In this episode - Here’s the real story behind the proposal to tax your 401 k plan. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/changing-401ks-could-have-improved-retirement-security-but-trump-and-republicans-didnt-sell-it-that-way/article/2638356 What really happened in Niger? http://dailysignal.com/2017/10/23/special-ops-mission-niger-routine-common-stop-politicizing/ Debunking the “free rider” myth liberals use when discussing unions. https://www.cato.org/blog/myth-public-sector-unions-free-rider-problem?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=7c88d0d309-Cato_at_Liberty_RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-7c88d0d309-143016961&goal=0_395878584c-7c88d0d309-143016961&mc_cid=7c88d0d309&mc_eid=3fd7404a34 Why is a Republican Senator going after Trump? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-24/corker-calls-on-trump-to-step-aside-from-tax-writing-effort-j95kfblv The hard truth on corporate taxes and your wallet. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-wages-of-corporate-taxes-1508799171
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Aiming to stop free speech so the speaker can no longer speak is exclusively a far-left phenomena.
I'm talking to moderates in the Democratic Party who are actually interested in what's going on, not blind lemmings walking off a cliff into an abyss of stupidity.
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
The rich did it.
Yeah, the rich did it.
They lent money to people who bought homes, and the people never paid the money back.
Oh, wow.
That sounds like a great business plan.
On a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to The Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Yeah, man, glad to be here.
Doing well.
We had to do a double countdown for the show today.
I missed them on the first time.
We were like, all I heard was three.
Two.
You there, Joe?
I was like, is there a one?
I'm like, hello?
There's a one there, right?
Like I didn't mean, you know, it's not 2.762, 2.654.
So we're finally back, which is good.
So it delayed us by about 24 seconds by my count on Adobe Audition.
All right, welcome to the show, folks.
Good to hear from you again.
Thanks for all the emails yesterday.
I got a terrific email about one of our sponsors yesterday, too.
I really appreciate that.
You know who you are.
I'll get to that in a little while.
So it's always good to bring on new sponsors.
And if somebody bought the product before they were a sponsor emails you and tells you it's a really great product.
Cool.
Hey, yeah, yeah.
Excellent stuff.
Folks, I'm, you know, I've been on this tax thing for a long time.
I'm not going to beat a dead horse on this again, but I just, I mean, I wake up every morning, obviously, really upset about liberalism.
Luckily, I work out in the mornings.
That clears my brain.
But it's just amazing the rhetoric about this Trump tax plan that's heating up right now.
It's just incredible how liberals, they never tell you the truth.
So I got a couple of stories today.
I'll debunk more liberal myths because that's all they do.
But the anger campaign by the liberals goes on.
And now it's incredible.
I saw this thing in the New York Times, which is just a liberal outlet.
I mean, it's really no better than the Daily Kos anymore, Joe.
And they're asking again, how are we going to pay for tax cuts?
Now, which I find amazing because I've said to you over and over and over again, I don't understand the reasoning or the logic there.
You know, I remember taking logic in college, you know, the modus tonens, modus polens thing, whatever the hell that was.
I don't get the logic here.
So like the government doesn't take your money, right?
So a thief walking down the street refuses to rob you.
And now somehow the thief is now less better off because he didn't rob you to take your money.
Now, unlike the thief, the government gets to do this using, you know, legally.
They have a monopoly on force.
They get to take your money.
So what do you mean by, how are we going to pay for this?
And I'm going to tell you why I'm bringing this up in a minute, which is really, I'm getting very bitter about this.
Amazingly, no one had this argument when Obama ran up actual debt.
In other words, Joe, Obama and Bush did it too, no doubt, there were debts under, enormous debts under the Reagan years, there were debts under the Clinton years, I totally understand that.
I'm not, I have a problem with debt no matter who's, I don't care if it's a Republican or a Democrat.
But what I find really disturbing, and how many suckers fall for this, is the New York Times, which was covered on Fox News this morning, wrote this piece about how are we going to pay for these tax cuts.
These are tax cuts, this is your money you're not giving over to the government.
You are giving over a significant portion, but additional monies are not going to take.
But did not make the same argument when President Obama literally, not figuratively, literally ran up historic deficits and debt every single year of his presidency.
