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June 7, 2023 - Doug Collins Podcast
25:26
Let's Discuss The Debt Ceiling
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast.
Today I want to talk about the debt ceiling issue that just happened and also a little bit of the fallout that we've seen in the last few days coming of that.
But it's today, it's Wednesday, it's midweek.
I want to give you an update.
Now, I promised that we would talk about this.
There's been a lot of issues around the debt ceiling.
What does it mean?
What does it not mean?
I'm going to spend a short podcast here in just a minute.
We're going to talk about the debt ceiling and really what it means for the spending going forward and some concerns that I have.
But I can't not stop today's podcast without talking about the massive deal yesterday struck by PGA and Liv Goff.
It is interesting to me, though.
If you've ever wondered about the message coming from mainstream media, I watched the Golf Channel.
I watched several of the other mainstream medias, and all of them talked about PGA, the World Golf Tour, and then they would put the Saudi name, the private investment fund, PIF, and then in parentheses put Live Golf.
It's just amazing to me that they continue to push, and rightfully so.
I'm not saying it, but in the sense that the Saudis don't need to be held accountable.
They do need to be held accountable.
And they played this, but it's interesting that even these diehards won't even just use LiveGolf and know that LiveGolf is the Saudi investment.
They have to make it the PIF and then Saudi investment in LiveGolf.
So again, you've got to know the fallout is awful on this.
You gotta know Jay Monaghan has no chance, B.J. Commissioner, of staying on.
I mean, can you imagine?
I mean...
In two years, they have upside down turned the golf world.
And it's been, again, it's going to be interesting to see where this all comes out.
We'll see it as it goes forward here in the weeks to come.
But I couldn't start off the show without talking about it.
And, you know, as peers, they're still going to operate as three tours at this point.
Yeah.
Why would anybody stay on the PGA Tour if Liv is still going to be paying off the obscene money that they're paying out?
I mean, why would Liv golfers only come back four weeks a year for the majors?
I mean, it's just a lot of little stuff that's going to be going on To see how this is running.
And will there be interchangeability?
Liv has the teams and has the individuals.
Will they be able to actually come back like a PGA player?
If a Liv golfer can come back and play on the PGA Tour, can a PGA Tour golfer go play on the Liv tournament one weekend?
All still to be determined.
At the end of the day, folks, it's like everything else in the world.
Follow the money and you'll find out what goes on.
No different here in professional golf.
But right now though, after this break, we'll get back and we'll talk about the debt soon.
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All right, let's break this down.
And I'm not going to be harsh on either side.
I think this was a, and we've talked about this briefly here on the podcast.
The debt ceiling debate, let's just be very frank about what it is to start with.
Let's just set this up, talk about it, and say, if you are not to go over the debt ceiling, To do that, you would not pay bills that are currently due.
Let's get this out of the way early.
Because I heard a lot of people out there, conservatives, others, liberals, well, just don't pay the bills.
Well, okay, let's make up.
Most of your federal budget is payroll.
A lot of it.
Okay, over 50%.
I'm still trying to search down an exact number.
But most of these agencies, most of everything you see is payroll.
So if you're coming up against your debt ceiling in your personal life, then you just got to quit spending money.
Or...
Pay down, you know, the debt that you've already incurred.
Either way, you've got to not do something to get over that number.
The same is true with federal government.
We like to make this complicated, but it's really not complicated.
It's not like, you know, and I heard some people not like the analogy of the credit card, but the truism is either you quit spending money and stay below it, or you raise it and spend more You know, and just ignore it.
And the problem is, is just raising it means the only way you can really get there is to stop cold turkey spending money, which means people will not get paychecks.
Agencies will not be able to buy stuff.
And that's the only way you can do it.
Why?
Because we've already pre-spent this money.
We've already said in the appropriation process, we're already going to spend this X money at Department of Ed.
We're already going to spend this money at the Defense Department.
We're already going to spend this money in the legislative branch.
It's all there.
And looking at this, I need you to understand that this is not a simple solution.
And don't tell me it is.
If you tell me this is a simple solution, it tells me you're a simple-minded person who's not willing to deal in the complexity of what our federal budget is.
Now you can tell me, don't spend.
Okay, well, which department are you not going to spend money on?
Which place are you not going to spend money that has currently already been allocated, already been hired, already been promised, just like if you showed up at your neighborhood quick trip and you were working as an attendant behind the counter and the quick trip said, you know, we really need to cut our spending back because we're not going to borrow any more money to pay for payroll, so we're not going to pay you today.
But please work.
