What is “regime uncertainty” and why should it matter to you? This excellent piece explains why. https://t.co/HEuJuGdIlD Why are the Democrats and the mainstream media turning on the Clintons now? This piece offers a strong explanation. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268449/why-democrats-really-turned-bill-clinton-daniel-greenfield The Obamacare tax penalty is becoming a political football and, as is often the case, the CBO is providing misleading data. This piece debunks some of their assertions. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/stop-saying-13-million-people-will-lose-coverage-if-the-individual-mandate-is-repealed/article/2640770 Here’s a brief but powerful explanation of why socialism destroys economies. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/venezuela-finally-admits-it-the-socialist-country-is-bankrupt/article/2640756 If you support a Balanced Budget Amendment then you should read this. https://www.cato.org/blog/economists-oppose-strict-balanced-budget-amendment-could-us-adopt-sophisticated-one?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=840b5a45f1-Cato_at_Liberty_RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-840b5a45f1-143016961&goal=0_395878584c-840b5a45f1-143016961&mc_cid=840b5a45f1&mc_eid=3fd7404a34
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Hey, man, I'm doing well.
How about you, babe?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good, man.
You know, it's interesting.
I read a piece this morning and, you know, I like to give alternate points of view, even from my own, because I think, you know, unlike a lot of liberal America, the snowflakes that don't want to be exposed ever to conservative or liberty-based or libertarian ideas, I think the responsible thing to do on this show is to always give you how I feel.
I mean, it's my show.
You know, you're listening, obviously, for my opinion, somewhat.
It's also to present the facts and the data.
But I think in a really good, healthy intellectual environment, you should give alternate opinions, too, and do your best to refute them.
And it was interesting.
Yesterday, Joe, we were talking about, on the show, the The impact on the margin of bad decisions.
In other words, yesterday, remember we were bringing up the idea of special counsels and the idea of boycotts, and we acknowledged that this is not an argument whether it's special counsels or the boycotting of companies based on political positions they take.
It's not a question of what's a good or bad decision.
Remember that yesterday?
Yeah, yeah.
For those of you who listen to the show, great, you already know, but for those who may have missed it, the point I was trying to make is that boycotting business is based on their political stances.
In other words, what I think we have to do to fight back, especially everything that's happening with the Hannity Show and these clowns at Media Matters and this other stuff.
I don't want to hit on this three days in a row, but there's a point here.
They're dumb decisions.
Boycotts are stupid.
I absolutely 100% acknowledge that.
They are complete idiocy.
Companies that advertise on shows are paying to access their audience.
They are not endorsing their political ideas.
This is an idea as old as the sun.
Anyone who doesn't get that is typically a liberal.
But conservatives, we have to fight back.
And we have to fight back by boycotting the boycotters.
An equally dumb decision, but a necessary one.
Also, with the special counsels I brought up yesterday, and this is where I want to give you an alternate viewpoint, because I read a really, really good piece this morning.
Special counsels, the idea that we should appoint federal prosecutors, not outside of the DOJ, they still work for the DOJ, but like Bob Mueller is now, one who is really not subjected to the standard operating procedures of the Department of Justice, who is appointed from the outside to come in and investigate one specific thing, in this case the mythical Trump-Russian collusion thing.
These are bad ideas, Joe.
We already have a Department of Justice.
We already have a Department of Justice subjected to checks and balances like every other branch of government.
Appointing a special counsel is a bad idea, but I made the point yesterday that yes, it's a bad idea, but a worse idea is only appointing special counsels to investigate Republicans.
And that's unfortunately the road we're going down, which is what happened in this Trump-Russia thing.
Where you have a bevy of accusations against the Clintons, I think, that are substantive, and yet there was no talk about special counsels for them, and yet you have accusations that are devoid of substance with the Trump-Russia fairy tale, and then all of a sudden there's a special counsel appointed to investigate Trump, even though the allegations are farcical, laughable, and there is no evidence whatsoever of a crime, and even if there was evidence of collusion, which there isn't, by the way, I mean, even Democratic senators have acknowledged this.
Collusion isn't even a crime!
I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's not a crime.
These are just the facts, folks.
However troublesome they may be to you.
But now all of a sudden we have a special counsel that's appeared, the Bob Mueller special counsel, to investigate Trump.
And the point I was trying to make yesterday is, you know what?
If they're going to play this game, we have to teach them that the game is bad.
Because it is bad, Joe.
You know, we're losing our sense of fidelity and loyalty to institutions we trust.
We're seeing institutions previously deemed untouchable and blind to partisan politics as being corrupted by political ideology.
The Department of Justice, folks, let's be honest, come on, let's put all the talking points out on the table, okay?
Let's expose everything, really, for what it is.
Two, three decades ago, few people perceived the FBI and the Department of Justice as partisan.
Yes, of course, we had the J. Edgar Hoover days, but the FBI has done a very good job over the years of remaining above the political fray.
Now all of a sudden we're seeing, you know, institutions politicize the military, the FBI, in ways that are unacceptable to America.
And as Kevin Williamson writes in a piece today in National Review, which I'll put at the show notes, it's a wonderful piece.
Let me take a note on that so I don't forget, by the way.
Kevin Williams has a great piece about the dangers of what he calls, Joe, and this is important, regime uncertainty.
How the idea that we, what we used to be able to trust, our courts, the military, the FBI, all of these things, the Department of Justice, when we can't trust that anymore, that this is the slow devolving of a society into chaos in the long run.
