May 25, 2025 • 43 mins
Grover Norquist, President Americans for Tax Reform
Peter Roff- former UPI and U.S. News columnist
Peter Roff- former UPI and U.S. News columnist
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is made in America with Rich Roth My welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
To me in America this week. Delighted to have you here.
This has been there are exciting weeks. There is not
an exciting week and a not a good news week.
There's not even a bad news day. Every day is
one heck of induced. I have ever seen anything like it.
It's unbriievable. We have a great show for you today.
I have to tell you that one of our good
friends of the show is on again, Grover Norquist. And
(00:34):
Grover is gonna be talking about the big beautiful bill
that we've been discussing for quite a while now, but
it was just passed and we're delighted to hear that.
Second guest is gonna be Peter Roff, and we're gonna
be talking about US energy and why we need an
America first approach to that. We're gonna get that a
little bit later, but let's get back to Grover Norquist. Grower,
(00:55):
it is so good to have you. Grower is the
president of Americans for Tax Reform and consider grow to
be the imminent scholar in person to talk to when
it comes to understanding the nuances of taxes and what's
happening in the country. Grover, welcome to mad in America.
Delighted to have you, delighted to be with you. Well,
thank you so much, sir, so I gotta tell you,
(01:17):
I mean, this has been a very interesting week. You know,
I wouldn't exactly say we overwhelmed and we just had
an overwhelming vote. I mean, I'm really concerned about some
of this. But let's let's just back up a little
bit first and say what was so significant? We know it,
I know that, but let's try and bring it down
(01:38):
to the main street for people. Why was this passage
Grovell so so significant to the United States and for us.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Because after Republican majority in the House in the Senate
both narrow are not able to pass the legislation to
make permanent the tax cuts from twenty seventeen. Then in
a year, all of those tax cuts disappear. And what
(02:08):
that means is your taxes. My taxes will go up
by about five trillion dollars each ten year period, five
hundred billion a year, a huge The tax rates on
every American rich, poor, in the middle businesses all would
go up. The per child tax credit, which is now
(02:30):
two thousand dollars would go to one thousand dollars. The
personal exemption, the standard deduction that would be cut in
half if the tax cuts are not continued. The expensing
for new businesses, which says, if you build a new factory,
we're not going to tax you on the money you
(02:51):
just spent because it's not there anymore. You just spent it.
Instead of having long depreciation schedules, I mean, you immediately
expend it year one, which makes it much less expensive
to build a new factory, to buy a new truck
for a company, to buy new computers for staff, all
the things that make people more productive and make them
(03:13):
get paid more stalaries. All of this goes away if
we don't pass the bill. So the House just passed
the bill which does all this makes the twenty seventeen
tax cuts permanent, permanent, out into insinity. The only way
these tax cuts are going to be taken away from
you and your relatives and your neighbors and your businessmen
(03:36):
and women that you know is if the Democrats win
the House and the Senate and the presidency, then they
will take away all your tax cuts and raise taxes.
But we know they do that since the Republicans became
the party they won't raise taxes in nineteen ninety four
when they all took the pledge never to raise taxes
(03:56):
and since then have kept it. Daily time taxes get
raised since nineteen ninety four is when the Democrats have
the House set in the presidency. If the Republicans have
any of those three, no tax increased. If the presidents
have all three cut, that's the rules. You want all
Democrat governors, they'll raise your taxes. You want all Republican government,
they'll cut your taxes. You get something in the middle.
(04:18):
Nothing moves. So this is we are now halfway through
to having the Trump tax cuts made permanent. The House
just acted as you said.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It was close.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Now, mind you, two of those people tried to mine
were asleep, and I would be a little harsher on them,
except I was talking to people from the Ways and
Means Committee maybe a week or two ago, when they
had forty votes in the middle of the night and
didn't finish work until eight fifteen in the morning because
they'd worked all night, and you try to go back
to your office to sleep for a little bit in
(04:52):
between votes. And two of our friends who wanted to
support the bill actually slept through it. So we won
by one vote. We want one three if everyone's in
that alarm clocks.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So the dog didn't eat their homework. They just didn't
get up. They couldn't. That's just that's a great story.
That is we win by one vote and two guys
are sleeping. Oh my god, that's just how human did
that get? That's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Is that Normally the whip would be in charge of
sending out the dogs to look for you. But you
had the one vote win. They said done, all right,
that said we don't have to wind.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Let them sleep, bring him breakfast. For Christ's sakes, they
can do that. Oh my god, that's incredible. Hey, listen, Phil,
let's play. I'm going to play one cut and let
Grover and I respond to that. A one largest tax
cut from Carolyn.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
This one big, beautiful bill will implement President Trump's Make
America Great Again agenda by delivering the largest tax cut
in American history for middle class families, the working class,
and small businesses.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So it is the largest tax cut in history, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, because the economy always grows. Yes, this tax titze
will be bigger than the last foot. But it is
a large, substantial tax cut, and yes, it is impressive,
and it's even more impressive because it's permanent. It's not
just for ten years, which is what we've been doing
(06:25):
with tax cuts in the past, because we went off
of you know, present law instead of present policy, which
is all very confusing and really shouldn't matter. But we
have wisely decided to be aggressive and said we are
going to make this permanent out into the future, and
that is now happening.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
All right, So let me ask you a question. So
I was listening to Ken Martin, who's the chair of
the DNC, and he said, if we're not for willing
to fight like hell right now, then do we really
believe in the things that we say? And then it
goes on to wax a little bit more about you know,
there's nothing there for the average American. There's no agenda
(07:10):
coming from the Republicans that's really good for the average American.
So we're gonna fight like hell. I have no idea, Grover,
what are they fighting against. It seems like they want
to make everything more expensive for Americans as opposed to
less expensive, and cause a repressive economy as opposed to
an expansive economy. It's to me, you know, I try
(07:33):
to understand what the Democrats are doing right now on
so many different levels, and I just grover. I can't
get it because I don't know stand. This is not
this is like an eighty twenty thing. None of it
makes sense. It's a total physical manifestation of an oxymoram.
So what is this guy saying? Well, how could he
say there's nothing there for the average American? Because I
think there's some really substantial, exciting things for the average
(07:55):
worker in America.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well for starters, lying and he knows he's a lot
there to be kind if you were caught in the
corner and your party had voted against doubling the per
child tax credit, which is now threatened with going away
unless the Republican bill as we passed, do you want
(08:21):
to discuss that how the Democrats opposed doubling the per
child tax credit when the Republicans want to not only
double it, be out another five hundred dollars to that.
He don't want to talk about that? Does he want
to talk about how everybody who pays income taxes will
see their marginal tax rate cut at all levels, no
matter how much money you make if you're paying the
federal income tax, it goes down. And the Washington Post
(08:45):
had to admit because during the last fight in twenty seventeen,
the establishment press was out saying ridiculously, oh, this is
just for rich people, it's just for corporations, even though
they knew it was not true. One thing that's interesting
about the press is they think they're telling the truth.
If they once say the truth, after it doesn't matter anymore,
(09:10):
having said fifty times when it did matter the law.
So when the fight was going on, just for its people, right,
or when they would never challenge a politician, Democrat, politicians others,
just for people, just for the big companies or something,
and which wasn't true. But after the bill passed, after
it was safely passed, and it couldn't hurt the Democrats
(09:33):
for them to tell the truth, The New York Times,
the Washington Post, every major publication came out and admitted
that this was a tax cut that reduced the tax
burden for just about everybody in the country and certainly
reduced tax rates for everybody in the country. So if
you're a Democrat, do you really want to say I
(09:55):
liked it? When the corporate tax was thirty five percent
in America and China was twenty five percent. The Democrats
voted to have your taxes on businesses that you work for,
businesses you buy things for was being taxed at thirty
five percent, when in China it's either fifteen or twenty five.
(10:17):
And then people wonder why we have trouble competing with
some other countries. Even the European average was way under
the American average, and that we took that number down
to twenty one. Trump and the Republicans have said, look,
we want to take it down to fifteen. I'm with them.
