Ep. 608 Why is this National Crisis Being Ignored by the Swamp?
Is this Democrat Senator really resigning or is this another cynical Democrat scheme?
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/levin-heres-the-democrats-sickening-cynical-franken-scheme
Why is this growing national crisis being ignored by the DC swamp?
http://reason.com/blog/2017/12/07/whos-ready-for-some-trillion-dollar-repu
Of course the 5 wealthiest counties in the US are located around the swamp.
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-bureau-5-richest-counties-are-dc-suburbs
Read this report and see the outrageous things the federal government spends money on.
https://www.cato.org/blog/federal-fumbles-failures?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=1f2c28b678-Cato_at_Liberty_RSS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-1f2c28b678-143016961&goal=0_395878584c-1f2c28b678-143016961&mc_cid=1f2c28b678&mc_eid=3fd7404a34
CNN finally admits the truth about Trump.
http://ijr.com/the-declaration/2017/12/1030901-cnn-makes-big-admission-donald-trump-keeper-promises/?utm_campaign=Conservative%20Daily&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=59206578&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9LdKQwYKlWw0X2zjFq9r-1CIo0Y13TmtgPfXO-NL1KFucc3EXHe2AgQZe0T1sO-yGbg1MZhp5BQ4zsSkvL0yleRSzfNA&_hsmi=59206578
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Dan, I'm always glad to be here with you, baby.
He's glad to be here with you, baby, yeah.
Yeah, we love Friday.
I don't get weekends off, you know.
No, I'm not.
Listen, I'm not looking for anybody's sympathy.
My life is wonderful.
God has blessed me with a multitude of blessings.
I thank him for every opportunity, every night.
But it is busy.
Matter of fact, I'm taking my kids to Disney tomorrow.
And I'm still doing a Fox News hit in the morning before I leave.
Yeah, I was supposed to do Judge Janine, too, but I can't get back in time, so I couldn't.
Hey, quick update, because I'm getting a ton of emails on the stem cell thing I had done.
You know I have really bad arthritis, and I had my stem cells taken out of my back.
They take it out of the fat in your back, and everybody has it, even if you're super lean.
And I did it, the regular listeners know about it.
I've done it before, it worked like a charm.
So quick update.
One, let me tell you something that's driving me absolutely mad.
I can't go to the gym for six weeks, so I'm two weeks in.
I am shrinking!
I'm shrinking!
It's driving... I have... Listen, my audience, I love you all, and I feel the need to share the intricacies of my personal life, however TMI it is, right?
Too much information, too bad.
I'm shrinking dramatically, and I have a condition called bigorexia.
Have you heard of bigorexia?
I'm telling you, it's legit.
It is the opposite of anorexia, which is a very serious condition.
I'm not messing around, but I do, I have a bit of bigorexia.
Like, I never think in the gym I'm big enough, and I'm always, I'm dead serious, folks.
Like, this gets in my head.
And I was up to 225 pounds.
You know, I can't post any of these shirtless pics.
You'd look ridiculous.
But I was getting pretty big, and now that I can't work out, I'm losing weight dramatically because I'm letting my body heal from the stem cell procedure, and it's driving me nuts.
I'm down to like, look at me on TV if you see me on Fox.
Look at my neck.
My shirt collars don't even fit.
I'm like a pencil neck now.
It's making me nuts.
Honey, I shrunk the Dan.
Honey, I shrunk the Dan.
Like the Rick Moranis movie.
It's driving me crazy.
So thanks for the email yesterday from the guy who corrected me on Gaslight.
That is not a Hitchcock movie, so thank you.
I appreciate it.
Always gotta correct that stuff.
But I'm shrinking.
But the procedure, for those of you who have arthritis or serious joint conditions, is, again, been working like magic.
My left elbow, which was incredibly damaged, Is like brand new, not an ounce of paint.
I'm not kidding.
Dr. Berman in Beverly Hills, B-E-R-M-A-N, who did the procedure.
He doesn't pay me to say this or anything.
The guy's amazing.
If you have arthritis and you've been told you need a joint replacement, I'm not your doctor or anything, just check this guy out beforehand before you go remove one of your joints, because I'm telling you my left elbow's like new.
So there's a quick update.
Sorry to knock off a couple minutes of your time, but I get a ton of emails on it.
So it's Dr. Berman in Beverly Hills at the Stem Cell Network.
Google him.
You will not be disappointed.
It has been just magical.
But I am the incredibly shrinking human being.
All right.
Listen, the Franken story, just quickly.
So Al Franken yesterday gave a speech on the Senate floor about resigning, but didn't resign.
Folks, there's some interesting theories about what's going on right now, and I'm talking slowly to try to methodically put this together to not confuse you.
So, just quick background.
Al Franken was caught in that, you know, disgusting picture trying to manhandle the personal parts of Leanne Tweeden while she was sleeping.
Many of you have seen he's a Democratic senator from Minnesota.
It's a pretty disgusting picture.
I think he thought it was funny based on the fact that he's smiling in the picture.
He literally has his hands hovering over her breasts.
It's gross.
It's not funny.
