Dave Smith dismantles President Biden's State of the Union, mocking claims that inflation is down and ridiculing the assertion that oil will suffice for only a decade. He exposes contradictions in Biden's praise of police while highlighting racial disparities, arguing that focusing on junk fees distracts from root causes like excessive spending and lockdowns. Smith further refutes the idea that Social Security is an earned benefit, labeling it a bankrupt Ponzi scheme funded by war debts. Ultimately, the critique posits that government overreach, not market failures, drives economic hardship, rendering Biden's promises to the wealthy irrelevant for working-class survival. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
A Libertarian Response to the State of the Union00:15:19
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am just getting home from Los Angeles.
Thanks to everybody who came out to the comedy store the other night.
We had a great time, great show with Luis J. Gomez and Big Jay Okerson at the comedy store and recorded a bunch of podcasts with Burt Kreischer.
Fun time out in LA.
And of course, this next weekend, I will be out in Dallas, Texas with Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
The following weekend, we'll be out in Detroit.
So yeah, go to comicdave Smith.com and find those ticket links if you want to come see us.
All right.
So the State of the Union, which is a constitutionally required address by the president to talk to us, you know, plebs, was fulfilled the other night by one Joe Biden.
This will be a libertarian response to the state of the union.
It really was something.
I'm sure a lot of you out there have watched the speech.
If you haven't, we'll try our best to catch you up on this during this next episode.
Robbie the Fire Bernstein, obviously, as you can tell, is not here for this episode.
He's out doing some comedy shows.
So I'll try to handle this on my own.
How do I start this?
What is the libertarian response to the state of the union?
Well, first, I would say congratulations to Joe Biden on completing it.
That's about where the standard is for Joe Biden.
He did it, sure, at times.
He stumbled through it like a drunk person with dentures slipping out of his mouth and had a few Joe Biden moments, but he did get through the speech.
They have figured out whatever the cocktail of Adderall and whatever they need to give him is to get him through an hour and a half speech.
So he did it.
Congratulations.
That's always, whenever Joe Biden gives a speech, you almost feel the need to congratulate him for finishing it.
So he did that.
He did not collapse into himself and ruin everything in this moment.
So there you go.
It was pretty weird.
It was pretty weird to watch this state of the union.
I guess perhaps I'm skewed by my perspective, as all of us are, but it was something to see in the beginning of 2023 to see the president of the United States of America give a state of the union address and ignore the elephant in the room the entire time.
Joe Biden almost gave a state of the union address that you felt like could have been given in 2019 or 2018 or 2017 or 2014 or 1996, you know?
Yeah, the state of the union is strong.
We need more investment.
The rich need to pay their fair share.
We need better education.
Just kind of the typical things that you would imagine a president would say at a state of the union address.
And the elephant in the room is what we all know, that the last three years have been the craziest years in the history of the United States of America, or at least in modern American history, certainly in my lifetime, that we went through this crazy time.
We went through the COVID restrictions, the lockdowns, the mandates, the riots, the vaccine passports, all of this, that we're dealing with inflation in a way that we've never really felt it before, that we're on the precipice of nuclear war with Russia, that we're engaged in a proxy war with the country who has the largest nuclear arsenal in the history of the world,
that we also just shot down a Chinese balloon and Nancy Pelosi was over there in Taiwan, and that Joe Biden has announced that we would defend Taiwan militarily.
So we're kind of like provoking the two biggest nuclear powers in the world.
You would think if you were even pretending to give an honest state of the union, it would start with like, look, I know.
I know that we are in a new crazy time, but here's why I think everything is okay, or here's why everything is not okay, whatever.
But that wasn't it at all.
It was just like, hey, we're, you know, we're going to invest more in teachers and we're going to make sure the billionaires pay their fair share in taxes and protect LGBTQ kids.
And so it's just very bizarre.
It's very bizarre to watch the disconnect between what's really going on, the crises that are facing the American people that almost every American citizen knows about and what Joe Biden was talking about on stage.
There were several things that were very strange about the event.
It was interesting that they're not wearing masks anymore.
No one exactly explains why.
Joe Biden did announce that COVID was about to be over, but doesn't exactly explain why.
I shouldn't say none of them were wearing masks.
I think Bernie Sanders had a sweet N95 on.
I don't know why.
I think he was the only one.
I think he was the only one I saw in the crowd with a mask on and not just one of those cloth masks, a real nice fitted mask for Bernie Sanders.
But I guess he had one.
No one else did.
People are so not concerned with masks anymore that I think was it?