So the government actually spends money it did not take from you, runs up massive amounts of debt.
The New York Times shows almost no concern about that at all.
But yet when the government refuses to take more of said money, now the New York Times expresses concern that, how are we going to quote, pay for this?
It's absurd.
Now, why am I bringing this up?
Because Chuck Schumer, who has just completely jumped the shark, this guy is a fraud of absolutely Epic proportions.
I mean, I've seen a lot of frauds up there.
Harry Reid probably takes the cake.
Pelosi's a close second.
Schumer's easily a top five guy.
Yep.
Schumer goes on the floor yesterday, and remember I discussed yesterday the IRA plan and how Trump had said it's not gonna happen?
Yeah.
Well, here's this backstory.
I did a little more homework on this plan for your 401k, I should say, not IRA, but 401k.
Yesterday there was this, you know, breaking news, and we debunked it because Trump kind of tossed it out, but there was a plan in Congress about your 401k to cut the tax deductible amount you could put into your 401k to $2,400 a year.
Now, here's the actual story of what happened, and please, Please, I'm going to put this story in the show notes.
Please go to the website, Bongino.com, or subscribe to the email list.
I will email you the article.
Read the Washington Examiner piece about what actually went on behind the scenes here.
I don't support this plan, but here's the story in a nutshell.
And again, how the Democrats in the New York Times are totally and completely disingenuous on tax cuts, and they lie to you.
Every single day.
Only suckers believe in liberalism, okay?
So Joe, the plan was this.
The plan was not to eliminate the contributions you could make to your 401k to $2,400.
The plan was the tax deductible upfront contributions you could make to your 401k would have been $2,400 and anything after $2,400 up to a certain amount would have had to be Roth IRA contributions.
The difference being Standard IRA, Joe.
You put money in right now.
Say you put $100 into your IRA.
I keep saying IRA.
Your 401k, I'm sorry.
Your 401k plan.
Well, IRAs have some similar rules, but your 401k plan.
So Joe puts $100 in.
Joe gets to deduct that $100 from his taxable income now.
So if Joe made $1,000, Joe only pays taxes on $900.
Cool.
Why?
Because Joe had $1,000.
He gets to deduct from his taxes $100.
Therefore, Joe will only pay taxes on $900.
You obviously want to pay taxes on a lesser amount of money.
That's what makes the 401k so appealing to middle-class Americans.
Now, if they were to limit that amount to, say, $50, that would cause Joe a big headache, right?
But the actual plan, which I don't support, by the way, at all.
I just want to tell you how disingenuous these fake fraud liberals are.
The plan was not, Joe, to say, well, now, Joe, you can only donate $50 to your IR1K.
Gosh, now I'm at an IR1K.
I feel really good.
Maybe because I'm too excited about the topic, because I love economics too much.
The plan was not to limit your 401k to that $50.
It was only to limit to the 401k the tax deductible in advance amount.
Meaning you were still going to be able to give $100 Joe, but the second $50 you would be taxed on in advance.
You just wouldn't be taxed on when you take the money out later.
Remember the 401k as we know it now or the IR 401k as I've received.
The 401k, as we know it now, works in reverse.
You don't pay the taxes when you put the money in now, but you will pay taxes when you take the distribution out later on when you retire.
Make sense?
The Roth works in reverse, Joe.
You pay the taxes before you put the money into the Roth IRA, Roth program.
The Roth IRA is right.
And then you don't get taxed on it when you take the distributions later.
So why am I bringing any of this up?
Because limiting 401k tax deductibility to 2400 but not limiting the amount you can put in anything prior to what it was before Joe would have done what?
Would have just lumped some tax payments now that would have been made in the future.
You see what I'm saying Joe?
You would have paid taxes in the future on your 401k when you took the money out.
Now the only difference is you would have paid those taxes up front it would have been tax-free later on.
Now that was a convenient detail that to be candid I even left out yesterday because I was so obsessed with that mortgage interest story.
That's a detail I left out too that I will self-correct today.
They were not limiting your IRA 401k, Roth IRA 401k plan.
They were just saying you were going to pay the taxes up front and not later on.
I don't agree with that plan.
I'm going to tell you why in a second.