I think in the next couple of years we should
take it to fifteen and out compete Europe. But why
(10:40):
would a Democrat want to go in front of American
workers and say, I think you should start when you compete.
The Democrat position is, mister American worker, I think you
should compete against China on lower wages, not lower taxes.
Because the Democrats view taxes as a pay increase because
(11:00):
so many of them work for the government, and they
like higher taxes, even though it damages most Americans and
makes us not competitive as a nation. So they have
to scream big business, rich people because they can't have
a calm, cool, collected discussion of what's actually happening because
(11:22):
it would make them look foolish. And they don't want
to do that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
No, they don't want to do that. But you know what,
We've got a couple of more things to talk about,
and I really want to get into some of the
comments that they've been making in terms of medicaid and
food programs and you know, all these people get off
a program, they're going to starve and die in cats
and dogs. Let me together in the street. We're gonna
be right back with Rover and Roquist. We have much
more coming. I Made in America. Don't go anywhere. Hey,
(11:56):
welcome back to Native in America. We're on the air
right now over and we're delight to have it. We're
talking about the big bill, the beautiful big bill that
was just passed and the significance of it. And then
we want to talk about, you know, the myths, the
myths that are out there and have been out there
for so long about what's really going to happen. This
bill passes. One of the things we're discussing the lies
(12:19):
and myths that have been coming out from the left and
backed up by the mainstream media, which apparently haven't learned
anything since I don't know, back in twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen,
and this last election when the Democrats just didn't lose,
they were destroyed in the last election. Grow Why how
can people such as you know, DNC chair Ken Martin
(12:39):
say that Medicaid's getting cut. People will be suffering, they're
not going to get healthcare. You know, forty eight million
people will go off of snap programs and food stamps
and they're not going to eat. And I remember when
I was a child growing up, my mother was fifteen,
which you know, I understand that. I mean, I'm not
criticized on my complaining. I'm not making fun of it.
I'm being serious. But I don't quite understand how this
(13:03):
bill is going to put people on the street and
they're not going to eat, They're going to starve, and
we're not going to be giving health care to people anymore,
which by the way, no one seemed to care when
Obamacare was passed, and you know, for twenty percent of
the country and they needed health care, we ripped apart
eighty percent of the country for health care, and a
lot of people did lose their plan, had their premiums raised,
(13:24):
lost coverage. It was really not a good thing. So Grover,
can we address that first? This is a myth, isn't it.
We're not People are not going to be starving and
people are not going to lose health care along the way,
are they?
Speaker 5 (13:37):
No?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And depending on how old you are, you have heard
this every two years the Republicans are going to do
in social Security. Every time they think they're going to
lose the presidency, they say that this new guy will
end social Security. Nobody has ended social Security. Nobody has
ended Medicare. What they are looking to do the Republicans
(13:58):
on med decay is to have a requirement that you'd
be a citizen to get government support and checks for healthcare,
that you actually be working or looking for work. This
is Medicaid was set up for people who are working.
It's not set up for people who aren't working, and
that they would check and see whether somebody was getting
(14:19):
two checks or whether there was fraud going on the
government is not doing a very good job of combating
leakage fraud, and that we need to do that. So
under the projections that they look at instead of growing
at six percent a year, Medicaid would grow at three
percent a year. That's the vicious cut they're talking about,
(14:41):
all coming from making sure that only the people who
are eligible orn't Medicaid get it.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Does that include a work requirement?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
There is a work requirement, but I think it also
if you're seriously looking for work that counts. You can't
be sitting on your sofa until the age twenty six,
which is what Obama set up, not working and just
get it. I was talking to somebody who was going
through with the problems they found in Ohio of a
(15:13):
lot of government employees getting it and rich people getting it,
and they just weren't checking at all to see whether
people were eligible or it, and people get checks as
a result.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Very interesting. Let's go back for a second to corporations
and their ability to expand. One of the things that
we've been hearing, and I think this is very significant.
This expands an economy, doesn't it. This is giving corporates
the opportunity grow, expand, construct, purchased, rehabilitate, and actually come
(15:49):
back to the United States. It also gives the ability
for American corporations to get better tax breaks or to
have American cars have a better prog for purchasing. So
it seems to me that particularly with the ability to
you know, have an immediate deduction on your taxes or
(16:10):
require the reporting on the taxes, that you get a
break right away in that over a period of time,
which ekes it out and doesn't really help as much.
You know, it seems to me, Grover, that we have
an opportunity to add. What I'm hearing right now is
four million jobs you know, over this whole situation going
out over the next few years, which means to me,
(16:31):
I mean this sort of talks about the golden age
that President Trump's been talking about. We may be going
into an amazing time expansive mode for the United States economy.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
And it's not just that we're reducing tax rates, which
is very important. We're also reducing the regulatory burden on
industry after industry. We're no longer punishing people for creating energy.
We're not going to be subsidizing corrupt businesses that don't
(17:04):
do energy. All of those subsidies for wind and solar
and so on. People want to use wind and solar.
It's a sporadic energy. It's not twenty four to seven.
When the wind doesn't blow or when the sun isn't out,
you have no energy. But if you want to buy
that kind of energy, you're free to in a free society.
But you shouldn't be subsidizing it and managed and requiring
(17:29):
people to use energy that they can't trust and that
costs too much.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, yeah, I mean that's obvious, and I agree with that.
That makes a muffle lot of sense. But it seems
to me that we're going to be hiring a lot
of people now since you're complaining about the deficits. And
Steve Rattner was out there the other day on CNN.
What a surprise that, and of course he was part
(17:56):
of the Biden group years ago that he says, well,
you know, we're going to we're going to be adding,
you know, twenty five billion more in the deficit. I mean,
that's kind of what I heard. So what's the deal
with that. We're not We're not. I don't think we're
going to destroy the deficit. I think we're going to
help the deficit because we're going to create a bigger
tax base if we have more people working. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yes, And the government itself points out that if for
a ten year period you grow at three percent instead
of two percent, that the deficit goes down by three
and a half trillion. Why because with more growth, more
people working, more people paying taxes, people earning more and
paying more in taxes, you get more revenue without raising
(18:39):
tax rates. And people get off welfare and they go
to work, so they stop getting well for a chox.
So you do those two things. Just go from two
percent to three percent growth, that's three point five percent.
Go from two to four percent, and you've just dropped
seven billion dollars every decade. That's how you reduce the deficit.
(19:01):
And the gat grow, grow, grow.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, it seems obvious to me. And you've got more
people functioning, more products being purchased, and then with all
these incentives, you have a much larger manufacturing base right
here in the United States, which creates more jobs and
more excitement, more fining. I mean, it's just the whole
thing seems to feed itself in such a wonderful way
that we are going into we could very well go
(19:28):
into a golden age over the next year's assume people,
you know, that was the idea exactly. Grover listen. I
have to tell you it's so great to have you
back on the show. I delight having conversations with you
on Made in America all these years, and I wish
you well. Of course, we wish you a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Grover, you too.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Take care. We're gonna be right back. We're gonna be
talking about energy. So I'm they're gonna be energized, but
we're gonna be talking about energy. Thanks and a lot.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Promoting American industry.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
This is Made in America with Rich Rothman.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
It is great to have you here today. We are
delighted to have Peter Roff on the show right now.
Peter is a Washington, DC based columnist and a commentator.
He's a former senior political writer with UPI I knew
folks there, and former US News and World Report one
of my favorite years ago contributing editor. So we deluded. Peter.
(20:38):
Welcome to Maid in America. Very happy you're here today.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Good to be with you.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Well. Thanks, So you did a piece of US energy
needs an America first approach, and I think you're one
hundred percent correct. I think you're a and I think
most of us recognize that and I certainly, you know,
we certainly understand this administration gets it. I don't think
other administrations have gotten that at all. But I think
we're in the right place and maybe we're at the
(21:05):
right time. We'll find out. Peter, let's talk about this.
What happened. You know when when Trump was in you know,
the first time in forty five, you know, he had
this approach that everything was on the table, which made
a lot of sense to me, particularly coming out of
the Obama situation where things were going in the other direction,
sort of like the Paris Climate Accord and things like that.
