CSPAN - Washington Journal Open Phones
Aired: 2026-05-07
Duration: 33:59


=== Strategic Choices Over Demands (07:58) ===

[00:00:00]  Supportive.
[00:00:01]  And then we want to make all these other investments in really inexpensive, low-cost munitions because we suddenly realize that the expensive stuff, even with through B-21, we can't really maybe not get close enough.
[00:00:17]  But the whole idea behind B-21 and F-47 is we can penetrate further into the A2AD bubble.
[00:00:23]  So there's some conflict there.
[00:00:25]  So I'm just encouraging you to go back and see if there are some systems where we can bring that number, the overall number down.
[00:00:35]  Because as I look at what the department is trying to field, some of this stuff, in my judgment, and I know others might have another opinion, some of this stuff we either don't need or it's not going to work.
[00:00:52]  That was Senator Kelly speaking to Defense Secretary Hegseph.
[00:00:56]  And this is what Jersey Girl sent us on X. Number one, repeal both Trump tax cuts.
[00:01:01]  Number two, increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy.
[00:01:04]  Three, slash the military budget in half.
[00:01:07]  And four, slash all corporate subsidies.
[00:01:10]  Larry Tignall, Georgia Democrat, what do you think?
[00:01:14]  How would you cut the federal budget?
[00:01:18]  Hello?
[00:01:18]  Hi, Larry.
[00:01:19]  Go ahead.
[00:01:20]  Okay, good.
[00:01:22]  Well, here we go again.
[00:01:24]  You know, I thought that that was taking care of.
[00:01:27]  Donald Trump came in slashing jobs, cutting, you know, people pay, cutting a Medicaid and Medicare, and we're still in debt.
[00:01:39]  So how much do they suppose we save so much money?
[00:01:42]  Why is the debt so high?
[00:01:45]  He didn't give it to the United States, the people in the United States.
[00:01:48]  I mean, they just are still in debt for us.
[00:01:52]  I'm saying, paying taxes, if he cut that ballroom out, that taxpayer is going to pay for it.
[00:01:59]  We'll probably save some money.
[00:02:01]  You know, he just wants to enrich himself.
[00:02:05]  Leave the country in debt.
[00:02:07]  So that's the only thing I have to say.
[00:02:10]  All right.
[00:02:10]  And this is Gregory in Kaiser, West Virginia, Republican.
[00:02:17]  Hi, Minnie.
[00:02:18]  Hi, Gregory.
[00:02:19]  How are you doing?
[00:02:21]  Good.
[00:02:22]  All right.
[00:02:23]  The main thing I want to say is cut out the fraud.
[00:02:28]  And that's enough money to care the war, whatever, $1.5 trillion.
[00:02:38]  I mean, you think there's $1.5 trillion in fraud?
[00:02:45]  Oh, yeah.
[00:02:46]  I totally believe that.
[00:02:49]  Just look at Minnesota alone is what, $200 billion.
[00:02:54]  And then you go to California, it's probably double that.
[00:02:58]  And in New York, it's even more than that.
[00:03:00]  So, yeah, I think that if you cut out the fraud, it's enough to balance the budget, to be honest with you.
[00:03:10]  Okay.
[00:03:11]  This is Kira, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Independent Line.
[00:03:14]  Go ahead, Kira.
[00:03:19]  Kira.
[00:03:19]  Good morning.
[00:03:20]  Hi, good morning.
[00:03:21]  Are you there?
[00:03:21]  Yep, go ahead.
[00:03:22]  Good morning.
[00:03:24]  So the concern that I have is that, you know, and I agree with one of your previous callers, that we really do need to go back to a zero-based budget, but we also need to go back to, well, we need to modernize the system.
[00:03:40]  The last time that we updated our budget process was in the 60s, and we've outgrown our budget process.
[00:03:48]  And we can't effectively and strategically plan for a budget for departments the size that we have with a process from the 60s.
[00:04:02]  We've outgrown that.
[00:04:03]  If you look at the rate at which technology advances at the way that our processes and systems need to advance, we can't do that.