But here's why I'm bringing this up.
Because listen to Chuck Schumer on the floor yesterday in the Senate talking about the plan and saying...
I'm sorry I had to back away from the mic a second because this just every day every day we have to listen to these idiots just these are these are smart people who just make stuff up every single day he goes on the senate floor Schumer and he says this is an attack On middle class income.
This is an attack on the middle.
They're attacking your retirement.
You phony!
You phony, fake... Chuck Schemer.
He's like roaches.
He keeps coming back.
It never stops.
This guy never stops BSing you.
So let me get this straight.
All you're concerned about, the New York Times and Chuck Schumer, is how are we going to pay for a tax rate cut, which by the way tax revenue's gone up after tax rate cuts.
Don't let that get in the way of your argument.
How are we going to pay for letting you keep more of your money?
A statement that makes no logical sense at all.
Some Republicans float an idea to switch the tax distributions from in the future on a 401k to the present with a Roth IRA.
And you're saying the exact opposite, that now, this is an attack on the middle class.
What's an attack?
What's an attack?
Either you were concerned, two minutes ago, you see where I'm going with this?
Yeah.
You were concerned, Joe, about how to pay for letting you keep more of your money.
Now a plan gets floated to take more of your money now and less of your money later, and then you turn it around and say, this is an attack on the middle class.
What is it?
Either you're, Joe, am I making sense here?
Because folks, it's absolutely critical.
You get this.
They want... Donald Trump and the GOP is proposing, through their tax rate plan, to let you keep more of your money.
The Democrats say, we don't like it because there's no way to pay for it.
They then turn around and argue against the plan, where the government actually takes more of your money now, and they argue that that's an attack on the middle class.
What is it?
Do you want more of our money or not?
I'll see where you're going.
You sure?
Yeah.
Because this isn't... Folks, that's why I'm all over the place on this because I was so pissed off again when I read this this morning.
I'm like, how dumb do you have to be to be an American liberal?
Not a Democrat.
Again, I'm not going after... There are a lot of good people out there.
I mean it.
I'm not trying to be like Captain Virtue Signal or anything.
I just, I know a lot of Democrats.
A lot of them, they're tired again of this crap too.
You know, they're just people who think differently about stuff than us.
But to be a liberal requires you to be so dumb that even basic logic escapes you!
I mean, seriously!
You have to be a moron!
Because you're arguing on one hand that a tax rate cut which allows you to keep your money is bad.
Then you're arguing, on the other hand, that a plan that takes more of your money now is also bad.
Right.
So what is it?
Do you want our money now or do you not?
I hear you.
I got you.
You're following me, right?
You're picking up what I'm putting down?
Folks, this makes no sense.
Yeah, but I'm getting it.
Yeah.
The conversion from the 401k to the Roth only means the government gets your money now rather than later.
Democrats, very bad.
Tax rate cut plan, which allows you to keep more of your money now.
That's also bad.
What the?
What is it?
Folks, this, again, I'm not saying Republicans have all the answers.
You know I'm disappointed in the establishment swamp rats as well.
But gosh, at least Conservatives, our wing of the party, is consistent and actually makes sense!
At least it's freaking logical!
We want you to keep the maximum amount of money you can possible while still funding the constitutional role of government.
That is a clean, simple position.
We don't believe in debt.
We don't believe in spending what you don't have.
That's it!
There is no conflict.
There is no moral conflict.
There's no logical disconnect.
There's no chasm in reason.
This is just a common sense basic argument.
What is the liberal argument?
Now, if you're a liberal who refutes what Chuck Schumer said, and you say, oh no, I think the conversion's good because we should get your tax money now rather than later, then fine, okay, I disagree with you, but at least I respect your opinion, but I haven't heard anybody say that!
Schumer speaks for these liberal dopes and this is it.
They go out there and they parrot it.
Bad.
Republican.
Bad.
Take money now.
Bad.
Leave money for later.
Good.
High tax rates.
Bad.
Low tax rates.
Bad.
Everything's bad.
They don't know anything.
You say, what did you just say?
High tax rates.
Bad.
Yes.
Because that's what the conversion from the IRA to the Roth would do.
It would bump your tax rate up.
They don't want that either.
Folks, they don't want this.