(21:29):
So let's just give a little historical perspective for thirty
seconds on what this. We were, where we were in
the significance.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Well, here's the here's the deal. Al Gore wrote a
book back in the eighties that said the internal combustion
engine was the enemy of mankind and that all the
pollutants that we were putting in the air as we
were creating a multi trillion dollar global con me we're
(22:01):
making the planet heat up, and that if we didn't
stop it, the ice caps were going to melt, and
everything west of the Rockies, in east of the Smoky
mountains would be under twelve feet of water mm. And
so people decided. Some people decided that that meant we
(22:23):
had to stop using oil, natural gas, coal to heat
our homes, run our businesses, power our cars, and that
we ought to switch to electric, wind and solar. Well,
(22:44):
none of the doomsday predictions have happened. We haven't even
come close to any of the doomsday predictions happened.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
None of these right.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But under Clinton, under obam and under Biden, the people
running policy in Washington have tried to throttle back our
use of coal, natural gas, oil, and it's been a
very expensive failure because they're putting the needs of the
(23:26):
world ahead of what we need here at home in America.
And that's only true in one sense, if they're right
about global climate change, and I don't think they are.
(23:46):
And frankly, most of the scientific community agrees with me,
or at least is closer to my view of what's happening.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well, you know, Obama fighting, hang on for a second,
because you're right, You're one hundred percent correct. And they
banter that those who believe in clean energy are pushing
that that that discussion. They absolutely say that, well, ninety
nine percent and mean, I hear this all the time,
even from my partners. Ninety nine percent of these scientists
(24:17):
out there agree that, you know, we're in a global
warming things. It's and then they say, Peter, the science
is settled. That's when I get infuriated, because science is
never settled. It's always subject to such examination. But what
is that all about.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's about command and control. Bottom line. They want to
run everybody else's lives. There's something about progressives that makes
them want to run everything. And that's why every answer
starts with central planning. The smartest people get in the room,
(24:57):
they design a plan, and they force everybody to go
along with it. It doesn't work. If it had worked,
East Germany would have been Singapore and Singapore would have
been Zimbabwe. But that's not what happens. Singapore is a
free market haven and it's got one of the strongest
economies in the history of the world, never mind the
(25:19):
world today. East Germany was run by, you know, twelve
guys in a room, and everybody who lived there was
trying to get out. Things were so.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Bad, that's right. So you know what, when you deal
with central planning, it goes back to Stalinen goes back
to the thirties, and we know that that didn't work
because look how many millions of people died as a
result of that same thing in China. I mean, China
killed what seven million people? The Russians killed other people,
you know, of their own people. Then happened in.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
World War one hundred million people minimum, Yeah, died, I'm sorry,
not died. Had been murdered by left wing regimes in
the twentieth We're murdered by left wing regimes in the
twentieth century. One hundred million people minimum, the Chinese, the Russians,
(26:16):
the Cubans, the guys in Cambodia, Laos, the Vietnam one
hundred million minimum. But we're talking about energy. So how
does this all apply to energy. Well, energy means mobility,
Energy means freedom. They want us tied to non portable
(26:42):
energy solar wind cars that can only go so far,
trucks that can only go so far. They don't want
our homes us to be able to heat homes cool
them down in the summertime. They want to ration energy
so that they can you know, save the planet. Well,
Trump comes along, and and and so the Democrats can
(27:06):
have some vestige of honesty. What they do is they
say everything's permitted, but then they put in rules and
regulations that nobody can get past, and then they take
whole chunks of land that are right for energy exploration,
like the that section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
where there aren't any caribou, but there's a lot of
(27:27):
oil underground, and they say you can't look for it there.
You know, you can look for the oil where we
don't think there's any oil. But if we think there's oil,
we're going to take that out of the places that
you can look if it's under federal control, and all
the places you can go get oil, we're gonna or
natural gas. We're gonna. We're gonna permit you to death.
(27:49):
We're going to make it so expensive. That's why we
don't build nuclear plants anymore, because it's so expensive, because
the permitting process is so rigorous, it's beyond rational.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's going to change really soon. Listen. We don't build
nuclear plants because of the movie that was out there,
the China Syndrome. If anyone movie had an effect on
that industry and scared the hell out of everybody was
the China Syndrome. Michael Douglas, Chain Fonda.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And and well it was the movie coming out in
such close relationship to what happened to Pennsylvania at the
Three Mile Island nuclear plant which they had, and.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Everyone said, oh my god, look at this. You right,
look what happened. We almost had a meltdown. It was terrible.
Look what happened in Russia. Oh my god. They were right.
We almost had a meltdown. It was terrible.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Almost almost, yeah, almost, that's what everybody misses, like we
almost had a fire, Okay, but you didn't and you
didn't have a metdown. And now Microsoft wants to buy
three Mile Island and restart it. Why because we need
unbelievable amounts of electricity, more than one hundred and twenty
one jigawats, They shout out to you, back to the future,
(28:57):
fans of electricity. Yes, and they want to operate it
to raise to generate power to fuel AI, which is
the future. And you're not going to have the future
that we're talking about on solar and wind. And you
can't even have wind without natural gas to supplement what's
(29:21):
going on when the wind doesn't blow. So they put
in all these regulations so even if you could look
for energy, it would cost you more to get it
out of the ground, So why do it. You can't
sell it for what it costs.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well, that's what Obama said. Obama said, you can run coal.
You could mean, We're going to tax the hell out
of you, so I don't think you're going to bankrupt you.
But yeah, you could do coal.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Right, So Comps heads in and starts to open up
the federal lands again to energy exploration, and and starts
to get rid of ridiculous regulations imposed by places like
the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. People,
a lot of people don't understand the Department of Energy
(30:13):
really has very looking to do with the actual energy
that we use, its Interior and its EPA. And he
got America back into the energy business. It's an America
first move. Why because if America is as it was
under Trump in the first administration, a net exporter of
(30:37):
fossil fuels, if we are sending more fossil fuels out
than we are consuming, net exporter, that reduces our reliance
on energy that comes from or through some of the
most dangerous places on the planet.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, that's one hundred percent correct. And not only that. Yes,
you're right, Mid East, Venezuela and so forth, but there
are also some of the dirtiest places in terms of
you know, you know, getting the extracting the energy out
of the ground. We have the toughest rules and regulations,
We have the cleanest ability to have an energy industry.
But for some reason, the progressives on the left just
(31:23):
don't get that. So oh no, let's let's go to
Venezuela where they're you know, it's free for all in
terms of getting the oil out of the ground. Same
thing in the Mid East. We don't control that, but
we're gonna go ahead and give money to these people.
A they hate us, and B we're actually taking dollars
out of the United States rather than keeping them here,
reinvesting them here, creating jobs here, and making our energy stronger. Look,
(31:48):
the truth of the matter is in the twenty twenty
first century, unless you have inexpensive and a complete, sustainable
and reliable source of energy on a daily basis, you
got a problem. And that's one of the things that
we're able to do. What does that do for us?
It creates jobs, It gives us a much better credit
rating with something Moody is want to remember right now
(32:10):
and puts us in the right direction that as you
just very aptly said that we becoming that exporter of energy.
You know, it's very interesting that you said before that
this whole thing is a control, and it is a control.
Is no question in my mind. The fact that you
would have electric cars that only have a certain degree
in terms of mileage that you can go controls you.
(32:32):
One of the things that's the most American thing that
you can think about right now. When I was a
kid in my generation grew up, was that we could
get in a car and go somewhere. That's the whole
idea of the motels that were devised in the late
forties in the early fifties. Americans could get in a
car and they could travel. They could go wherever they
wanted to go. Was a homogeneous nation, it was not
(32:53):
a problem to go anywhere. And that was one of
the beauties of America. The fact that you want to
have an electric car that can go originally one hundred
and eighty two hundred miles and then you know two
hundred and eighty miles and three hundred miles. It doesn't
matter because I don't care. If it's five hundred miles,
you still have to charge. We don't have the technology
(33:13):
for that yet. Maybe someday we will, but not right now.