[00:04:11]  We haven't passed an on-time budget since the 90s.
[00:04:15]  And we're going to continue to have this dilemma until we hold our elected officials accountable to recognize that we have outgrown our system and they pass into law a process that works for the 2020s.
[00:04:35]  Okay, so I understand what you're saying about the process.
[00:04:38]  Are there certain items that you would like to see taken out of the budget that would save money and close the gap?
[00:04:46]  Well, I would say that in looking at that, anything that's aged out, which I would say there are several things, and to include that in the process, we're submitting everything to Congress on paper for the budget.
[00:04:59]  And so how much money would that save if we did it electronically?
[00:05:05]  All right.
[00:05:05]  So just the justification books alone go to Congress in truckloads of paper.
[00:05:11]  So that's all the rings of paper.
[00:05:12]  That's all the toner, all the ink, and the truckers to truck it to the Capitol.
[00:05:20]  And so aged out processes would reduce our spending, but then also all of the aged out processes throughout the government that no longer need to be there, but nobody's taken the time to remove them.
[00:05:32]  And then we need to, as going to the zero-based spend, when you're going to put something in the budget, where is that coming from?
[00:05:39]  You have to have a give and take.
[00:05:41]  What are we getting rid of to pay for what you're wanting to put in?
[00:05:44]  And so it needs to be strategic choices being made instead of just upping due to a demand.
[00:05:52]  We have to make those, you know, our leaders are elected to make tough decisions.
[00:05:56]  So we either need to hold them to those tough decisions or we need to replace them.
[00:05:59]  And that's all of them, whether they're Democrat, Republican, whomever.
[00:06:03]  And we, the people, are not doing that.
[00:06:05]  All right, Kira.
[00:06:06]  And previous caller asked about the ballroom.
[00:06:09]  Thehill.com says this.
[00:06:12]  The GOP includes $1 billion for Trump White House ballroom security in the budget bill.
[00:06:17]  So that would be for next year's budget, an additional $1 billion.
[00:06:21]  That's the request from Republicans.
[00:06:25]  Here is Cynthia North Jackson, Ohio.
[00:06:27]  Democrat, good morning, Cynthia.
[00:06:30]  Oh, boy, a billion here and a billion there.
[00:06:33]  And pretty soon you're talking real money.
[00:06:36]  I think that what you need to do is, first of all, policymakers and elected officials should not be allowed to make investments and profit off of funding bills that they are determining funding for.
[00:06:53]  That's number one.
[00:06:54]  That's a lot of corruption right there.
[00:06:58]  And secondly, stop giving money, tax cuts to billionaires and billionaire corporations and not these new data centers are the latest way that the taxpayers are being robbed and the property owners are being abused.
[00:07:17]  They're giving them these huge multi-million dollar tax breaks.
[00:07:23]  And then they're putting all the tax burden on the middle class.
[00:07:27]  This is an old song and dance.
[00:07:30]  And that's where it needs to end.
[00:07:31]  You start at the top.
[00:07:33]  And, you know, Doge came in, took away all our programs and stole that money and gave it straight to the billionaires.
[00:07:41]  America, wake up, please.
[00:07:44]  And Democrats, please make this an issue when you're running the main issues.
[00:07:51]  All right, Cynthia.
[00:07:52]  And John on Facebook says, simply cut ICE and CBP.

=== Tax Burden On The Middle Class (14:59) ===

[00:07:58]  Elvin on X says reform Medicare by cutting big pharma, cut the spending on the military defense contractors, and raise taxes on the rich.
[00:08:08]  And Sir E.S. Mann on X says cut the defense budget in half and the rest of discretionary federal spending 90%.
[00:08:18]  Send nearly all programs back to the states.
[00:08:21]  Cap a flat tax at 10%.
[00:08:25]  So there's this website from the Treasury Department.
[00:08:29]  So it's called fiscaldata.treasury.gov.
[00:08:32]  So this comes out of the Treasury Department, and it keeps track of how much has the U.S. government spent this year.
