Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Republicans are doing their best to blame Democrats for the shutdown,
and for the record, I do think that's pretty much
where the blame lies. There are a lot of other
things to talk about, not just blame, but does it matter?
Who really cares what happens next? Joining us to talk
about all of this, Kurt Couchman. Kurt is a senior
Fellow in fiscal policy for Americans for Prosperity, and he's
(00:23):
got a long resume of policy work for think tanks
and for members of Congress. And the dude knows what
he's talking about. So Kurt, welcome to Kaowa. It's good
to have you here. Hey, Ross, I'm excited to be
here with you today. I want to just deal with
one thing that they was mentioned at the very end
of that ad and Republicans keep saying it over and
over and over, and Democrats keep saying that's not right.
(00:44):
And that is Republicans claiming the Democrats what they want
to open the government again is healthcare for illegal aliens.
And we actually had a Congressman on the show before
mine who reference to a particular part of It's very intricate,
you know, in the weed stuff of what Democrats want,
and I basically think Republicans are.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Lying about this, but I would like to know what
you think.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, im my understanding, and I'm not a healthcare expert,
but my understanding is that Medicaid, there's like a portion
of the state Medicaid programs where they have the discretion
over that, and the Democrats are holding out for reversing
some of the good governance reforms to healthcare programs that
were in the Reconciliation Bill, and those programs without the
(01:33):
reforms did allow certain states to provide health insurance coverage
for illegal aliens in those states got it. So my
understanding is that is correct, but there's a whole lot
more the Democrats are pushing for that is.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Also bad policy, right, And I was just add one thing,
and in a way, I think, you know, Republicans are
picking on a thing here because free healthcare for illegal
aliens is very, very unpopular among much of the country.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
But what the Demo cranits.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Want is, as you alluded to, is a repeal of
an entire big section of the One Big Beautiful Bill
Act that includes all kinds of stuff that I would
think that most people would be in favor of keeping
in place, like making sure you're not signed up for
medicaid in two states and making sure that you're not
still somehow signed up for medicaid in some fraudulent kind
(02:23):
of way when you're actually dead and maybe somebody else
is getting that money or whatever. There's lots and lots
of reforms in there, and the Democrats want to repeal
that entire section and only one small part of it
even mentions illegal aliens. And I do think you're right
that to the extent there may be anything going on,
it has to do with state programs, not federal programs,
(02:44):
because illegal aliens are barred from federal programs under a
different law.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There is a whole lot that they are proposing repealing.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
They know they're not going to get that.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I mean, this is sort of similar to when Republicans
tried to repeal Obamacare and twenty thirteen when President Obama
was still president. Like, they're not going to take big
chunks out of President Trump's signature policy victory of this year.
What they're really aiming at is extending the Biden COVID
pandemic tax credit increases, which were add ons to the
(03:17):
original Obamacare tax credits for people that are buying their
health insurance through the exchanges, and most people who are
using the exchanges have the vast, vast majority of their
premiums covered by taxpayers at this point. And so Republicans
are just saying this should sunset the pandemic's over. Any
additional relief that was needed during that time doesn't need
(03:39):
to exist anymore. And Democrats were saying, no, we want
to keep moving closer to single payer healthcare, and any
step backwards from their perspective is something they can't accept.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So that's what they're really after, right, And.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I'll just tell listeners later in the show, I'm going
to have Michael Cannon, healthcare expert from the Cato Institute
on the show, and we're going to talk about some
of that stuff a little bit more in the weeds.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But when you hear some of the numbers.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
About how much health insurance premiums might go up if
Democrats don't get their way, the first thing that occurs
to my mind is not, oh, poor so and so who.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Is going to have to pay more for their health insurance?
But how on God's.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Green earth could health insurance cost this much? And to me,
it's the same way that college costs so much. The
college and healthcare are the two areas where inflation has
been so much higher than overall inflation for decades, because
those are the two areas where the government makes people
(04:39):
feel like other people are paying for it. I know
it's a little off topic, but do you want to
say anything to that, Kurt.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It's actually perfectly on topic. You know, we had this
period of time during the pandemic where people didn't have
to pay their student loans and then oh my gosh,
you have to start paying again, and it's like an
infinite increase in your student loan payments. But no, you're
just returning to normal, right, And so that's exactly what's
going on with these premium tax credits.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
All right, we're talking with Kirk Couchman from Americans for Prosperity.
