this person said,
you have no idea what you're talking about. So I
want to make something really clear. I thought it was
clear already, and I actually did text this person back
saying what I said was, I think I was very
clear that there are lots of people who truly benefit

(46:53):
from getting mental health help. And I'm and I'm glad
they do when I'm and I'm proud of them. When
you know, it's especially back in the day when it
was thought of as something that was, I don't know,
shameful even to have a mental health problem. And I'm
talking about you know, twenty thirty forty years ago, you
just didn't talk about it. Some people would come out
and say I'm having a problem and I'm getting help,
And I said explicitly in that segment. I was really

(47:15):
proud of them for doing that and for telling people
it's okay to say you have.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
A problem, it's okay to get help.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
So I texted back to this person like I explicitly said,
for people who have real issues, they should.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Go get help.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
And then I said, I think you were just looking
for a reason to yell at me, and I forgive you.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
So other one ross, how do we limit the.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Legislature's ability to hit us with fees like the upcoming
health insurance fee that might cost us to twelve hundred
dollars a household. He says it will most likely be
hidden and we'll never know we're paying it. And the
answer to that is the only way we in Colorado
have to limit the financial damage being caused by our

(48:01):
state government is to elect Republicans. And I'm not a Republican,
but when you have full democratic control of government, they're
just going to do it and do it and do
it and do it and do it. And that's the
only way. And remember when we send ballot measures that

(48:21):
are going to increase costs, increase taxes, free lunches for
rich kids. The voters have been passing that stuff because
we're East California. Now we're not Colorado anymore, right, We're
just East California. So we can't actually even rely on
voters to not do stupid stuff. And Steve, we also

(48:43):
very much cannot rely on our state Supreme Court. We
have one of the worst state supreme courts. They're actually,
I think a little better than they were let's say,
ten years ago, a little better, but they still essentially
function as an arm of the Democratic caucus in the
state legislature, and they tend to ratify whatever the Democrats

(49:07):
in the state legislature want to do. It's been a
long time since Republicans have had the opportunity to even
try to do anything in the state legislature, So I
don't you know, I assume they would try, they would
block a lot of that stuff, but I'm only guessing
on that. So that's that's it. You know that. That's it.
Let me do just a few seconds on another story.
I still have an immense amount of stuff to talk

(49:29):
about with you today. Elon Musk has been talking in
the past couple of days about how he's leaving leaving
Doze leaving the government going back to work in the
private sector. He even said today he talked about how
Doze has not achieved as much as he would have
liked it to.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
I talked about this a bit yesterday.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
How you know, the swamp, as Trump would call it,
the establishment, the bureaucracy, the deep state, whatever words you
want to I mean, the establishment is the establishment for
a reason. And I don't mean like xablishment kind of
Wall Street people or whatever. I mean. I mean this
whole established government is full of people in special interests

(50:08):
who want to keep their jobs and want to keep
control of as big a budget as possible. And there's
just an infinite amount of resistance to reform of government.
And you don't have quite enough support from Republicans either. Actually,
so well, anyway, Elon Musk is going back. There was

(50:29):
a rumor yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that Tesla
had been looking to replace him as CEO.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Tesla is denying that right now.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
So I don't know what's true there, but I just
thought I would let you let you know there. We
have no idea at this point what's going to happen
with Doge. Who's going to be really running it? Will
it have any kind of real energy, Will it have
any kind of real power, or will it become at
best of paper tiger without the force of Elon Musk
really right there running it, imposing his will on people.

(51:00):
I don't know. The last thing I'll say is, so
far Doze.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
I think I said this yesterday.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Doze appears to have saved so little money that it's
possible that by getting involved with the Trump administration, the
damage to the value of Tesla stock. Well, this isn't
entirely fair, actually, because part of the reason that Tesla
stock went up as much as it did was because
he was getting involved with the Trump administration and people

(51:30):
thought that would be good for Tesla.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
So I can't say he got nothing out of it.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
But from the top just after Trump got inaugurated to
the bottom, which was a couple of weeks ago, or
even till recently, it's entirely possible that Elon Musk will
have lost more in his personal net worth than Doze
will have saved the United States government. It's an astonishing thing,
but it doesn't mean Doeze wasn't worth doing.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
It's very much worth doing.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Any money we can save is great, and it awakened
so many Americans to the massive amount of waste and
fraud in our government, and that is a good thing.
Quite a day going on here. We're keeping an eye
on President Trump, who is giving some remarks in the
Rose Garden. Has some people coming out and saying some things.

(52:18):
I think I just saw doctor Phil there a couple
of minutes ago given some some comments. It's the National
Day of Prayer. I'm not sure who this is we's
got talking right now. I've been wondering it would might
not necessarily be appropriate during the National Day of Prayer,
but some folks were wondering if during this event he
might come out and explain a little bit, talk a

(52:40):
little bit about why National Security advisor.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Mike Waltz has apparently just been fired.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
And Mike Waltz's top advisor a guy named Alex Wang,
who is very, very highly respected guy in that space.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
So all I know so far.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
You know, what we've seen in these news reports is
that while is out, you know, was quote unquote purged,
as I saw in one article today, and I don't
know I mentioned earlier. I'll just mention this again and
I'm gonna move on to other stuff. But I can
think of two people who might be interesting fits for