[00:08:40]  It says that the U.S. government has spent $3.65 trillion in fiscal year 2026.
[00:08:49]  And if you scroll down on this website, you can see spending year to date, so this is 2026, by category.
[00:08:58]  Top of the list, 22% on Social Security, interest 14%, health 14%, Medicare 14%, national defense, 13%.
[00:09:11]  You can also click to make it by dollars.
[00:09:16]  So Social Security at $818 billion, interest, $519 billion.
[00:09:22]  That's so far in the fiscal year to date.
[00:09:27]  And you can also see it by agency.
[00:09:29]  So top of the list is Department of Health and Human Services, followed by Social Security Administration, then the Department of the Treasury, and then on to Department of Defense.
[00:09:40]  So again, that's fiscaldata.treasury.gov if you want to take a look at that.
[00:09:45]  Speaking of Social Security, yesterday the Cato Institute hosted a discussion on the future of Social Security.
[00:09:51]  Take a look at a portion of that event.
[00:09:55]  So most of Medicare, as you mentioned, Gene, is already funded based on general revenues.
[00:10:01]  And in large part, it is through borrowing because the federal government is running massive deficits.
[00:10:09]  We're already borrowing to repay the Social Security Trust Fund.
[00:10:14]  Why not keep borrowing to continue to pay Social Security benefits in full?
[00:10:20]  Well, the combined Social Security and Medicare cash shortfall is $157 trillion over the next 30 years when including the resulting interest on the debt.
[00:10:32]  Yes, let me back up.
[00:10:33]  That is $157 trillion with a T. About a third of that is Social Security and two-thirds is Medicare.
[00:10:42]  It would push the debt held by the public, which was 40% of GDP during most of the post-war period, 100% of the economy today, up to 240% of the economy in 30 years.
[00:10:56]  Yes, we can do that.
[00:10:57]  We can try to just keep borrowing and running up deficits.
[00:11:01]  But if the political solution is to borrow an extra $157 trillion, it makes a debt crisis so much more likely because it is difficult to imagine the bond market absorbing that much demand for treasuries without notably raising interest rates.
[00:11:19]  And then higher interest rates would turn around and raise the debt in a vicious circle.
[00:11:24]  So in the short term, it's easy to say just keep running deficits, but the trends are so bad long term that something's got to give.
[00:11:34]  Give you one simple statistic that to me says a lot about how our system's working.
[00:11:40]  If you take the revenue increases that come with economic growth, project out 10 years, you might have 15, 20 percent more revenues or 10 years, maybe more if you had good economic growth.
[00:11:50]  All of those revenues, at least as projected by the Congressional Budget Office, are not enough to cover the increase in Social Security costs plus the increase in Medicare cost plus the increase in interest on the debt.
[00:12:04]  And so you mentioned my book earlier.
[00:12:06]  So what happens is that everything else is getting squeezed.
[00:12:10]  Even with the deficits we're running, we're really squeezing our opportunity to do everything else.
[00:12:16]  And why is the squeeze so hard?
[00:12:18]  Well, you've got the policymakers in a huge fiscal dilemma, which is at this point, the promises for this growth are so great that if you measure whether you're cutting benefits by not by relevant current levels, by whether the growth path you get in this fight, oh, you're cutting benefits.
[00:12:36]  A long-term solution to Social Security, Medicare, or anything is to basically get the growth rate in line with what the revenues can support.
[00:12:45]  And another five, ten minutes or so on this topic, and then we'll open it up to anything else you'd like to talk about public policy-wise.
[00:12:54]  We got a few here from Johnny B. Actually, on X says cut all foreign aid.
[00:13:02]  I just look that up, Johnny B, on how much we are spending on foreign aid.
[00:13:07]  This is USAFACs.org.
[00:13:09]  This is for fiscal year 2025, so last fiscal year, not this current one, it was at $19.4 billion reported and obligated.
[00:13:21]  That is not complete, but that is what we're looking at.
[00:13:24]  You can see the trend here from 2023 to 2024, and then now in the administration, the Trump administration with USAID having been shut down.
