Ep. 595 Troubling News Stories About the Damage Caused by Liberalism
The 9th Circuit Court is destroying the Constitution and the rule of law. https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/9th-circuit-to-president-of-the-united-states-you-answer-to-us The Left loves international courts and globalism, read this story and you’ll see why. http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/20/icc-prosecutor-requests-investigation-for-afghanistan-probe.html Why are blue state Democrats acting like hypocrites on taxes? http://click.heritage.org/TorMt0Q0V000THY30e5IsT0 Is the stock market in a bubble? https://nypost.com/2017/11/20/why-wall-streets-record-run-may-soon-come-to-an-end/
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Get ready to hear the truth about America with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Off and running, brother, off and running.
Yeah, man, what a news day.
My birthday's coming up soon, not that anybody...
You should really care too much about the 43.
It's not like, well, I'll be up in New York anyway for my birthday.
But, uh, you know, it just reminded me, man, I'm getting older.
You know, I was in, in, um, in 2011 with the Secret Service, I was in Afghanistan.
So 2011, yeah, for my birthday, I'm pretty sure.
And I was doing the lead for Barack Obama's trip over there.
I was under the blanket of like a DOD official, you know, because they didn't want anybody to know why we were there, because it was a surprise trip.
And I just remember getting out of there.
It's just from birthday memory.
I remember getting out of there, right?
And the trip ends.
It was a surprise trip.
He bounces in.
We had all kinds of drama during the trip.
There was like a sandstorm, so we couldn't fly into... We were supposed to go to the embassy in Kabul.
We landed at Bagram Air Base.
We couldn't do it.
Uh, they wanted to do it, and then they were like, listen, there's a good chance, you know, we could crash in this, so we don't want to do that, and we scrapped that.
But I remember getting out of there, right?
And we were trying to...
Here's the deal, Joe.
On Bagram Air Base, they wanted a, you know, Air Force One.
They had it taken off, but they only turned the lights on on the runway at the last minute because the IDF, the indirect fire, like mortar stuff, they were worried that, you know, terrorists and our enemies out in the, you know, off the base would launch mortars and stuff and hit Air Force One as it was taken off.
So they turned the lights on at the last minute on the runway because the lights obviously make the plane easier to see.
Now, the president always travels with a support plane, like a backup Air Force One plane, and that's where I was traveling back on, and the whole team, because there's obviously not a commercial airliner that goes out of, you know, Bagram, right?
It's not like you buy tickets and you have to get the hell out of there, and we were taking either military flights or the support plane, which is just Air Force One, it's two of the same plane, and it's a backup.
And I just remember on my birthday, like the guy, the military base commander I was dealing with, the guy, one of the guys in charge, he's like, dude, you got to go.
Like, let's get out of here.
Like the lights are on and the enemy out in the mountains, he doesn't know that this is an Air Force One.
You know what I'm saying?
You got to go.
It's the same color, same painting on the planes, everything.
Yeah.
And we're waiting on this dude and this guy, this, I forget who it was, a WACA guy or something.
And it's just like 10 minutes later, the guy's like, dude, seriously, like you're running a pretty good chance of getting like blown off the runway right now.
Finally, guy pulls up in a car.
I'm like, he's like explaining the story.
I'm like, Brother, get on the effing plane.
I don't care.
I don't care.
Get on the plane.
Sorry about the, uh, but I tried to make it somewhat clean, but that's what happened.
I was so, I'm like, I don't care.
Tell me the story on a plane.
We got on that thing, that pilot gunned it and down that runway, like you think it was a fighter jet and we got the hell out of Dodge, man.
Oh gosh.
I remember that.
That was my birthday a few years ago.
Sorry, but sometimes I get emails from people saying, you never tell any stories about your Secret Service stuff.
I try not to because it's not that kind of show, but that just reminded me of that this morning.
All right.
Folks, you know, I've warned you repeatedly over the course of multiple shows and multiple years now about the dangers of discretionary government.
You know, one of my constant themes of the show is the why.
You know, the why matters.
Why the left does the way it does.
And what the left has had this obsession with the court system and globalism for a long time.
But there's a but here.
But they have that obsession with empowering the court system and globalism for the exact same reason.
And the reason is, which is a surprise to no one because I've already teased it, the power of discretionary government.
When I say discretionary government, I mean the left hates the rule of law.
Why do they hate the rule of law and the Constitution?
Because the Constitution and the rule of law, Joe, limit limit people in government and bureaucrats as well.
Remember, the rule of law in the Constitution doesn't only lay out a set, a series of rules and regulations and a groundwork for what the citizen can and can't do, it lays out also a series of rules and regulations and laws and limitations on what the government could do.
Matter of fact, the Bill of Rights is a document of negative government powers, what the government can't do to you.
You know, the citizen shall have the right to bear arms, These things shall not be infringed.