All right, let's get out of the weeds a little bit.
On a very practical level, I would like you to
tell me and my listeners what impact on our lives
we might see while there's a government shut down, and
particular if we are not employees.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Of the federal government.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Absolutely, so.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know, I commute to work in the DC area,
and I thought my traffic was going to be a
little bit lighter today than normal, but no, it was
the same terrible commute as normal. So I live in
Maryland or Virginia, Northern Virginia, that's right, Yeah, yeah, from
one part of Northern Virginia to another. But there are
a number of activities that are continuing on defense, veteran services,
(05:50):
homeland security, border enforcement, a lot of medical care is
still continuing, and the administration has a lot of flexibility
about which things continue and which things don't, and they
so there are a lot of people that are not
working right now. They're not allowed to work during furloughs,
and so there's a component of federal activities where there
(06:11):
is actually stuff for the benefit of the American people
that is being paused right now. But then there's also
some nonsense that isn't continuing, and some of that is
grants and some of that is regulatory activities. Not so
bad under this administration, but under other administrations it has
been much worse in terms of, you know, tightening the
regulatory screws. And actually that was understating it. This administration
has been really great on reducing regulations reducing red tape,
(06:35):
removing barriers to people living their American dreams.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, they have been, and I wish that President Trump
were has committed to spending cuts as he is to
regulatory cuts. He's still better than any Democrat, but he's
not as good as he as a Republican should be.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So one of the things that I'm old enough to.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Remember, and you are too, because you got even more
gray hair than I do, is that during the Obama
government shutdown, Obama went out of his way to make
it as painful for the American people as possible. I
remember when he closed down like the World War Two Memorial, right,
(07:17):
these memorials in DC that don't have gates, They don't
need federal employees, You just walk in, and in order
to make it painful for people, he fenced them off
to keep people from going in and trying to make
Republicans look bad. Now it's a slightly different angle, but
there's been a bunch of talk from Trump and from
Russbaut who you probably know who, and they're talking about, well,
(07:39):
what can we do during the shutdown to make it
as politically painful for Democrats as possible? And while normally
I don't love these games this time. I just think
Democrats have earned whatever comes to their way. And I
would like to know what you think might be done
during the shutdown that would have impacts, let's say, on
(08:01):
the federal workforce after the shutdown.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, Director Vote put out a memo last week encouraging
agencies to look at permanent reductions in force during a
shut down period, and so that's up to each agency
to decide who which staff they don't need in order
to continue doing their their jobs. So we'll see how
that plays out. I mean, this is the first day
of the shutdown, so there's a lot that we still
(08:28):
don't know about how things are ultimately going to play out.
I did see a post on X this morning from
Director Vote talking about how grants to major transit projects
in New York City have been paused, like eighteen billion
dollars worth. There's a a tunnel under the Hudson River
linking New Jersey to Manhattan, and then there's a Second
(08:49):
Street subway or Second Avenue subway project that is being paused.
So that's clearly directly aimed at Senator Schumer. I guess
we'll have to see how the courts respond to some
of the actions that may be taken. They've been all
over the place, and we'll see if there are some
reductions in force, if the courts decide that that's permissible
(09:11):
or not. But we just have no way of knowing
how that will right now.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Certainly they've been threatening to use the shutdown to fire people,
right And again, look, I don't root for people to
lose their jobs, but I do root for the federal
government to get smaller.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So the point of the federal government is to serve
the American people. And if the federal government's doing stuff
that adds value, then great, and if it's not, then
knock it off, right.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And so, you know, it just depends.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, that's oddly sensible for somebody sitting in or near DC.