[00:13:37]  So that is where that is at.
[00:13:39]  And we got this from Dave in Washington, Pennsylvania on text: Fix our debt problem by eliminating everything not mentioned in Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution.
[00:13:48]  Entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid should be operated at the state level.
[00:13:55]  And Peter on Facebook says welfare number one and anything remotely linked to migrant services.
[00:14:02]  Oh, that's insignificant compared to defense spending in quotations.
[00:14:06]  Okay, then it should be painless.
[00:14:08]  No foreign aid, period.
[00:14:10]  Exact same as cutting welfare, only far more egregious as it's just sent away to countries that don't like us, only our money.
[00:14:19]  Let's go to Mark in Bremond, Texas.
[00:14:22]  Republican, good morning, Mark.
[00:14:26]  Yes, ma'am.
[00:14:28]  I think a lot of things that you could really kind of help out of helping the budget is getting rid of all the fraud that the Democrats do, especially in Minnesota, the fraud that was going on there, and the fraud that was going on in California with the hospice.
[00:14:50]  The fraud in Minnesota, multiple, multiple billions of dollars stole by a Democratic governor and Attorney General Ellison, nothing but fraud, stealing from children that need autistic children, phonning the money.
[00:15:08]  Ilhan Omar is another Democrat that is nothing but a traitor.
[00:15:14]  She shouldn't even be here.
[00:15:15]  She married her brother to get here, and she's lived off taxpayer money.
[00:15:22]  So, Mark, getting back to the fraud that you mentioned, this is KMON News citing a GAO report.
[00:15:32]  That's the Government Accountability Office.
[00:15:34]  And it says the federal government loses billions annually to fraud.
[00:15:37]  Let's take a look at how much that is.
[00:15:40]  This is from January of this year.
[00:15:42]  It says, highlighted the staggering financial losses the federal government incurs annually due to fraud and improper payments.
[00:15:50]  According to the GAO, the government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion each year to fraud based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.
[00:16:05]  Additionally, improper payments, funds that should not have been paid or were paid in incorrect amounts, were amounted to approximately $2.8 trillion.
[00:16:16]  That is an aggregate number since 2003.
[00:16:22]  Here's Pete, West Palm Beach, Florida.
[00:16:24]  Democrat, good morning, Pete.
[00:16:25]  Good morning.
[00:16:26]  I can't believe what's happening to this country.
[00:16:31]  Clinton was the last president that actually had a surplus in the deficit.
[00:16:36]  It's what happens when you let these tax people run this country.
[00:16:41]  The rich are getting less tax than the poor.
[00:16:43]  They don't realize this.
[00:16:45]  You can make a million dollars in profit without paying taxes because you don't sell the stock you have that picked up a million dollars.
[00:16:54]  That's why the rich are getting so much richer every year.
[00:16:58]  The tax system is so bad.
[00:17:00]  Our revenue is terrible.
[00:17:02]  We're spending a lot more.
[00:17:04]  I think we could save a lot on spending.
[00:17:06]  But we should look at the tax, the way it's set up.
[00:17:09]  I made about $35,000 in profit this year.
[00:17:14]  I'm not selling anything.
[00:17:15]  I'm just $35,000 richer.
[00:17:18]  Could you imagine what a multi-millionaire is making when the stock market just hit $50,000?
[00:17:24]  They're so much richer, but they don't have to pay taxes until they sell it.
[00:17:29]  And what they do, they borrow money to buy something, and this way they don't have to sell their profits, and they could show that they're paying off the loans.
[00:17:39]  This has been happening since Reagan became president.
[00:17:42]  When he says deficit does not mean a thing, we could live with deficits.
[00:17:46]  Well, I don't know how long we're going to live with deficits.
[00:17:49]  I'm 95 years old.
[00:17:50]  I hope I'll never see the end of this.
[00:17:53]  But there's going to be a downfall to our country sooner or later.
[00:17:57]  We cannot keep doing this, having the rich get richer, and we keep spending too much money, especially military.