Just because it's happening slowly, Joe, don't confuse it with it not happening.
It's happening.
Right.
Just slowly.
Now, I say that because you may say, well Dan, that then makes the argument against your case yesterday.
My case yesterday, to be clear, was that we need a special counsel for the Clintons, if anything, one, Joe, because the allegations are substantive, and because if they're going to appoint special counsels for special cases like this, only for Republicans, the Democrats need to feel it too, maybe to teach them the lesson that special counsels are a really bad idea, because I believe in the long run that will re-establish faith in our system.
So Dan Henninger has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today, which I thought was really good.
He's a smart guy.
And Henninger takes the opposite approach to me, which I think is, but he lays it out in a thoughtful way that matters.
I think you should hear it, Joe.
He says, listen, this is a really dumb idea, special counsel for the Clintons, because it's just reinforcing the idea that we're using our Department of Justice to go after our political opponents.
I don't disagree.
But that's already happening now.
And the problem is, if your political opponents, which the Democrats argued for... Joe, the Democrats are Trump's political opponent, right?
Yeah.
If the Democrats arguing that Trump should have had a special counsel to investigate Trump-Russia based on loose, if any, evidence at all...
And they are his political opponents based on special circumstances.
Oh, he's the president.
No one's going to be able to effectively prosecute the case.
Then you've laid down a set of rules, right Joe?
The set of rules are he's the president, politically powerful.
He's got political connections.
Standard Department of Justice rules aren't going to work.
In an effort I don't think Henninger, he's not a crazy guy, he's not a Leveright, it's good stuff.
I just disagree with him.
Because I think what he's missing here is, he's right, special counsels suck.
But if you're going to lay down a set of rules, it's not the special counsels that become the argument, the hill to die on, it's the rules.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
Yeah.
The rules are what we have to, the rules are stupid.
So the rules are what?
Whether there's smoke, there's fire?
Any allegation is worthy of a special counsel at any point?
As long as it's your political opponent?
We're not arguing anymore about the special counsels, we're arguing about the rules.
And in order to teach them that the rules are dumb, we have to apply those rules, those stupid rules, albeit, Henninger's right, we have to apply those stupid rules to the other side too.
Let me give you a quick analogy.
Joe, am I losing you here?
No, I'm with you.
Okay, because this is important, folks.
I'd love to... Gosh, man, this... You know, I say it every day.
I don't want you to sound corny or goofy or anything, but I really, really, really love this country, and I love this place.
I know we have so many powerful, great, wonderful, prosperous things in our future.
I know it.
I know despite all the gloom and doom and, oh, it's the end of times, all this other stuff, and sometimes I jokingly tweet that when I see snowflake liberal stupidity.
This is the greatest place on earth.
You are so lucky to be alive right now, in this place, at this time, right at this moment.
Gosh, you've seen levels of prosperity never known in human history right now, right here.
It's just such a darn shame to watch it all be thrown away for such stupid reasons.
You lost an election, Democrats.
You don't like the guy?
Fine.
We didn't like Obama for eight years.
I argued against impeaching Obama.
Don't tell me we're being hypocrites.
Even though I thought the guy was a constitutional usurper of powers, and I thought I made a forceful case about that, I believe fidelity to our elections are important.
Gosh, this is just insane!
We're throwing this all out the window!
We are applying one set of rules to Democrats and one set of rules to Republicans without teaching them that the rules are bad.
Now, to back up my point, And to kind of, I think, refute Henninger's piece a little bit, respectfully so.
Again, I think he's a nice guy.
Joe, there was an independent counsel law at one point.
Not a special counsel, an independent counsel.
It's different.
The independent counsel law was put on the books after Watergate, which enabled a prosecutor to come in independently and investigate.
There have been many of them.
We had Watergate, Whitewater, Kenneth Starr famously was an independent counsel.
Independent councils were a very bad idea for the same reasons I just told you, folks.
They became political weapons, not weapons of justice.
We already have a justice department.
Joe, you know what?
I'm not gonna, I don't want to set you up on this because I didn't prepare you for this before the show.
No, no.
But the independent council law was allowed to lapse in 1999.
The president in 1999, you see where I'm going with this?
Yeah.
Was Bill Clinton!
Okay?
The reason the independent council law was allowed to lapse and was not re-upped was because Democrats, Joe, said, you see where I'm going with this now?
Yeah.
Man, that Monica Lewinsky thing didn't work out too great for us under this independent council thing.
So you know what?
Let's just go back to the standard rules of justice and stop playing this stupid political game.
Folks, again, with all due respect to Dan Henninger, he seems like a very nice guy.
I don't think we've ever met, but I disagree a hundred percent And think we should appoint a special counsel to investigate- if there's nothing there, I'm not suggesting- let me be clear on this too, folks.
I am not even remotely suggesting that we should appoint a special counsel to investigate Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation and make stuff up like they're doing about Trump-Russia and charge people with fibbing, okay?
If there's a crime there, great, we lock people up.
If there's none, come out in front of the cameras and say, folks, there's nothing here.
Uranium One, maybe a shady deal, but not illegal.
That's fine.
I don't believe that.
I think there is something there.
But if there isn't, I don't want to make it up, unlike the left with this Trump-Russia fairytale.
If the Clinton Foundation, Joe, shady, maybe.
Illegal, maybe not.
Fine, put it out there.
Right?
Joe, what's the problem?
No, I have no problem at all with that.
Oh, and you don't like it?
Oh, we don't like that.