You don't hear that much common sense these days something
like that. So does anybody really care about this? Who
isn't within ten miles of where you're sitting right now?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well we should.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I mean, the dysfunction with federal budgeting, both between shutdowns
and debt limit brinksmanship, has been part of the reason
why the federal debt or you know, bond rating is
lower than it should be and why the outlook is
lower than it should be. We are piling up a
debt at an enormous rate. Most of that is not
driven by the appropriations. The discretionary spending that is related
(10:24):
to the shutdown. Appropriations are only a quarter of spending,
they're none of the revenue. And so that means that
there's a relative handful of members of Congress that are
even able to participate in this conversation, which means a
lot of Americans aren't really represented. Their members are on
committees that don't get to participate in this appropriations process.
(10:45):
And so we have not enough fiscal democracy in America,
which incidentally is the title of my new book.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And so we're not solving as many problems as we should.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We have a sclerotic federal budget cys them that doesn't work,
and it's letting the debt pile up. There's all these
opportunities for bipartisan problem solving that are just left on
the table, and so things keep getting worse and worse.
Politics keep keeps getting nastier and nastier, and at some
point there's going to be a breaking point, and if
(11:17):
we don't fix the system, then we're going to experience
that and it's going to be really, really ugly.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So people should care about this. This is the symptom
of deeper dysfunction. Yeah, I mean will I.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Mean we can we can print our own currency, and
actually that may end up hurting us quite a bit
when they do a lot more of that one day.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But you know, other than that difference, we.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Could end up being Greece with a couple extra zeros,
and it could be it could be real ugly. Now,
you I've just got about ninety seconds here, and some
of that stuff you you said inspired me to ask
you a more fundamental question about what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Right? So what is this?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What is it that Republicans want to pass that Democrats I.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Don't want to let pass.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's not a budget, and it's a thing that in
itself seems like a form of dysfunction. Like I'm with
Rand Paul on this, So can you please explain what
this thing is that passed the House, that Republicans want
to pass in the Senate and why it's maybe better
than nothing but not much, and maybe worse than nothing
(12:23):
because of the spending levels.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So I think it's better than a shutdown for sure,
and that's why House Republicans all unanimously approved it, and
Senate Republicans except for mister Paul voted for it as well.
But it is part of the underlying dysfunction. Like according
to the Budget Act, the twelve separate appropriations bills are
supposed to be passed actually in July, not by the
(12:48):
end of September, so the agencies have a little time
to plan. But that doesn't happen because there's not enough
members invested in making that happen. There's not enough benefits
to be worth whatever costs there are. That it's a symptom,
and then the continuing Resolution is just sort of keeping
things at the same level of funding. And then the
(13:08):
problem is that we could end up with a really
ugly omnibus Appropriations Act in November or December when it
ultimately gets done, which is also a function of a
broken process. The issue with an omnibus is it tends
to get cooked up behind closed doors by just a
handful of members, top leadership, top Appropriations Leadership, and the
White House, and so there are problems that are not
(13:30):
being solved because people don't really have a chance to
go after them.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
There's bloat that continues.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Because you know, if you don't have a stake in it,
then you're kind of on the fence about whether you're
going to vote for it or not. But then you
start cutting some interest groups thing and they start screaming
about it, then maybe that tips your calculus into not
voting for it. So there's a lot of work that
needs to be done to fix this. Yes, the CR
is a symptom, but there's a lot more that needs
to be dealt with.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, are we ever going to get back to
pre COVID spending levels or even or even pre COVID
but adjusted up for inflation.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Are we ever going to.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Get back to that? I mean, Republicans should be. That
should be. That's the only thing I need Republicans to do.
I don't give a rats behind about anything else that
Republicans care about except that we need to control spending.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
There's a lot of work to be done. It's not
going to happen without better institutions. But yeah, I mean,
if we get the right incentives in place, then we
could have the wrong people doing the right things for
whatever reason right, And that's the goal.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Kurt Couchman is Senior Fellow in Fiscal Policy for Americans
for Prosperity.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Give us the book title again.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It is Fiscal Democracy in America, How a balanced budget
Amendment can restore sound governance.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Already published, ready to go. It is published.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
It's available wherever you can find books.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Awesome, Thanks so much, Kirk. Great conversation will definitely have
you back.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Sounds good. Thanks for Ross all right, good to see
you
Republicans are doing their best to blame Democrats for the shutdown,
and for the record, I do think that's pretty much
where the blame lies. There are a lot of other
things to talk about, not just blame, but does it matter?