[00:18:04]  China has no soldiers outside of China.
[00:18:08]  We have soldiers all over the world, and China is just as strong as we are.
[00:18:13]  Nobody's attacking China.
[00:18:15]  God forbid they ever tried.
[00:18:17]  So we keep sending all our troops around the world.
[00:18:20]  It does cost lots of money to keep troops in different countries.
[00:18:25]  And we've got to do something about this, too.
[00:18:28]  Thank you, Felia.
[00:18:29]  All right, Pete.
[00:18:30]  Dan in New York, Independent Line.
[00:18:32]  Good morning, Dan.
[00:18:34]  Yeah, I did a little Google searching in my Google search.
[00:18:39]  NGOs cost the country anywhere from $300 to $500 billion a year.
[00:18:46]  NGOs, non-governmental organizations?
[00:18:50]  Yeah.
[00:18:51]  So you're talking about nonprofits.
[00:18:53]  That's correct.
[00:18:54]  Okay.
[00:18:55]  And also, the largest sum of money that's given out is in welfare benefits, $2.5 trillion a year.
[00:19:06]  Wait, wait.
[00:19:06]  So, Dan, going back to your point about nonprofits, when you say that costs the federal government, you mean in lost tax revenue to people that donate to them.
[00:19:16]  Is that what you mean?
[00:19:17]  Well, no, that's just what the amount of money that is given to various organizations by the government, and these are all NGOs, and 501c3 is probably, I don't know, for services, you mean?
[00:19:33]  Yeah.
[00:19:33]  Okay.
[00:19:35]  So you would cut those services.
[00:19:37]  Well, I would say that we've got a problem with NGOs to begin with, since most of those NGOs, a lot of them, had to do with immigration and brought people into this country that are living off of benefits that were here for the American public.
[00:19:55]  And I would assume that out of that $2.5 trillion in welfare benefits, a big, vast majority over the last 30 years that we've been bringing people into this country have been going to people that are not American citizens.
[00:20:14]  I mean, we've had so many immigrants come into the country, and I know we need some of them.
[00:20:18]  There's no doubt about it.
[00:20:20]  But at the same time, it needs to stop.
[00:20:24]  And for a federal tax dollar not to be used by the states to pick up illegal citizens and people that should be prosecuted for violent crimes and deported out of the country is a waste of my tax dollars.
[00:20:42]  And the states that do it are New York, California, and various other Democratic states that don't adhere to it.
[00:20:48]  So here's the question.
[00:20:51]  Why are we spending my federal tax dollars in a state, period, that doesn't want to take care of the criminal activities that go on in that state?
[00:21:04]  Okay.
[00:21:04]  I'm in New York.
[00:21:06]  And Dan, I would ask you to look at fiscaldata.treasury.gov.
[00:21:12]  That's the website that I mentioned.
[00:21:14]  That is from the U.S. Treasury Department.
[00:21:17]  Talking about spending and where that is going, you can do it either by category or by agency, but you see by far it's at $818 billion.
[00:21:27]  That's year-to-date, so that's not done for the fiscal year for Social Security.
[00:21:32]  And this is Mark in Bremen, Texas.
[00:21:37]  Did we?
[00:21:38]  Yes, Ryan.
[00:21:38]  Oh, yes.
[00:21:39]  No, I had you, Mark.
[00:21:40]  Sorry.
[00:21:42]  Randy in Michigan, Line for Democrats.
[00:21:44]  Good morning.
[00:21:45]  Good morning, Mimi.
[00:21:46]  I was just at Northern Michigan University on Wednesday with this exact thing that we were talking about, how to get rid of the national debt.
[00:21:53]  I sat down with the professors, and this is how you do it.
[00:21:56]  In 24 years, we can get rid of this national debt.
[00:21:59]  We've got to do one thing first.
[00:22:00]  We've got to start for anything, anybody under $10 million a year in income, their tax will stay the same.
[00:22:08]  They won't tax not one cent higher.
[00:22:10]  What you do is you start at $10 million, you tax them at 50%.