(53:20):
Trump's next national security advisor, and he probably has a
list of and it's probably not a no, it's not
fifty people he'd be thinking about, but I bet he's
got half a dozen.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
People he'd be thinking about.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
But off the top of my head, you know two
people who I can think of and who would be
pretty cool, in part because I know him a little bit,
so Katie McFarland. I was actually surprised when Katine McFarland
wasn't named National Security Advisor to begin with, because she's
been such a.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Strong supporter of his.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
And the other one is a guy named Elbridge Colby
who's been on my show only one time, and I.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Talked about him earlier.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
So I think I won't read all that, but I'm
just going to keep an eye out for whoever gets
nominated next. You know one other, actually I will mention
one other, General Keith Kellogg. So Keith Kellogg has been
a key negotiator for Trump dealing with the Ukraine Russia thing,
and Keith Kellogg is the real deal. In fact, I

(54:20):
had Admiral Steveritas on the show about a week ago,
and I mentioned Kellogg, and I didn't know the admiral's
position on on Keith Kellogg, so I didn't ask him
a question. I mentioned Keith Kellogg's name in passing, and
Stevritas said, you know that guy is excellent, right, smart,
just everything you want. So that's another So those will

(54:41):
be my three names. Then those would be the three
names I throw throw out there. Actually I don't know
that Elbridge Colby has the gravitas yet has.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
The name recognition Trump.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Trump likes to pick famous people, right, Trump likes to
pick famous people for big jobs. I think Katie McFarland
is famous enough, and General Keith Kellogg is already around
him and do and all this stuff. So we'll see,
we'll see. But anyway, Waltz is out, and I think
that's a bummer. But as long as Trump replaces Waltz

(55:10):
with somebody who understands that Vladimir Putin is a bad guy,
then you know, we'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
All right.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
So this next thing I want to talk about, it's
going to start with a quote from Trump, But when
I get into it, I just want to ask you.
I'm gonna ask us in advance, as you think about
this issue, with me. Don't think about it in terms
of Trump. Don't think about it in terms of what
you think of that guy or any anyone president or
anything like that, because what I want to get into

(55:40):
with you here is more of an ethical, philosophical conversation.
So this is from the Hill dot com. President Trump
yesterday in that cabinet meeting that we didn't really talk about.
It happened during the show, but I didn't take any
of it. He took some questions, and some of it
was about tariffs, and there was a question about potential

(56:02):
impending shortage of stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Right. Retailers are worried that.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Because of tariffs there won't be stuff on the shelves
for even for Halloween perhaps, but for Christmas shopping and
things like that. And Trump sort of turned it to
be about China, and he said they're having tremendous difficulty
because their factories are.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Not doing business.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
They made a trillion dollars with Biden selling us stuff,
much of it we don't need. Now I'm just for now,
I'm going to put aside all of that stuff about
they made a trillion dollars. Trump says that kind of
thing a lot, and I think there's some real misunderstandings
in there. What I want to focus on is that
last bit where he said much of it we don't need.

(56:43):
So listen to the next thing that Trump said, and
this whole long thing here is a quote from Trump.
You know, someone said, on the shelves they're going to
be open. Well, maybe the children will have two two
dollars to choose from instead of thirty dollars, and maybe
the two.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
Dollars will cost a couple of bucks.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
More than they would normally. But we're not talking about
something that we have to go out of our way.
I guess he means to go out of our way
for to solve that problem. They have ships that are
loaded up with stuff, much of which not all of it,
but much of which we don't need. And we have
to make a fair deal. Okay, So now just do

(57:28):
the best you can. Stick with me here for a
second and put Trump out of your mind. I don't
I just it's very very frustrating how so often, and
I don't just mean on my show, but in the
world where you hear people talk about policy and ideas
and economics and all this stuff, you can hear someone

(57:51):
who gives an opinion about something, where you know they
would give a different opinion about that exact same thing
if it weren't, if Trump weren't in the picture, whether
they're for it or against it, from time after time
after time. Let's say there's some Trump supporter, a Republican

(58:13):
who comes out and says something positive about a bad
Trump idea, but he says something positive about it because
it was Trump, where you know he would be criticizing
it if it were a Democrat, and maybe even if
it were a different Republican.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
And of course on the.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Other side, you've got Democrats and Trump hating Republicans too,
although there's obviously a lot more Trump hating Democrats who
if Trump came out and said, I mean, look Trump,
Trump has said that he doesn't want to touch entitlements,
and they still hate him.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
And if something came.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Out that wasn't such a big picture thing like that.
But Trump gives an idea about something, they'll just criticize
it mercilessly, just because it's him, even though if a Democrat.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Said the same thing, they would be praising it.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
And I just hate all that, And it's difficult to
avoid in the world we're in, right now, and I
have to be conscious of it myself because I don't
want to fall into that pattern. I think I do
a decent job of not falling into it. So that's
why I'm asking you put Trump out of your mind
for a second and let's talk about the principle.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
So the principle is an idea that.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
In order to achieve a particular policy goal, it's reasonable
to cause consumers to have a future choices I'm sorry,
fewer choices and be higher prices.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
Right, I want to get this thing done.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
The policy I'm going to use to get this thing
done means that essentially everybody in America who's going to buy.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Name an item.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Will have fewer different versions of that item available to
choose from, and will pay more for whatever it is
they choose to buy. By the way, when you think
about the tariff thing and the paying more, it's not
just the direct tariff, right, It's not just that there's
a ten percent tariff, so it's going to cost ten

(01:00:22):
percent more, or maybe there's a ten percent tariff and
the manufacturer is going to lower their prices by five
percent to eat some of it, to try to keep
some market share. So there's a ten percent tariff, it
will cost five percent more whatever it is. That's the
direct thing about it costing more. But the other thing
to keep in mind about it costing more is when
you go from having thirty dollars on a shell to
having two dollars on a shell on a shelf, on

(01:00:44):
a shelf, then there's much less competition.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
And now when.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
There's only two, they don't have to compete in price
very much. Right, imagine any industry. I mean, two is
a lot better than one. Okay, if there were only
one one doll on the shelf, who knows what the
price would be. Two is a lot better than one.
Lots lots lots better than one. But thirty is a

(01:01:10):
lot better than two. And then again the choice. Right,
let's let's stick with Let's stick with the president's example
of dolls. Now, let's say you you know, you got
a kid. You want to buy a doll for your
kid for for Christmas or Hanka or whatever birthday.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Or Arbor Day. And you stop at Mephistophiles, so.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
And then you go to the store and you're looking
for all these choices, and you know you got the
you know, the larger dolls that are kind of fancy
and they are a little expensive, and they, you know,
can move and do things that seem almost a little
bit like human.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
And then you got the old school.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Ones like Barbie, and you got everything in between.