We don't like the special counsel.
All right, maybe you'll stop calling for special counsels then, and we'll get back to regular rules of order.
So, again, I'm basing this on historical evidence of the Democrats only learning their lesson when, at the time, the independent counsel law was allowed to lapse because the Democrats said, Joe, ah, yeah, this boomerang back on us stuff, yeah, uh, NG, no good.
We're not liking this stuff.
Remember what I told you, folks.
And I mean this.
We are all federal criminals.
All of us.
You may say, oh, surely not me.
No, no, you too.
Everyone in this room has broken some federal law.
I mean, this room.
Well, it's only me in this room.
It's my studio.
In this audience.
I forget sometimes, because our audience is so nice and generous with all the emails.
I feel like I'm interacting with thousands of people at a time.
Everyone here's a federal criminal.
Whether you've ripped the mattress tag off, whether you said you drove 50 miles to work and you'd claim the mileage on your tax returns and it was actually 48.
Let me say, oh come on Dan.
No, no, you broke the law.
You broke the law.
You claimed more miles than you actually drove.
You broke the law.
You may say, well Dan, seriously?
Yeah, seriously!
I'm not calling you a criminal, I'm just telling you you broke the law!
We're all federal criminals, folks.
When the checks and balances of a sound constitutional republic break down, and political parties are allowed to use the media to call for political targeting of people, not reasonable targeting of crimes, there's a difference.
You will always find those people guilty of something as they did with Papadopoulos for fibbing.
Should he have told the truth to the FBI?
Obviously.
Folks, does everybody lie to the FBI?
Everyone lies to the FBI!
Unfortunately.
I wish it weren't the case.
My investigations when I was a federal agent would have been a whole lot easier if people just would have told the truth in the beginning.
I never ever... Folks, I know people lied to me.
When I was an agent.
I've been involved in countless interviews and interrogations.
Countless.
They all lie.
I have never ever charged someone with fibbing.
It's just unheard of.
It just doesn't happen.
Everybody's a federal criminal.
In a sound constitutional republic, we investigate serious crimes that have impact enough on the community that someone goes to a police department or a federal agent show and complains about it.
Hey, I had my credit card stolen.
Hey, my daughter was mugged.
Hey, someone broke into our school.
You don't walk into a police station and say, hey, I don't like my neighbor.
Can you investigate him?
Why?
I don't know.
I know he did something wrong.
That's what's happening with the special counsels.
Is it bad?
Yes.
Is it bad to do it to the other side?
Yes.
Is it worse to let this continue though and let one side use it as a weapon against us?
Absolutely.
Williamson's piece in National Review is a really good one.
I'm going to put it in the show notes again, Bongino.com.
If you want to join my email list, you can subscribe on my website.
I will send you these articles.
The piece about regime uncertainty is solid, and he talks about how this is just because we're breaking down slowly does not mean we're breaking down.
I don't want you to be, you know, this is going to be after yesterday's show where I was really fired up.
I am optimistic about the future, folks.
I promise.
We've been through worse.
We've been through a civil war.
I promise you it was far worse than what we're in now.
But in order to fix it, we are going to have to show them that the rules they're playing by are malicious, one-sided, hate-filled, partisan-based, and are not real.
They're not real rules, because they're only rules applied to one side.
Joe, if they're rules in a boxing match, or, hey, uh, here are the rules.
We're going to allow you to put glass chips on the outer portion of your gloves to beat the snot out of people.
Oh, we are?
Yeah, yeah, but only that guy gets to do it.
That's not rules, okay?
Right.
Those aren't rules.
That's a mauling and that's what's happening right now and it's really unfortunate.
By the way, I got an email from a lady yesterday.
This is hysterical.
Some lady emails me back.
She's on my email list and apparently she doesn't know how she got on there.
I don't either because I don't like randomly sit at home on my iPhone and type in random email addresses and subscribe you to my email list.
She fired me back the funniest.
I mean it.
it was hysterical because she was so angry. She's like, "You guys are racist phobophobic
it's the phobophobias and I don't know how I wound up on your email list and man you better
get me off this." So nothing drives people crazy when you respond back with, "Hey thanks for your
kind words."
There's a big, fat, juicy unsubscribe button at the bottom, which you're welcome to click!
I had to use the Joe Arbucost voice.
Have a great day!
Yeah, baby, yeah!
Absolutely wild.
She was so mad.
She's on my email list and apparently missed the enormous unsubscribe button at the bottom.
I don't know how you got there.
Maybe somebody, some conservative wanted to mess with you, but that's not my problem.
Just click unsubscribe.
I don't pick out randos off the street.
I'm going to send you the email, Joe, after this.
I want you to read it.
It's just there.
I would read it, but I don't want to embarrass the lady, but it is really, really nasty.
She's like, screw you and the horse you rode in on, and screw the horse's mom too, you loser!
Oh man, I did have one complaint though to be fair about the show.
There's a guy who emailed me, a regular listener, super nice guy, and I always appreciate the feedback.
I hope he's listening today.
He goes, listen, I got a lot of positive feedback over the last two days, but I always like to put out the negative stuff too.
And he said, I thought you going after Angelo Corazon for Media Matters was a little personal.
You know, fair enough, folks, but when I'm wrong, I apologize on that.
I'm not.
I'm sorry.
This is a vindictive, really nasty human being who absolutely deserves to be called out.
So I appreciate your feedback on that, but I'm sorry.
I don't rescind, retract, or apologize for that one bit.