But it is part of all this control freak. I
mean in South Florida. I'm in South Florida for many
many years now, FP and L Florida Power and Light,
which is next Era owned by next Era, it's the
parent company. Completely changed everyone out from the old fashioned
you know meters, you know, the electric meters, into smart meters.
(33:36):
Now you know, Oh my god, there's smart meters that
I can read it. I don't have to look at
those stupid things going around. I can actually read this thing. Well,
that's wonderful, except why do you suppose they put smart
meters in? They don't use that word for a re
the word they use smart.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
You are smart.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
They provide the data to those who control, and you're right.
They could say, wait a minute, heating too much. I
don't think that's fair. That's not equitable. You're cooling too much.
I don't think that's equitable, right, Peter.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, whoops, power surge. We've gotta we've got to turn
turn your air conditioning up. Sorry, right, I gotta turn
your heat down. While you're in South Florida, who needs heat?
But you know where I am in Virginia. Yeah, we
need heat. We need heat a lot of half the year.
We need we need the heaters. We don't need them much,
(34:27):
but we need them. But they can set the temperature
in your house. Now, how how invasive is that?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
They remember that when the when the Republicans were losing
elections on social with issues because the left went out
and said everybody that we wanted to spy on you
in your bedroom. They're talking about setting touching the thermost at. Okay,
after I graduated from college and had children of my own,
I wasn't allowed to touch the thermost at in my
(34:58):
mother's house. It was it's just one of those things.
You know, you don't touch the thermostat. You don't go
in dad's stock drawer and you don't touch the thermostat.
But they want to run the service debt from some
central office someplace because they're deciding that we're using too
(35:19):
much energy.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So we need we need to reapproach, we need to
get back to basic facts and get this place. And
I think we are. I think we're moving in that direction,
and I think America really got that message really hard
in this election because it made no sense, and they
can't afford electricity, They can't afford to do what they
need to do. They realized in Texas over a year
(35:41):
ago that when the really bad weather came, all their
wonderful green energy failed. It failed, and people died as
a result of that. So steer the hell out of people.
All Right, we're gonna have to take a break. We're
going to be right back with the pewterroff In made
in America. Don't go anywhere. We're energized. Hey, welcome back
(36:10):
to maybe in America. We are delighted to have Peter
Roth here Washington, the DC based columnist and commentator and
the former senior political writer for the UPI, and he
also worked in very high up in the US News
and World Report contributing editor. Delighted to have you, Peter.
We're talking energy. Let's let's talk for a second where
we're going, because we were talking about virtue signaling and
you wrote a piece that's very very very good, and
(36:33):
your piece talks about what's happening with the current bill
that we're trying to We did pass this week and
why America needs an America first approach. But it seems
like we're trying to virtue signal in UH and not
ignore some of the lobbyists that are apped. Can you
talk about that a little bit please.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, there's a there's a lot that Biden did in
the Inflation Reduction Act as he tried to force us
to change over to a green economy that still needs
to be undone. Much of that is in the area
of special tax treatment for green energy. Now that's everything
(37:16):
for wind and solar, to sustainables and biofuels. I am
for repealing all of it as a matter of fact.
As a general principle, I'd like to eliminate all of
the deductions that exist on the personal side and just
(37:37):
have everybody pay one flat rate. We're not there yet,
and we're certainly not there yet on the business side.
Some of the credits that we have now, however, are
being used to subsidize energy that we're making for export,
(38:03):
so that they can have it cheaper in Europe and
they can have it cheaper in agent like sustainable aviation
fuel m HM, which is which you know, I mean,
call me crazy, but I you know, I don't want
to fly on a plane that's using sustainable aviation fuel.
I want the real stuff. Yes, it's been proven to
(38:24):
work over one hundred years of man of engine powered flight.
I don't want to experiment. Don't experiment with the fuel
mix on my plane, thank you. Somebody else is fine,
just not fine. But we're sending this stuff out of
the country. So we're not even Americans as consumers, as
travelers aren't getting the benefit of the of these of
(38:48):
these credits that are that are that are costing. They're
costing because we have to find the money for them,
which means we can't drop rates. If we can't drop rates,
we have less economic growth. You know, Arthur Laffer proved
it brilliantly with his with the curve that he designed
fifty years ago, that there's a certain rate at which
(39:10):
more taxes produce less revenue. So the lower the rates,
the flatter the rates, the more revenue that we can
get because because the economy grows because we're leaving money
in the private sector. This is not a hard concept
to understand. And the more credits you you infect into
(39:30):
the system, the higher the total rate has to be.
And then everybody hires accountants and lawyers and you know,
lobbyists to to carve out their protections because ultimately everybody
wants to pay as little tax as possible. And there's
nothing wrong with that. You know that the Biden people
refer to that as tax evation. It's not tax evason,
(39:52):
it's tax avoidance. There's a different right. Taxivation is not
paying taxes that you legitimately owe. Tax avoidance is figureding
out how to use the system that the politicians created
to minimize your tax bill. And that's a that's American,
that's the American way, figuring out how to screw the
government out of money that I don't have to pay
(40:15):
them because they say I don't have to pay it,
but they don't think I'm smart enough to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Well, you know what, Peter, We're going to have to
take a break. We're going to stop there because we're
out of time. We're on a hard break right now.
But I am delighted to have you. We got to
get you back. This is a great subject. I'm very
passionate about it. Come on back soon, Peter rof watching
the DC based columnists, delighted to have you here, Peter,
see you next time. Thank you. Well, I got to
tell you, I am really intrigued with the things that
(40:42):
we're going on this week. This has been a very
exciting week. Listen. This is going to be a very
exciting week for all the listeners out there right now.
And we're delighted that you're here, by the way, because
things that are happening this week will affect you, maybe
for the rest of your life. In terms of the
big beautiful bill that was passed for the President's agenda.
(41:07):
The nuances of that tax bill are going to affect
you and your family and your grandchildren. It's going to
affect business as we know it in the United States.
It's going to affect the idea of bringing manufacturing back
out of Asia and other countries and bringing it back
(41:27):
into the United States or at least bloody well close
to it. It's going to give us the opportunity to
really fulfill the American dream. And we're going to be
doing that by lowering the tax space, by giving people
the opportunity to keep more of their hard earned money,
to let them get that money into the system. I mean,
(41:48):
this is what America is all about. To get their
money into the system. To then buy more product, which
creates more demand, which means you have to expand manufacturing,
which all of that means, which goes back to what
we were discussing with Grover nor Quist, is that all
of this builds jobs. All of this builds jobs. And
(42:09):
the opportunity that we have right now in terms of
working with this big, beautiful bill that we just discussed,
is that we have the possibility, as new Grover pointed
out in others, four million jobs can be created. Why,
that's an amazing number of human beings in the United
States to be working again. That's great. That also puts
a heck of a lot of tax back into the government.
(42:32):
Conference well, that lowers the deficit. So it seems like
it's a win win for everybody. Think about that, if
in fact we're creating more jobs and in fact we're
creating more income for people, If in fact we're getting
the opportunity for people to fulfill the American dream. Buy product,
buy cars, buy homes. If they buy homes, they buy cars,
(42:53):
they buy products. They're gonna heat it, they're gonna cool it.
They're gonna put appliances in it, they're gonna put carpeting.
You know what I mean, Go look, you know, get
up for a second, go out, go in your living room,
you know, go into one of the other rooms and
see what's there. Everything that was there is going to
be purchased. And if you have four million people doing that,
more than we have today, I mean, that is rather
(43:14):
huge and that's a lot of money. So look, we're
on the cusp of something really good, and I want
you to know that. I absolutely, one hundred percent believe that.
And even what Peter said in terms of energy and
the idea that we're going to have America First Energy,
that's going to create even more jobs. It's going to
lower our costs, it's going to make sure that we
have an insurance policy gets inflation, and you're all gonna
(43:37):
benefit by that. So you can come back next week
and you can listen to Made in America with Rich Roffman.