Speaker 2 (01:01:55):
You got all these different.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Choices of of dolls, different sizes, different functions, different price
price points, different different everything. I mean, these days, you
got all different skin colors, You've got you've got different costumes, right,
like Barbie comes at you know, Barbie's at the beach,
and Barbie's at the office and all this stuff, right,
And that's what you're used to when you go to
the store and you're expecting that you're gonna choose and

(01:02:17):
get one for your kid. And now you go and
there's like, well, i mean, Trump said there's two. Now
there's two, and there isn't one that you like, or
there isn't one that your kid will like, or not
nearly as much as what you know your kid would
really like. So either you're not gonna buy it, or
you're gonna buy one that's not really that good, not
really that and it costs more. So now let's get

(01:02:39):
to so that's the harm to the consumer. Higher prices,
fewer choices, and a lot of times the conversation turns on.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Economics and politics.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Right, the economics, how much does it hurt the economy
when prices go up? That's one thing, but it's not
the conversation I'm having today.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Politics. You know, what do people want?

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Do do people feel like whatever the benefit is? Donald
Trump says that the benefit will be bringing manufacturing back
to America or leveraging China to make a better deal.
And it could, It could do both of those things.
I'm not saying. I'm not saying that some degree of
success on those goals is impossible. Trump could achieve some

(01:03:24):
degree of success. I mean nobody not because it's Trump. Right,
Nobody is going to make the ultimate perfect trade deal
with China. It's just not gonna happen, no matter how
much leverage you apply. But you probably could get something
better than what you have now. They'll still cheat, but
you can probably get something better. So you get that

(01:03:48):
kind of politics, then, like, what do the voters want?
Do the voters want a president who's going to play
that kind of hardball, right, even if it means they
have higher prices and fewer choices. And we always talk
about it in that way. But I just want to
take a moment and talk about it in another way,
sort of moral way or ethical way. And we rarely,

(01:04:09):
we rarely talk about the intersection of morality and politics.
In fact, we think of them, unfortunately as so wildly
divorced from each other.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
If you go back to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
The time of the Founding, the founders would have told you,
and did tell us in writing that an American form
of government is only fit for an essentially moral population.
I don't know if we still have that. And I
don't really mean this in a religious sense. I'm not

(01:04:43):
a religious person. I'm not talking about as everybody a sinner.
That's not what I mean. But I do want to
talk about the intersection here of ethics or morality and government.
And I'll put it as plainly as I can. And
maybe you can text me your answer at five sixty
six nine zero and tell me what you think. And

(01:05:04):
this is a hard question, right, This is a kind
of question that people will get a master's degree or
PhD in philosophy or political philosophy or something to think
about these questions. And at the very least it's probably
a question that you and I should discuss more over
a bourbon rather than in the middle of the day

(01:05:24):
when we shouldn't be drinking bourbon yet. And it's this,
is it ethical for the government to interfere in any
way with my ability to voluntarily make a transaction with

(01:05:50):
a counterparty of my choice? Small caveat for buying things
from an enemy nation? Right, I understand you're at war
with Country A, and you say, all right, Americans can't
buy stuff from Country A.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
We're at war with them.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
And China is a borderline case. We're not at war
with them, they're they're an adversary. So let's just in
your minds use an example other than China, because right
now there's going to be tariffs on Europe and Korea
and Canada and Mexico, and you know, so many of
our allies and friends. So it's just China's kind of
in a separate category. So now again my question is

(01:06:33):
how is it moral or ethical for the government to say,
because I have a goal, I don't care what the
goal is. Because I have a goal, I am going
to interfere with your ability to buy a product that

(01:06:57):
you want to buy at a price that you are
willing to pay from a seller who is willing to
offer you that thing at that price. It is a
purely voluntary transaction between two people who happen to be
in different countries. Is it ethically different again, I'm not

(01:07:21):
talking about economics, not talking about politics.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Is it ethically different.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
From the governor of Colorado who's a liberal And.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
This is just a hypothetical. I'm not saying this is true.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Let's say you have a liberal governor of Colorado and
a very conservative governor of Oklahoma and they are fighting
about how legal marijuana from Colorado is getting.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Into their state.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Actually, this is a real thing with states to our east,
and they're really pissed off. Marijuana is not legal in
those places, and they hate how all this legal marijuana
is coming flooding their states. And they get into a
pissing match about it. And the governor of Oklahoma says,

(01:08:10):
until Colorado stops allowing marijuana to come into our state,
we're going to interfere with the ability of Oklahoma's to
buy anything that's made in Colorado. Now, there's a guy
in Oklahoma who wants to buy a beautiful custom made

(01:08:34):
coffee table from you know, an artist who works in
wood here in Colorado. Now the governor of Oklahoma says, no,
you can't, or you can, but you're going to have
to pay one hundred percent extra state sales tax on it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Would that be okay?