This is a really nasty person looking to do real damage to people's lives, and I don't accept it.
All right, today's show brought to you by our buddies at Filterbuy.
Thank you to everyone who's been emailing me.
You know, I don't know if sponsors love this or hate this, but I don't really care because I love my audience.
You guys and ladies out there are so loyal.
When I first started up with the company, they're like, listen, they know they provide the best air filters out there.
They know it.
And I was happy to have them on board.
But they're like, you know, we understand if your audience comes on board slow.
I mean, they're not exactly impulse pies, you know, air filters for your house folks, right?
I mean, you know, people wait.
They said, you know, they'll come on board slow.
We know you're right.
You guys and ladies have been amazing.
Amazing.
I'm not kidding.
I'm getting emails from people like, yeah, you know what?
I needed a new filter and I heard about Filterbyte.com and I went out and bought some filters.
I'm like, thank you.
I love you.
You're the best.
You make us look so good to our sponsors.
But listen, this is the perfect time, though, to change your seasons.
This is the perfect time to go out and change your air filters, folks.
90% of our time is spent indoors these days.
Think of all the crap you're breathing in, right?
The air you breathe inside is 100 times more polluted than the air you breathe outside.
It's time to replace your air filters.
These seasons are changing.
Get rid of all that stuff, right?
Filterbuy.com will send you the size you need within 24 hours, plus the shipping is free.
Filterbuy uses double the industry standard MERV rating on most filter sizes.
It gets all the junk out of the air.
We don't like to bog you down with the technical garbaggiola, but here's the bottom line.
The pollen, mold, the dust, the Allergy aggravating pollution, which is really hurts.
I have, I get horrendous like dermatitis if I've itched the hell out of myself.
If once the allergy season comes around, it'll filter that stuff out of the air.
All their filters are manufactured right here in America and they can ship any size and in any quantity.
Save 5% when you set up auto delivery and you'll never have to think about air filters again.
By the way, they, they service commercial establishments too.
You got a big warehouse with a hundred air filters?
Filterbuy.com is your folks.
Go to filterbuy.com today and get the best price on top of quality filters.
They're shipped within 24 hours, plus the shipping is free.
Filterbuy.com, that's filterbuy.com.
And a big, fat, juicy thank you to my audience.
You guys and ladies are, you're just wonderful.
You really are.
Our sponsors are so happy with the show because of you.
Not because of me, because of you.
You're the ones doing all the buying.
Really.
Filterbuy sent me one for free, so I didn't even have to pay for it.
But you guys are great.
All right.
Oh, so much.
This is a juicy one I had to talk about today.
And I didn't have to cry on the paper today.
Joe, I had to take out a record something like 472 sniffles yesterday.
Yes, yes, it was.
Yes.
This repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate is turning into a real kind of tennis match back and forth right now.
And I want to give you the what you need to know, because folks, I got to tell you, again, I know it.
It's so what's going on with the individual mandate.
It's fascinating.
I know it sounds crazy, like, really?
No, no, this is really a fascinating lesson in politics.
Let me give you a couple takeaways.
So, in the Senate tax plan, The Senate tax cut plan is a repeal of the Obama mandate.
In other words, if you do not buy Obamacare, you get penalized by the IRS.
It's either a percentage of your income or $695-something dollars, whatever's larger.
Right.
There are six million people currently paying this penalty to not buy Obamacare.
You're like, wait, what?
Yes, there are millions of people where Obamacare sucks so bad who are paying a penalty to the IRS to not It's like comical, Joe.
Obamacare, so wonderful.
Six million people pay the IRS to not buy it.
That's real, okay?
So that's takeaway number one.
Millions of people are paying this penalty currently, this tax penalty, because it sucks so bad.
Takeaway number two.
The CBO is at their shenanigans again and has estimated that.
Remember I told you how the CBO is actually working for the Republicans right now because they're saying, oh, all these people, all these people then won't sign up for Obamacare, therefore the government won't have to pay their subsidies so they can save money and the government can then use all that saved money to give back to people in the form of tax cuts.
Make sense?
But the shenanigans with the CBO don't end with that.
They're throwing out a number that Al Franken, who I promptly called out on Twitter and the tweet went nuclear, it got thousands of retweets on it.
Al Franken said, CBO estimate if they repeal the individual mandate, Joe, get away for it.
Wait for it.
13 million people are going to lose insurance.
You're gonna die!
Because they do it- By the way, Marvin the Detective was a huge hit yesterday.
I got a couple of Facebook- I mean, you gotta write all these characters down, we're losing track of them, you know?
I will, I will.
Yeah, people love Marvin.
Marv is a big hit old man.
Cool.
So, you're gonna die, 13 million people, you're gonna be instantly evaporated, like that Martian death ray device, from War of the Worlds.
Okay.
Al Franken tweets out 13 million people are going to lose insurance this is crazy if this individual mandate now you should be saying yourself as a reasonable human being let me get this straight if a penalty for not buying Obamacare is rescinded in other words I don't want it I have to now pay a tax penalty because I don't want it and I'm not going to buy it What they're saying is if that tax penalty is repealed, that 13 million people are going to lose insurance.
You may be saying, well, how the hell is that?
Okay, the number's garbage.
Let's debunk that right now and explain to you what's going on behind the scenes, because there's a little tennis match going on that's even more interesting.
Of that 13 million people, which the Democrats are lying about, that are supposedly, Joe, going to lose insurance if the individual mandate tax is repealed, 5 million of those 13 million are Medicaid recipients.