I am so delighted doing here. I'll see you next week.
This is made in America with Rich Roth My welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
To me in America this week. Delighted to have you here.
This has been there are exciting weeks. There is not
an exciting week and a not a good news week.
There's not even a bad news day. Every day is
one heck of induced. I have ever seen anything like it.
It's unbriievable. We have a great show for you today.
I have to tell you that one of our good
friends of the show is on again, Grover Norquist. And
(00:34):
Grover is gonna be talking about the big beautiful bill
that we've been discussing for quite a while now, but
it was just passed and we're delighted to hear that.
Second guest is gonna be Peter Roff, and we're gonna
be talking about US energy and why we need an
America first approach to that. We're gonna get that a
little bit later, but let's get back to Grover Norquist. Grower,
(00:55):
it is so good to have you. Grower is the
president of Americans for Tax Reform and consider grow to
be the imminent scholar in person to talk to when
it comes to understanding the nuances of taxes and what's
happening in the country. Grover, welcome to mad in America.
Delighted to have you, delighted to be with you. Well,
thank you so much, sir, so I gotta tell you,
(01:17):
I mean, this has been a very interesting week. You know,
I wouldn't exactly say we overwhelmed and we just had
an overwhelming vote. I mean, I'm really concerned about some
of this. But let's let's just back up a little
bit first and say what was so significant? We know it,
I know that, but let's try and bring it down
(01:38):
to the main street for people. Why was this passage
Grovell so so significant to the United States and for us.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Because after Republican majority in the House in the Senate
both narrow are not able to pass the legislation to
make permanent the tax cuts from twenty seventeen. Then in
a year, all of those tax cuts disappear. And what
(02:08):
that means is your taxes. My taxes will go up
by about five trillion dollars each ten year period, five
hundred billion a year, a huge The tax rates on
every American rich, poor, in the middle businesses all would
go up. The per child tax credit, which is now
(02:30):
two thousand dollars would go to one thousand dollars. The
personal exemption, the standard deduction that would be cut in
half if the tax cuts are not continued. The expensing
for new businesses, which says, if you build a new factory,
we're not going to tax you on the money you
(02:51):
just spent because it's not there anymore. You just spent it.
Instead of having long depreciation schedules, I mean, you immediately
expend it year one, which makes it much less expensive
to build a new factory, to buy a new truck
for a company, to buy new computers for staff, all
the things that make people more productive and make them
(03:13):
get paid more stalaries. All of this goes away if
we don't pass the bill. So the House just passed
the bill which does all this makes the twenty seventeen
tax cuts permanent, permanent, out into insinity. The only way
these tax cuts are going to be taken away from
you and your relatives and your neighbors and your businessmen
(03:36):
and women that you know is if the Democrats win
the House and the Senate and the presidency, then they
will take away all your tax cuts and raise taxes.
But we know they do that since the Republicans became
the party they won't raise taxes in nineteen ninety four
when they all took the pledge never to raise taxes
(03:56):
and since then have kept it. Daily time taxes get
raised since nineteen ninety four is when the Democrats have
the House set in the presidency. If the Republicans have
any of those three, no tax increased. If the presidents
have all three cut, that's the rules. You want all
Democrat governors, they'll raise your taxes. You want all Republican government,
they'll cut your taxes. You get something in the middle.
(04:18):
Nothing moves. So this is we are now halfway through
to having the Trump tax cuts made permanent. The House
just acted as you said.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It was close.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Now, mind you, two of those people tried to mine
were asleep, and I would be a little harsher on them,
except I was talking to people from the Ways and
Means Committee maybe a week or two ago, when they
had forty votes in the middle of the night and
didn't finish work until eight fifteen in the morning because
they'd worked all night, and you try to go back
to your office to sleep for a little bit in
(04:52):
between votes. And two of our friends who wanted to
support the bill actually slept through it. So we won
by one vote. We want one three if everyone's in
that alarm clocks.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
So the dog didn't eat their homework. They just didn't
get up. They couldn't. That's just that's a great story.
That is we win by one vote and two guys
are sleeping. Oh my god, that's just how human did
that get? That's unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Is that Normally the whip would be in charge of
sending out the dogs to look for you. But you
had the one vote win. They said done, all right,
that said we don't have to wind.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Let them sleep, bring him breakfast. For Christ's sakes, they
can do that. Oh my god, that's incredible. Hey, listen, Phil,
let's play. I'm going to play one cut and let
Grover and I respond to that. A one largest tax
cut from Carolyn.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
This one big, beautiful bill will implement President Trump's Make
America Great Again agenda by delivering the largest tax cut
in American history for middle class families, the working class,
and small businesses.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
So it is the largest tax cut in history, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, because the economy always grows. Yes, this tax titze
will be bigger than the last foot. But it is
a large, substantial tax cut, and yes, it is impressive,
and it's even more impressive because it's permanent. It's not
just for ten years, which is what we've been doing
(06:25):
with tax cuts in the past, because we went off
of you know, present law instead of present policy, which
is all very confusing and really shouldn't matter. But we
have wisely decided to be aggressive and said we are
going to make this permanent out into the future, and
that is now happening.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
All right, So let me ask you a question. So
I was listening to Ken Martin, who's the chair of
the DNC, and he said, if we're not for willing
to fight like hell right now, then do we really
believe in the things that we say? And then it
goes on to wax a little bit more about you know,
there's nothing there for the average American. There's no agenda
(07:10):
coming from the Republicans that's really good for the average American.
So we're gonna fight like hell. I have no idea, Grover,
what are they fighting against. It seems like they want
to make everything more expensive for Americans as opposed to
less expensive, and cause a repressive economy as opposed to
an expansive economy. It's to me, you know, I try
(07:33):
to understand what the Democrats are doing right now on
so many different levels, and I just grover. I can't
get it because I don't know stand. This is not
this is like an eighty twenty thing. None of it
makes sense. It's a total physical manifestation of an oxymoram.
So what is this guy saying? Well, how could he
say there's nothing there for the average American? Because I
think there's some really substantial, exciting things for the average
(07:55):
worker in America.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Well for starters, lying and he knows he's a lot
there to be kind if you were caught in the
corner and your party had voted against doubling the per
child tax credit, which is now threatened with going away
unless the Republican bill as we passed, do you want
(08:21):
to discuss that how the Democrats opposed doubling the per
child tax credit when the Republicans want to not only
double it, be out another five hundred dollars to that.
He don't want to talk about that? Does he want
to talk about how everybody who pays income taxes will
see their marginal tax rate cut at all levels, no
matter how much money you make if you're paying the
federal income tax, it goes down. And the Washington Post
(08:45):
had to admit because during the last fight in twenty seventeen,
the establishment press was out saying ridiculously, oh, this is
just for rich people, it's just for corporations, even though
they knew it was not true. One thing that's interesting
about the press is they think they're telling the truth.
If they once say the truth, after it doesn't matter anymore,
(09:10):
having said fifty times when it did matter the law.
So when the fight was going on, just for its people, right,
or when they would never challenge a politician, Democrat, politicians others,
just for people, just for the big companies or something,
and which wasn't true. But after the bill passed, after
it was safely passed, and it couldn't hurt the Democrats
(09:33):
for them to tell the truth, The New York Times,
the Washington Post, every major publication came out and admitted
that this was a tax cut that reduced the tax
burden for just about everybody in the country and certainly
reduced tax rates for everybody in the country. So if
you're a Democrat, do you really want to say I
(09:55):
liked it? When the corporate tax was thirty five percent
in America and China was twenty five percent. The Democrats
voted to have your taxes on businesses that you work for,
businesses you buy things for was being taxed at thirty
five percent, when in China it's either fifteen or twenty five.
(10:17):
And then people wonder why we have trouble competing with
some other countries. Even the European average was way under
the American average, and that we took that number down
to twenty one. Trump and the Republicans have said, look,
we want to take it down to fifteen. I'm with them.
I think in the next couple of years we should
take it to fifteen and out compete Europe. But why
(10:40):
would a Democrat want to go in front of American
workers and say, I think you should start when you compete.