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
Now, just to be very clear, that would be wildly unconstitutional.
The purpose of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution exists
to prevent exactly that thing. States are not allowed to
impose tariffs against other states, to impose taxes on other states.
But as an ethical question, as a moral question, is
there any difference?

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Please, you don't have to explain it to me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Just try just try for a minute to explain to
yourself and see if you can do it. Honestly, Try
to explain this, Try to answer the question to yourself.
If it's not okay for the governor of some state

(01:09:35):
to say that his people are gonna have to pay
an extra tax or not be allowed to buy a
product that I sell because I'm in a different state
that he doesn't like, then why is it okay for
a government to say that I can't buy something from
somebody who wants to sell something to me, who just

(01:09:57):
happens to be in another country. And again, stick with it,
an allied country, not an enemy country, happens to be
in Japan, happens to be in England, happens to be
in Canada, which some people seem to have forgotten, is
an ally Why is that okay? And further, is there
any goal of government that would justify telling American citizens

(01:10:25):
that you are not allowed to buy what you want
at a price you could buy it at from any
seller you want to buy it from. Again, not buying
from enemies. And I'm talking about legal products. I'm not
talking about buying you know, heroin or machine guns. Well,
machine gun can be legal, but just buying a thing,

(01:10:48):
buying a bottle of wine, buying a car, buying a
foreign book, buying anything, Why is it ethical for any
government to interfere in that transaction? And I would propose
to you it's not so you know what that means.
It's time for will now you know with intrepid Chad
Bauer and Chad, I just want you to know what

(01:11:09):
I've what I've done.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
You may have.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Noticed that I did not ask you what we were
talking about today.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Oh, I thought you're just so busy you forgot.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
No, No, I didn't forget, but I just decided not
to ask you because The game I'm playing with myself
is to try to figure out the topic based on
the music that you tell Dragon to play before we
start talking. Good, it seemed to be about the month
of May. But I don't what are we talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
We're talking about May Day? Oh, that's that's uh today.

Speaker 4 (01:11:34):
But there are multiple celebrations, like there's it's synonymous with
the labor movement, right, yeah, but the one we are
going to be talking about is the one with the
may pole things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
Okay, and so.

Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
Do you know what the origins of that particular May Day?

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
No idea, no idea, not even again, not even I
guess Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:11:56):
Now, it celebrates the return of spring. It's roots are
in astrona me and it goes way back to like
Roman times. It's been going on for a long long time.
It's the halfway point between the spring equinox and summer solstice,
is it. Yeah, well that's what it says, okay, yes,
and so it celebrates the return of spring. Now, the

(01:12:18):
May poll is a kind of a very important part
of it. Originally, way back in the day, it was
a tree chosen from the woods. There was much merrymaking
because they had back then ancient.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Celts, we're a little we're a little short on mary
making these days, we should have no more marrymaking in
modern America.

Speaker 4 (01:12:36):
Well, the ancient Celts, apparently they had a lot of merrymaking.
They danced around the tree praying for the fertility of
their crops and all living things, possibility of courtships for
the young people, and if young women and men paired
by sundown, their courtship was allowed to continue so they
could get to know each other and possibly marry six
weeks later on Midsummer's Day. That's how the whole June

(01:12:58):
wedding thing, oh little bonus back toid their CAREA yeah,
but and so this is still may Day remains very
popular in Europe, not quite as much in North America.
A lot of it was because the Puritans back then.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
Didn't like may Day.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
They thought it was licentious and pagan, and so they
forbade its observance. But it became a thing on college
campuses from the late nineteenth century even through like the
fifties and sixties, where they had the Maple Dance, and
they've seen as a wholesome tradition. They had all kinds
of festivities and so that lasted for a while. And

(01:13:35):
I remember as a kid in South Dakota, may day.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Was a thing. Really.

Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
I remember in elementary school you heard of you know,
may baskets.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Have you heard of those? Nope?

Speaker 4 (01:13:46):
May baskets where people leave a paper basket or cone
containing spring flowers and sweets on each other's doorsteps, usually anonymously.
And we woked a Valentine's kind of thing. Yeah, And
the way we did it was we had like the equivalent.
It was like a paper cup, but the big ones,
not the red They didn't have red solo cups bactum,
but like a big paper cup. You'd fill it with
candy and maybe put like a little flour in there,

(01:14:08):
and then you would leave it on the door of
like your classmates or friends, things like that, and some
of them would do the same.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
It.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
Did it have a romantic overtone at all? Or is
just friends just anybody?

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
I guess it was. I think a lot of people
use their like leftover easter candy.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
But it's not really like Valentine's because Valentine's is a
little more of a romantic component.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
This one doesn't right, It doesn't seem to be as much.

Speaker 4 (01:14:35):
No, And I think it must be a regional thing
because I've asked people.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
They most people never heard little may baskets. What's that?

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
Well, it's South Dakota. You don't have much else to day.
It might not even been in the whole Staateum, I
just been in my little town. Who knows, who knows,
somebody brought it there. But yeah, so that was actually
a thing. And even here in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
In the English folk dancers, Morris dancers, they have a
custom of dancing the sun up on May Day and
last year at least I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
Know if they did it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
This year, they did that in Colorado along with many
other states across the country. So that's, you know, marked
here in Colorado as well. I have a completely tangential
question for you.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Yeah, you talked about the Celts, right, and that's Celts right,
like the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
That's exactly what I was going to so when I'm
just going to take you off off topic for a second,
when I was a kid, I never heard the pronunciation
of that word with a hard C. I always heard
it as the Celts and the Celtics.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Yes, and I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
At some point quite a long time ago, now, probably
twenty years ago, people started pronouncing, do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
You have any any thoughts on that?