It ain't going to work.
Again, I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible to help you understand that there's not easy answers.
Now, can you get solutions out of a debt ceiling leverage?
Yes.
Okay, that can happen, but you've got to be understanding of what's actually going on.
The reality of what went on is the House, many of the conservative members and many people across social media and everywhere else were real quick to jump on the House bill that was passed a few months ago.
Which, by the way, I give McCarthy credit for to get that actually passed, to get enough people on there.
But when you, in this kind of environment, with this kind of stuff going on, when you're able to pass a bill like that and you pass it with only Republican votes, it means that the bill probably has no chance in its form to actually pass the Senate or pass a Democrat president.
And don't tell me, well, we'll just do it and then they'll force the debt and everybody will blame them.
No, they won't.
And that's been proven over and over again.
I have no idea why conservatives so many times rail against the mainstream media about not actually reporting and being shields for the liberals.
But yet when it comes to something like, oh, if we just hold out, the media will say it's the Democrats.
Boom!
It doesn't happen that way, folks.
So, you know, I don't care if you're a member of Congress or Joe sitting at the Waffle House.
That ain't the way it works.
You can't, I mean, and again, your own actions are the hypocrisy here.
You can't complain about a media that won't report things fairly and is shields for the Democrats and then all of a sudden think that they're going to turn and the American people are going to hear a different message that actually turns their attention to say, well, it's the Democrats that caused the problem.
They're not.
I'm a little frosty today about this, because I want to see us get back to understanding that the real issues that we have, and there are real issues, come in the appropriations process and how we spend money.
And yes, the previous administration, it went up a great deal because of COVID spending.
Trump administration added to the debt ceiling.
I'm not denying that.
I was part of those Congresses.
It happened, and the debt ceiling raised a great deal because of COVID. And because of the spending that went along there, which was unchecked and unbalanced spending.
It also went up under Obama.
Look, as long as you have a budget that is not balanced, the debt ceiling will increase that year.
If you have a budget that is balanced, the debt ceiling will, in essence, stay the same or not grow.
It'll just stay wherever the ceiling is at that point.
The only way you bring down a debt ceiling, and this is fact, not fiction, Is, in a budget plan, which, by the way, includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and then everything else you know about the federal government, defense and everything else, then you just simply have to sit back and say, okay, we're going to have, and I'll make this very simple, we've got a million dollars coming in this year, we're only going to spend $900,000, and that other $100,000 we're going to use to pay down the debt.
Only way it happens.
Only way it happens.
So quit telling me about your mechanical tricks and your 1% growth increases and everything else.
It's not happening until that happens.
The debt ceiling will have to be increased or you will have to make major changes to how you do your year-to-year budgeting.
Which brings me to another issue.
And there are things about this that I want to talk about.
Freezing funding at 22 level or a 23 level does not bring down the debt.
It only slows the increase of the debt.
Okay?
Let's get this out of the way now.
And you say, well, Doug, that's not true.
We're going backwards.
We've cut spending.
No, you haven't.
You've cut growth.
And look, I've been there, I've had these arguments, I've tried to have these arguments before, but let's just be frank about this.
You're not dealing with the debt long term if you're freezing spending.
Why?
Because the 22 budget was out of balance.
The 23 budget is out of balance.
How are you supposed to make progress on something in which you're inherently passing a document that is out of balance to the bad?
I know I sound a little, like I said, frosty a little bit this morning.
I'm a little bit exasperated because it's like we forget basic economics here.
I think it's one of the things right now that is sort of like for us older people, so to speak, and I say that with a tongue in cheek.
Balancing a checkbook was very good for most people because they realize here's how much is coming in, here's how much I've written out, and here's how much I've got left.
Well, most people don't even balance checkbooks anymore.
The younger generation might not even know what that looks like.
But it's important to know in Congress it's the same dynamic.
How much comes in determines how much you should spend.
It doesn't determine how much you actually spend.
Because Washington can borrow and print money.
Are you getting the picture now?
I mean, look, go and complain and don't like McCarthy because he cut this deal.
Don't like it because more Democrats voted for it than Republicans voted for it.
Whatever.
This is probably about the best they could get.
The reality is, if anybody out there seriously, legitimately thought that the bill that was passed in the House back in March was the bill that was going to get enforced in this, I'm sorry, you're living in fantasy land.
Is it a good model to shoot for?
Yes.
Yes.
Is it what some things that needed to happen?
Yes!
But to think that this was going to be passed as hell.