I mean, if that was your daughter or your wife, you'd beat the snot out of the guy, right?
So other accusers came forward and I I do believe in due process.
I'll frank it all.
I disagree with him politically.
I believe he is entitled to due process.
The picture is pretty obvious.
That was pretty gross.
But yesterday, he gets up on the Senate floor, gives an 11-minute speech and says, I'm resigning from the Senate, but not right now.
Okay, so Mark Levin, who is always... Levin's a Brilliant.
I don't just say that because I work with him.
I get it.
A lot of you would say that.
Like, oh, you work with him.
Of course you do.
No, Mark is really always, I'm telling you, he is always two steps ahead of this stuff.
He has an interesting theory, which I 100% agree with.
Here's the theory he put out there yesterday, and I'll put the article up at my show notes at Bongino.com.
If you subscribe to my email list, I'll send it to you.
It's available at Conservative Review, written by Chris Pendalfo, but he's covering Levin's comments.
He says, Here's what's really going on.
One, Joe, if Joe, if you were to tell me, right, Dan, can't deal with you anymore, buddy, I'm resigning.
You typically just leave, right?
Or you give like two weeks notice, right?
You're gone in two weeks, right?
I'd be gone, yeah.
Right?
You don't say, Dan, I'm resigning, but I'll be leaving at a date soon to be determined in the future.
Why would someone do something like that?
Well, an interesting theory is there is an election coming up December 12th.
You may have heard about that December 12th election is the Alabama Senate election, United States Senate, the Roy Moore-Doug Jones race.
Roy Moore has been accused of sexual improprieties as well.
The theory out there is that they're waiting to see what happens in the Moore race on December 12th.
And if Moore, in fact, wins under the same cloud of impropriety and suspicion that Franken is, that Democrats may turn around and flip the script and say, well, we did the right thing and we were going to resign.
But now that Republicans have elected Roy Moore, you know, Wait, let's just let this play out in an ethics investigation for Moore and Franken at the same time.
You see where I'm going with this, Joe?
Yeah, I see where you're going.
Now, I think Levin is correct that that's what's going to happen.
I also think there's an alternate theory here.
Alternate theory here is that, so that's theory number one, that he's not in fact really resigning.
He's just saying it to take the quote-unquote high road.
But what's really going to happen is they're going to wait to see what happens with Moore.
And then if Moore doesn't in fact resign or isn't kicked out after he's elected, they're going to keep franking too and say, well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I think that may be the theory.
There's an alternate theory I buy into.
I'm like 60% on that one, 40% on this one.
Here's the other one.
The other theory is, no, they really do want Franken out.
He's just not resigning right now because there's some votes coming up that they may need him on.
But he is going to resign, regardless of what happens with Moore.
And the Democrats, given that Minnesota is a relatively safe seat, it's a swingy kind of-ish state.
It's definitely blue, but it's possible, of course, for a Republican to win a Senate seat.
Norm Coleman was a Republican who Al Franken beat and barely beat.
He only won by 300 votes in a state race.
That's incredible.
Think about that.
And there were significant allegations of fraud on the Franken side as well.
Not that he did it personally, but voter fraud got him in.
One of the other theories is the midterms are coming up and they want to use the election of Roy Moore outside of the Franken anchor.
In other words, he'd be gone, so you can't hold Franken against him, right Joe?
They want to use that Roy Moore election like, look, you Republicans are sexual harassers!
And they're going to beat every Republican running in the midterms over the head with it.
How would they do that, Joe?
If Joe Armacost was running for Congress in Maryland, he'd say, Joe, where are you on Roy Moore right now?
Where are you?
And if you don't say the right thing, Joe, of course it's going to be, he's an enabler of sexual harassers.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So those are the two running theories.
I lay a little more weight to the Levin theory that he may in fact not resign because of the election, but number two has some credibility too that he's going to be used to beat Republicans over the head with him in the midterms.
So interesting.
I'll put a couple stories on that up at the show notes that I find interesting.
Again, I can send them out to your email if you wish.
All right.
Story number two.
This one is On a very serious note, this one's kind of troubling.
It's bothering me a lot because the lack of seriousness applied to this topic.
I think a lot of America... You know what?
I'm going to take a little vitamin B12.
Excuse me.
I take this spray stuff.
It's pretty good.
That was ridiculous.
I am like the most ADHD guy in human history.
But very seriously, people are losing their interest in this topic, and I can't, for the life of me, understand why.
Because I believe it's the greatest economic threat to America right now, and I am not alone by any stretch.
The debt.
Joe, where is the conversation about the national debt anymore?
Have you noticed it's been sidelined?
I guarantee you if you ask Americans their top ten issues they're concerned about, the debt, which should be, in my humble opinion, number one, is probably four, five, maybe ten.
Yeah.
You don't hear any serious conversations about this anymore.
Now I have some theories as to why that is.
I think one of them is there have been no, at this point at least, No real-world ramifications for it.
And I'll get to that in a second.
And I think when people don't feel consequences for actions, they keep doing them.
I mean, if you keep going into a candy store every day and not paying for the bubblegum, why would you pay?
And the owner doesn't say anything.