The right to assembly, the right to free press.
These are all things the government can't infringe upon you.
So the Bill of Rights, if anything, is a document of negative liberties on behalf of the government.
In other words, the government can't take liberties to do these things.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
Yeah, yeah.
Now, I bring this up because there were two stories, one at Conservative Review and one I saw on Reuters that really, really troubled me yesterday and should deeply disturb you because it just reaffirms my position that the left's love affair with the court system and discretionary government is really just a guise for their attack on the Constitution and limited government.
Let me go to the second one first because it really Really bothered me.
I mean, got under my skin in a visceral fashion, which is unusual.
I know it sounds crazy given the hot nature of my show sometimes, but I'm just used to fighting the left.
But this one bothered me.
So Dan Horowitz has a piece of conservative review, which I will put up at shownotesatbongino.com.
And if you subscribe to my email list, as I always, I will email them to your inbox.
These stories are really good ones.
Joe, the Ninth Circuit Court yesterday, the Ninth Circus, which has become just a bastion of discretionary government.
It's a monarchy in and of itself.
They make the rules, they go along.
It's not a serious court system anymore.
Now, I get it.
A lot of people listening are like, Dan, you really shouldn't say that.
You're discrediting our judges.
No, I didn't do anything.
They've discredited themselves.
I've done nothing.
The Ninth Circuit has discredited itself as a serious legal institution.
They've done that.
I didn't do it.
They're the most overturned circuit, aren't they, Dan?
Yeah, they are the most overturned circuit because it's a joke.
The legal hot garbage that emanates from it is a total complete farce.
It's not based in the rule of law.
It's a joke.
They call it the Ninth Circus for a reason.
It is a circus.
It's not a serious court.
Now, the Ninth Circuit just put out another ruling on Trump's DACA.
Listen, they haven't been exactly great on DACA, but that was the Obama amnesty program, and the ruling is disturbing, not because The judge in this court in Horowitz, he lays out three points about this ruling on DACA, which was the Deferred Amnesty for Childhood Arrivals.
It was basically the amnesty program Obama instituted.
Now, the Trump administration has been fighting portions of this, not all of it, which is a little disturbing, but portions of it.
Right, Joe?
So the Ninth Circuit now issued a ruling, and three things came out of it.
Number one, it basically affirmed illegals, illegal immigrants, and their right to sue in court for privileges in the United States, which is an unbelievable usurpation of the court's power.
So now that, matter of fact, it's on right now.
This is crazy.
It's on.
I'm watching Fox, I got Fox on in the background right now.
So now we're saying that people who are not U.S.
citizens, just to be clear, according to the Ninth Circus, can sue.
That was actually a Freudian slip.
I was going to call them the Ninth Circuit, but I slipped and called them the Ninth Circus.
But they deserve it.
They deserve it.
They can now sue.
Illegals can sue for privileges in the United States.
Because remember, folks, DACA is about giving them something as well.
It's about giving them citizenship over the rule of law.
Point number two, it replaces standing U.S.
law with amnesty.
The Ninth Circuit has now said this can happen.
Here's the disturbing part about it.
None of that's new, Joe.
The Ninth Circuit has always viewed citizenship as discretionary anyway.
Forget about the rules to citizenship.
We're just going to reinvent them.
Forget about the rules.
We're going to give citizenship to whoever we feel like giving citizenship to.
The third one, Joe, is really troubling.
The Ninth Circuit has also ruled that the Trump administration needs to disclose all of its personal and private communications leading up to its decision to suspend DACA.
Wait, wait, wait, come again on this?
So the court system, a separate, we were supposed to have the separation of powers horizontally and vertically within the United States government.
The court system, Article 3 courts are supposed to now, just so we're clear, are now entitled to the deliberative process of the executive branch when they decide to engage in what their constitutionally protected role is?
Folks, this is troubling stuff.
I mean, this is really chilling stuff.
Think about what this means.
What does this mean in the future?
That if the president decides to go to war, I'm not saying hopefully it doesn't, but say it were to happen that North Korea attacks Hawaii or Japan and we decide to go to war.
Are the courts now allowed?
I mean, this would be no different than what they're doing with amnesty given the president's power and Congress's power to enact immigration law and defend our borders, right?
Can the court system now say, Joe, no, we're not going to go to war.
We are vetoing the declaration of war.
And not only that, we want the deliberations between Congress and the executive branch on how you came to a declaration of war and how the president, in fact, has decided to use our war machinery to combat that war.
Folks, do you understand how the discretionary power of the courts, this has been an ongoing effort by the left, the reason they do it is to wipe out the separation of powers because the separation of powers limits them!
You have, let me get this straight, you now have the power to what, sit in on presidential briefings?
You want all of the personal private emails?