Now, if you had other conversations and some of the conservatives now, after they held up the legislation this week, and right now they're holding up everything because they're mad at McCarthy for supposedly reneging on side deals or unwritten deals, then that's a whole different issue.
And I think it gives the clear problem that I stated on this show a week or so ago that the real issues are going to come in the debt ceiling.
After the debt ceiling, they're going to come in the appropriations process and trying to pass all 12 appropriations bills.
You've got to get 218 Republicans to pass all 12 appropriations bills.
You may get a few Democrats.
You may not get a few Democrats, especially if you put it out as a Republican-led bill.
And it doesn't have the stuff that the Democrats want, which means you're going to have to have the 218, 217, whatever the number is for appropriations bills to be passed, which means that that is everybody except three people.
Four people if Chris Stewart still stays at that long.
So all of the folks who, you know, the 10 or 11, 12, 20, whatever it is that say, well, we got to have this or I'm not going to vote for this and I'm not going to fund this and I'm not going to fund that.
How do you get to 218?
Yeah, you don't.
And so, you know, at that point in time, I am not optimistic that you won't see some kind of a year-end spending bill still.
An omnibus, cronibus, however you want to put it.
Why?
Because I think they'll do their best at trying to pass all 12. Folks, there's a bill called Labor H, Labor and Health, and this is the one that is always controversial because it has funding in it for healthcare services.
Abortion is always tied up in this debate.
It's just a lot of things going on.
Republicans never passed that bill stand-alone.
Well, I was there.
I was eight years.
Never passed it stand-alone.
In fact, we would pass six or seven budget bills and we'd get to that and say, well, we can't pass that one.
We didn't have the votes.
And that's the only place that you're going to start actually dealing in bringing down the spending number.
And I know, I know, I know that we focus on these non-discretionary spending, which is only about 15-16% of the total budget.
Remember, Congress doesn't even vote on almost 80-something percent of the spending that goes out the door in Washington, D.C. because we don't want to talk about Social Security.
You know, I'll use the Joe Biden, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.
We just don't want to have the honest conversation about it.
We've got to quit worrying about scaring people to death.
Republicans can't worry about Republicans being cast in ads where they're pushing granny off the cliff.
And Democrats have got to realize that you just can't continue down a socialized medicine path or a socialized path in which government takes care of everything.
And it was based on a system in which people paid in to take care of those who are already getting out, and you don't have enough people coming in to take care of it anymore.
So, look, I get it politically.
It's really good to make sound by saying, oh, we're not going to do anything about that, but fine, then do not say a word about the debt ceiling.
Do not say a word about an unbalanced budget.
Don't.
What else is in the bill?
And again, let me go back to some of these caps and stuff.
This is 1% spending cut across the board.
Be very careful of that, folks.
This is so much like sequestration, which happened in 2011, 2012. When I came in, they introduced sequestration.
We did have cuts in the budget.
The budget was actually going down.
We still were not a balance, but it was going down.
Why?
Because we were forced spending cuts because we couldn't come up with bills.
And because of the cut that was mandated by sequestration legislation, But by 2017, when Donald Trump came in, we were looking at F-18s in the Navy that over a third to half of their fleet could not fly.
Why?
Because when you take 1% across the board, that means Department of Defense takes a 1% total cut.
Everything else in government can spread that out over 1%, which means that most departments don't really see much of a difference.
You can't tell me that the Department of Defense Manning is not a higher priority than a Department of Energy or Department of Education, especially, or some of the Commerce or others where they're doing promotional programs.
But that's what happens.
Other things in this deal that, look, are not bad.
I mean, work requirements.
Why are we even having a discussion on work requirements?
This is the dumbest thing I've ever had in my life.
If you're going to get food stamps or you're going to get assistance, temporary assistance for needy families, these kind of emergency tasks, and you're not working and you're able-bodied, you ought to be able to You have to apply for jobs.
You have to actually go out and find jobs and not simply depend on the government sending you a check or money.
And I know there's a lot of discussion here and there's a double taxation issue.
Get into it, but at the end of the day, nobody understands.
Unfortunately, it pits people who actually need the temporary help, who need that kind of help, makes them look bad, especially for those who are actually using the system as it should, is to get them by so that they can then go out and find a job and get back on their feet.
Again, don't fall for this right now in what we're seeing happen, but people ought to be able to work.
So they raised it from 49 to 54 for people without children who are able-bodied to be able to complete work for food stamps.
But here's the interesting thing.
The expanded limits will sunset in 2030. They couldn't even put these in permanently.
2030, these days go away.
Again.
They did do some exemptions for homeless and veterans.