[00:22:14]  At $100 million, you tax them at 70%.
[00:22:17]  At $150 million, you tax them at 90%.
[00:22:21]  At anything over $1 billion, you tax them at 99%.
[00:22:25]  We can have the tax, we can have the national deficit gone in 24 years and have a trillion dollars extra at the end of that 24 years.
[00:22:34]  And right now, if we would start lifting the cap off of Social Security so everybody pays on all their income, we can let the killed children have Social Security until 2090.
[00:22:46]  Look it up.
[00:22:47]  Just fact-checking on AI.
[00:22:48]  Everybody, you hear what I just said?
[00:22:51]  We have a plan.
[00:22:52]  We know how to do it.
[00:22:53]  It's been fact-checked on AI, and I've been working on this, and this is how you do it.

=== Economics Of Cutting And Spending (07:19) ===

[00:22:58]  So, Randy, when you say an income of a certain amount, what kind of income are we talking about?
[00:23:03]  Because there's different incomes.
[00:23:06]  Anybody under $10 million leave the tax break, leave the tax cuts right where they are, just how it is.
[00:23:13]  You would also consider capital gains.
[00:23:16]  No, we're not talking, we're only talking about income, taxing their income.
[00:23:20]  We're not talking about most of the wealthy are not getting a paycheck.
[00:23:25]  Yeah, but see what we're going to do?
[00:23:26]  They're getting capital gains from their investments.
[00:23:29]  But how you have to do that is you have to tax any income that they've made.
[00:23:33]  That's income that they've actually made.
[00:23:35]  Like the guy that was just talking about the $35,000 that he gets, and he don't have to do nothing.
[00:23:40]  Well, that's income gain.
[00:23:41]  That's gained.
[00:23:42]  Even though he hasn't sold it.
[00:23:44]  Right.
[00:23:45]  It's still considered income free.
[00:23:48]  No matter what, if you're a $10 million, how much is enough money?
[00:23:51]  If you got $10 million, and that's who we're starting with, the people that are under $10 million, those are the people that are struggling.
[00:23:57]  The people that got $10 million in the bank, they got enough money to pay all their bills.
[00:24:01]  They weren't about putting food on the table or sending their kids to college.
[00:24:05]  That's how you take care of it.
[00:24:07]  If we lift that cap off Social Security right now on all income, we can let those kids have Social Security until 2090.
[00:24:15]  Secure their rest of their life.
[00:24:17]  They'll know that they have Social Security when it's there.
[00:24:20]  It will be funded.
[00:24:21]  And we want to worry about cutting any taxes to anybody that's under $10 million.
[00:24:27]  That's how you do it.
[00:24:28]  And we have the numbers.
[00:24:29]  Fact check it on AI.
[00:24:31]  See, I was just in NMU talking to two professors about this on Wednesday.
[00:24:38]  Randy, got it.
[00:24:39]  Here is Paul in Lake Mary, Florida, Independent Line.
[00:24:45]  Good morning.
[00:24:46]  Nice to talk to you.
[00:24:47]  That was an interesting approach that Randy just brought up.
[00:24:53]  Here's another way to look at it.
[00:24:56]  If you shut down the federal government and we went from the $5 trillion roughly that we spend every year in recent years, per year, to zero, no federal spending at all on anything, it would take 37.6 years to get rid of our current $40 trillion plus the under $157 trillion with Medicare and Social Security.
[00:25:22]  So in my mind, it's a combination of cutting spending and increasing revenues.
[00:25:28]  It can't be all or one.
[00:25:31]  But anyone that thinks that we can't raise revenue with a progressive tax rate on the wealthy and solve this problem just by cutting spending is not thinking straight on this matter.
[00:25:45]  It's too late.
[00:25:46]  We cannot cut our way out of this national debt.
[00:25:51]  We can't do it.
[00:25:52]  We could have done it 25 years ago, 20 years ago.
[00:25:55]  Today, not possible.
[00:25:57]  Thank you very much, and have a great day.
[00:25:59]  Okay, Paul.