Gosh, I'm really fired up this morning.
I came out of the gym like, because I read and I'm like, oh my gosh, how dumb do you have to be?
There is no consistency on the liberal left whatsoever because their entire argument is based around the fact that they know these tax cuts will work.
Folks, please, again, to steal from Rush, don't doubt me on this.
They are terrified that a good, strong corporate rate cut, we're the highest in the world right now, in the industrialized world, corporate tax rate, a solid rate cut on pass-throughs, in other words, small family-owned business that are not incorporated, you know, Joe's radios, whatever, Joe makes them, and then Joe takes a check in his social security number, not a federal tax ID number, right?
They are terrified that this will juice the economy.
And these are not dumb people, Joe.
They lived through the Reagan years, where Reagan won pretty handily over Carter, but won in a landslide of like prehistoric proportions in his re-elect over Walter Mondale.
Why?
Because the economy took off like a rocket ship under similar conditions.
They are absolutely terrified that that's going to happen again if this tax cut passes.
That has led them to fight everything, even when the logic they're using makes no sense.
Tax money now, bad.
Tax money later, bad.
High tax rates, bad.
Low tax rates, bad.
Nothing they're saying is making any sense.
Now, Here's why, by the way, I owe you that because I said as much.
This is why I disagree strongly.
And I know I'm going to get emails from financial advisors.
Totally cool.
Send them my way.
I know there's a lot of differences of opinion on this.
I'm okay with it.
If you have a difference of opinion, let me know.
One, the government should not be...
I don't, I do not, I'm not being intellectually dishonest.
I think the plan, which has been scrapped, by the way, by Trump, but just in case, you know, you're still wondering, well, why would we not do that?
Let's pay the taxes up front.
I mean, better now, right?
Here's the argument to do that when it comes to your retirement.
And when I say to do that, I mean to pay the taxes now rather than get it tax deductible now and then pay the taxes later.
The argument, Joe, for many that I've heard from multiple people Is, well, you know, if you pay the taxes up front, obviously it allows the sum to grow tax-free later on, and, you know, you get the tax liability out of the way, and later on in your life you have the potential to be a lot wealthier, obviously age, job experience, education changes, and things like that, right Joe?
Okay.
So the chances are in the future you're probably going to pay a higher tax rate than you would have paid now.
So if you can get out of that higher tax rate later by paying the taxes now, it's a good thing.
You copy?
Yeah.
Makes sense?
10-4.
That's the argument for, like, a Roth-type plan, which is what that plan was suggesting everybody do, up to $2,400.
Now, you may say, well, Dan, that sounds sensible.
Why don't you like that?
Number one, because I don't like the government getting involved in just about anything other than military intercourses.
Because none of the government's freaking business when I want to pay the taxes.
If I want to pay the taxes now, I want to pay the taxes later, and I'm paying the taxes, stay out of my way.
Let me make my own choices.
But I never agreed with that decision.
Why?
Folks, the government can change the rules, and the golden rule I always live by is never, ever, ever pay taxes now that you can legally pay later.
I'm not suggesting tax, you know, tax evasion.
That's a crime.
Remember, tax avoidance is not a crime.
Tax evasion is a crime.
I'm not recommending you all pay your taxes, do your thing, don't get in trouble with the law, okay?
Obviously.
It's like public service announcement for the day over.
But as a golden rule in my study of finance, never ever pay taxes now that you can pay later.
Because there's no guarantee later on they won't change the rules.
You see where I'm going with this Joe?
So let's say everybody's converted to a Roth and pays the taxes up front.
Oh don't worry it'll all be tax-free later.
And then later on the government gets into another debt crisis.
Now you find yourself on the hook again.
For the taxes later too.
Oh, that'll never happen.
Really?
The government changes the rules all the time.
They've already inflated away the value of all the social security distributions you've put in over the years.
Or inputs you put in.
Folks, never pay taxes now you can pay later.
It just doesn't make sense.
I'm sorry.
To me, it doesn't.
You're dealing with I hate to say this, but you're dealing with an unethical counterparty on this.
The government does not have to, they have the power of force to change the rules at any time.
You'll wind up paying taxes twice.