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
No, I'm with you, because when I was a kid,
I always thought it was the Celtics, because I have
the basketball team.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
I just assumed, yeah, right right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
They named all these ancient you know, Irish whatever people
for the basketball team. Yeah, And so if the basketball
team was the Celtics, shouldn't we be calling them the
Celts since they were named for them.

Speaker 4 (01:16:03):
That's what I thought it was. And then at some
point in my life, oh, no, it's Celts. Sorry, Yes,
who decided that?

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
All?

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
Right, back to whatever you're here.

Speaker 4 (01:16:12):
Here's some other may Day fascinating things that I'm sure
you'd like to know. One of the superstitions associated with
May Day is the belief that washing your face with
dew on the morning of May first will beautify the
skin and bring good luck.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Really, yes, I did not do that this morning. You
better not confuse do with do do. No, that would
be very unfortunate, not be great at all. Mountain dew, yeah, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:16:40):
And in Europe and in Britain they celebrate they call
it bringing in the May where they gather cuttings of
flowering trees for their homes, which is nice.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
In Hawaii, May first is called lay.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
Day l e I day.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
I saw your mind go there, no where? Yes, really, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:17:01):
Moving to Hawaii at least for a few days, yeah,
I said.

Speaker 4 (01:17:06):
And I thought i'd give you a little, a little
bonus info. That's so we talked about the day of
May that's being celebrated today.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
How about the term may day like for when a
ship is in trouble? Yes? Do you know where this is?
Completely opt doesn't have any connection with this.

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
I don't know, but I'm gonna throw out a guess, okay,
because that is very very close to what would be
French for.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
Help me boom ding ding ding. You got it right,
it is. It comes from the French phrase it's m
A I D.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
E z right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
There's actually an apostrophe after the M there is yeah,
which means ad you said help me.

Speaker 4 (01:17:45):
And if you hear may day repeated three times, it's
an urgent distress call, and that's where that came from.
It's a little extra may day, completely different meaning.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
But or if you're.

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
Dancing around the may pole and you fall and you
twist your ankle real bad.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
You could start yelling may on May Day on May Day. Wow,
just move my mind, Ron, thank you, thank you very little.
Dragon's just shaking his head.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Dragon, you don't have anything to add to this, Mephistophiles,
Red Beard.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
I'm good one.

Speaker 4 (01:18:14):
Yeah, I'm just happy we got to hear Julie andrews.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
Oh that was the song leading in?

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
Yeah, I got it, I got it, lay Day, lay Day,
All right, there was I can't even pick one, Chad.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
There's just a lot of stuff in there that I
didn't know. Well, I'm glad to do my part because
now you know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:37):
Dragon and I each put up our right fingers and
Chad put up his lefting. I usually do left, but
today I did right. Just for a difference. I hope
you all put your fingers up in the air right
on that last down, because that's how we play well
now you know. That's the intrepid Chad Bower. Thanks as always, Chad,
You're the best.

Speaker 2 (01:18:52):
Thank you. We'll be right back on ko Chad.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
I would like to let you know that I got
a lot of of listener texts saying, hey, we did
May baskets too.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
There were Let's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
See, I've got Minnesota, South Dakota, which is Chad as well,
Northeastern Colorado, North Dakota, Illinois another South Dakota. What else
this has got Colorado with the may Pole not the
may Baskets. How about this may Baskets in Bolder in

(01:19:27):
the seventies, Oh, and Iowa. So it seems like kind
of a north central thing. One from Illinois, but both
Dakotas and northern Colorado and in Iowa and so on.
All right, So there you go, Chad, you are not alone.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
You're not alone. Don't feel alone. Don't cry, don't cry.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
So I want to take a moment and come back
to something I was saying my previous topic about whether
it is ethical for the government to interfere with an
American's desire and ability to buy a legal product that

(01:20:07):
you want to buy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
From a willing seller at a price you two.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Can agree upon, and just assume it's not an enemy country.
So I'm not talking about buying from China for now.
It's a different category. Let's just for my context here,
buying from Europe or buying from Canada, or buying from
from South Korea and buying a legal product Why should
the government have a right to say you either can't

(01:20:34):
buy that, or you can't buy it at the price
that you could buy it at if it were a
free trend. If it were if you and the other
guy were just allowed to make an agreement and a price,
you can't buy it at that price. Why is that ethical,
even if the government has a goal? So I got

(01:20:55):
a couple of listener texts that I just wanted to mention.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
For the One listener.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
Said that he thought I said an American product wouldn't
be as good as something made in China or somewhere else.
I never said that, and I didn't say the opposite either, Right,
It used to be pretty consistently true that, And people
would use the term Chinese junk. Right, This stuff would

(01:21:26):
be really inexpensive, it would fall apart, it would be junkie,
but it was very cheap. And I'm here to tell
you that Chinese junk is not nearly as junky as
it used to be. Right. It may not be the
quality of something made in Europe or made in America,
but a lot of Chinese stuff is much better than
it used to be, and some of it is as
good as anything you're gonna get anywhere else. The quality

(01:21:48):
of Chinese stuff has massively improved. But I didn't say.
I didn't make a claim that you would know in
advance whether a product that you're gonna buy from from
France or Canada or South Korea would be better or
worse than a product you could buy in America, if
there is even one in America. And by the way,

(01:22:09):
how about that, how about the fact that there are
going to be tariffs on all kinds of things that
you can't even that aren't even made in America.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
How is that reasonable? That's nuts?

Speaker 1 (01:22:21):
But anyway, I'm talking more now about the ethical question here.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
I never made a claim about what would be better.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
What I've consistently said I wasn't probably very explicit about it,
and when we talked about a few minutes ago, is
you might be willing to buy something that's not as
good if the price is lower.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
If the price is lower, it is.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
The combination of quality and price, or overall what you
might call value, which I think of as roughly as
quality divided by price.