[00:26:00]  And here is that portion of President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday talking about the warning Iran.
[00:26:07]  We're facing a money right now in Iran that has refused to submit.
[00:26:12]  You seem optimistic now that you may be closer to a deal.
[00:26:14]  What's different about this moment now than in other moments where a deal has seemed close?
[00:26:19]  Well, why do you say they refuse to submit?
[00:26:21]  You don't know that.
[00:26:22]  You don't know what's going on behind U.S. ships a few days ago.
[00:26:25]  Yeah, no, a few days ago is a long time ago.
[00:26:27]  You know, in the world of war, a few days ago, no, they want to make a deal badly.
[00:26:32]  And we'll see if we get there.
[00:26:33]  If we get there, they can't have nuclear weapons.
[00:26:35]  You know, it's very simple, but what's not to submit?
[00:26:39]  So they had a Navy with 159 ships, and now every ship is blown to pieces and lying at the bottom of the water.
[00:26:46]  They had an Air Force, lots of planes, and they don't have any planes.
[00:26:48]  They don't have any anti-aircraft.
[00:26:51]  They don't have any radar left.
[00:26:53]  Their missiles are mostly decimated.
[00:26:54]  They have some.
[00:26:55]  They're probably 18, 19%, but not a lot by comparison to what they had.
[00:27:01]  And their leaders are all dead.
[00:27:04]  So I think we won.
[00:27:07]  Now it's only a question of: look, if we left right now, Iran, it would take them 20 years to rebuild.
[00:27:13]  You would call that we're in good shape, right?
[00:27:16]  Fantastic.
[00:27:17]  We're in good shape.
[00:27:19]  And now we're doing well.
[00:27:21]  Now we have to get what we have to get.
[00:27:23]  If we don't do that, we'll have to go a big step further.
[00:27:26]  But with that being said, they want to make a deal.
[00:27:30]  We've had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it's very possible that we'll make a deal.
[00:27:38]  I was a president in the Oval Office yesterday.
[00:27:40]  We're in open forum, and we'll talk to Tom in St. Augustine, Florida, Democrat.
[00:27:44]  Go ahead, Tom.
[00:27:45]  Hi.
[00:27:47]  I would like to thank everybody who's called in.
[00:27:50]  Very interesting comment on the economics of cut and spending.
[00:27:57]  I would like to thank C-SPAN too.
[00:27:59]  Y'all do a great job.
[00:28:01]  Could you do a show on three economic studies done on all of our economy and budgeting issues?
[00:28:12]  And these, one was done by the RAND Corporation on trickle-down economics.
[00:28:18]  One gentleman talked about how we switched to voodoo economics in the 80s under Reagan.
[00:28:25]  And these studies talk about that and show how we got in this problem.
[00:28:30]  Again, one was done by the Rand Corporation, and I think it was a 40-year study.
[00:28:36]  One was recently released by Harvard.
[00:28:39]  I think it was a 20-year study.
[00:28:42]  And one was done, I believe, a 20-year study by the London School of Economics.
[00:28:48]  Could you show the people what those three studies said?
[00:28:53]  And they might.
[00:28:56]  Yeah, no, I appreciate the suggestion.
[00:28:58]  Tell us, explain what voodoo economics is.
[00:29:00]  I haven't heard that term in a long time.
[00:29:03]  Well, that is your economic program being based on something that has a low probability of working.
[00:29:14]  And therefore, it doesn't.
[00:29:17]  And you go in debt.
[00:29:19]  So it's like betting the farm on a long shot.
[00:29:22]  In fact, when the term came around, that was a term used by George Bush when he was running against Ronald Reagan in 1979 for the presidency.
[00:29:36]  That was an idea that Dick Cheney and an economist, Arthur Laffler, created over lunch one day.
[00:29:45]  And they thought that giving money tax breaks to the rich, they would invest it, create jobs, and therefore there was a trickle-down effect.
[00:29:55]  Now, before that, what the government did with the same money was they invested it too.