The Democrat position is, mister American worker, I think you
should compete against China on lower wages, not lower taxes.
Because the Democrats view taxes as a pay increase because
(11:00):
so many of them work for the government, and they
like higher taxes, even though it damages most Americans and
makes us not competitive as a nation. So they have
to scream big business, rich people because they can't have
a calm, cool, collected discussion of what's actually happening because
(11:22):
it would make them look foolish. And they don't want
to do that.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
No, they don't want to do that. But you know what,
We've got a couple of more things to talk about,
and I really want to get into some of the
comments that they've been making in terms of medicaid and
food programs and you know, all these people get off
a program, they're going to starve and die in cats
and dogs. Let me together in the street. We're gonna
be right back with Rover and Roquist. We have much
more coming. I Made in America. Don't go anywhere. Hey,
(11:56):
welcome back to Native in America. We're on the air
right now over and we're delight to have it. We're
talking about the big bill, the beautiful big bill that
was just passed and the significance of it. And then
we want to talk about, you know, the myths, the
myths that are out there and have been out there
for so long about what's really going to happen. This
bill passes. One of the things we're discussing the lies
(12:19):
and myths that have been coming out from the left and
backed up by the mainstream media, which apparently haven't learned
anything since I don't know, back in twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen,
and this last election when the Democrats just didn't lose,
they were destroyed in the last election. Grow Why how
can people such as you know, DNC chair Ken Martin
(12:39):
say that Medicaid's getting cut. People will be suffering, they're
not going to get healthcare. You know, forty eight million
people will go off of snap programs and food stamps
and they're not going to eat. And I remember when
I was a child growing up, my mother was fifteen,
which you know, I understand that. I mean, I'm not
criticized on my complaining. I'm not making fun of it.
I'm being serious. But I don't quite understand how this
(13:03):
bill is going to put people on the street and
they're not going to eat, They're going to starve, and
we're not going to be giving health care to people anymore,
which by the way, no one seemed to care when
Obamacare was passed, and you know, for twenty percent of
the country and they needed health care, we ripped apart
eighty percent of the country for health care, and a
lot of people did lose their plan, had their premiums raised,
(13:24):
lost coverage. It was really not a good thing. So Grover,
can we address that first? This is a myth, isn't it.
We're not People are not going to be starving and
people are not going to lose health care along the way,
are they?
Speaker 5 (13:37):
No?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And depending on how old you are, you have heard
this every two years the Republicans are going to do
in social Security. Every time they think they're going to
lose the presidency, they say that this new guy will
end social Security. Nobody has ended social Security. Nobody has
ended Medicare. What they are looking to do the Republicans
(13:58):
on med decay is to have a requirement that you'd
be a citizen to get government support and checks for healthcare,
that you actually be working or looking for work. This
is Medicaid was set up for people who are working.
It's not set up for people who aren't working, and
that they would check and see whether somebody was getting
(14:19):
two checks or whether there was fraud going on the
government is not doing a very good job of combating
leakage fraud, and that we need to do that. So
under the projections that they look at instead of growing
at six percent a year, Medicaid would grow at three
percent a year. That's the vicious cut they're talking about,
(14:41):
all coming from making sure that only the people who
are eligible orn't Medicaid get it.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Does that include a work requirement?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
There is a work requirement, but I think it also
if you're seriously looking for work that counts. You can't
be sitting on your sofa until the age twenty six,
which is what Obama set up, not working and just
get it. I was talking to somebody who was going
through with the problems they found in Ohio of a
(15:13):
lot of government employees getting it and rich people getting it,
and they just weren't checking at all to see whether
people were eligible or it, and people get checks as
a result.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Very interesting. Let's go back for a second to corporations
and their ability to expand. One of the things that
we've been hearing, and I think this is very significant.
This expands an economy, doesn't it. This is giving corporates
the opportunity grow, expand, construct, purchased, rehabilitate, and actually come
(15:49):
back to the United States. It also gives the ability
for American corporations to get better tax breaks or to
have American cars have a better prog for purchasing. So
it seems to me that particularly with the ability to
you know, have an immediate deduction on your taxes or
(16:10):
require the reporting on the taxes, that you get a
break right away in that over a period of time,
which ekes it out and doesn't really help as much.
You know, it seems to me, Grover, that we have
an opportunity to add. What I'm hearing right now is
four million jobs you know, over this whole situation going
out over the next few years, which means to me,
(16:31):
I mean this sort of talks about the golden age
that President Trump's been talking about. We may be going
into an amazing time expansive mode for the United States economy.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
And it's not just that we're reducing tax rates, which
is very important. We're also reducing the regulatory burden on
industry after industry. We're no longer punishing people for creating energy.
We're not going to be subsidizing corrupt businesses that don't
(17:04):
do energy. All of those subsidies for wind and solar
and so on. People want to use wind and solar.
It's a sporadic energy. It's not twenty four to seven.
When the wind doesn't blow or when the sun isn't out,
you have no energy. But if you want to buy
that kind of energy, you're free to in a free society.
But you shouldn't be subsidizing it and managed and requiring
(17:29):
people to use energy that they can't trust and that
costs too much.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Well, yeah, I mean that's obvious, and I agree with that.
That makes a muffle lot of sense. But it seems
to me that we're going to be hiring a lot
of people now since you're complaining about the deficits. And
Steve Rattner was out there the other day on CNN.
What a surprise that, and of course he was part
(17:56):
of the Biden group years ago that he says, well,
you know, we're going to we're going to be adding,
you know, twenty five billion more in the deficit. I mean,
that's kind of what I heard. So what's the deal
with that. We're not We're not. I don't think we're
going to destroy the deficit. I think we're going to
help the deficit because we're going to create a bigger
tax base if we have more people working. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Yes, And the government itself points out that if for
a ten year period you grow at three percent instead
of two percent, that the deficit goes down by three
and a half trillion. Why because with more growth, more
people working, more people paying taxes, people earning more and
paying more in taxes, you get more revenue without raising
(18:39):
tax rates. And people get off welfare and they go
to work, so they stop getting well for a chox.
So you do those two things. Just go from two
percent to three percent growth, that's three point five percent.
Go from two to four percent, and you've just dropped
seven billion dollars every decade. That's how you reduce the deficit.
(19:01):
And the gat grow, grow, grow.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yeah, it seems obvious to me. And you've got more
people functioning, more products being purchased, and then with all
these incentives, you have a much larger manufacturing base right
here in the United States, which creates more jobs and
more excitement, more fining. I mean, it's just the whole
thing seems to feed itself in such a wonderful way
that we are going into we could very well go
(19:28):
into a golden age over the next year's assume people,
you know, that was the idea exactly. Grover listen. I
have to tell you it's so great to have you
back on the show. I delight having conversations with you
on Made in America all these years, and I wish
you well. Of course, we wish you a great weekend.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Grover, you too.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Take care. We're gonna be right back. We're gonna be
talking about energy. So I'm they're gonna be energized, but
we're gonna be talking about energy. Thanks and a lot.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Promoting American industry.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
This is Made in America with Rich Rothman.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
It is great to have you here today. We are
delighted to have Peter Roff on the show right now.
Peter is a Washington, DC based columnist and a commentator.
He's a former senior political writer with UPI I knew
folks there, and former US News and World Report one
of my favorite years ago contributing editor. So we deluded. Peter.
(20:38):
Welcome to Maid in America. Very happy you're here today.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Good to be with you.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Well. Thanks, So you did a piece of US energy
needs an America first approach, and I think you're one
hundred percent correct. I think you're a and I think
most of us recognize that and I certainly, you know,
we certainly understand this administration gets it. I don't think
other administrations have gotten that at all. But I think
we're in the right place and maybe we're at the
(21:05):
right time. We'll find out. Peter, let's talk about this.
What happened. You know when when Trump was in you know,
the first time in forty five, you know, he had
this approach that everything was on the table, which made
a lot of sense to me, particularly coming out of
the Obama situation where things were going in the other direction,
sort of like the Paris Climate Accord and things like that.