Jill Biden and Kamala Harris's husband gave each other a nice kiss on the lips at one point.
It's just interesting that this was just a couple years ago where everyone was supposed to wear a mask, but they're not doing that anymore.
And they don't have to tell you why they're not doing that anymore.
Anyway, the speech starts off with Joe Biden getting through it, talking about how great things are.
It's very removed from reality.
If you're a person existing in the United States of America today, he's bragging about what a great job his administration has done, how things are so much better now than they were.
I don't know too many people who just live in this country who would agree with him.
How many of them would say, yes, it's so great.
We're in such a great position.
It's so great that the unemployment rate is down.
We're bragging about how the unemployment rate is down when we start with after the government kicked tens of millions of people out of work and measure from there to now.
We're doing better.
Oh, even inflation is coming down.
Now, when they say inflation is coming down, they don't mean like what a normal person might think you mean when you say inflation is coming down.
So let's say, you know, prices, which is what they're talking about, prices spiked 10%, but now they've come down 12%.
So inflation is down.
That's not what they mean.
They don't mean that.
They don't mean that prices are lower than when they started.
They mean that prices spiked 10% for a year.
And then the next year, they only spiked 8%.
So, hey, inflation is down.
That's literally what they're talking about.
But does anyone think that what you're paying for at the grocery store is cheaper than what you were paying for three, four years ago?
Of course not.
So anyway, it was a lot of nonsense.
It was a very weird speech.
It's very weird to watch Joe Biden as the guy.
It's hard to watch him and not think to yourself, there's no one better we could have found than this guy to give the speech for the state of the union.
Anyway, the speech went on for, I want to say a little bit more than a half hour before it became lively.
And all of a sudden, he started getting heckled and he started working up the crowd.
And that's when things got a little bit interesting.
It was very different for that little stretch than other state of the unions that I've seen before.
So we're going to play some clips of this and respond to it.
Let's start, not even clips.
We're just going to play it for a little bit.
Let's start in the middle of the speech where things start getting interesting and we'll respond.
We're still going to need oil and gas for a while.
But guess what?
No, we do.
But there's so much more to do.
We got to finish the job.
We pay for these investments for our future by finally making the wealthiest and biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share.
Just begin.
If you could pause it even right there, this is the type of thing that you're hearing a lot so far in the speech is that the, you know, the wealthiest have to pay their fair share.
That's a common theme throughout this speech.
The wealthiest have to begin to pay their fair share.
But of course, this is it's not just like, oh, this is a theme in the Biden administration.
This was actually a theme in the Trump administration as well.
It certainly was a theme in the Obama administration.
Really, it's been a theme since the Woodrow Wilson administration, that that was the whole purpose of the creation of the income tax, that the wealthy were going to pay their fair share.
And that's just what we need.
Finally, if we get the wealthy to pay their fair share, whatever their fair share means, then finally things will be okay.
That's the real issue that we need, that we have to deal with right now in the United States of America.
Not that we like totally screwed up by shutting down the economy and deeming tens of millions of American workers non-essential.
Not that we defended the riots that tore apart every major American city in this country.
Not that we fired millions of people for not getting the vaccine, even though we found out the vaccine didn't do anything that we said it would do.
None of that.
Not that we've destroyed the currency and now prices are out of control.
It's just that wealthy people got to kick in more.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear.
Sheath Underwear is the most comfortable, high-quality underwear I've ever owned in my life.
If you're sick of boxers that are too loose or briefs that are too tight, go check out Sheath Underwear, the most comfortable boxer briefs you will ever own.
Sheath has been advertising on this podcast for over three years now, and I just realized I still have my original pair of Sheath underwear.
This is the most high-quality boxer briefs you will ever own.
I'll tell you, I got a few pairs of them.
I loved them, and I got rid of everything else I have.
And now all I wear is sheath underwear.
If somehow you haven't heard of sheathunderwear.com, you haven't been listening to this show carefully enough, go check it out.
They're a loyal sponsor of part of the problem, and they are the most comfortable boxer briefs you will ever wear in your life.
So go check them out, sheathunderwear.com.
They also have a lot of stuff other than just their great boxer briefs.
They have hoodies and base layers and gator necks, t-shirts, a whole bunch of stuff.
Go check them out, sheathunderwear.com and use the promo code problem20.
That'll get you 20% off your entire order.
That's problem20 at sheathunderwear.com for 20% off the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you will ever own.
Sheathunderwear.com, promo code problem20 for 20% off.
All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
Look, I'm a capitalist.
I'm a capitalist, but pay your fair share.