Speaker 2 (01:22:56):
That's kind of how I think of value.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
You get to make that decision for yourself, I think,
so maybe you can buy something made in America that
has a higher quality and a higher price, and then
you can buy something made in Thailand that's a lower
quality and a lower price. You should be allowed to
make that decision, because there might be situations in which

(01:23:19):
you decide for yourself that you don't need the higher quality.
You need to save the money more than you need
the higher quality. Here's a listener text that's in this direction.
I find that the issue of less for more money
has changed in a good way my consumption of disposable,

(01:23:41):
cheap products, which feels like a moral win. I'm not
being told what I can and cannot buy that I
disagree with on all levels. But the changing price and
availability has opened my eyes to random over consumption. Okay,
I get that, And you may think that that's a
benefit for your life.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
That's somehow a change.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
In government policy has caused you to think a little
differently about what you're buying. And maybe you now that
prices have gone up and availability of stuff is going down,
you find yourself buying less. But your argument is like
saying that because some people out there have a gambling addiction,

(01:24:21):
we should shut down all casinos.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
Right, if you've got an issue.

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
And I'm not saying your issue is the same as
a gambling addiction or nearly that bad anything like that.
But just because you're reminded that you're buying stuff you
probably shouldn't buy when the government takes away your freedom
to buy it is not a legitimate argument. Not a
legitimate argument. Last thing, listener texts that I want to

(01:24:46):
share with you, and I love this, and I fully
understand this is tongue in cheeks, so just remember its
tongue in cheek when I read this to you, because
this is probably my favorite text to the day.

Speaker 2 (01:24:56):
Ross.

Speaker 1 (01:24:56):
I hate your show and I never listen. All Right,
a lot of stuff to do here. Still, I'm super
interested to see if anybody gets it right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
You haven't even heard Motley Crue.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
Now, of course I've heard of Motley cru Do you
have to know they're I don't know their freaking disco?

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
How old is? How old is either? They've been around
a long time? Are they like the crew? Are they
nothing around as long as the crew? But yeah, they're
They're almost classic rock, really, I think so. I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
All Right, let's look this up. I just I have
to look it up. Just briefly. Oh, they're from South Africa. Oh,
that's good. Founded in nineteen ninety nine, they played under
Classic Rock, played under a Yeah, played under a different
name until two thousand and two, came to the United
States in two thousand and two, changed their name to

(01:25:50):
See the Oh my gosh. So their previous name was
Sarahn s A R O N. Gas Gas. They changed
their names so that people wouldn't confuse their band name
with saren Gas.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
And you have little faith everybody that is texted in
has texted in the correct name of that song.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Either gained mainstream popularity in two thousand and two, so
you can't use any of this stuff on name that
tune Dragon with their US Active rock number one single,
and I think I won't name it in case it's
the answer has already passed, Okay, So there. Their number
one single in two thousand and two was called Fine Again.

(01:26:32):
And then they got another hit, apparently a couple of
years later, with a song called Broken. Is this either
one of those?

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
Neither one? And then let's.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
See they have They've had a bunch of hits on
the hot mainstream rock charts, and these songs include Remedy,
just tell me one night when Okay, Remedy, fake it
country song tonight, words as weapons, let you down, dangerous,
bruised in lightied. All right, So they're they're they're pretty big.

(01:27:03):
Have you seen him in concert or have you met him?
Like as part of your rock and roll radio dude's probably.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
Done a concert with them, But I don't know if
I've met them.

Speaker 1 (01:27:11):
Okay, all right? Uh, did more than three people get
it right?

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
Oh? Everybody that guests got it right? Yeah? But did
more than three people guess?

Speaker 5 (01:27:19):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
See, I have faith.

Speaker 1 (01:27:22):
No, I I got to say, I'm very I'm very
pleased to have so many listeners who know all this
other stuff that I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
I'm very I'm very proud. I'm very proud of that. Actually.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
So all right, yeah, a bunch of people. Yeah, Remedy. Okay,
So if you, if you were the first texture with
the right answer at the appropriate time, Dragon will be
in touch with you by text.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
You will reply through text.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
Please verify that you want to go to Colorado Springs
on Monday. Okay, let's do a local. When I say local,
I mean state Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
State story here. I find this very interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
I talk a fair bit on the show about the
real estate market, because I think it's a very interesting
market and it affects a lot of people, and by
the way, it affects renters too, Maybe not as much
as it affects homeowners, but it affects renters too.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
I won't get in all that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
And in recent years, there's a big aspect of the
conversation about home values has gone just beyond well, how
much are people's homes worth these days? Too, being Oh
my god, I own a house and the value has
gone up, but I don't want to move. How much
more am I going to have to pay in property

(01:28:35):
taxes just in order to be able to stay in
my house? And I will tell you, I will tell
you this straight up. I don't know if I've mentioned
this in this direct way, but one of the biggest reasons,
maybe the biggest reason that I sold my last house.

(01:28:57):
And you're not gonna feel sorry for me. I'm just
telling you the story. And one of the biggest reasons
that I sold my last house was how much the
property taxes went up from the time I bought it. Now,
from the time I bought it, I did put quite
a lot of money into making it nicer, but the
value also exploded, just like the value exploded everywhere. And yes,
again I'm not expecting you to feel sorry for me,

(01:29:17):
and I don't. But the problem. You don't feel sorry
for people whose asset values are going up. I get it,
I get it. But the issue And don't think so
much about me now in this case. But think about
a retired couple who's been in a particular house for
thirty years or more. There's lots of those folks, right,

(01:29:41):
And you're and you're seventy years old. Now think about
think about this. You and your wife bought this house
when you were thirty eight years old. You were moving
up a bit, and you're in the working world, and
you got to raise and you're maybe you're a manager now,
and you're making a decent living. At that time, probably

(01:30:03):
both of you were working and at least for a while,
and you got Now then you have a kid, two kids,
and you need a somewhat bigger house, and you want
to be in a somewhat nicer neighborhood and near the
better schools, And so you buy this nicer house.