After a while, Joe, it's natural, correct, for you to assume it's free.
You're like, hey, I just keep walking in, he never says anything.
So people don't experience consequences.
When you don't experience consequences, you know, whether it's Pavlovian or operant conditioning, you start to think that the behavior is fine or it's without consequence.
Nobody's talking about the debt.
The reason I bring this up is because short-term spending bills are being passed right now under our noses in Congress, which are bankrupting the United States in live time, folks.
A couple of things here.
Regarding the real world ramifications, if this were a private business, the United States government, a free market business, right?
That had taken on the debt load.
The debt load we have now is closing in on 100% of the entire productive value of the United States, our GDP.
We're moving towards 20 trillion dollars in debt.
Which is the value of every single thing the country produces.
If this were Ford Motor Company, and Ford Motor Company as a company was worth, whatever, 20 billion dollars, who knows?
I'm pulling these numbers out of my head here.
It's worth $20 billion, and Ford Motor Company had $20 billion in debt.
The interest rate on a Ford Motor Company bond and loan would be through the roof.
Why?
Because no one's going to lend this motor company, and they don't have that.
Ford's doing pretty okay.
I just bought their stock.
They're doing all right.
But nobody's going to lend them money at a low interest rate, Joe, because the risk of not getting paid back is high.
Yeah.
Pretty simple stuff.
Why is that not happening in the United States right now?
Well, it's not happening in the United States right now because the world economy is generally just sputtering along.
But, but, but, but, but, but, but.
It's not motoring along.
It's sputtering along.
So people are still investing in the United States at rather low interest rates and giving the United States the equivalent of the federal government Ford Motor Company right now, right?
If that were the case.
Are still giving us money because there's nowhere else to put it.
Now, I use the car company because during the Great Recession, Ford... I love Ford, by the way.
My Raptor is awesome.
For those who've asked me about how it's going, the Raptor's the greatest car I've ever had.
Truck.
I love it.
But during the Great Recession, where other car companies took bailouts, Ford didn't.
And I think Ford came out of it quite well.
They've had some minor setbacks here and there, but I think Ford's going to do very well over time.
But there's no question after the recession, Joe, all the car companies were struggling.
A lot of people, though, bought Ford stock because they figured, all right, even though Ford's not doing great, it's certainly not doing as bad as GM and these other companies that took some government bailout money.
Get what I'm saying?
So it wasn't that they were motoring along, pun intended, Ford.
It was that they weren't failing as bad as the other ones back then and came out of it pretty good.
And I think their cars are terrific.
They don't pay me to say it.
They're not even a sponsor.
You see the point I'm making about the government?
Eventually, folks, there are going to be other countries around the world that get their act together.
We're seeing it in Ireland.
We're seeing it in some of the BELs, the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia.
We're seeing it around the world.
And as other investment opportunities come up, people are going to invest in other governments as well.
They're not going to be nearly as large of an economy as the United States, with the world's largest economy.
But these interest rates do not have to stay low forever.
I'll wrap it up by saying this.
Sooner or later, there are going to be real-world ramifications for this debt.
I don't know what that number is.
I can only tell you what the economic research is.
The economic research, which has been pretty consistent, has stated that once you hit about 90% of your GDP in debt load, you start to suffer interest rates, slow economic growth, and those types of things.
Folks, we're there right now.
This is a really pressing issue, and what's really irking me is we're passing these short-term spending bills, we're passing these mammoth spending bills, and there's seemingly no conversation whatsoever outside of the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives about actually cutting government spending.
Folks, there's a great piece by Reason, Reason.com, which I will put again in the show notes.
About the debt.
It's short.
It's probably no more than 600 words, maybe less.
And it talks about this Committee for Responsible Federal Budget Report.
And it's interesting.
They quote some lines from the report there that, Joe, we're headed for annual deficits.
Annual, meaning yearly.
Remember, our entire economy, Joe, is only worth $20 trillion, right?
We are headed by 2019.
Right around the corner, by 2019, for annual deficits of $1.05 trillion.
The whole economy's only worth $20 trillion!
The government only spe- only.
It's a joke.
I mean, talk about a slip.
The government now spends $4 trillion.
We're looking at deficits every year of $1 trillion in a $4 trillion budget.
A quarter of what we spent!
This is incredible!
Folks, by 2020 they're predicting 1.1 trillion.
Where is the conversation about the tidal wave of debt coming ashore?
Here's the real world ramification for this.
As I said before and opened up with, sooner or later people are going to wise up and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Does the government even have the capability to pay this back?
Folks, here's the problem, too.
When it happens, it happens like that.
Argentina used to be, what, the third wealthiest country in the world until they had a debt collapse just like we're looking at right now.
And then what happens?
When people stop lending us money anymore, Joe, we have to offer them exorbitantly high interest rates to get them to lend us money to compensate them for the risk that they're never going to be paid back.
Common sense, right?
When that happens and interest rates go up, folks, do you want to go back to paying, you know, 12 and 15 percent interest rates on your mortgage?
Oh, come on, Dan, that's never going to happen.
Oh, no, no, it did.
Matter of fact, it happened in my lifetime.