Huh?
Wait, wait, hold on.
Joe, this is me scratching my head.
Can you hear that?
Do you hear the head scratching at all?
Theater of the mind, yeah.
Theater of the mind, okay.
I actually was scratching my head, okay?
Five million, so let me get this straight.
The CBO is suggesting that Medicaid, Medicaid, government sponsored and paid for health care given to people who are poor.
Which is free to them, not to you, but it's free to them.
So Joe, if you were on Medicaid, you get government health care, they pay for it.
Right.
You don't pay.
Other taxpayers pay for it.
10-4.
The CBO is suggesting that even though the program is free to producer Joe Marvin and all of his 6,000 different personalities that live in Joe's head, right?
That even though it's free to you, That people will still not want Medicaid even though it's free because now there's no penalty?
Think about what I'm telling you.
What the hell was that?
Nobody can explain it.
So it's a free product that you are now paying a penalty to get away from, but if the penalty is rescinded, even more people will dump it?
Does that make any sense to you?
No.
So the penalties are extended and 5 million people are still not going to want this crap from the government called Medicaid.
Now, they're also saying that 2 million other people are going to lose.
This is 7 million out of the 13 million.
2 million more people are going to use it.
Another group of people are going to, quote, lose insurance.
Keep in mind, Medicaid's not going anywhere, Joe.
They're just saying that now that people won't be penalized, now there'll be a real rush to get away from Medicaid because they don't have to pay a penalty for not having Medicaid.
Wait, what?
We had, wait, what was ours, by the way, way before some other people took it.
I'm just saying, wait, wait, wait, what?
We said it all the time.
So now there's no penalty for not buying Medicaid, so now there's a rush for the doors to get away from Medicaid, even though Medicaid's not going anywhere.
So how that's you losing insurance and not choosing to dump this garbage is beyond me.
Secondly, they're saying, well, people who have employer-sponsored coverage now, 2 million people, will leave that employer-sponsored coverage now, because it's Obamacare coverage, and it basically sucks so bad, now that there's no penalty, they're gonna leave too.
Wait, wait, come again?
How is that people losing insurance?
That's people again saying, wow, this sucks so bad, this employer coverage because it's Obamacare, but now that there's no penalty, now I'm out the door.
So you can immediately throw out 7 million of those 13 million people.
They are not losing anything.
They are being given a product, Joe, either by the government or by their employer that sucked so bad that they would only buy it if they were penalized.
Make sense?
Now that they're not going to be penalized on attacks, they're running for the exits because the product sucked so bad.
Geez.
So now we have six million left.
Okay.
Let's explain away those other six million.
And here's where the, this is, this is just a fascinating lesson in internal politics.
That's bifurcated into two separate groups here.
But the one group I want to focus on now, this is critical, is, because we don't know how many are in either group, five million, one million, but let's just, so let's just focus on this for, gosh, these, My headphones today are like crushing my ears.
I have these Sennheiser headphones, they're great, but I think the pad, you know, the pad portion of it is wearing down.
So you have six million people left, and the gist of the theory on them is that if there is no penalty for not buying Obamacare, that people are going to run for the exit show, including healthy young folks.
So if there's no penalty for healthy young folks, they're going to realize that Obamacare sucks and they're not going to buy it.
Well, what's the problem, Joe?
Healthy young folks are paying into the system and not really using health care that much because they're healthy and young.
Therefore, they can lower premiums for older folks who are older, you know, like me, and get sicker as time goes on.
Make sense?
Yeah, I'm with you.
So the theory is if you don't penalize these kids, If you don't force them to buy Obamacare, they're gonna bail out, and premiums are gonna go up, and therefore, follow me here, these six million other people that are quote, gonna lose, according to the CBO, health insurance, are really gonna bail out because their premiums are super high, and now they don't have to pay a penalty, and they just don't want to do it anymore.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
So, what's the problem with that?
Yeah.
The problem with it is the Republicans, this is folks, follow me for a second, because it's really interesting what's going on here.
The Republicans are saying, and I don't think this is a good idea, I'm just telling you what they're saying here.
They're saying, poppycock, that's garbage.
I haven't used that one in a while, poppycock.
They haven't used that one, I think, ever.
They're saying that this is nonsense because Alexander Murray, which is a different bill in the Senate, is a bill to reinstate The insurance company bailouts, these cost sharing agreements, right?
That would offset the increase in premiums from all the young kids bailing out.
So the old people who are paying more higher premiums that they're saying would bail because of higher premiums, nonsense, are really going to get bigger subsidies from the government anyway.
I know it's hard to follow.
It's getting a little harder to follow, yeah.
Okay.
So CBO, forget about the 13 million number, 7 million's total garbage.
You got the Medicaid, 5 million, 2 million for employee coverage.
They just don't want it, so forget that.
But there are still 6 million people who will, quote, lose insurance if the Obamacare individual mandates are appealed, according to CBO.
They will lose it, apparently, according to CBO, because their premiums are going to skyrocket.
Their premiums are going to skyrocket because if there's no penalty to keep young people in the market, they're all going to bail out.
And older, sicker people will be left behind paying higher premiums.
But the Republicans, Joe, the point I'm trying to make, have already said, and I don't agree with this, I'm just telling you what they've said, they've already said, if this passes, the individual mandate and the tax bill, the individual mandate tax repeal and the tax bill, We will pass these cost-sharing subsidies so any premium hikes for these six million people that would have, quote, Joe, cost them to lose insurance will be totally offset by an increase in subsidies.