Speaker 2 (01:30:18):
And I'm not going to name any neighborhoods.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
It doesn't matter what neighborhood in Colorado though, just for
purposes of this conversation, in Colorado.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
And.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
You've been there since you were thirty eight and you're
seventy now, and the value of your house has gone
up and going.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):
That's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
You're like, oh, I own this place. And you know,
after fifteen or twenty years in the house, you ended
up paying off the mortgage. You paid it off a
little bit early. You own the house out right, and
you're happy because you own a place and you don't
have debt on it. So you know, a on a
monthly basis or on an ongoing basis, you know, you
have to pay your property insurance and you have to
pay your property taxes. You know, that's sort of the

(01:30:58):
cost of ownership, separate from you utility bills. And you
can handle that. It's okay, It's okay. Your and your
property taxes are three thousand dollars a year, like ah
Man two hundred and fifty bucks a month. Okay, I
can live with that, live with that. And over the years,

(01:31:19):
the value starts of the house starts drifting up. And
then during COVID, and actually even a little before COVID,
Colorado real estate was very strong, and then everything got
crazy during COVID, and it was strong for a little
while after COVID. And now the value of your house
has gone up by one hundred and fifty percent. And
now instead of three thousand dollars a year in property taxes,

(01:31:42):
you have seven and a half thousand dollars a year
in property taxes. And the cost of everything else has
gone up. And your utility bills have gone up, food, everything,
going to the movies, everything has gone up in price.
And your seventy year old retired on a fixed income
and you're not independently wealthy, right, You've got a retirement,

(01:32:06):
you're getting social Security. It's not that much, but you're
getting you're getting okay, social security. And you know, maybe
you got a little pension from your employer or a
four to one K and you got a little money there.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
But now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:22):
Now instead of three thousand dollars a year in property taxes,
you've got seventy five hundred a year. That's another forty
five hundred dollars just cash money that you've got to
spend on top of all the extra cash money you
got to spend on everything else. And now you've got
people like that, retired folks who have.

Speaker 2 (01:32:44):
Done everything right.

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
Being forced to sell their homes because their property taxes
went up.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
Those are the people I feel bad for.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
I don't feel bad for me, even though I did
basically get chased out.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
Of my house by property taxes.

Speaker 1 (01:32:58):
I made a lot of money on the house, did
didn't want to move though, didn't want to move. Hard
to tell, hard to describe to you, and a very
brutal thing for me. How many tears my wife's shed
when we sold that house. She had put her soul,

(01:33:21):
her heart and soul into the garden, that house, and
it was just where she wanted it, and she had
done this backbreaking work for a few years, and it
was a house that would absolutely have won local gardening awards,
just like her previous two gardens did, but this was

(01:33:41):
the best one. It was months of crying because of
property taxes. So, with that overly long context setting, here's
the headline from the Colorado sun Front Range home values

(01:34:03):
dip in latest property tax assessments, signaling some relief for homeowners.
And isn't it an interesting thing that most of the
time in the past, before COVID, at least most people
would have thought about property values in the context of
if you're already a homeowner, how much is my asset worth?
If you're thinking about becoming a homeowner, can I should

(01:34:24):
I buy a house now instead of renting? And usually
property taxes were a secondary or tertiary thing, but not anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:34:31):
Now they're kind of in the lead.

Speaker 1 (01:34:36):
And that's why I wanted to share this story with you,
because it's it's got extra salience.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
Compared to five or ten years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:34:46):
Home values across the Denver metro area largely held steady
or declined in the latest tax assessment period. County assessors
announced on Wednesday in the latest sign the Colorado's housing
market has cooled off from its pandemic fever. Again, this
is from the Colorado that's Sun not Son. County tax
officials said it'll be several months before they can definitively

(01:35:06):
say whether most residential tax bills will go up or
down next year. That'll depend on whether local governments raise
mill levees when they set their budgets, and how the
state's new property tax laws play out in different communities.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
But at least one thing's assured.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
The typical homeowner will not experience major spikes in their
twenty twenty six tax bills, like they did after the
reassessment two years ago, which led to several rounds of
property tax cuts at the state level.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
But still the.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
Property tax cuts didn't come anywhere close to offsetting the
huge increase. Right, maybe you got you know, ten percent
less of a like you faced a forty Douglas County.
Douglas County was on average forty percent increase. So maybe
the law changes, you know, save you ten percent of
that forty percent, or even twenty percent at forty percent,

(01:35:56):
but you still saw a massive change and still forced
a lot of people out of their houses. The county
tax assessor for doug Co, named Tobe Damish, said, there's
a headline for us in doug Co this year, and
it's breathing a sigh of relief. The median residential value
in Douglas County. And by the way, when's the last
time this happened? Right, Douglas County has just been a boomtown,
a boom county for a long time, especially because a

(01:36:19):
Highlands ranch but also loan tree. The median residential value
dropped three and a half percent in the preliminary assessments,
which reflect market values as of June of last year,
June of last year, two years ago. Residential values Actually
this says up nearly fifty percent in doug Coe, more
than thirty percent in Denver. Now it's very it's very

(01:36:41):
neighborhood by neighborhood. So I just want to make sure
we kind of are, you know, on the same page
with that. It's very neighborhood by neighborhood, right. So like
in Eagle County out in the mountains, median home values
up eight percent. In Garfield County that's where glen Wood
Spring is up about fourteen percent.