Again, just not an issue.
They did get an energy permit.
I thought this was really funny because Senator Joe Manchin, who had wanted this fast-track approval on an energy product in West Virginia, they got it in.
The Republicans got it into the deal and sort of cut Manchin out of it.
I think there's still a fallout from last year's bill back Manchin or the Inflation Reduction Act, which had nothing to do with inflation, in which he was trying to get this and he got played and It didn't come in.
Now the permitting is going to take place.
Manchin is not able to take as much credit for it.
But really, in the bigger picture, besides that one issue, it doesn't cut into the permitting procedures all that much.
It's process efficiencies in decade.
Again, you're just taking a lead agency and putting them in designated.
You're not really slowing down.
You know, speeding this stuff up.
So at the end of the day, I don't think you're going to see a great deal come from this.
And by the way, all of the clean energy, the funding and everything from the Inflation Reduction Act is still applicable.
So we didn't get any of that.
We did clawback.
The Republicans were able to get clawbacks from the COVID. Don't know why we didn't do this before.
COVID clawbacks are simply money that was not spent in states.
Take it back.
If the states haven't spent it in three years and the COVID pandemic has been over for at least a year, and most people's minds have been over the net for most of us for a lot longer than that.
But, I mean, if you're not able to spend the money, then, you know, it comes back.
And I think that was something.
You know, that needed to happen because actually what was happening, they were starting to use the money for other things.
It was that, you know, largesse of money that was sent to the states.
Now they're using it for other things.
If you want to take it back, take it back.
The IRS cut, I heard so many Republicans talking about, you know, cutting out the...
You know, spending for the IRS agents and the expanded IRS agents, they only cut back a little bit of that.
There's still 80 billion there for that as we go forward.
But as you look, the student loans, by the way, they're not able to freeze those anymore.
But the Biden student loan program, which is up before the Supreme Court right now, is still intact.
So you got to hope that the Supreme Court will actually rule that, you know, a president can't just do that.
The big issue, though, and I want to go back before I wrap this up, I don't want this to be long.
I don't want it to be, you know, drug out and going into the back and forth.
I think I've made my point here.
But the spending caps issue, if they don't pass all 12 appropriations bills, how they work that, and then also the...
Really, the discussions being had by Senate Republicans and Democrats and some in the House as well to do a supplemental, which is outside the regular budget process to fund defense in Ukraine and other things, is going to cause a lot of problems.
Folks, if you thought this was sort of a bumpy ride in the end, I don't think it actually was.
I think this was what McCarthy, McHenry, and Graves sort of envisioned was going to happen here.
They got what they envisioned.
I think they had hoped that they could have a little more Republican buy-in, but they didn't.
But they got more than most would have ever thought they'd get.
I mean, Boehner and Ryan would have died for these kind of numbers that he got on this deal.
So we'll just see how it all pans out.
But I wanted you just to understand, you know, basically don't get all bunged up about this deal, especially if you're a conservative.
I mean, is it a bad deal?
Yeah.
I mean, is it something that you would want?
Yeah, but explain it.
It's like sitting in a room with three people and you're two against one, and the majority wins.
You've got to have votes.
And if you don't have the votes, you get the best you can get out of it.
I think that's what the Republican leadership thought they were doing.
I think they oversold this when they said, oh, we're going to stand firm and get everything we got in the March bill when we could pass it with only our votes.
By the way, that bill never got signed.
It never passed the Senate.
It was a stark reminder there for you.
The bill that passed the House back in March never, ever became law.
If it did, we wouldn't have had some of these discussions.
So don't tell me you're now going to get it in and leverage it into a debt ceiling discussion.
Same problems that happened in March, same problems that happened in May.
I know I'm a little pessimistic here, but this is something that's got to be fixed in D.C. I was asked the other day on a radio interview, if there was one thing I could go back and do and fix, or if it was the only thing I could do, if I could fix it and be gone again, what would be the appropriations process?
The way we spend money in this country is just an abysmal wreck of how we should be looking at it from, I think, a conservative standpoint and a consumer standpoint.
So, folks, that is your update.
I promised you an update on the, not a long update, but got an update on the budget deal, what all went on.
But remember, the real eyes you need to turn your attention to.
I mean, there'll be a lot of hearings this summer.
You're going to hear, you know, with Ray and the impeachment talk and all this.
The thing that affects your pocketbook the most is the spending.
Watch that.
That'll be coming up here in the next two months with appropriations bills all the way into September.
September 30th is the deadline.
We'll see what it looks like then.
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