(21:29):
So let's just give a little historical perspective for thirty
seconds on what this. We were, where we were in
the significance.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Well, here's the here's the deal. Al Gore wrote a
book back in the eighties that said the internal combustion
engine was the enemy of mankind and that all the
pollutants that we were putting in the air as we
were creating a multi trillion dollar global con me we're
(22:01):
making the planet heat up, and that if we didn't
stop it, the ice caps were going to melt, and
everything west of the Rockies, in east of the Smoky
mountains would be under twelve feet of water mm. And
so people decided. Some people decided that that meant we
(22:23):
had to stop using oil, natural gas, coal to heat
our homes, run our businesses, power our cars, and that
we ought to switch to electric, wind and solar. Well,
(22:44):
none of the doomsday predictions have happened. We haven't even
come close to any of the doomsday predictions happened.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
None of these right.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But under Clinton, under obam and under Biden, the people
running policy in Washington have tried to throttle back our
use of coal, natural gas, oil, and it's been a
very expensive failure because they're putting the needs of the
(23:26):
world ahead of what we need here at home in America.
And that's only true in one sense, if they're right
about global climate change, and I don't think they are.
(23:46):
And frankly, most of the scientific community agrees with me,
or at least is closer to my view of what's happening.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well, you know, Obama fighting, hang on for a second,
because you're right, You're one hundred percent correct. And they
banter that those who believe in clean energy are pushing
that that that discussion. They absolutely say that, well, ninety
nine percent and mean, I hear this all the time,
even from my partners. Ninety nine percent of these scientists
(24:17):
out there agree that, you know, we're in a global
warming things. It's and then they say, Peter, the science
is settled. That's when I get infuriated, because science is
never settled. It's always subject to such examination. But what
is that all about.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
It's about command and control. Bottom line. They want to
run everybody else's lives. There's something about progressives that makes
them want to run everything. And that's why every answer
starts with central planning. The smartest people get in the room,
(24:57):
they design a plan, and they force everybody to go
along with it. It doesn't work. If it had worked,
East Germany would have been Singapore and Singapore would have
been Zimbabwe. But that's not what happens. Singapore is a
free market haven and it's got one of the strongest
economies in the history of the world, never mind the
(25:19):
world today. East Germany was run by, you know, twelve
guys in a room, and everybody who lived there was
trying to get out. Things were so.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Bad, that's right. So you know what, when you deal
with central planning, it goes back to Stalinen goes back
to the thirties, and we know that that didn't work
because look how many millions of people died as a
result of that same thing in China. I mean, China
killed what seven million people? The Russians killed other people,
you know, of their own people. Then happened in.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
World War one hundred million people minimum, Yeah, died, I'm sorry,
not died. Had been murdered by left wing regimes in
the twentieth We're murdered by left wing regimes in the
twentieth century. One hundred million people minimum, the Chinese, the Russians,
(26:16):
the Cubans, the guys in Cambodia, Laos, the Vietnam one
hundred million minimum. But we're talking about energy. So how
does this all apply to energy. Well, energy means mobility,
Energy means freedom. They want us tied to non portable
(26:42):
energy solar wind cars that can only go so far,
trucks that can only go so far. They don't want
our homes us to be able to heat homes cool
them down in the summertime. They want to ration energy
so that they can you know, save the planet. Well,
Trump comes along, and and and so the Democrats can
(27:06):
have some vestige of honesty. What they do is they
say everything's permitted, but then they put in rules and
regulations that nobody can get past, and then they take
whole chunks of land that are right for energy exploration,
like the that section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
where there aren't any caribou, but there's a lot of
(27:27):
oil underground, and they say you can't look for it there.
You know, you can look for the oil where we
don't think there's any oil. But if we think there's oil,
we're going to take that out of the places that
you can look if it's under federal control, and all
the places you can go get oil, we're gonna or
natural gas. We're gonna. We're gonna permit you to death.
(27:49):
We're going to make it so expensive. That's why we
don't build nuclear plants anymore, because it's so expensive, because
the permitting process is so rigorous, it's beyond rational.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's going to change really soon. Listen. We don't build
nuclear plants because of the movie that was out there,
the China Syndrome. If anyone movie had an effect on
that industry and scared the hell out of everybody was
the China Syndrome. Michael Douglas, Chain Fonda.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And and well it was the movie coming out in
such close relationship to what happened to Pennsylvania at the
Three Mile Island nuclear plant which they had, and.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Everyone said, oh my god, look at this. You right,
look what happened. We almost had a meltdown. It was terrible.
Look what happened in Russia. Oh my god. They were right.
We almost had a meltdown. It was terrible.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Almost almost, yeah, almost, that's what everybody misses, like we
almost had a fire, Okay, but you didn't and you
didn't have a metdown. And now Microsoft wants to buy
three Mile Island and restart it. Why because we need
unbelievable amounts of electricity, more than one hundred and twenty
one jigawats, They shout out to you, back to the future,
(28:57):
fans of electricity. Yes, and they want to operate it
to raise to generate power to fuel AI, which is
the future. And you're not going to have the future
that we're talking about on solar and wind. And you
can't even have wind without natural gas to supplement what's
(29:21):
going on when the wind doesn't blow. So they put
in all these regulations so even if you could look
for energy, it would cost you more to get it
out of the ground, So why do it. You can't
sell it for what it costs.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well, that's what Obama said. Obama said, you can run coal.
You could mean, We're going to tax the hell out
of you, so I don't think you're going to bankrupt you.
But yeah, you could do coal.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Right, So Comps heads in and starts to open up
the federal lands again to energy exploration, and and starts
to get rid of ridiculous regulations imposed by places like
the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. People,
a lot of people don't understand the Department of Energy
(30:13):
really has very looking to do with the actual energy
that we use, its Interior and its EPA. And he
got America back into the energy business. It's an America
first move. Why because if America is as it was
under Trump in the first administration, a net exporter of
(30:37):
fossil fuels, if we are sending more fossil fuels out
than we are consuming, net exporter, that reduces our reliance
on energy that comes from or through some of the
most dangerous places on the planet.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, that's one hundred percent correct. And not only that. Yes,
you're right, Mid East, Venezuela and so forth, but there
are also some of the dirtiest places in terms of
you know, you know, getting the extracting the energy out
of the ground. We have the toughest rules and regulations,
We have the cleanest ability to have an energy industry.
But for some reason, the progressives on the left just
(31:23):
don't get that. So oh no, let's let's go to
Venezuela where they're you know, it's free for all in
terms of getting the oil out of the ground. Same
thing in the Mid East. We don't control that, but
we're gonna go ahead and give money to these people.
A they hate us, and B we're actually taking dollars
out of the United States rather than keeping them here,
reinvesting them here, creating jobs here, and making our energy stronger. Look,
(31:48):
the truth of the matter is in the twenty twenty
first century, unless you have inexpensive and a complete, sustainable
and reliable source of energy on a daily basis, you
got a problem. And that's one of the things that
we're able to do. What does that do for us?
It creates jobs, It gives us a much better credit
rating with something Moody is want to remember right now
(32:10):
and puts us in the right direction that as you
just very aptly said that we becoming that exporter of energy.
You know, it's very interesting that you said before that
this whole thing is a control, and it is a control.
Is no question in my mind. The fact that you
would have electric cars that only have a certain degree
in terms of mileage that you can go controls you.
(32:32):
One of the things that's the most American thing that
you can think about right now. When I was a
kid in my generation grew up, was that we could
get in a car and go somewhere. That's the whole
idea of the motels that were devised in the late
forties in the early fifties. Americans could get in a
car and they could travel. They could go wherever they
wanted to go. Was a homogeneous nation, it was not
(32:53):
a problem to go anywhere. And that was one of
the beauties of America. The fact that you want to
have an electric car that can go originally one hundred
and eighty two hundred miles and then you know two
hundred and eighty miles and three hundred miles. It doesn't
matter because I don't care. If it's five hundred miles,
you still have to charge. We don't have the technology
(33:13):
for that yet. Maybe someday we will, but not right now.