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
Out there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
There are parts of Denver that are up, I think,
like Cherry Creek I think is up pretty big, but other.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Parts of Denver are down.

Speaker 1 (01:37:14):
Commercial properties are actually up, largely offsetting the decline in
home values, according to the Denver Assessor. So I don't
think I'm gonna say anymore there. I just wanted to
kind of give you a sense of what's coming, which
is that depending on where you live, you'll probably see
either a small rise or a small fall in your

(01:37:37):
property taxes, at least if your local government or governments
don't change the tax rates. The Denver Post has a
version of the same story Metro Denver homeowners can finally
exhale after fourteen years of rising home values and taxes.
I'll just add a couple of things here about Denver

(01:37:59):
from the from the Denver Post. Cherry Creek up eleven
point seven percent on average, Bell Carro another nice neighborhood
in Denver up seven percent, Union Station neighborhood up fourteen percent,
and out by the Airport up nearly twenty five percent.
A rapa Hoe County, a Rapo county, which has two
hundred and twenty nine thousand residential properties, saw most homes

(01:38:23):
fall in a range of zero to minus seven percent.
Adams County a little narrower range on average two percent
to six percent down.

Speaker 2 (01:38:34):
So there you go. Just wanted to share that with you.
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Let me do another thing, is more of a national story.
Do you have a first name of the ticket winner? Okay,
all right, all right, Well let's see if I uh Richard, Richard.
All right, congratulations to Richard for winning two tickets. Ask
ask the fancy dresser back there in the control room.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
He's wearing Grace was wearing right now, which is.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
Great, right, really weird for Ben Albright to be Ben Albright?
Have you ever heard of a band called What Dragon? Either?
Have you ever he's heard of his head?

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
Yeah? I know him. I didn't know him. What's he saying?
The lead singer of Evans and stated the lead singer
of Either?

Speaker 1 (01:39:20):
All right, Well, good for the lead singer of Seither,
because the lead singer of Evan sent's pretty decent looking girl,
so good for him. Right, Oh really, all right, let's
do that. I'll save this other stuff for tomorrow. Hi, Mandy, Hello,
how are you?

Speaker 2 (01:39:40):
I'm fine.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
I didn't know the band Seither, and these people are
making fun of me about it.

Speaker 5 (01:39:44):
Well, I've never heard of the band Seither either?

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
Yay.

Speaker 5 (01:39:47):
And as a matter of fact, I thought you said the.

Speaker 6 (01:39:48):
Band's name was Either, and I was like, well that's
kind of dumb, but whatever, it's your life band people.

Speaker 5 (01:39:54):
What did Cither do?

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:39:57):
Why are we talking about Seither?

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
Because we had to give away some tickets to this band.

Speaker 6 (01:40:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, well you know, I mean I haven't
heard them.

Speaker 5 (01:40:04):
It's fine, they probably probably okay. I mean, there're nothing
right home about me.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
I mean, if we don't know about them.

Speaker 5 (01:40:10):
Ross how good can they be?

Speaker 2 (01:40:11):
Exactly?

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
Are the series of all things cultural and cool and cool?

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
What you got coming up on the show?

Speaker 5 (01:40:18):
I actually know what.

Speaker 6 (01:40:19):
I have coming up on the show today, Ross, which
is a nice change I realized. So I was looped
into a email to the State Central Committee by the
Colorado Republican Party that is outlining the spending that occurred
in the last administration. And let's just say it is
no wonder they fought so hard to keep their positions

(01:40:39):
because they have been builking those are my words, the
Republican Party for years. And when people see the numbers
and they're on the blog today, you can find out exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:40:48):
What's been going on.

Speaker 6 (01:40:49):
Britta Horn joins me at two thirty, And then I
also have did you see the story about how Trump
fired all of the climate scientists who were supposed to
be working on the climate report? Yes, okay, so I've
got doctor Matthew Willicky. He writes a phenomenal irrational fear substack.

Speaker 5 (01:41:04):
He did.

Speaker 6 (01:41:05):
He just did a column about this about essentially the
same people who benefit and get money from that report
are the same.

Speaker 5 (01:41:13):
People to write the report. So what do you think
you're going to say?

Speaker 2 (01:41:16):
Of course it is. Yeah, yeah, it is.

Speaker 5 (01:41:18):
So he's gonna come on.

Speaker 6 (01:41:19):
We're going to talk about that today, and I have
a whole bunch of other stuff. We've got an update
on the trans write spill, We've got GDP talk, We've
got it's just gonna be a hoot and holler, because
tomorrow I am off Rowsome headed to my nephew's wedding
really in Albuquerque, and I just can't wait to get
down there so I can say I think I took
a long turn at Albuquerque.

Speaker 2 (01:41:38):
Uh huh, I get it. I get the reference.

Speaker 5 (01:41:40):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:41:41):
I don't know who's ei there is, but gosh, throw
some bugs money out and we're there.

Speaker 2 (01:41:45):
You just said. I was going to ask listeners to
tell us we got the reference, but.

Speaker 6 (01:41:49):
Somebody on the text line says, I'm sixty seven and
I've heard of them, So you're cooler than we are.
Sixty seven year old whatever, we still have our youth
and enthusiasm.

Speaker 1 (01:41:58):
Mm hmm. Body stick around for Mandy's Fabulous show. Enjoy
the rest of your Thursday, and I'll talk with you tomorrow.