Now is it follow?
In other words, your prices are going to go up according to the CBO, but don't worry because we're going to pass a bill that's going to give you back money in the form of subsidies.
So your price isn't going to go anywhere.
Why is this interesting?
Because now the Democrats, and I don't agree with that, I think it's a dumb idea, but This is close to show you the absolute, this is why I wake up every day wondering what stupid liberal argument I'm going to have to refute today.
The Democrats are now saying, hey, by the way, Alexander Murray, where we're going to bail out the insurance companies and give people money to pay for higher premiums.
No, no, now we're not going to vote for it anymore.
Wait, what?
First you hated insurance companies, then you wanted a bailout in the form of this Alexander Murray bill where you pay insurance companies to offset higher premiums because people are bailing.
Now the Republicans say, okay, if we do this tax bill and premiums go up, we're going to give you the money in form of subsidies.
And the Democrats are saying, no, no, now we don't want it anymore.
Why would they say that, Joe?
They're saying it now because they don't want the tax bill to pass and they want to scare the general public.
Folks, this goes to, I know, I know it's confusing.
I've found this absolutely fascinating.
The Democrats are now saying we would rather your premiums go up and not you vote for the bailout we voted for and we wanted just a few days ago only because we want you to feel the pain of these six million people losing their insurance if this tax bill goes through.
That's literally what they're saying.
They just supported this thing a few days ago.
You know, I've said to you over and over that I'm not a huge fan of the problem.
I think this subsidy thing is a bad idea.
I think the best thing to do is not just repeal the individual mandate, but slowly repeal all of Obamacare as well, and institute state markets, and give them basically population-adjusted tax money that they already paid to the federal government, by the way.
Give it back to them, let the states work out their own Medicaid plans.
That's my suggestion, because I don't like to leave you with an open-ended thing.
What are you saying, Dan?
That the six million people should suffer, too?
No, I mean Obamacare sucks.
I'm saying we should get rid of Obamacare.
We wouldn't have a problem at all.
The insurance companies would readjust in a few years and premiums would come down.
But I'm just trying to point out to you the absolute hypocrisy of Democrats.
Just a week ago, a couple weeks ago, they were arguing that we have to pay off these insurance companies through these bailouts and Alexander Murray, these cost-sharing subsidies, because premiums are going to go up.
We have to give people this money.
Now, the Republicans go, okay, we'll give them the money, but we're just now not going to penalize them for not having Obamacare.
And the Democrats go, no, no, we changed our mind.
We want them now to feel the premium hikes if you repeal the tax because young people will bail out, premiums will go up.
I thought you didn't want premiums to go up!
They don't care, folks.
They just, I swear, they just make this stuff up as they go along.
I'm not kidding.
They make it up as they go along.
It is a fascinating, it's kind of like with immigration.
They tell you, immigration, it's about taking care of people, getting them into the United States.
It's the land of milk and honey, sidewalks paved in gold.
We have to get people over here.
And yet I always point out the story of the poison pill.
Years ago, it was a poison pill.
In other words, An amendment put into a bill to kill it.
But it was a test for the Democrats.
There was a poison pill put in an immigration amendment years ago that said, okay, we'll give you amnesty, but nobody can vote when they come here.
You came here illegally, you don't get to vote.
The Democrats said no!
Joe, five minutes ago it was about taking care of people.
But when you say to them, okay, we'll do it, we'll let these people stay, but they can't vote.
No, no, no, no, no, we changed our mind.
Because it's not about the people!
It's not about that!
It's about the votes!
And this Obamacare thing is not about getting people health insurance.
It is about preserving the legacy of control Obamacare has implemented over the market.
And the individual mandate Or a government forcing you, under tax penalty, to buy crap insurance you don't want.
The Democrats want that no matter what.
And they've already said, Republicans, if you repeal this, and premiums go up, even if you take on our plan to bail out the insurance companies, we don't want our plan anymore, because we want the people to suffer.
That's what they're doing!
But it's just, again, indicative of the absolute, total phoniness and hypocrisy of the Democrat Party.
It's sickening.
On special counsels, on immigration, on taxes, on tax reform, on Obamacare.
It doesn't matter.
The Democrats don't stand for anything.
They've never stood for anything but power and control over the levers of government, folks.
We gotta wake up to this.
You gotta know your enemy, and they're it right now.
All right, today's show also brought to you by BrickHouse Nutrition.
Hey, thanks to everybody who joined our email list.
I have a link, by the way, at the top of my email list.
If you want just a quick way to click on it and go right to their website, you can pick up their products.
They have a number of terrific products.
We've got a great one coming out soon, by the way, BrickHouse, that I'm really excited about.
I'd like to think I had...
Some role in the idea behind it, but we'll see.
Miles tells me I did, so it's a really good product.
But that's coming soon.
But right now, I'd like to talk to you about Dawn to Dusk.
It's a product that's really terrific.
I need it to get through my days.
I have super long days, taking my daughter to jujitsu and rowing and to school and back.
I pick them up.
My wife drops them off.
I have the show.
I have the NRA TV.
I do.
I do the Fox Hits.
I got a Fox Hit coming up tonight.
It's really, really, really busy.
Dawn to Dusk helps me get through the day.
And the best part about Dawn to Dusk, for all of you that are listening, If you're in the middle of your day and you're already tired, this stuff is 10 hours of time release energy.
You're not going to get the peaks and valleys.