[00:30:03]  They just invested it in programs that promoted the general welfare of the people, like the preamble.
[00:30:10]  An example would be here in Jacksonville, there is a gas company that's been around.

=== Trickle-Down Myth Explained (02:31) ===

[00:30:17]  The guy started as a one-man show.
[00:30:20]  I read about him.
[00:30:21]  I praise him.
[00:30:23]  He's worked very hard and he runs a good business.
[00:30:26]  Well, let's say that man makes $100 million and we let him keep, you know, most of it because he's going to build more gas stations and sell more gas, create more jobs.
[00:30:38]  Those are all really good things.
[00:30:40]  And that money will trickle down.
[00:30:42]  Now, what would the government do, let's say, if we taxed his $100 million profit with the same $20 million?
[00:30:50]  Well, we could hire a police officer, put it in every school in the city, and now we have a good man with a gun in there.
[00:30:59]  Now, guess what?
[00:31:00]  It's trickled down, too, because that police officer buys a house.
[00:31:04]  He shops at the local.
[00:31:06]  I got it, Tom, but I got to move on and talk to Bill in Newark, Ohio, Republican.
[00:31:10]  Go ahead, Bill.
[00:31:12]  Oh, thanks for taking my call.
[00:31:16]  Listen, what I think what's wrong with this country, and until Trump and his cabinet wake up and both challenge and eliminate sanctuary states and cities for violations and distortions of our federal laws as written, failure to prosecute these states and cities will destroy all of our national securities in an attempt for perpetual control of power by the left.
[00:31:44]  That's all they want is power and control.
[00:31:48]  Don't complain.
[00:31:50]  Prosecute Trump.
[00:31:51]  Get an attorney general in there.
[00:31:53]  Obey our Constitution.
[00:31:55]  Thank you.
[00:31:58]  Rick in Indiana, Independent Line.
[00:32:01]  Hi, Rick.
[00:32:02]  How are you doing today?
[00:32:03]  Good.
[00:32:05]  I'm good.
[00:32:06]  Hey, you know, we got to look at this way.
[00:32:09]  People, everybody complains.
[00:32:11]  Oh, I've done it too, many and many a times.
[00:32:14]  But you've got to understand one thing.
[00:32:16]  We're on end times.
[00:32:18]  If you read children killing parents, parents killing children and this, and you know, there's nothing you can do with Trump.
[00:32:26]  He's going to do what he's going to do.
[00:32:28]  You know, you know, these Republicans, all Democrats, when you've complained to them, they just raise a finger up at you and said, hey, because he doesn't, I don't care.
[00:32:38]  You know, just like that, you know, man.
[00:32:42]  It's sad.
[00:32:43]  You know, we're going to have storms.
[00:32:45]  I've said it many times before in this comment here on the C-SPAN.

=== Politicians Ignore Your Complaints (01:10) ===

[00:32:49]  People just overlook it.
[00:32:50]  They just think it's really cute.
[00:32:52]  You know, this guy don't know what he's talking about.
[00:32:56]  Well, anyway.
[00:32:57]  All right, Rick.
[00:32:58]  Let's talk to Ronald next in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
[00:33:01]  Democrat.
[00:33:01]  Go ahead, Ronald.
[00:33:03]  Yes, good morning.
[00:33:05]  I like everybody to pay attention to who's calling in.
[00:33:11]  There's certain classes of people.
[00:33:13]  You don't hear billionaires calling in complaining, not one time.
[00:33:18]  Why?
[00:33:19]  Because they're up there.
[00:33:21]  Now, on the tax situation, I believe that all stocks, and this goes for commodities and everything else, for every $100 spent to buy and sell, there's a $6 fee put on it.
[00:33:38]  It goes to the national debt.
[00:33:40]  Instead of just making money, buying trading stocks all the time, they're going to pay their fair share.
[00:33:45]  They don't pay.
[00:33:47]  They show it into trust systems and stuff like that.
[00:33:51]  But if they buy a stock, they have to pay a fee, a federal fee, and it goes to the national debt.
[00:33:59]  The people.