Folks, You know, I warn and I warn and I warn, as other people do as well, the court system, especially the Ninth Circuit, has become one of the single most dangerous threats to the constitutional republic as we've seen today.
I don't say that lightly.
We cannot have a court system that usurps power any more than we can have a president that usurps power.
My complaints about Barack Obama and his illegal enactment of DACA, which was not within his constitutional purview to do so, are the exact same complaints I have right now about a court system demanding the deliberative process of the President of the United States when he decides to enact some kind of a policy prescription bestowed upon him by the legislature.
This is dangerous stuff, folks.
This has been the goal of the left for a long time.
And let me just say again, because this is important too.
This just goes to show you how important it was to elect Trump and why I get so angry at Never Trumpers sometimes.
I understand.
I get it.
But the Never Trump crowd, I don't think you understand.
This isn't one of those, oh, we just should have elected Hillary and the country would have seen how bad it was.
And then four years later, we could have elected our guy, whoever it may be.
Bush or Rubio, whatever it may be.
Right?
In that four years, we would have stacked the courts even more because there were so many openings with left-leaning judges, we would have evaporated the power of the presidency altogether in exchange for the discretionary power of the court system.
Folks, this is dangerous, dangerous stuff.
Second story.
The ICC, the International Criminal Court, now hey, this was in Reuters, I read this, I was like, wait, come again?
The International Criminal Court has now asked judges to authorize an investigation into war crimes by the U.S.
military and the CIA in Afghanistan.
This is the first time that this has happened.
We are not members of the ICC in the United States, but ladies and gentlemen, so the first point I tried to make is about the dangerous power of the courts and a discretionary government where courts can overrule anyone.
And when you stack them with left-leaning nominees, which is what the left has done, what do you get, Joe?
You get basically a bureaucratic tyranny enforced through the government, excuse me, through the court system, which would be left-leaning.
That's why they want discretionary government.
Why do they want globalism?
Because of this, this ICC thing.
What do we see now?
You're going to prosecute the United States military through an international court?
What's next?
I'll tell you what's next.
The next is the use of international globalist bureaucratic institutions like the ICC to go after conservative politicians you don't like.
Oh, that's never happened before?
What about all these attacks on George W. Bush and the Iraq war?
What about those?
Remember these?
We're getting international arrest warrants against George W. Bush.
Folks, this is what's coming next.
These are both ways to intimidate.
The first way through the Ninth Circuit Court, again, is a way to enact discretionary government, wipe out the Constitution, but it's also a way to intimidate by the requesting of the deliberative process and the emails and the deliberations and all the thought process that went into Trump's decision, Joe, is a way to chill in the future.
Basically what?
Any deliberation whatsoever.
Who's going to open their mouth or send an email in the future if the courts are entitled to read everything?
Joe, think about if that was reversed, right?
Should the president demand the deliberations of the Supreme Court of the Ninth Circuit?
The left, these kooky, loony tunes, phony liberals would go crazy.
Oh my gosh, usurpation of power, that's crazy.
You can't step on the court system.
But they have absolutely no problem with the court system stepping on the presidency.
This is done to chill.
To chill dissent.
Not chill like chill out.
To absolutely chill dissent.
To chill any dissent from the leftist cause and to encourage everyone to shut their mouths and not say anything.
The ICC is doing the same thing.
This is why the left is in love with globalist institutions.
Because what they can't do in the United States, Joe, because...
Because of the limits of the Constitution, they will be able to enact supraconstitutionally, outside of the government, with globalist institutions like the International Criminal Court in the head.
You can't get George W. Bush out of office because you want to impeach him?
Or Trump?
Oh, we'll just issue an arrest warrant at the ICC.
Folks, do not underestimate this.
This is not a joke.
This is the real battle going on.
I get emails a lot.
Oh, what do you think about globalism?
What do you think?
Globalism is a symptom of the larger leftist cause.
They want globalism, not subsidiarity or local control, because they know they can wipe out accountability at the local level, and they can go to supranational institutions to wipe out their political opponents.
This is very real.
This is not a joke.
We are under attack by these leftists, folks.
This is what they want to do.
They love the power of discretion because they hate the limited power of government, and it's deeply disturbing.
This should bother every one of you.
This should, candidly, even bother some Democrats.
But it doesn't, because we're living in an environment now where as long as you get the other guy, it doesn't matter how you do it.
Laws, rules, regulations, and the Constitution be damned.
It's disturbing.
Did I sum that up okay, Joe?
Yeah, we were actually talking about the first part of that this morning here in Baltimore.
Yeah, you're now entitled to the deliberative process of the President of the United States.
If that happened anywhere else, only because it's Trump, the left accepts this.
If this was anything else, I mean, if the president demanded the emails and the account of the deliberations amongst the left, leftist members of Congress, for their attack on his tax plan, the left would understandably go crazy and so would I. Because unlike the left, we stand on principles and we defend the separation of powers even when it hurts our own individual political cause.