I was born in 1974.
You remember the 1980s show?
Mortgage rates 9, 10, 11 percent.
This really happened, folks.
I mean, I get it that a lot of us younger folks, you know, in our 40s and younger, and I consider myself relatively young still, we've never known really a time in our adult lives of super high interest rates.
This is going to happen.
This means real money for you.
You know, when you go into a car dealer, you negotiate, most people do, and it's a terrible way to negotiate, by the way, but this is the way it happens.
Joe, you know this.
What do they do?
They negotiate on the monthly payment when you buy a car, right?
What can you afford every month?
What can you afford?
And car dealers love that, by the way, because then you ignore what?
You ignore the actual price of the car.
I'm not telling you it's the right, it's not the right way to do it.
The way to negotiate is on the price of the darn car.
But a lot of people don't do that.
They don't do it when they buy a house either.
They're like, well what's our mortgage payment going to be and can we afford it?
Folks, when interest rates start creeping up to 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, do you see how this works against you?
All of a sudden the price of the car doesn't even matter.
The mortgage doesn't even matter because most of what you're paying, Joe, is interest in the first few years.
You're going to be like, wait, wait, the monthly payment on a $6,000 car is $72,000 a month.
Obviously I'm exaggerating, but you get the point.
You're going to buy a $20,000 car and the monthly payment is going to be absurd because it's going to be all interest for like three years.
Folks, this is going to happen.
The real world ramifications of this are going to happen.
The action item I'm asking you is when you vote and when you talk to your legislators, this matters.
They do pay attention and you email their offices and you call their offices.
Ask them what they're doing to cut the government budget.
And I'm a little bit A little bit excited, not a lot because I know how DC works, but a little bit excited that I heard Paul Ryan say, listen, we've got to look at entitlement reform.
All right.
Yes.
And everybody loves to knock Paul Ryan.
I get it.
I understand why people get upset sometimes, but that's a pretty darn bold thing to say.
We're going to go broke folks.
It's only a matter of time.
It is a mathematical certainty.
This is not a joke.
Now, there's an interesting report, too, by Cato, which will be in the show notes.
I strongly encourage you to read this one, about Jim Lankford, a senator from Oklahoma, who puts out a report called Federal Fumbles.
Joe, listen to some of the things the government's spending money on.
Now, granted, entitlements are an enormous chunk of our national debt and deficit problem.
I get that.
But that's not an excuse to flush money down the toilet bowl elsewhere, either.
Here are some of the fumbles from this Cato coverage of the report by Lankford.
The government spent, this is crazy, $745 million on an Air Force Control Center that was scrapped.
$745 million?
What the hell was in that thing that was scrapped?
Joe, my house I bought for, I don't know, you probably look on Zillow, I think it was like $520 or something we bought our house for, right?
$745 million?
That's 1,400 of my houses!
There's not even 1,400 houses in Palm City where I live, I don't think.
What, you could have bought all of Palm City for $745,000,000?
Joe, I'm not kidding.
You probably could have bought my entire neighborhood, the adjoining neighborhood, and this section of I-95 that runs next to us for $745,000,000.
What the heck is in that?
What did you build this thing out of?
Gold and silver?
What were the faucets and toilet bowls made of platinum?
My gosh!
Was there a Rolls Royce parked in every single parking spot of this Air Force Control Center?
$745 million?
Do you understand how many Social Security beneficiaries could have been paid with $745 million?
Folks, that's just the opening line.
Here's a couple other ringers.
We paid $85,000 for a music conductor's birthday party.
What the heck?
Where was this birthday party?
The Russian Tea Room?
Are you serious?
$85,000?
I had my daughter's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese for like $200.
Are you serious?
It's Chuck E. Cheese's, actually.
I always say Chuck E. Cheese's.
Go to Chuck E.'s!
Go meet the guy, Chuck E. You know, he comes out in a suit.
Oh, hey, kids, how you doing?
With the big dopey ears.
Hey, Chuck E., can we get a picture?
$85,000!
What were you serving?
Beluga caviar and Kobe beef?
Here's another one.
148,950 bucks for Alabama's birthday party.
I didn't miss a word there.
Not Alabama Senator's birthday party.
Not Alabama Governor's birthday party.
For Alabama's birthday party!
Alabama's not a person!
He doesn't care!
It's a state!
There's no Mr. Alabama!
He's not like, hey thanks!
This is great!
Look at that cake!
It's even in the shape of Alabama!
This is great!
There's no Mr. Alabama!
What the heck are you spending $148,000 on?
What are you cutting like a dollar check to everyone in Birmingham to celebrate?
This is ridiculous!
For Alabama's birthday.
Here we go.
$150,382 to document the Domaki language in Pakistan?
$50,382 to document the Domaki language in Pakistan?
Why?
We don't even mandate people speak English anymore in the United States, and we're documenting
the Domaki language in Pakistan.
What is this like?
Remember that movie with Denzel Washington was The Book of Eli where he's documenting like the last Bible left on earth?
I mean seriously?
150k?
Go get Rosetta Stone for like 20 bucks!
You know those languages?