Listen, the peaks are great for five minutes and then you crash.
The nice part about this is you get a nice elevated mood level, energy level throughout the entire day.
Give this stuff a try.
You will not be disappointed.
Go to BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
That's BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
Pick up a bottle of Dawn to Dusk today.
You're going to love this stuff.
It'll keep you going throughout the entire day.
It's why it's called Dawn to Dusk.
10 hours of elevated energy.
You're not gonna have to worry about any of the crashes.
Great for people, recreational workout folks, CrossFit folks, your working moms and dads out there.
It's absolutely terrific.
Give it a shot.
BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
It's called Dawn to Dusk.
Okay.
Um, there was another really good piece I'm going to put in the show notes today.
Um, you know, before I get to the, yeah, well, this was a good piece too.
So it's actually not, I was going to talk about Venezuela for a second, but Daniel Greenfield who writes a front page mag, who I've, I have a lot of respect for.
This guy's got a really tremendous, uh, his articles are amazing.
He has a doozy in there today.
And Joe, it's about the real reason the media and the Democrats are turning on the Clintons.
Have you not asked this question over the last few days?
Why all of a sudden, Joe, right, are the mainstream media, the Slimes, the Washington Post, CNN, the MSNBC folks, the NBC folks, why all of a sudden are they starting to ask questions?
There was an op-ed in, I don't know if it was the Times or the Washington Post, saying, you know, is it time to believe Juanita Broderick, who had accused Bill Clinton of rape?
Is it time?
Folks, what are we, 30 years late on that?
Is it time to believe her now?
All down to Brazil coming out and attacking the Clintons.
And Greenfield, who always, again, writes good stuff, has an interesting theory about why all of a sudden it's now acceptable for some in the media to go after the Clintons.
And his theory is this, and I think he's right.
I read it and I was like, damn, that's a good one!
You know, I love to break stuff to my audience.
You know, I wish I'd thought of it first, because really it's fascinating.
Here's his theory.
There was a super PAC that Clintons had formed in May called Onward Together.
And it's convenient as right around the time that super PAC formed, the Democrats started to get a little worried.
Now, why is that?
Because remember, Joe, it was OFA, Obama for America and then Organizing for America, Obama's side super PACs and his stuff that had drained volunteers and energy from the DNC.
The DNC was broke after eight years of Obama.
People forget that.
The DNC and the Democrats did not want to go through that again.
So the idea that Clinton, after she lost Joe...
was gonna start an Obama-like super PAC on the side, which was gonna siphon money away from the DNC, which is their power base, the establishment DNC, Democratic National Committee, their party, Joe.
The idea that they were gonna have to deal with another eight years of an Obama-like outside entity siphoning off volunteers and people from the power base, the establishment power base, was too unpalatable for them, and it was time to throw them overboard.
The gist of Greenfield's piece is this.
This is not some moral awakening by the media.
Oh maybe it's time to start believing sexual accusers against Bill Clinton now because it's the right thing to do.
Not for them.
For us it was.
For them it has nothing to do with that at all.
It basically has everything to do with the Democrats trying to retain money and power.
What's it about Joe?
Control.
Control.
Control, control, control.
Control, power, money, volunteers.
It's about all of that.
And they simply did not want the Clintons replicating the Obama model, siphoning off money and people.
So it's now open season on the Clintons in both the media and amongst Democrats.
Read the piece.
It is awesome.
It'll be in the show notes.
It's not subscriber only.
Anybody can read it.
I'll put it up on gino.com and at the show notes, but the guy makes a ton of sense.
And I was like, I'm telling you, I'm reading it this morning.
I got up late this morning.
I'm just really, really exhausted lately.
I've been beaten to snot.
And I'm like, darn it.
Why didn't I think of this first?
I really wanted to.
But it's really a good piece.
So go check it out.
Daniel Greenfield.
All right.
This is the story I want to talk about because it's another good one.
There's a story about Venezuela and why Venezuela collapsed.
And we had addressed it yesterday.
But just quickly, one note that I missed yesterday or I didn't explain well.
...is it talks about Venezuela and price-fixing and why price-fixing in socialist countries never works.
And it's really, really well done.
The piece will be in the show notes.
Where is it?
Hold on, where was it?
I hate when I don't give them a little bit of a shout-out on the show.
Oh, oh, it was at Washington Exam.
Really good piece.
He explains how price-fixing, which is when government controls the means of production, i.e.
socialism like in Venezuela, and they take over an oil company, they set the prices.
The government does, even though the market doesn't.
They have no expertise to do so whatsoever.
But he says, think about an example, and he points out the great example of Marie Antoinette.
Remember the Let Them Eat Cake?
Let them eat cake, you know.
They were starving, the French, and all of a sudden, you know, they're out of bread.
And he says, listen, the line was really like, let them eat brioche or whatever.
And he points to this interesting example of government price fixing and how it can never work.
And I thought, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
So I'm going to put it out there for you.
Here's the gist of it.
Let's say you set the price of bread.
In other words, Joe, America turns socialist, God forbid, tomorrow, and everybody's starving.
And the socialist government comes in and goes, Joe, this is unacceptable!
Bread is too expensive.
We are going to demand bread is one dollar a loaf.
And everybody, of course, has to comply.
Of course, you're going to see black markets and all that stuff, but forget that for a second.
So the government, the socialist government that now owns the means of production, demands that any bread workers left produce bread for a dollar a loaf.