Very bothersome, folks.
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All right, folks.
Democrats are freaking out.
Hold on a second.
I want to pull this.
I take screenshots of interesting things.
By the way, I got a really nasty Facebook message from a guy this morning talking about, I'm not even kidding, talking about attacking a media personality because he didn't like her.
And I'm like, dude, I'm reporting that, man.
What are you, crazy?
You can't send that kind of stuff.
What are you, nuts?
But, you know, violent leftists, they never...
There's no ceiling to their anger sometimes.
So this one I'm really bothered by.
I've covered it before, but I want to hit this one again.
The hypocrisy of the Obama administration and the Obama administration officials who are now attacking the Trump Republican tax cut plan is just stunning.
The proposal to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent, Joe, was a proposal that had unanimous bipartisan support.
Before Trump got elected, which again goes back to my point that the left rarely stands on principles, they stand on political power.
When their guy isn't in power, they attack, attack, attack, regardless of the principles, even if their principles they generally believe in.
I'm going to read you something.
This is from the Wall Street Journal today.
This is a quote.
I'm not going to tell you what administration or who wrote it first.
I'm just going to read it, and then I'll tell you afterwards.
And it'll only be surprising, maybe, to liberals.
Conservatives won't be shocked at all, because they understand that, you know, liberals, they just change their mind based on a snap of a finger, depending on the political opportunities that present themselves.
Here's a quote.
When effective marginal rates are higher, this they're talking about the by the way they're
talking about the corporate tax rate, the business tax in the United States.
When effective marginal rates are higher potential projects need to generate more income
if the business is to pay the tax and still provide investors with the required return.
In other words folks if a business is taxed really high they're probably not going to
engage in many new projects because they still have to pay the tax.
If they didn't have to pay the tax, the project would have been profitable.
Copy?
All right.
Businesses will therefore limit their activities to higher return projects.
Thus, all else equal, a higher effective marginal rate for businesses will tend to reduce the level of investment And a lower effective marginal rate will tend to encourage additional projects and a larger capital stock.
Increases in the capital available for each worker's use, also referred to as capital deepening, boost productivity.
Boost wages and output.
Okay, so let's sum that up in non-economic wonkery talk, okay?
Yeah.
Basically says, Joe, you cut the corporate tax and wow, productivity goes up, worker wages go up, output goes up, investment goes up.
This is great!
Reduce the rates.
Who wrote that?
Who do you think, Joe?
It couldn't have been Obama.
No, couldn't have been!
No way!
Absolutely couldn't have been Obama, despite the fact that it was!
It was Obama, unsurprising.
It wasn't Barack Obama specifically, it was Barack Obama's economic team in 2015 that wrote that.
Now, I find that kind of funny because again that was Obama's economic team and now you have Jason Furman and Larry Summers from Obama's economic team who I've gone after frequently on this show, these guys, because they write pieces in the Wall Street Journal and other relatively conservative outlets all the time bashing the very same thing that they supported in the past.
Now, whether they wrote those sentences specifically You know, I can't attest to that.
It was an Obama economic team report.
My point is simply this.
If the report was wrong back then, why issue it?
Folks, this is the hypocrisy of these people.
Now, what are they worried about?
I brought this up before and I want to be very clear on this so you understand this.
The far left, not all Democrats, but the far left is terrified right now, folks.
The economy's moving.
It's moving fast.
We've had two consecutive quarters of 3% GDP growth.
The Obama administration never had one year, not one.
He is the first president in American history to not hit one single year of 3% GDP growth.
Folks, just on the numbers, he is the worst president.
I'll just say modern because I don't want to be unfair because, you know, Pre-industrial economy is kind of hard to measure by compared to today, obviously.
In modern times, Obama has the worst economic record of any president out there.
Chew on that.
Chew on the apples.
That's it.
Those are just the facts.
If those facts bother you or not, it's your problem with facts, not my problem with reality.
That's your issue, okay?
He never reached 3%.
Trump's been in office six months.
He's hit two consecutive quarters of 3%.
As I said on yesterday's show, the projections are by Goldman Sachs, by the Federal Reserve, that we may hit either high twos or threes again for the year, which would do what?
It would absolutely humiliate Barack Obama.
Now, you may say, well, who cares, Dan?
Barack Obama's out of office.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
You would be wrong big time.
Now, why would you be wrong?
Because there's nothing, don't ever forget this, nothing liberals hate more than obvious contrast.
Liberals love globalism and they love the discretionary power of government because they never want competition.
They want to enforce their power.
They want to enforce their tax rates globally.
They don't want global competition in taxes.
They don't want people with dissenting opinions to be allowed to speak because they're afraid of the contrast.
They're afraid of differing corporate tax rates overseas.