Who really cares what happens next? Joining us to talk
about all of this, Kurt Couchman. Kurt is a senior
Fellow in fiscal policy for Americans for Prosperity, and he's
(00:23):
got a long resume of policy work for think tanks
and for members of Congress. And the dude knows what
he's talking about. So Kurt, welcome to Kaowa. It's good
to have you here. Hey, Ross, I'm excited to be
here with you today. I want to just deal with
one thing that they was mentioned at the very end
of that ad and Republicans keep saying it over and
over and over, and Democrats keep saying that's not right.
(00:44):
And that is Republicans claiming the Democrats what they want
to open the government again is healthcare for illegal aliens.
And we actually had a Congressman on the show before
mine who reference to a particular part of It's very intricate,
you know, in the weed stuff of what Democrats want,
and I basically think Republicans are.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Lying about this, but I would like to know what
you think.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Well, im my understanding, and I'm not a healthcare expert,
but my understanding is that Medicaid, there's like a portion
of the state Medicaid programs where they have the discretion
over that, and the Democrats are holding out for reversing
some of the good governance reforms to healthcare programs that
were in the Reconciliation Bill, and those programs without the
(01:33):
reforms did allow certain states to provide health insurance coverage
for illegal aliens in those states got it. So my
understanding is that is correct, but there's a whole lot
more the Democrats are pushing for that is.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Also bad policy, right, And I was just add one thing,
and in a way, I think, you know, Republicans are
picking on a thing here because free healthcare for illegal
aliens is very, very unpopular among much of the country.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
But what the Demo cranits.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Want is, as you alluded to, is a repeal of
an entire big section of the One Big Beautiful Bill
Act that includes all kinds of stuff that I would
think that most people would be in favor of keeping
in place, like making sure you're not signed up for
medicaid in two states and making sure that you're not
still somehow signed up for medicaid in some fraudulent kind
(02:23):
of way when you're actually dead and maybe somebody else
is getting that money or whatever. There's lots and lots
of reforms in there, and the Democrats want to repeal
that entire section and only one small part of it
even mentions illegal aliens. And I do think you're right
that to the extent there may be anything going on,
it has to do with state programs, not federal programs,
(02:44):
because illegal aliens are barred from federal programs under a
different law.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
There is a whole lot that they are proposing repealing.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
They know they're not going to get that.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I mean, this is sort of similar to when Republicans
tried to repeal Obamacare and twenty thirteen when President Obama
was still president. Like, they're not going to take big
chunks out of President Trump's signature policy victory of this year.
What they're really aiming at is extending the Biden COVID
pandemic tax credit increases, which were add ons to the
(03:17):
original Obamacare tax credits for people that are buying their
health insurance through the exchanges, and most people who are
using the exchanges have the vast, vast majority of their
premiums covered by taxpayers at this point. And so Republicans
are just saying this should sunset the pandemic's over. Any
additional relief that was needed during that time doesn't need
(03:39):
to exist anymore. And Democrats were saying, no, we want
to keep moving closer to single payer healthcare, and any
step backwards from their perspective is something they can't accept.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So that's what they're really after, right, And.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I'll just tell listeners later in the show, I'm going
to have Michael Cannon, healthcare expert from the Cato Institute
on the show, and we're going to talk about some
of that stuff a little bit more in the weeds.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
But when you hear some of the numbers.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
About how much health insurance premiums might go up if
Democrats don't get their way, the first thing that occurs
to my mind is not, oh, poor so and so who.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Is going to have to pay more for their health insurance?
But how on God's.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Green earth could health insurance cost this much? And to me,
it's the same way that college costs so much. The
college and healthcare are the two areas where inflation has
been so much higher than overall inflation for decades, because
those are the two areas where the government makes people
(04:39):
feel like other people are paying for it. I know
it's a little off topic, but do you want to
say anything to that, Kurt.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It's actually perfectly on topic. You know, we had this
period of time during the pandemic where people didn't have
to pay their student loans and then oh my gosh,
you have to start paying again, and it's like an
infinite increase in your student loan payments. But no, you're
just returning to normal, right, And so that's exactly what's
going on with these premium tax credits.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
All right, we're talking with Kirk Couchman from Americans for Prosperity.