But it is part of all this control freak. I
mean in South Florida. I'm in South Florida for many
many years now, FP and L Florida Power and Light,
which is next Era owned by next Era, it's the
parent company. Completely changed everyone out from the old fashioned
you know meters, you know, the electric meters, into smart meters.
(33:36):
Now you know, Oh my god, there's smart meters that
I can read it. I don't have to look at
those stupid things going around. I can actually read this thing. Well,
that's wonderful, except why do you suppose they put smart
meters in? They don't use that word for a re
the word they use smart.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
You are smart.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
They provide the data to those who control, and you're right.
They could say, wait a minute, heating too much. I
don't think that's fair. That's not equitable. You're cooling too much.
I don't think that's equitable, right, Peter.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, whoops, power surge. We've gotta we've got to turn
turn your air conditioning up. Sorry, right, I gotta turn
your heat down. While you're in South Florida, who needs heat?
But you know where I am in Virginia. Yeah, we
need heat. We need heat a lot of half the year.
We need we need the heaters. We don't need them much,
(34:27):
but we need them. But they can set the temperature
in your house. Now, how how invasive is that?
Speaker 2 (34:35):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:35):
They remember that when the when the Republicans were losing
elections on social with issues because the left went out
and said everybody that we wanted to spy on you
in your bedroom. They're talking about setting touching the thermost at. Okay,
after I graduated from college and had children of my own,
I wasn't allowed to touch the thermost at in my
(34:58):
mother's house. It was it's just one of those things.
You know, you don't touch the thermostat. You don't go
in dad's stock drawer and you don't touch the thermostat.
But they want to run the service debt from some
central office someplace because they're deciding that we're using too
(35:19):
much energy.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So we need we need to reapproach, we need to
get back to basic facts and get this place. And
I think we are. I think we're moving in that direction,
and I think America really got that message really hard
in this election because it made no sense, and they
can't afford electricity, They can't afford to do what they
need to do. They realized in Texas over a year
(35:41):
ago that when the really bad weather came, all their
wonderful green energy failed. It failed, and people died as
a result of that. So steer the hell out of people.
All Right, we're gonna have to take a break. We're
going to be right back with the pewterroff In made
in America. Don't go anywhere. We're energized. Hey, welcome back
(36:10):
to maybe in America. We are delighted to have Peter
Roth here Washington, the DC based columnist and commentator and
the former senior political writer for the UPI, and he
also worked in very high up in the US News
and World Report contributing editor. Delighted to have you, Peter.
We're talking energy. Let's let's talk for a second where
we're going, because we were talking about virtue signaling and
you wrote a piece that's very very very good, and
(36:33):
your piece talks about what's happening with the current bill
that we're trying to We did pass this week and
why America needs an America first approach. But it seems
like we're trying to virtue signal in UH and not
ignore some of the lobbyists that are apped. Can you
talk about that a little bit please.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, there's a there's a lot that Biden did in
the Inflation Reduction Act as he tried to force us
to change over to a green economy that still needs
to be undone. Much of that is in the area
of special tax treatment for green energy. Now that's everything
(37:16):
for wind and solar, to sustainables and biofuels. I am
for repealing all of it as a matter of fact.
As a general principle, I'd like to eliminate all of
the deductions that exist on the personal side and just
(37:37):
have everybody pay one flat rate. We're not there yet,
and we're certainly not there yet on the business side.
Some of the credits that we have now, however, are
being used to subsidize energy that we're making for export,
(38:03):
so that they can have it cheaper in Europe and
they can have it cheaper in agent like sustainable aviation
fuel m HM, which is which you know, I mean,
call me crazy, but I you know, I don't want
to fly on a plane that's using sustainable aviation fuel.
I want the real stuff. Yes, it's been proven to
(38:24):
work over one hundred years of man of engine powered flight.
I don't want to experiment. Don't experiment with the fuel
mix on my plane, thank you. Somebody else is fine,
just not fine. But we're sending this stuff out of
the country. So we're not even Americans as consumers, as
travelers aren't getting the benefit of the of these of
(38:48):
these credits that are that are that are costing. They're
costing because we have to find the money for them,
which means we can't drop rates. If we can't drop rates,
we have less economic growth. You know, Arthur Laffer proved
it brilliantly with his with the curve that he designed
fifty years ago, that there's a certain rate at which
(39:10):
more taxes produce less revenue. So the lower the rates,
the flatter the rates, the more revenue that we can
get because because the economy grows because we're leaving money
in the private sector. This is not a hard concept
to understand. And the more credits you you infect into
(39:30):
the system, the higher the total rate has to be.
And then everybody hires accountants and lawyers and you know,
lobbyists to to carve out their protections because ultimately everybody
wants to pay as little tax as possible. And there's
nothing wrong with that. You know that the Biden people
refer to that as tax evation. It's not tax evason,
(39:52):
it's tax avoidance. There's a different right. Taxivation is not
paying taxes that you legitimately owe. Tax avoidance is figureding
out how to use the system that the politicians created
to minimize your tax bill. And that's a that's American,
that's the American way, figuring out how to screw the
government out of money that I don't have to pay
(40:15):
them because they say I don't have to pay it,
but they don't think I'm smart enough to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
Well, you know what, Peter, We're going to have to
take a break. We're going to stop there because we're
out of time. We're on a hard break right now.
But I am delighted to have you. We got to
get you back. This is a great subject. I'm very
passionate about it. Come on back soon, Peter rof watching
the DC based columnists, delighted to have you here, Peter,
see you next time. Thank you. Well, I got to
tell you, I am really intrigued with the things that
(40:42):
we're going on this week. This has been a very
exciting week. Listen. This is going to be a very
exciting week for all the listeners out there right now.
And we're delighted that you're here, by the way, because
things that are happening this week will affect you, maybe
for the rest of your life. In terms of the
big beautiful bill that was passed for the President's agenda.
(41:07):
The nuances of that tax bill are going to affect
you and your family and your grandchildren. It's going to
affect business as we know it in the United States.
It's going to affect the idea of bringing manufacturing back
out of Asia and other countries and bringing it back
(41:27):
into the United States or at least bloody well close
to it. It's going to give us the opportunity to
really fulfill the American dream. And we're going to be
doing that by lowering the tax space, by giving people
the opportunity to keep more of their hard earned money,
to let them get that money into the system. I mean,
(41:48):
this is what America is all about. To get their
money into the system. To then buy more product, which
creates more demand, which means you have to expand manufacturing,
which all of that means, which goes back to what
we were discussing with Grover nor Quist, is that all
of this builds jobs. All of this builds jobs. And
(42:09):
the opportunity that we have right now in terms of
working with this big, beautiful bill that we just discussed,
is that we have the possibility, as new Grover pointed
out in others, four million jobs can be created. Why,
that's an amazing number of human beings in the United
States to be working again. That's great. That also puts
a heck of a lot of tax back into the government.
(42:32):
Conference well, that lowers the deficit. So it seems like
it's a win win for everybody. Think about that, if
in fact we're creating more jobs and in fact we're
creating more income for people, If in fact we're getting
the opportunity for people to fulfill the American dream. Buy product,
buy cars, buy homes. If they buy homes, they buy cars,
(42:53):
they buy products. They're gonna heat it, they're gonna cool it.
They're gonna put appliances in it, they're gonna put carpeting.
You know what I mean, Go look, you know, get
up for a second, go out, go in your living room,
you know, go into one of the other rooms and
see what's there. Everything that was there is going to
be purchased. And if you have four million people doing that,
more than we have today, I mean, that is rather
(43:14):
huge and that's a lot of money. So look, we're
on the cusp of something really good, and I want
you to know that. I absolutely, one hundred percent believe that.
And even what Peter said in terms of energy and
the idea that we're going to have America First Energy,
that's going to create even more jobs. It's going to
lower our costs, it's going to make sure that we
have an insurance policy gets inflation, and you're all gonna
(43:37):
benefit by that. So you can come back next week
and you can listen to Made in America with Rich Roffman.
I am so delighted doing here. I'll see you next week.
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