It's another reason, although I love the fair tax, I'm terrified because they have a sunset clause for the income tax.
Oh, if the income tax goes away, I'm not convinced we won't get an income tax and a consumption tax at the same time.
Never pay taxes now.
You could pay later.
Ever.
I think it's crazy.
So that's why I don't support that.
All right.
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He didn't give me permission to use his name, so obviously I won't.
I never do that.
By the way, you don't have to email me that.
People are putting emails, please don't use this on the air.
I never use anybody's name on the air unless you explicitly tell me it's okay.
Don't worry about that.
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Yes, folks, do not say anything, but my dad is not really... I love my father to death, but he's not really a great shot.
I've been working on him for... I'm gonna... I think the ITAR guys will send me a freebie for him, so I'm gonna give this to my dad, okay?
Because he needs it.
He's a good man, but he's not a great shot.
All right, moving on.
I got a ton of great stuff.
I spent a little bit of time on that because it's really critical.
Hey, there's a serious fight going on now, too.
You know, they're going after Breitbart and Breitbart sponsors again.
And folks, I don't work for Breitbart.
I know people there.
You know, Disclosure.
I know Matt Boyle.
I know Steve Bannon.
I'm not name-dropping at all.
We're not, like, best friends.
I just know them from running in conservative circles.
But just quickly, there's an article up at Drudge today about this Twitter group, these goons, Sleeping Giants, and not that I'm trying to give these guys any free PR for their stupidity, but this is just... it's...
An example of the war that's going on behind the scenes to try to bankrupt anyone who has an alternate political ideology from your far-left world.
What Sleeping Giants has been doing is they go after the sponsors of Breitbart's website and people like that.
And by the way, just going back to yesterday's show a little bit, how the leftist position is assumed to be a majority position when it's just a bunch of freakish hacks.
I mean, really, liberalism is the Is a religion worshipped by an increasingly small number of people?
Why we give them so much oomph and power in our society is ridiculous.
It's only because they own the media, Hollywood and academia.
But they're going after Bob Mercer right now, who runs a hedge fund called Renaissance Technologies.
And Bob Mercer is one of the funders of Breitbart.
I think he has some kind of a financial interest in it.
And they're trying to attack him too.
And folks, this is why when I wake up in the morning and you say, well, why does this fight matter to you?
Why do you get so passionate sometimes?
It's because of this.
These people aren't kidding around.
We're in a really, a very real battle right now.
We are at the point now, whether it's college campuses, a conservative website, whatever it may be, these are ruthless people on the other side who are trying to destroy the very livelihoods of people who have chosen to make a living out of fighting for this conservative cause, what I think to be a very noble endeavor.
Believe me, very few people make any significant amount of money in the conservative arena.
Some do, which is great, because people are willing to pay for content.
But the fact that the left is absolutely determined, some on the left, to put these people out of business is really disgusting.
I'll put the story, excuse me, in the show notes.
I strongly encourage you to check it out.
It's really, really disappointing.
Okay, one more story I'll put in the show notes from the Daily Signal.
It's about this Niger, the four heroes who were killed in Niger on a counter-terror operation.
Folks, for those of you who know me and listen to the show regularly, I am not a big believer on our international obligations when there's not a direct U.S.
interest.
I've frequently said to you that I subscribe to Fox Connors Rules of War.
You know, never go to war alone, never go for long, and never go to war unless you absolutely have to.
And I understand, I'm not naive, but there is an international war on terror.
I actually believe that.
They've declared war on us, and that's the thing about asymmetric war.
You don't get a say in it, Joe.
Someone says, uh, I'm putting a hit out on Dan Bongino.
Uh, you don't get to say, well, you know, I don't really like that, so I hope you change your mind.
It doesn't work that way.
They don't care.
This is an asymmetric battle.
They've declared war on the United States.
I'm not naive to that.
I'm not naive to the ramifications of the terrorists targeting our country, nor am I naive to, uh, against some international obligations there.
So let me just be clear on that.
I'm not, I'm not defending us being in places all over the world.
I think that, you know, the international community needs to take on more of its own defense obligations and not pawn them off on the United States.
But having said that, there's a great piece in the Daily Signal today, which will be in the show notes, about how really nothing is sacred anymore and how the left is trying to make you believe that this operation in Niger, where these four Green Berets were killed, That this is somehow an unusual event.