Oh, great, by the way, I used one for Spanish.
Go buy it for Demaki!
Or, I don't even know if I'm saying it right.
Forgive me, I'm not trying to be like culturally insensitive, I mean it.
I just, I don't know anything about this language!
Go get Rosetta Stone!
They'll do it for you for 20 bucks!
One billion for a low-value trolley in San Diego, 17 billion on earned income tax credit subsidies, and one billion on federal... I can't.
I gotta move on.
On federal agency advertising, because yes, federal agencies need advertising to tell people they're there.
Because nobody knows there's a federal government despite the fact that we spend four trillion dollars.
Now, one more point.
I really, folks, I'm really being deadly sincere with you.
I only intended on spending five minutes on this, but it's comically sad that we're going bankrupt and we're celebrating Alabama's birthday as if Mr. Alabama is going to care and, like, blow out a candle.
This is outrageously stupid.
One more report I'll have in the show notes today from CNS News is Terrence Jeffrey, who's amazing.
He's always this drudge, by the way.
He does really great stuff on government spending.
Joe, pop quiz for you, ready?
Yeah.
These are not trick questions.
Now, this may be a tough one, so for the audience, give Joe a little bit of a pass if he doesn't get this exactly right, okay?
Alright.
Joe, the five wealthiest counties in the United States in the CNS News piece.
Yes.
I'm going to give you a hint where they're located.
Now, we've done a similar test before, but don't let that skew your thinking, Joe.
These are not trick questions.
The five wealthiest counties in the United States, Joe, where do you think they're located in the suburbs of?
Now, I will give you a hint.
A lot of government spending happens in this city.
It's the American capital.
I know this is tough.
I know you're having a tough time.
So let me give you a couple more.
You live very close to there.
I know where you live.
Go down Ritchie Highway, pop onto 50 and you'll get there.
One more.
A lot of lobbyists that lobby the big government for this largesse of taxpayer dollars live in the suburbs of this American city.
Joe, what is it, Coe?
Well, I know you're trying to trick me, but I'm going to say...
Washington D.C.
Oh!
Dude!
I'm telling you, I'm like crying right now because you are the, of all the executive producers of all the major conservative podcasts out there.
You are clearly, I mean, the IQ leader amongst that population of EPs.
I mean, buck 20 or more on IQ.
Easy.
You're a genius.
Who else would figure that out?
The five wealthiest counties in America.
You got Loudoun, you got Howard and Maryland, you got a bunch of others in Virginia that populate the top 22, but the five wealthiest in the entire country, in the entire country are located right around the Washington DC!
What a shocker!
Now think about this.
This is what's incredible.
For all of my beefs with New York, I'm a native New Yorker and I love the people, but for all of my beefs with New York politics and the liberals that have run that great state into the ground, New York, Joe, and the city of New York, the five boroughs, is still a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity.
It is, even despite the Democrats' best efforts to ruin it, right?
It's a wonderful town, yeah.
It's a wonderful town.
It's just full of bad politicians.
California, too.
You know I visit California a lot.
Joe knows.
The audience knows.
I love California.
I hate its politics.
I hate the fact that the good people of California are being terrorized by liberal politicians.
I really do.
They're destroying the state.
But I'm telling you, California is awesome.
I love it.
We go out there sometimes, I kid you not, we fly out there just to eat in a restaurant because it's so awesome.
California and New York, hotbeds, despite bad politics, of entrepreneurial, super creative thinkers.
Silicon Valley, the financial district in New York, are still nowhere near the top five wealthiest counties in America, which all are surrounding Washington DC, the hotbed of government spending.
Don't you find that mildly suspicious?
You still think we don't have a government spending problem?
Oh, man, folks, when are we going to wake up?
This is serious stuff.
I know we're laughing about it, but I have to.
I'll go crazy because I wake up every day and I think about this.
It drives me nuts.
Seriously, it's driving me mad.
Okay.
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I went out, changed them, and thankfully, I was fine, which is great.
Well, Filterbuy.com, these guys use double the industry standard MERV rating on their filters.
I've got tons of emails from buyers, and let me just be candid with you for a minute.
I don't know if Filterbuy may not even like me telling you this, but I'll tell you.
When I had the conversation with them, they were like, listen, we know we produce the best quality filters at the best price.
We know it.
I talked to all my sponsors because I want to make sure they're good companies, and this company is.
But they said, we get it, you know, long-term.
These aren't impulse buys.
I mean, you know, a lot of people don't wake up in the morning and go, oh, I need a new air filter.
They said, but Dan, we like your show.
We like the product, you know.
We just like to get in people's heads when they're ready.
Folks, you all have far surpassed our expectations.
The listeners of this show send me emails all the time, like, you know what?
I didn't even realize I was ready for a new filter.
I bought one.
Went to filterbuy.com and I love it.
You're absolutely right about their pricing.
It is top notch.
You're not going to find better prices anywhere.
Just tell them to filter.
They ship it to your house.
You don't have to go to the big box stores.
Is it this filter?
Is it that filter?
Oh, I got the wrong one.
I got to go back.
Don't even worry about it.
Tell them a filter you need.