I think a lot of you at home, a lot of you at home agree with me and many people that you know, the tax system is not fair.
It is not fair.
Well, okay, let's pause there.
It's interesting to hear Joe Biden say that he's a capitalist, but I'm sure many people at home agree that the tax system is not fair.
I would certainly agree that the tax system is not fair.
And I think that a lot of people who probably are listening to this podcast or who were listening to Joe Biden agree the tax system is not fair.
But what's not fair about it?
What's not fair is probably that so much of your money is stolen by the federal government, that you pay such a huge percentage.
And even this, this is the thing that they never want to deal with is that even if you're saying, hey, there's these really rich people who don't pay that much in federal income tax, okay.
But what, why?
Like, what's not fair about that?
Well, what's not fair about that inherently is that you pay so much that you are destroyed.
And look, for even like working class people who aren't making a lot of money, for the vast majority of them in the United States of America, their number one expense is their federal income taxes.
So if you want to make it fairer, there's a very easy way to do that, which is like drastically reduce the taxes on working class people and middle class and upper middle class people for that matter.
Why Taxes Feel Like a Destroying Force00:14:31
God damn, taxes I pay are insane.
The idea that in 2020, 55 of the largest corporations in America, the Fortune 500, made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal taxes.
Zero?
Folks, simply not fair.
But now, because of the law I signed, billion-dollar companies have to pay a minimum of 15%.
God love them.
15%.
That's right.
All right, let's pause it there.
Can you imagine the president of the United States talking about how in 2020, there are 55 of the largest corporations in the world that made these huge profits, but didn't have to pay their fair share, whatever that means in taxes?
You know, what happened in 2020 was that the mid-sized and small businesses were shut down by the government.
They were forced to stop doing business.
And then as if that wasn't enough of an advantage for the big businesses, they also just sent hundreds of billions of dollars in handouts to big business.
They had multi-trillion dollar spending bills from this body that Joe Biden is addressing.
They sent trillions of dollars in, you know, handouts, the vast majority of which went into the hands of big business.
So yeah, 2020 was not fair, but it has nothing to do with the tax code.
The problem isn't that we weren't like when we were giving these big businesses money, we weren't taking enough of it back.
The problem is we shouldn't have been giving them the money to begin with.
It's so obvious.
Let me be crystal clear.
I said at the very beginning, under my plans, as long as I'm president, nobody earning less than $400,000 will pay an additional penny in taxes.
Nobody, not one penny.
Okay, we can pause it again here.
I'm sorry.
I'll try to like let this play a little bit more without stopping it every few seconds.
But it is interesting to see when he breaks into like the economics portion of this speech.
It's interesting to like kind of understand what he's saying.
So even Joe Biden saying that nobody who makes $400,000 a year or under will pay an additional penny of income tax is somewhat of an interesting admission.
So I don't know, you know, maybe I'm a little bit older than some of my audience, but I don't know if you guys remember that $400,000 is a much higher number than the number they used to use to make the same point.
So Barack Obama, for example, used to always brag that nobody making under $250,000 a year would pay an additional penny in income tax.
Now, he was lying.
They did.
He raised the payroll tax.
He raised the tax with Obamacare, which the Supreme Court at least officially deemed a tax.
He was saying it's not a tax.
And then it was challenged as unconstitutional.
And the way the Supreme Court found it constitutional was saying it is a tax.
And there were other examples as well.
So taxes did go up.
But the point I'm making is that Barack Obama used to say, no one making under $250,000 a year will see their taxes increased.
And he was very specific.
He said, not their payroll tax, not their, you know, no tax.
But now Biden is saying $400,000.
Well, why is that?
Well, the reason is because making $400,000 now is basically the equivalent of making $250,000 back in 2009.
That's the reason.
So you could say, oh, you're not going to see your taxes go up.
And much like Barack Obama, he's probably lying and you will see some form of your taxes go up.
But what difference does that even make if the value of the dollar is completely diminished?
You know, if you like my grandfather making like $15,000 a year was probably making more than the average person making $200,000 a year today because he could make $15,000 a year and buy a house, buy two cars, send two kids to college, all of this stuff.
So it's, you know, the nominal amount of money that you make isn't really what's important.
What's important is the purchasing power.
So yeah, he can say that your taxes aren't going up, but if the currency is being destroyed, then what does it really matter?
It really doesn't mean anything.
And so that's what Americans, I think, are figuring out right now more and more than ever before is that, yeah, okay, 400,000.
But what if they print so much money that in a couple of years, 400,000 is only worth what $100,000 was worth a few years ago?