Now folks, again, I only prefaced the opening by saying it's a fair argument for you and I to have about what our international, you know, using quotes, your obligations are and where we should and shouldn't be.
I understand that.
But the liberals painting this out, this operation, to be some kind of an anomalous, strange event where nobody knew and we left our people out there to die and It's completely, totally disingenuous.
These Green Beret operations happen all over the world every day.
Not just Green Berets, other special forces units as well.
These happen everywhere.
And again, it's a fair argument to have, and it is a political argument by the way, Joe, the umbrella argument about where our people should and shouldn't be.
It is not, I think, a fair argument to have when our people are there So either one obviously let them die or secondly if they do die to use them as a political pawn later on to attack your opponent when in fact people knew they were there.
Now this is happening there are senators out there Lindsey Graham oh my gosh we didn't know anything about this.
There is absolute evidence that their senate committees were briefed on it.
Whether Lindsey Graham decided to attend their briefings or not or these other folks that are saying we didn't know that's on them.
But the president is the commander-in-chief, and saying that these are somehow unusual events, these domestic operations we do where we try to reinforce local military operations, teach them some of our tactics and things like that, insisting that this doesn't happen and is unusual, is just beyond stupid, okay?
I mean, I've worked with a lot of green berets.
As a matter of fact, I'm looking at my wall here.
I can't really see it, I'm sorry, but I have a big, big, huge plaque on my wall when I was over in Indonesia with President Obama, and we had used some green berets there, and I can't see the unit.
Gosh, maybe for tomorrow's show, it's too far away, and I want to get up and walk away from the mic.
But they were really unbelievable guys.
We're overseas in a foreign country, especially a hot zone, which Indonesia at the time was.
We use our counter-assault team.
Those are secret service agents.
That's our SWAT team.
They have black BDUs and they have some of the heavier weapons.
But at times, Joe, we'll request reinforcement from special forces overseas, especially if it's a dangerous area, that can work tactically with our counter-assault team to lay down a base of fire so the secret service agents can get the president the hell out of there.
God forbid there's an attack.
So we used, I was the lead advance on that trip, and we used a really great team of guys.
I'm pretty sure they were Green Berets.
I gotta get their unit.
But these guys were amazing.
So again, don't disgrace the memories of these people if you're a liberal, these four heroes, by suggesting that this was some kind of a scam, Joe.
Like, we just slipped four guys in an African country for no reason at all.
You're just being a jerk, all right?
So I'll put the Daily Signal piece in there.
It's written by an expert in this field who has far more knowledge than I do, but it explains exactly how these operations happen, what they're called, And what phase zero means, how they get in there before international conflicts break out.
That's what phase zero is.
So check that out.
It's a really good piece.
Okay, what else we got today?
Hey, a little bit of a shout out, by the way, to Mark Wahlberg here.
Thanks to Mark Wahlberg for rescuing, not completely, but a little bit, saving a little bit of my faith in Hollywood.
You know, he's a devout, uh, Catholic from what I hear.
And there's an interesting piece up at the Daily Wire about, uh, you know, Mark Wahlberg, right?
Yeah, man, I love him.
I really like him a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he, he was the one who criticized Hollywood for living in a bubble and lecturing Americans.
And, you know, I give you a lot of bad stories about Hollywood and they deserve it.
They are one of the three musketeers of stupidity, Hollywood, the media and academia.
But this is a good one.
And he just came out and he re-acknowledged his faith and said how he regretted doing certain movies.
And one of them, which he says he regrets pretty mightily is Boogie Nights, which is, you know, he was a porn star in the movie, which was a pretty... Dirk Diggler?
Dirk Diggler.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah.
I haven't seen the movie.
I'll be honest with you.
I didn't have the opportunity to, but he regrets it.
You're a trip.
He apparently regrets that, and I'm happy that he's a Hollywood actor with some prominence who can come out and talk about his Christian faith.
You know, it matters to me a lot, folks.
I get a lot of emails from you about it.
I'm not your preacher, but...
You know, I'm a sinner, but I saved myself.
You know, a lot of things changed in my life when I realized that it wasn't about me.