The problem is, you cannot set the price of bread without setting the price of all of the inputs to bread.
What are the inputs, Joe?
Well, labor.
You have wheat.
You have, you know, wheat flour.
You have maybe some form of yeast.
You have employee hours, human resources.
You have all the machinery.
All of these inputs, if the price of them is not, quote, controlled, which is ridiculous, but controlled too, Joe, and let's say the wheat.
So let's just say a loaf of bread Joe, one loaf.
The wheat alone that goes into it costs $1.50.
Well how the heck are you going to produce a loaf of bread?
You haven't even factored in the labor and one of your inputs is 50% more than you're selling the bread for!
Joe, this isn't complicated math, right?
Yeah, this is easy, man.
Easy stuff, right?
I mean, yesterday you were really a wizard, yesterday.
And for those of you who missed yesterday's show, Joe's financial acumen yesterday was just, I mean, extraordinary.
We gave Joe an honorary PhD.
I was brilliant, yes.
Thank you.
Yeah, DBA.
He gave a DBA, PhD, JD, MD.
He's even a doctor of chiropractic after yesterday.
We just, we locked him up.
But yes, if your inputs are $1.50 and you're forced by the government to sell your bread for a dollar, you're not going to lose 50 cents because that isn't even factored into labor.
You're going to lose probably three, four dollars on every loaf, which is absurd.
Right.
Well, what's the point of the piece?
I mean, none of that's fascinating.
But what he really says that's interesting in the piece, and I wanted to put out there is, that doesn't mean the wheat's going to go away.
So remember, the bread price is controlled, but the wheat isn't at this point.
Because it's impossible to control every single price in an economy of every input, Joe.
You don't even know all the inputs.
Well, what happens?
The guy who sells the wheat now doesn't sell them to the bread manufacturer.
Why?
Because there is no bread manufacturer because he's out of business in a few weeks because he's losing money.
So he sells them to either the cake maker or the brioche maker who don't have these price controls instituted on them.
And now you see what?
A surplus of cake and brioche.
I don't eat any crab.
I don't eat cake or brioche.
So that's the whole but he brings up this interesting point that it is it's the fascinating point here is that in a society that's starving in a socialist country what's doubly fascinating is you run out of things like bread that are price controlled and you have a surplus of cake and brioche that people don't even want.
Let them eat cake!
Let them eat cake!
I thought this is this is brilliant because you know in the past I've always given the example of my brother-in-law as a doctor.
He didn't give me an exact number, but he was telling me how, let's say it costs $4,000 for him to turn the lights on in the morning in his office, pay his employees.
He's a perinatologist.
He delivers high-risk pregnancy, babies involved in high-risk pregnancies.
If it costs him $5,000 for the machinery, the office employees, the taxes he pays, his insurance and everything else, he can't go to work and be told by the government he can only make $3,000 in a day.
What's he gonna do?
Fork over 2,000 bucks to go to work every day?
Then you're not gonna have doctors.
The ironic aftermath of that in socialist countries, you have doctors who then become Uber drivers.
Because they can't make any money!
Folks, I get it to the college kids listening, this is really complicated stuff.
But I promise you, Joe and I are reasonably smart guys.
Neither Joe nor I are nuclear physicists.
There's nothing we're telling you right now that is super complicated.
What really frustrates the hell out of me is that normal people listening to this have a really difficult time understanding this.
And they still believe government can control prices.
Whether it's in pharmaceuticals, whether it's in the food industry, whether it's oil.
No, no, the government can do it.
How?
What evidence do you have of that?
So he talks about how in the piece, which is great, about how in Venezuela they couldn't do price fixing because you can't fix every price.
There's no way to do it.
It's not possible.
It's a really good piece.
Again, I'll put it in the show notes.
I really enjoy it.
And you know, I'm going to, I'm not going to really discuss too much of it, but there's another great piece.
Uh, from Cato about a balanced budget amendment.
Something that I supported in the past.
But Cato makes a pretty good case against it, folks.
And the long and short of it is this.
That a strict balanced budget amendment, in other words you can't go into debt, is a bad idea.
And he gives some examples of where it hasn't worked.
And they talk about some better ideas like debt as a percentage of GDP, you know, like a break on spending, but it's a really fascinating piece.
Give it a look.
It's not very long, very relatable, but it's some interesting arguments against the balanced budget amendment.
And one quick one, which I thought was the most salient that jumped out to me was, in the years that the economy's booming, Joe, if you say you had a strict balanced budget amendment, right, Joe, if the government raises a dollar in taxes, it can only spend the dollar.
It says, you know, what would be interesting is in the boom years, say the government raises $10, there would be a tendency by liberals and rhino Republicans and Democrats To spend all of that.
Why?
Because in the other offsetting years, where the economy isn't raising $10, maybe in tax revenue because it's not doing so well, Joe, that there's going to be some kind of a shortfall.
So let's spend it all now!
Got it.
And it gives some pretty good evidence as to why strict balance of budget amendment like that would not work precisely because of that reason.
You get what I'm saying, Joe?
Because the incentive in flush years would be spend it all now because we can't spend it next year because of the hard cap on space.
It's an interesting piece.
So give it a look.
I'll put it in the show notes.
I was going to talk about a PragerU video, too, but I'll get to that tomorrow.
Dennis Prager has some good stuff.
One on atheism, and it came up yesterday in a class.
Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.
But thanks again for tuning in, folks.
I really appreciate it.
Go to bongino.com, subscribe to my email list there, check out the show notes.