Why, Joe?
Because people with lower corporate tax rates, like Ireland, as another op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal points out today, are sucking up investment and jobs.
The left does not want dissenting opinions on college campuses.
Why?
Because they're afraid when those dissenting opinions are aired, they will make sense because they rely on facts and data, and they will actually convert the stupid into an educated mass of voters that vote the left out of office.
The left hates a contrast.
Now, why is this?
What does this have to do with a contrast?
Folks, the most damaging time for the far left in modern American history, the most damaging time, bar none, were the Carter-Reagan years.
When I say the Carter-Reagan years, I mean literally the years that ended the Carter presidency and led into the Reagan presidency.
Why?
Because people saw a, I don't want to say radical far left, there's actually on the deregulatory front some things Carter did which were shockingly conservative.
Other than that, he was a radical far leftist.
Other than that.
There were things in the Carter years that happened that took a far-left lurch to our economy.
What happened to our economy, Joe?
Stagflation.
You remember those years.
I remember those years.
You were a little older than me, but I was alive.
Y'all, they were horrible.
They were terrible years.
They were, you know, gas lines, the stagflation, his famous malaise speech, Carter.
What happened?
Reagan gets into office, takes a lurch to the right.
Again, not all, I mean, I don't deify anybody, but Reagan generally, especially on the tax front, did a very good job following a conservative agenda on the tax front, put more money back in the pockets of consumers, and the economy exploded.
Folks, it's the contrast.
That causes damage to the left, because what the left wants more than anything, and maybe I'm not making this point clear enough.
I'll make it clear now, hopefully.
If I'm not, Joe, please stop me.
Will do.
When you live in a malaise long enough, a country, a region, an area dominated by leftist politics, You don't know what the counterfactual looks like.
In other words, if you were miserable all the time, you don't know what happiness is.
If you were happy all the time, literally all the time, you wouldn't know what happiness is.
It's just your state of being.
Yeah.
When you live, you see what I'm saying, Joe?
Yep.
When you get used to the misery, you get, you need an example?
Europe.
Europe has gotten used to unemployment, high unemployment, stagnant wages.
Europe's gotten used to this stuff to the point where they just vote for it because they don't know any different.
You see this in California now, where they get used to debt, they've gotten used to budget problems.
So nobody really knows anything else because you've never had a contrasting opinion.
When you have the contrasting political change in power, Joe, like you had in Reagan, and the economy explodes, and people who are alive today remember this, and you're like, okay, I voted for Carter last time, life sucked.
Voted for Reagan, life was great!
They are terrified.
Now, circling all the way back to the beginning.
The reason Jason Furman, Larry Summers, and the Obama team that supported corporate tax cuts before, under Obama, and didn't enact them, are terrified it's gonna happen now is because they're afraid it's gonna work.
And when it works, history, folks, can deceive.
History can deceive, but long-term it never lies.
You can only hide history for so long because people lived it.
The thing about history, Joe, is it's told by people who actually lived through the history!
It's like a diamond on a black background, always look shinier.
If the Trump team hits three and four percent growth after the Obama team for eight years barely reached two, never reached three, the left is terrified that its entire economic ethos, its entire economic, the house of cards it's built is going to collapse completely.
That is what happened in the Reagan years, and that is what led to a massive electoral college and popular vote landslide for Ronald Reagan in re-election, and the left is terrified that's going to happen again.
Folks, make no mistake, that is why this is all for- you may say, oh, you know, they're just, you know, the Fuhrman and Summers and all these Obama people who are attacking the corporate tax, so they're doing it because they hate Trump.
Yeah, you're not wrong.
You're not inaccurate.
But folks, the why matters.
That is not the real reason.
It's a reason.
It's not the, I shouldn't say the real reason, it's not the principal reason.
The principal reason is they are terrified if this happens the economy is going to take off and real Americans alive really right now in real time who lived through the real Obama years, Joe, are going to be like, Wow, I didn't realize how bad that sucked.
Now look at this!
I got a raise, my company's hiring, I've got better health benefits, everything's going great, I just bought a new car.
I don't know, maybe this leftist stuff I believe in for so long is really, really crap!
The left hates a contrast.
They hate it.
They don't want the diamond on the black background, they just want the black background.
That's all they want.
They don't want speech on college campuses.
They don't want international competition for tax rates.
Matter of fact, there's an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today as well about, Joe, how Ireland is in a panic over this.
Ireland is terrified that this tax cut plan is going to go through and that businesses are going to flee Ireland to do what?
Come back to the United States!
They are really legitimately scared that this is going to happen, folks.
The left is terrified too.
There is nothing the modern liberal hates more than exposure to conservative politics and policies because they know, they absolutely know they're going to lose.
Now, having said that, we don't pay back the favor.
Although, Joe, we would like it that people voted conservative.