All right, let's get out of the weeds a little bit.
On a very practical level, I would like you to
tell me and my listeners what impact on our lives
we might see while there's a government shut down, and
particular if we are not employees.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Of the federal government.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Absolutely, so.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know, I commute to work in the DC area,
and I thought my traffic was going to be a
little bit lighter today than normal, but no, it was
the same terrible commute as normal. So I live in
Maryland or Virginia, Northern Virginia, that's right, Yeah, yeah, from
one part of Northern Virginia to another. But there are
a number of activities that are continuing on defense, veteran services,
(05:50):
homeland security, border enforcement, a lot of medical care is
still continuing, and the administration has a lot of flexibility
about which things continue and which things don't, and they
so there are a lot of people that are not
working right now. They're not allowed to work during furloughs,
and so there's a component of federal activities where there
(06:11):
is actually stuff for the benefit of the American people
that is being paused right now. But then there's also
some nonsense that isn't continuing, and some of that is
grants and some of that is regulatory activities. Not so
bad under this administration, but under other administrations it has
been much worse in terms of, you know, tightening the
regulatory screws. And actually that was understating it. This administration
has been really great on reducing regulations reducing red tape,
(06:35):
removing barriers to people living their American dreams.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, they have been, and I wish that President Trump
were has committed to spending cuts as he is to
regulatory cuts. He's still better than any Democrat, but he's
not as good as he as a Republican should be.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So one of the things that I'm old enough to.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Remember, and you are too, because you got even more
gray hair than I do, is that during the Obama
government shutdown, Obama went out of his way to make
it as painful for the American people as possible. I
remember when he closed down like the World War Two Memorial, right,
(07:17):
these memorials in DC that don't have gates, They don't
need federal employees, You just walk in, and in order
to make it painful for people, he fenced them off
to keep people from going in and trying to make
Republicans look bad. Now it's a slightly different angle, but
there's been a bunch of talk from Trump and from
Russbaut who you probably know who, and they're talking about, well,
(07:39):
what can we do during the shutdown to make it
as politically painful for Democrats as possible? And while normally
I don't love these games this time. I just think
Democrats have earned whatever comes to their way. And I
would like to know what you think might be done
during the shutdown that would have impacts, let's say, on
(08:01):
the federal workforce after the shutdown.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Well, Director Vote put out a memo last week encouraging
agencies to look at permanent reductions in force during a
shut down period, and so that's up to each agency
to decide who which staff they don't need in order
to continue doing their their jobs. So we'll see how
that plays out. I mean, this is the first day
of the shutdown, so there's a lot that we still
(08:28):
don't know about how things are ultimately going to play out.
I did see a post on X this morning from
Director Vote talking about how grants to major transit projects
in New York City have been paused, like eighteen billion
dollars worth. There's a a tunnel under the Hudson River
linking New Jersey to Manhattan, and then there's a Second
(08:49):
Street subway or Second Avenue subway project that is being paused.
So that's clearly directly aimed at Senator Schumer. I guess
we'll have to see how the courts respond to some
of the actions that may be taken. They've been all
over the place, and we'll see if there are some
reductions in force, if the courts decide that that's permissible
(09:11):
or not. But we just have no way of knowing
how that will right now.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Certainly they've been threatening to use the shutdown to fire people,
right And again, look, I don't root for people to
lose their jobs, but I do root for the federal
government to get smaller.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
So the point of the federal government is to serve
the American people. And if the federal government's doing stuff
that adds value, then great, and if it's not, then
knock it off, right.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
And so, you know, it just depends.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, that's oddly sensible for somebody sitting in or near DC.