So I'm happy that someone in Hollywood had the guts to stand up.
So a little bit of a shout out to Mark Wahlberg.
All right.
All right.
Let's see what else we got here.
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All right.
Another article I saw up at Cato, a great website, C-A-T-O, that I strongly encourage you all to join up for.
They have great pieces.
They're a little academic and can get wonky at times, but they're really, really good.
There's a case breaking.
It's going to be heard in the Supreme Court soon.
It's going to really break years of tradition with regards to public, you know, with unions, with union fees.
And the case is, it centers around what's known as agency fees and the scam these things have become, folks.
You know, let me preface this whole thing by saying I don't have a problem with unions at all.
I have a problem with force.
I was a member of a benevolent association that kind of acted like a union when I was a member of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association up with the NYPD in New York.
They would argue on behalf of the police officers up in New York and I thought they did a pretty decent job.
I don't have an issue with unions.
I have a problem with being forced to join unions.
Now, this is a critical argument that the left is making, and they need unions.
Why do they need unions, Joe?
They need unions because unions generally, in a campaign, in a political campaign, will use their money and their employees, like I discussed with the teachers union on yesterday's show, to back Democratic candidates.
The money and the volunteers make a huge difference.
So Democrats obviously want to see both public and private sector union membership grow.
So, one of the ways they've managed to enforce this through the years was through a Supreme Court decision which allowed unions to take what's known as agency fees.
Agency fees are a huge scam.
They've always been a huge scam.
Now...
To be clear on what these are, if you're in a union, you cannot be forced with your union dues to pay for political advertising on behalf of the union.
So, Joe, if you're in a union, right, you can't be forced to finance, say, a political campaign against or for a political candidate, because that would be potentially against your First Amendment rights.
But what you can be forced to pay for are what they call agency fees.
And the myth here is that these agency fees are, in fact, non-political.
In other words, a fee you'll be paying to the union, it may not go towards, quote, politics, Joe.
We will go to the union, though, to argue on behalf of you for salary and benefits and things like that.
So, you know, if you're a listener, you may be like, well, what's the problem?
If it can't be used for politics and it's only being used to argue for benefits and salary and work conditions and things like that, well, what's the big deal?
Folks, the big deal here is there's a First Amendment argument there, too.
If your union, if you're forced to pay them, and they are lobbying on behalf of work conditions, especially in the public sector, and that the work conditions involve the paying of higher salaries using taxpayer money, Do you understand how that is inherently a political argument?
So, in other words, Joe, let's say you're a limited government guy and you work for a public sector union.
Or, frankly, even you work for a private sector union that's now advocating for a national minimum wage.
And they're arguing for a minimum wage or an index to minimum wage in the private sector.
These are inherently political arguments, no matter what, that you are being forced to finance whether you agree or not.
Now, the unions come back to this, and what you'll hear from your liberal friends all the time is, oh, well, what do you expect?
You expect the union to argue on behalf of employee rights and employee benefits, and then some people get to be free riders?
In other words, Joe, they don't have to pay anything, but they'll benefit from a work contract.
I'm not disputing that.
So you get the free rider argument that the left makes?
Their position is this.
These people should be forced to pay because they're going to benefit if the union gets them a higher wage.
Okay folks, but that's the union's choice to do that.
The union doesn't have to bargain on behalf of every single person out there.
The union got into this arena to unionize specifically to be the representative of workers.
The fact that you chose to do it despite the fact that not everyone was going to support you was your call.
That was an act of free will on your part.
We didn't, you know, people who didn't want the union in there in the first place, nothing changed for them.
They still don't want it.
It's the union that decided to go in.
Does that make sense, Joe?
Yeah.
Like saying it's a free rider problem is absurd.
You're basically saying that, well, we're lobbying on behalf of people that don't want to pay for the union.
Yeah, but you're the one who wanted to go in there and do that.
That's the argument you're making that your value added is you're going to go in there and argue on behalf of people despite the fact that they don't want you to argue on behalf of them.
And now we're supposed to feel bad for you?
Folks, this is a nonsense argument.
Keep in mind the National Labor Relations Act, as it's pointed out in the Cato piece by the way, there's nothing preventing the unions from engaging in members only.