Go to filterbuy.com.
They'll ship it to you for free.
And if you set up auto delivery, tell them whatever you need.
You need a filter once a year.
Like I change mine once a year.
You need it once a year, you get 5% off.
Free shipping.
Double the industry standard MERV rating.
You'll have the cleanest air around.
The air inside is really polluted, folks.
Studies will tell you that.
It's up to 90% more pollution on indoor air than outdoor air.
Go give them a shot.
Filterbuy.com.
That's Filterbuy.com.
They love having you, and I like it.
I really appreciate all the support you've been giving them.
They keep the show free.
You keep the show free for yourselves, though, by supporting our sponsors, and I really appreciate that.
Filterbuy.com.
Alright, I spent way too much time on the debt thing, but it was super funny at the end, all the stupid stuff we spent money on.
Here's a great story I saw in the Wall Street Journal today.
You know I like these little behind-the-scenes stories about like the Why Matters show, right?
And I saw this one, I thought this would be really cool to cover on the show, and it's quick.
But there's a real battle going on.
I'm calling them the salt wars.
It has nothing to do with sodium chloride.
Salt.
There's Satan local taxes.
But the salt wars are going on right now with regard to the tax bill.
It obviously hasn't passed yet.
It passed the House.
And in a different version, passed the Senate.
So a lot of people after it passed the Senate thought it passed.
No, no, no.
They have to reconcile the differences between those bills first to get something to the president.
So the salt wars have heated up.
The salt wars are based on the state and local tax deduction.
If you live in a high-tax state, like Armacost does in Maryland, I don't in Florida.
Joe gets a deduction for the state income taxes he pays, the property taxes he pays to state and local entities in Maryland.
Copy?
Pretty simple stuff.
Now, that's a pretty heavy tax deduction.
There are people who make $200,000, $300,000 a year who are paying exorbitant state income taxes who can get $50,000, $60,000 deductions.
That's a big deduction, Joe.
It's worth a lot of money.
Depending on which tax bill passes, that's largely going to go away for people who live in largely blue states that charge their residents high taxes.
I don't have that problem here in Florida.
We have no state income tax.
We love Florida.
Florida's great.
It's heaven on earth.
Move down.
We'd love to see you.
Just please vote Republican.
Keep the state red.
We need it.
So here's the real story about what's going on with the salt wars, and the journal covers this extensively today.
The Democrats are freaking out, and even Jerry Brown, the governor of the great state of California, the liberal Democratic governor of California, is starting to freak out.
Because why?
Apparently he barged into some pension negotiation meeting the other day, and like actually made the Republican cause the conservative cause for spending control on government pensions.
Now, let me be clear on this, and I'm not trying to play both sides or swage anybody, I'm just going to give you the truth.
I was a state and federal employee.
I am not in any way disparaging people who get up every day and work hard for the government.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Nothing.
Really.
It's not your fault that you got a job and it was with the government.
It's an honorable thing to do.
You work every day, you work hard.
I mean, you could probably get a job in the private sector, but you chose a job in the government.
There's nothing wrong with that.
People who work for a living are not the problem.
I really believe we should never attack government employees.
I worked for them.
They're honorable people.
Having said that, And I mean it, I sincerely do.
Having said that though, the government screwed you over and ignoring the economic reality of the state pension crisis is not going to do anything to make it go away.
It reminds me, you know the thing we did with the Rob Schneider thing with dude, dude, dude, dude.
You know, he has the one, the 65 different ways to say dude or whatever.
One of them is like you think he was a serial killer around the corner in your apartment and it's late at night and you're like, dude, and you just want to make sure he's there.
That's the pension crisis.
It's sitting there around the corner and you saying, dude, it's not going to make it go away.
I have a cop friend of mine, this guy Brian, he's been a friend of mine forever.
We went to the police academy together.
And he loves, he likes the show and he loves economics.
And he calls me a lot about this pension crisis because he's a New York City cop ready to retire because you think the money's going to be there.
I go, no, it's not going to be there.
I don't know any easy way to tell you this, but the answer is no.
The money's not going to be there because the money's not there now.
Well, how are people getting paid pensions?
Well, they're borrowing it.
The government's borrowing money from taxpayers now to pay pensions.
There's no pension fund.
They're all broke.
Well, most of them.
Some of them are doing okay.
Florida's actually doing all right.
The point I'm trying to make here is why is Jerry Brown now making the conservative argument that we need to do something about the California state pension system, which is in an absolute crisis?
There's no money.
They're broke.
Because the elimination of SALT.
Follow me here for a second, Joe.
Let's walk through this.
The Dems, the Democrats, got into bed with public sector unions a long time ago and they made them pension promises, Joe, in turn for donations and continued political power.
They made them pension promises.
There was no mathematical, financial, or economic way they could keep, all right?
Tracking?
Number two.
Instead of those public sector unions starting to acknowledge that the money wasn't going to be there and early on working on a fix for the future, instead of defined benefit, defined contribution, basically instead of pensions, 401k type plans, they took it to court And in court, they argued that these contracts are inviolable, Joe.
You can't break them.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
In other words, Democrats, you needed our votes.