Certain entities, that's why we appreciate local control, by the way, and not globalism.
Conservatives, that is.
If you want to vote in your local township, if you want to vote in New York City, if you want to vote for far-left, radical far-left policies, our thing is, well, you'll suffer the consequences of it.
We don't want to enforce, I mean, through radical means, our, you know, through unconstitutional, super constitutional You know, abusive power means we don't want to enforce our ideas on others.
We believe in, you know, liberty and voting and you want to vote for that stuff, higher taxes go ahead, but you should suffer the ramifications of it.
Liberals do not believe in the same thing.
Liberals believe that you should not be able to do that.
We should shut down dissent.
We should shut down competition and you should all be able, you should be forced by global institutions to accept high taxes and everything else.
It's disgusting.
It's really, really grotesque, folks.
It makes me sick, I'm sorry.
Alright, did I explain that well enough?
Yeah, I think everyone was able to follow that very clearly.
Yeah, I hope so, because it's important.
These shows about the why sometimes can get a little wonky, but it's important you understand that, because when you understand the why, you know, Levin does a good job of this on his radio show, when you understand the why, you know, the why really matters, everything else falls into place.
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All right.
Folks, you know, evidence doesn't matter anymore.
I mean, I've said to the liberals all the time that the facts and data are the worst enemy.
And as I just said before, they never want to contrast.
They never want a contrasting argument because they're afraid to defend their own policies.
So I read a couple of pieces this morning and I was like, oh my gosh, these people, are they even interested in the real world anymore?
Or is this just like, is this George Costanza Seinfeld episode real for them?
Remember that one?
George does everything backwards and it all works out for him.
Well, liberals do everything backwards and nothing works out for them.
It's like the George Costanza, George Costanza episode where they follow the George Costanza episode and nothing quite works out the way it should.
What am I talking about?
Look at where big government, you know, liberalism, liberal principles, liberal voters have enacted what they would consider their, you know, utopian means of governing themselves and means of organization, right?
Connecticut, Chicago, Puerto Rico.
So there's a piece out in the Wall Street Journal today.
It's disturbing, folks.
It really is.
It's troubling.
And it talks about There are a couple types of bonds.
Securitized bonds are these general obligation bonds, right?
So these states and cities and entities, you know, Puerto Rico, Chicago and Connecticut, Joe, they're going broke.
They're going broke.
Why?
Because they've enacted big government policies and they've run out of other people's money.
And the problem with the states, folks, is states can't declare bankruptcy.
So at some point they have to find a way to suck more money out of your wallet And go into more debt without declaring bankruptcy.
So what states will do is they'll issue this.
A lot of them have balanced budget amendments, too.
So to circumvent these things, they'll issue these general obligation bonds, which are basically like, you know, bonds you'd pay to the government, just to the state government.
You know, you get a United States government bond, you know, same thing from from Connecticut.
Investors will buy these.
Well, what's the problem, Joe, with these bonds?
Well, these governments, whether at the state level, the city level, or in the case of Puerto Rico, the government Has no money.
So what happens?
People are waking up to the fact that the government has spent money it doesn't have over time, it's accumulated massive amounts of debt, and it doesn't have the money to pay the bond.
So Joe, if you're an investor, this is not a trick question, and you're investing in a bond, expecting a return on that bond over the years, right?
And you find out that the entity that's supposed to pay you, the state, city, local, or Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican government, is supposed to give you that money, but in fact has no money, is that a bad thing or a good thing?
That's a bad thing, Dick.
That's a bad thing, Dick!
Yes it is.
Bad thing.
We need the best game show voice.
That's a bad thing, Dan.
That's a bad thing, Dan.
I'll take it's a bad thing for 200, Alex.
And you would be right.
That is a bad thing.
So what is happening with these general obligation bonds?
Well, that's what we're here to explain.
There is a premium On these general obligation bonds, that premium is about 3.5 percentage points higher than what the market would charge for other similarly priced bonds.
In other words, they have to pay more interest now to issue these general obligation bonds, these liberal governments, because what?
Because they have no darn money to pay anybody back!
So the people buying bonds in the future are like, well, I'm not going to take that risk!
You owe me this much more money to take that risk instead!
So now what's happening?
Now, liberal governments run by liberals and dominated by liberal voters who vote for liberal policies that break liberal places, break their finances, break their economies, break the people in them.
Now we're saying, well, what do we do to get around paying that 3.5% extra, Joe?
Because we were out of people's money before.
Now we're definitely out of people's money and the ability to pay more interest.
Because then the government would have to pay more, which would require them to tax more to pay more interest.
Because where does the government get its money from?
The people and the taxpayer.
Yeah.
So the government, yeah.
It ain't safe being no jive turkey this close to Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's actually pretty appropriate this week for Thanksgiving.
They don't have the money.