Deliberations on work conditions.
In other words, they don't have to lobby on behalf of people who don't pay.
They just want your money.
Now folks, remember this.
This is an interesting argument I heard a long time ago and forgive me, I always forget where this came from.
Gosh, if there's one line I use that I wish I could remember, it's this one because it was such a brilliant point.
I was reading one time in a piece and the guy said, you know, it's fascinating.
How, when a position, a political position benefits liberals, harking back to the beginning of the show, we talk about how they'll take opposite positions on things, the Roth IRA versus not paying for tax cuts.
Same thing here.
It's fascinating that when the trough winds up, when the money trough winds up in the hands of our liberal friends, right?
that they'll argue that the government never spends enough money right. So think about it,
the government don't think about things the government they say doesn't spend enough money on.
Education they'll be like well we need to spend more money on education. Well why?
Because teachers unions as I said yesterday Joe largely benefit progressive causes as that Ocean
City Maryland story I discussed yesterday where they actually said we want to be a leader in
Right.
So, to be clear, those union funds coming from higher salaries eventually wind up, many of them in Democratic coffers, advancing progressive policies.
Liberals will then argue that we never spend enough money on education, we got to spend more, we got to spend more.
Yet, When the money in the end, Joe, winds up in the coffers of non-democratic entities.
Hospitals, administrative management of hospitals, doctors, doctors' offices, people who aren't exclusively progressive.
A lot of Republican doctors, a lot of CEOs of hospitals, a lot of hospital ownership that aren't exclusively democratic.
It's fascinating that liberals will make the exact opposite argument.
We're spending too much on healthcare!
We're spending too much, despite no economic evidence on either side of the equation that their position makes any sense.
We've spent more money on education since the 1970s, 400% more, and your results on standardized testing have leveled off, if not gone down in some cases, and yet you argue for more money.
And yet with hospitals, we've generally had some better outcomes.
And then you're like, well, we're spending too much.
It's because in the end, the money winds up in public sector union coffers and private sector union coffers and winds up with Democrats.
That's why they want more money.
This agency fee thing is a total scam, folks.
Don't fall for it.
Hey, one last story here.
There's a fight going on I've been talking about for the last couple days.
Again, it's about this Democrat tax plan and it's getting really personal now.
So Kevin Hassett, who's the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors for Trump, recently gave a speech to the Tax Policy Center where he just dismantled these guys.
The Tax Policy Center is really turning into kind of a hack group.
They analyzed the Trump GOP tax plan, folks, without any of the brackets.
In other words, they had no idea who was going to pay what and they analyzed the plan and basically said the middle class is going to get screwed.
I covered it on a show last week, right?
Right.
So Hassett goes to the Tax Policy Center in a brilliant move and just destroys them.
I mean, he gives a speech.
It's covered in a piece in the Wall Street Journal today, which I'll put the show notes.
He just annihilates them.
Now, the dogs have been let out on the left because they have to defend this legacy that this, of course, this tax cut is not going to work.
Because again, as I said in the beginning, they're afraid if this tax cut goes through, it's going to benefit the middle class.
So they put Larry Summers out there, former Secretary of the Treasury, and really the only thing I remember about Larry Summers is working with him as his secret service agent one time, and he kept wiping his nose in the speech.
It was just the weirdest thing ever.
Summers called Hassett's speech ignorant, disingenuous, dishonest.
He called it an atrocity.
Which is fascinating because a couple of economists went back and saw a 1981 piece about Larry Summers about some of the same proposals in the Trump tax cut plan where he said the increase in gross wages which results from the increased capital intensity arises from eliminating capital taxation.
In short, Trump's tax plan is going to work.
Don't let Larry Summers' own words in 1981, don't let them come back to haunt you, Larry, or anything.
Let's just say the opposite thing now.
And why is all this happening?
Because they need a, quote, credible liberal voice with some kind of economic bona fides to go out there and attack the Trump tax plan, just like Schumer attacked the Roth IRA conversion, because they're afraid, folks.
They're terrified.
That this Trump tax plan is going to go through and it's going to juice the economy.
It's scaring the hell out of them.
I'm telling you, don't doubt me for a second on this.
They are really starting to worry.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
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