We gave you our votes.
You promised us all this money and pensions, and now the contracts are unbreakable.
The courts have been wishy-washy on this, but have largely said that that's not true.
I mean, Joe, even laws are changeable, right?
I mean, it's nonsense to say contracts are inviolable in the public sector.
Contracts are broken all the time.
That's saying it's a good thing.
I'm just telling you this is a fact.
Companies go into bankruptcy all the time and people don't get paid.
Gosh, Joe and I haven't got paid for stuff we've done, right?
I'm serious.
So I got an outstanding balance now for someone I got to get back to who hasn't paid me forever, which is fine.
I don't even care.
Seriously, I don't even worry.
It's not even worth the trouble.
So Dems get into bed with them, make them promises.
Promises there's no money for.
The pension, the unions argue, well, listen, those contracts aren't breakable, okay?
What happens next?
Word starts creeping out that, well, this SALT deduction may go away.
Meaning?
The people in our state are now going to pay the full load of the tax bill.
You tracking Joe?
Oh yeah.
Because now if they don't get a deduction for the massive tax bill California is sending them, they're going to pay the whole bill.
In other words, if you paid $50,000 in taxes to the state of California, but got back from the government $20,000, Joe, you only paid $30,000.
Simple math.
$50,000 minus the $20,000 you got back, you only paid $30,000.
If that goes away, and you have to pay the entire $50,000, that's gonna hurt.
Yeah.
What does this have to do with pensions?
Jerry Brown sees the writing on the wall right now, liberal governor of California, he barged into this meeting and apparently was making this case according to some speculation by the journal, which I agree, Because he's saying, listen, if these pension contracts are inviolable, and we can't break them...
And we have to pay this money in the future.
That means even the absurd, ridiculous tax load we're asking our California folks to pay now is going to go up in the future, piled on top of Joe, a de facto increase because they're not going to be able to deduct it anymore.
In other words, you paid 30 last year, 50 minus 20.
You lose the 20 deduction next year.
Next year, you're paying 50.
And we're gonna have to raise their taxes again to pay the pension bills we promised these people to get re-elected.
The Democrats are in a full-blown panic.
So the essence of the journal piece is like, hey, this thing's paying dividends already.
This salt that hasn't even passed.
Why?
You may say, well, that's not fair, Dan.
I always get an email from a nice lady in New Jersey, but she took a shot at me.
She's like, why are you, you're, you're, what are you, I'm not wishing ill on you in New Jersey, New York, and California.
At all!
I lived in New York.
I know a lot of you can't move.
I'm simply saying to you that the dividends are paying off because even liberal Jerry Brown Joe is saying, this can't continue forever folks.
We can't keep taxing the snot out of our citizens.
There's going to be nothing left.
That's the point I'm trying to make.
That the deduction, the SALT deduction, was allowing politicians of a liberal stripe to insulate themselves from the pain of their own policies.
You see where I'm going with this, Joe?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Now that the politicians, the libs are like, wow, gosh, now our citizens are really going to get an actual tax bill?
They're like, oh man, this isn't good.
This is really bad.
I told you this would happen.
There's positive ramifications to this.
You may actually overall in California at the state level wind up getting a tax cut and pension reform out of this in the future.
It's a good thing.
Trust me on this one.
Please, I wouldn't steer you wrong.
I'm not saying it either because I live in Florida.
You know, look at me, I'm alright.
You know, as they say in the military, you know, FIGMO.
You know what it means.
I'll leave the initial part out, but I got my orders.
It's the last part.
So that's not what I'm doing here.
I'm just telling you, I think this is going to be a good thing in the long run.
All right.
Today's show also brought to you by our buddies at BrickHouse, getting a number of really positive stellar reviews on their newest product, Field of Greens.
I love this.
I don't dictate to Miles, the owner of the company, what he does.
He's a smart guy.
He does his own thing.
But I said to him a while ago, so I'm going to take a little credit here.
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I mean, Joe, remember the generation we grew up in where people had donuts and a stogie for breakfast?
Yeah.
Nobody thought anything of it, right?
It was like fuel.
They're like, oh yeah, donuts.
It's like, you know, it's gas in the tank.
What's the difference?
Well, obviously nutrition science has gone, you know, through the roof and people have figured out that a donut and a stogie for breakfast is probably going to kill you by the age of 22.
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These people who do the juicing and, you know, they go on, they live these unbelievably healthy lives.
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All right.
Let's see.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yes.
Independent Journal Review, IJR, has a great piece out today.
Now, can I... I know people hate this, but can I pat myself on the back a little bit here?
Just a tad, just once.
Forgive me, folks.
I know self-praise things.
My aunt used to tell me that, God rest her soul.
But yesterday on the show, I had this theory about why liberals are increasingly losing their minds over Trump.
Just when you think they've reached the stupid ceiling, they blow right through it onto the next floor.
And I said during yesterday's show, and I encourage you if you missed it to go back and listen to the segment, because I think I really enjoyed it, that they're losing their minds because they thought Trump Was going to be a joke.
They did.
I mean, they knew he was, you know, quote, dangerous to their liberal ideology.