They don't have the money to pay the debt ordinarily, no less the premium on the debt.
So to get around that, Some of these governments are deciding to go with these securitized bonds, basically saying, listen, our future tax revenue, you guys have a beat on this, this future tax revenue.
So the bonds would be backed by future tax revenue and not just a general obligation, which is supposed to make them more secure.
Yeah.
Now, here's the kicker, folks.
This is what's hysterical about this story.
The future tax revenues don't even add up.
Connecticut, their estimate, I had to take a note on this one to get the number right because I didn't want to screw this up.
So now if you're an investor who's buying these bonds, right, that are supposedly backed by tax revenues directly, like, oh no, Joe, we're safe, don't worry.
I know I'm going to get paid back because Connecticut's promised me that this surplus of tax revenue they're going to have is going to come my way.
Yeah.
Connecticut's estimate of their own tax revenue last year alone was off by $530 million.
Folks, these things have... Now, this is how they describe these bonds, by the way, trying to sell them to investors.
Oh, they're linked to a large and relatively stable revenue source.
Large and relatively stable!
Dude, they were off by $530 million!
Guys, ladies out there listening, Please, I'm begging you, for a moment if you're a liberal listening to this show or a college kid and you're even remotely interested on why you think, maybe you tuned in because you think conservatives are nuts.
You saw the show, you saw in the description of the show we tackle Republican politics, we tackle Democrat politics, you found out I'm a Republican, you think I'm a total psychopath, and that's totally possible, I get it.
But maybe you're listening just for a moment, I want to ask you, who's really crazy?
No, seriously, who's nuts?
Are you nuts or am I nuts?
Is anything I'm telling you here factually incorrect, right?
I'm telling you the Connecticut budget last year was off by 530 million dollars.
That Connecticut is out of money.
That in order to borrow more money, Connecticut has to pay a premium on money it borrows from its own people because the money it paid back in the past isn't there either.
In order to get around paying more interest for money it doesn't have to get back to the people that borrowed money from before, it is now guaranteeing the people's future tax money to other bondholders to issue more debt Based on a tax stream that are saying is large and relatively stable despite the fact that they were off by $530 million last year.
Who's crazy?
Me or you?
Who's crazy?
So remember Macho Man, Randy Savage?
Oh yeah!
Remember Macho Man, Randy Savage?
You WWF fans back in the day?
WWE now?
Oh yeah, Elizabeth!
Oh yeah!
You know what my favorite line is with Macho Man?
He's dead by the way, Randy Macho Man.
Whenever they'd ask him a question, and he was in the interview, he never got out of character.
Me and Gene Oakland would be asking him a question, he'd be like, don't know.
I used to love that.
Don't know.
Matter of fact, my daughter, when she asked me a question sometimes, and I really have no idea about the answer, she was like, you're not going to do the macho man thing, and I'm like, yes I am.
Don't know.
Who's crazy?
Are we nuts or are you nuts?
You borrowed money, you can't even pay that back.
You're now paying an interest premium, which means paying more taxpayer money in interest to other borrowers.
You're out of that money, so now you guarantee the future tax payments that would have went towards paying all debt, but you can't even guarantee that because your budget estimates last year were off because people are fleeing your blue state.
Oh my gosh and we're all nuts Joe!
You argue with these liberals and I kid you not we're the crazy ones.
You can't stand people.
You hate poor people.
You want to throw them off the cliff.
You want to kill puppies and kittens.
You guys are nuts.
You don't want to take, who's not taking care of people?
Is this, we're doing this?
Folks, I'm warning you now.
If you are an investor, I get it.
This is not a financial show.
I don't provide investment advice.
This is more common sense.
This is not a financial advisor show.
I'm not Dave Ramsey.
But man alive, if you are investing in these bonds, these corporate bonds, general obligation bonds, muni bonds, securitized bonds, you're out of your mind.
You're out of your mind.
You're crazy.
You think you're getting this money back?
Good luck.
I'm serious, man.
Good luck, right?
You're junk.
And the funny thing is, the Securitize Bonds show got a AAA rating.
The Wall Street Journal piece is like, wait, wait, what?
Are you kidding me?
AAA based on what?
AAA rating based on what?
Their ability to go bankrupt faster than the next guy?
AAA rating on the path to bankruptcy?
We are AAA rating you.
You will go bankrupt the quickest.
You will beat everybody to the bankruptcy finish line.
Let me circle back again to how I started.
Does evidence matter anymore?
That's the question we started off with.
Does it matter to you?
I asked you yesterday during The Socialist Show, we covered socialism in Venezuela breaking down.
Please listen to yesterday's show if you missed it.
Do you have a heart?
Does any of this matter?
Or are you just going to continue to walk around blindfolded like none of this is happening?
One last story.
It's a story at the Daily Signal.