You don't hear that much common sense these days something
like that. So does anybody really care about this? Who
isn't within ten miles of where you're sitting right now?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Well we should.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I mean, the dysfunction with federal budgeting, both between shutdowns
and debt limit brinksmanship, has been part of the reason
why the federal debt or you know, bond rating is
lower than it should be and why the outlook is
lower than it should be. We are piling up a
debt at an enormous rate. Most of that is not
driven by the appropriations. The discretionary spending that is related
(10:24):
to the shutdown. Appropriations are only a quarter of spending,
they're none of the revenue. And so that means that
there's a relative handful of members of Congress that are
even able to participate in this conversation, which means a
lot of Americans aren't really represented. Their members are on
committees that don't get to participate in this appropriations process.
(10:45):
And so we have not enough fiscal democracy in America,
which incidentally is the title of my new book.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And so we're not solving as many problems as we should.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
We have a sclerotic federal budget cys them that doesn't work,
and it's letting the debt pile up. There's all these
opportunities for bipartisan problem solving that are just left on
the table, and so things keep getting worse and worse.
Politics keep keeps getting nastier and nastier, and at some
point there's going to be a breaking point, and if
(11:17):
we don't fix the system, then we're going to experience
that and it's going to be really, really ugly.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So people should care about this. This is the symptom
of deeper dysfunction. Yeah, I mean will I.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Mean we can we can print our own currency, and
actually that may end up hurting us quite a bit
when they do a lot more of that one day.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But you know, other than that difference, we.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Could end up being Greece with a couple extra zeros,
and it could be it could be real ugly. Now,
you I've just got about ninety seconds here, and some
of that stuff you you said inspired me to ask
you a more fundamental question about what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Right? So what is this?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What is it that Republicans want to pass that Democrats I.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Don't want to let pass.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
It's not a budget, and it's a thing that in
itself seems like a form of dysfunction. Like I'm with
Rand Paul on this, So can you please explain what
this thing is that passed the House, that Republicans want
to pass in the Senate and why it's maybe better
than nothing but not much, and maybe worse than nothing
(12:23):
because of the spending levels.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So I think it's better than a shutdown for sure,
and that's why House Republicans all unanimously approved it, and
Senate Republicans except for mister Paul voted for it as well.
But it is part of the underlying dysfunction. Like according
to the Budget Act, the twelve separate appropriations bills are
supposed to be passed actually in July, not by the
(12:48):
end of September, so the agencies have a little time
to plan. But that doesn't happen because there's not enough
members invested in making that happen. There's not enough benefits
to be worth whatever costs there are. That it's a symptom,
and then the continuing Resolution is just sort of keeping
things at the same level of funding. And then the
(13:08):
problem is that we could end up with a really
ugly omnibus Appropriations Act in November or December when it
ultimately gets done, which is also a function of a
broken process. The issue with an omnibus is it tends
to get cooked up behind closed doors by just a
handful of members, top leadership, top Appropriations Leadership, and the
White House, and so there are problems that are not
(13:30):
being solved because people don't really have a chance to
go after them.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
There's bloat that continues.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Because you know, if you don't have a stake in it,
then you're kind of on the fence about whether you're
going to vote for it or not. But then you
start cutting some interest groups thing and they start screaming
about it, then maybe that tips your calculus into not
voting for it. So there's a lot of work that
needs to be done to fix this. Yes, the CR
is a symptom, but there's a lot more that needs
to be dealt with.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, are we ever going to get back to
pre COVID spending levels or even or even pre COVID
but adjusted up for inflation.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Are we ever going to.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Get back to that? I mean, Republicans should be. That
should be. That's the only thing I need Republicans to do.
I don't give a rats behind about anything else that
Republicans care about except that we need to control spending.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
There's a lot of work to be done. It's not
going to happen without better institutions. But yeah, I mean,
if we get the right incentives in place, then we
could have the wrong people doing the right things for
whatever reason right, And that's the goal.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Kurt Couchman is Senior Fellow in Fiscal Policy for Americans
for Prosperity.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Give us the book title again.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It is Fiscal Democracy in America, How a balanced budget
Amendment can restore sound governance.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Already published, ready to go. It is published.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
It's available wherever you can find books.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Awesome, Thanks so much, Kirk. Great conversation will definitely have
you back.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Sounds good. Thanks for Ross all right, good to see
you
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