But I think Joe, they largely thought he'd be a joke.
He's going to be powerless.
I don't worry.
We'll impeach him.
We'll do this Russia thing.
You know, we'll insult him the whole time.
We'll make fun of him on Saturday Night Live.
It'll all go away.
Get what I'm saying?
So the point I made during yesterday's show is liberals are becoming increasingly unhinged because what Trump said he was going to do, he's doing.
He's doing, whether it's, and again I don't agree with everything, but I think there's no question that the guy is keeping his promises.
NAFTA, regulations, taxes, and I said the flashpoint I think was the move of the embassy or the announced US sanctioning of the cap, which it's the capital, that Jerusalem's the capital, of Jerusalem is the capital, And a planned move in the future from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
And the reason I bring that up, and maybe I didn't say this yesterday, is because presidents have talked about this forever.
Republican and Democrat actually moving the embassy and officially sanctioning Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Joe, and none of them have done it.
So the Democrats, now that Trump has done something, which was Joe, Previously totally off-limits to a president of either party.
That he's done something he promised that nobody thought would happen.
The Democrats are increasingly saying, holy crap, what's next?
This guy's not kidding, right Joe?
So, not to repeat yesterday's show, but I needed that set up because this morning IJR has a piece out.
Let me read this directly.
CNN admits Trump is quote a keeper of promises and this is another quote from CNN even those promises they're talking about even those that horrify the political and foreign policy establishment I told you I told you CNN is now losing its mind Because they're starting to really worry right now that Trump's for real.
That this guy is the first politician to run for presidency in eons who actually is doing and checking off a list of promises what he said he was going to do.
And they are very sincerely concerned about what's next.
So again, mild pat on the back, I know self-praised things, forgive me, but I don't make this stuff up.
I didn't hear that from anyone, I'm not trying to take credit for anyone else's ideas, but I saw that this morning and I'm like, you see?
Other people are catching on too, even the libs.
This is why they're freaking out, folks.
Alright, one last story.
The economic numbers came out today and they are spectacular.
228,000 new jobs in November.
The projection, folks, was 200,000.
Let me tell you right now, 228,000 jobs in November is a huge number.
folks was 200,000. Let me tell you right now, 228,000 jobs in November is a huge
number, an enormous number. But I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer.
I just want everyone to be cautious because we're still in the midst of a slight Obama hangover.
Obama grew dependency through federal disability rolls, food stamp recipients.
He grew federal dependency.
No question, it's just the numbers.
It's not an insult, it's just the numbers.
Those numbers, people on food stamps, people on federal disability payments grew.
That's just a fact.
It's an inarguable fact.
There's an interesting piece in the journal today that makes a point, though, and a point I had debunked a while ago.
It's interesting that when the Obama- I'm going to tell you the truth, the Obama people didn't.
Remember, Joe, you may remember, you may not, we did a show a long time ago where the Democrats' talking point about the low labor force participation rate.
In other words, the fact that unemployment was going down, but it was going down because more people weren't looking for jobs.
The unemployment rate wasn't going down because more people were finding jobs, it was just because more people were leaving the workforce and it skewed the numbers.
And, the Democrats' talking point, which is, they will always, always lie to you.
Every time.
Well, that's why, tune in to this show, I debunk the nonsense.
I said to you, that's crap.
Their talking point was this.
Their talking point was, oh, it's just the labor force participation rate, in other words, people working, is going down, which is bad.
You want more people working.
Because, Joe, a lot of older people are leaving the workforce.
And I said to you the numbers don't back that up at all because the number of younger able-bodied work people not working is going up.
So that's not possible that it's all attributable to older people not working because younger people aren't working either.
So I bring that up to be fair.
I think it's, this is not due to Trump.
I think this is still the Obama hangover, Joe.
You stick people on food stamps and on disability and not, I mean, some of them need it, but some don't.
And they get used to not working, and even though Trump economy's motoring along, they're still not working.
And I just want you to be a little cautious about the numbers.
They're good, because that labor force participation rate, although it's going up, which is good, it's still stubborn, and there's still about two million people missing from the workforce.
Quick quote from the journal piece, we'll wrap it up here.
He says in the journal piece, this is from Ed Lazear, but one statistics makes clear that the missing jobs are not solely a reflection of demographics.
In other words, that old people are leaving the workforce.
The employment rate of people age 25 to 54 is lower than at the pre-recession peak by 1.3 percentage points.
Even adjusting for demographics, Joe, the overall employment rate is still about 0.8 percentage points shy of where it would have been in prior peaks.
In short, there are about 256 million Americans who are 16 and older.
So that job deficit works out to about 2 million people.
So bottom line, Trump economy's doing great.
He's making all the right moves right now.
But to be fair, and not parrot stupid Democrat talking points they tried on us, it The labor force petition patient rate is still lower than where it should be, and it is not all older people.
There are still younger people not working.
So don't, you know, just so we have a fair perspective of what's going on.
It's the only right way to operate.
Don't let silly liberal talking points, you know, get in the way of a sound analysis.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
Please go to bongino.com, subscribe to my email list, and I will see you all on Monday.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
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