It's a doubling down on the story I covered yesterday, but it's important.
Daily Signal has a piece up today.
It's the Heritage Foundation's blog.
It's really good.
I'll put it in the show notes again, the story, about the New Jersey State Senate President, Steve Sweeney.
New Jersey, a deep blue state.
Sweeney, a Democrat.
They are now starting to think twice about a millionaire's tax in New Jersey.
Why?
Because as I covered yesterday in the signal covers in the piece, that now that the state and local tax deduction, Joe, is maybe pulled away.
In other words, the ability of people to deduct their state and local taxes and high tax blue states from their federal taxes.
They're saying, well, we may not be able to enact that millionaire's tax, despite, as they point out in the piece, Joe, despite the fact that the Democrat governor-elect, Phil Murphy, who was just elected in New Jersey, ran on this.
They ran on how beneficial this millionaire's tax was going to be for the economy.
So folks, let me get this straight.
If the millionaire's tax, as they call it, because the millionaires don't pay it, they just leave the state, right?
Which is what happened in Maryland.
Remember, Joe, when they lost money?
They were like, we're going to gain hundreds of millions from this millionaire's tax.
They lost, what was it, $137 million.
It became like a comedy act in Maryland.
They had to repeal it.
It was such a joke.
This guy ran on this.
If you're saying that the turning over of the citizens' money in the state of New Jersey to the New Jersey state government through a millionaire's tax or any other tax is a good and benevolent force, Joe, that's what you're saying, that this is a good thing for the economy, then why are you backing off from it now that the people paying the tax are actually going to be forced to face the full brunt of it?
Am I making this clear?
I'm going to leave on this point, folks.
This is the last story of the day.
But the reason I'm covering this again is because this has been a Why Matter show.
We've jumped to 30,000 feet on a lot of this stuff because it's critical.
If the why, the reason behind your millionaire's tax is that the government Can do far better with your money, whether in New Jersey or the federal government, than you can yourself.
And this is a benevolent force for economic growth and for the betterment of the citizens of the state of New Jersey.
Why are you now backtracking on that tax?
Because people are actually going to feel it.
I don't understand.
I mean, well...
I love doing talking head punditry, as you can tell.
Do a lot of it for Fox and enjoy it.
But I wonder sometimes why we don't make these bigger, larger why arguments.
Why?
If higher taxes are the good thing, why does it bother you that people are actually going to feel the impact of higher taxes?
It's a good thing.
In other words, Joe, conservatives don't make the argument about tax cuts that way.
I mean, think about it, Joe.
To take the liberal why.
Oh, tax hikes are great.
Just don't make our millionaires feel it.
What do you mean?
You're turning over the government money.
It's a good thing.
That's what you said.
Think of how ridiculous it would sound if conservatives were such hypocrites.
Joe, I want to enact a tax rate cut plan, but here's the deal.
I don't want to actually cut your taxes or you to feel it.
So what we're going to do is we're going to cut your tax rate from whatever, 30% to 15%, Joe.
But any money you save, you're going to turn over at the end of the year in a surtax.
Yeah!
That's an awesome idea!
That's what the liberals are saying!
Turning over to the money of the government in New Jersey and the federal level.
It's a good thing.
Just please don't turn over to the money of the government.
Actually, you have to feel it.
This is... I can't.
My brain is fried, really.
Evidence doesn't matter to these people.
Socialism.
People are dying and eating squirrels.
I keep getting an email from my buddy Jeff, by the way.
Thanks for listening.
He's like, stop knocking squirrels.
They're delicious.
I'm not knocking squirrels.
I just wouldn't eat them.
So you have people eating squirrels in a socialist country.
You have New Jersey, Connecticut, Puerto Rico going bankrupt because of liberal policies.
You have them doubling down on bankruptcy by promising future bankruptcy to bondholders.
You then have New Jersey, right now, a Democrat governor-elect who ran on a millionaire's tax, backing off the millionaire's tax because people actually have to pay taxes you said are a good and positive force in people's lives.
Can we just end the show on a long pause today?
No, that's it.
I have nothing else to say, folks.
My brain is fried dealing with these idiots all the time.
I can't take it.
I get emails a lot.
People are like, oh, why do you call them idiots?
Because they are.
I'm sorry.
They are.
I'm not talking about old Democrats.
I should say you're economic idiots.
Maybe in real life you're really nice.
A lot of you probably do good things.
You're just total economic idiots.
I'm sorry.
You are totally immune to facts and data.
All right.
Hey, listen, folks, I'm sorry.
I don't mean to get so hostile.
I just, I get upset for obvious reasons.
All right, please go to Bongino.com, subscribe to my email list.
I'll send you these articles and check out that Daily Signal piece.
You'll see how quickly the Left dials back its rhetoric when people actually have to pay for it.
I'll see you all.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.