Well, does it matter that your taxes didn't go up?
Because essentially you've been taxed.
If the CPI, even just to use that shitty metric, but if the CPI goes up 13%, forget the CPI.
Let's say the price of the things you need go up 15%.
The price of your housing and your electricity and heating and your water and your food and gas and all of this stuff, if it all goes up 15% next year, but you don't get a pay decrease, does that really mean you didn't get a pay decrease?
Well, of course not.
You essentially did because all of your bills are higher than they were before.
So you might be making the same amount of money, but it costs you way more to live than it cost you before.
So you've been demoted.
Whether you think you have or you haven't, that's the reality is you have.
We have to reward work, not just wealth.
Pass my proposal for the billionaire minimum tax.
You know, there's a thousand billionaires in America.
It's up from about 600 in the beginning of the term.
But no billionaire should be paying a lower tax rate than a school teacher or firefighter.
I mean it.
Think about it.
All right, let's pause it again.
God damn, it's just too hard to keep going without breaking this down.
So first off, I also should have said when Joe Biden complains about like the tax code and how unfair the tax code is, Joe Biden has been in the Senate since the early 70s.
Like he was in, I don't remember, 72, 73, something like that.
Joe Biden came in.
And he was in the Senate the entire time until he was Barack Obama's vice president.
And now, of course, he's the president.
To complain about the tax code and how unfair it is, there are few people you could look around that room to who have more culpability, like who are more responsible for the current state of the tax code than Joe Biden.
I understand he was only one member of the Senate, but still, I mean, come on.
You've been there forever.
Have you been railing about how unfair this is the whole time?
Like what, what do you want to say?
Now, again, if he's going to say there are billionaires who pay lower tax rates than secretaries, fine.
I mean, it depends on how you're measuring that.
Like, are you measuring that on their income?
They're paying less, or is it just that they don't really take income and they invest all their money and stuff like that?
But fine.
Maybe they I'll agree with that.
They shouldn't pay a lower rate than their secretaries.
Fine.
But what's the way to even that out?
Is it to necessarily to raise billionaires tax rates?
Or would a much better way be to drastically cut the rate of their secretary?
Because either one of those solves the problem.
You know, if you're like saying that the problem is that these very wealthy people are only paying whatever, 10%, which isn't even true, but let's just say they're only paying 10%.
And then this very poor person has to pay 30%.
If you really want to help that poor person, the quickest and most effective way to help them is to reduce their rates way lower.
Because what like again, and this comes up over and over in this speech, but let's just say you're, let's say for the, like hypothetically, you're, you know, a worker who makes $40,000 a year and the government takes 25% of what you make.
So you make $40,000 a year, but you only go home with $30,000 a year.
And they're like, don't worry, we're going to make that better because we're going to tax a billionaire at 50%.
So we'll take 50% of his money.
It's like, okay, but what does that actually do for that poor person?
What does that actually do for that worker?
Well, it means the government gets more money, but what do they spend that on?
Do they spend that on weapons for Ukraine or locking up, you know, drug cartels or, you know, whatever, whatever other dumb thing they waste the money on, shooting down Chinese balloons or something?
Okay, but how did that actually help that worker?
However, if I were to go to that worker who makes $40,000 a year and only takes home 30 and go, hey, now you're going to take home $38,000 a year instead of 30.
That directly helps that person.
So if we really care, if what we're motivated by is helping that working person, then what we'd want to do is lower their rates, not raise somebody else's rates.
Okay, let's keep playing.
I know you aren't enthusiastic about that, but think about it.
Think about it.
Have you noticed big oil just reported his profits, record profits?
Last year they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis.
I think it's outrageous.
Why?
They invested too little of that profit, increased domestic production.
And when I talked to a couple of them, they say, we're afraid you're going to shut down all the oil wells, all the oil refineries anyway.
So why should we invest in them?
I said, we're going to need oil for at least another decade.
And that's going to exceed.
Let's pause it for a second.
It was pretty funny.
I got to say, this was one of the moments.
Like, this is probably one of my favorite moments in a state of the union that I've ever seen.
That I thought that was genuinely an organic laugh that just came out of the crowd was when he said that we're going to need oil for at least another 10 years.
And they all started laughing.
I think that was real.
It's impressive to get a real moment out of the blood-soaked monsters in the Congress.
So Joe Biden makes the point that oil companies have been, they've been making big profits and they've been reinvesting in these profits, but they haven't been investing in domestic oil production.
And first I thought he was just going to make that point, but then he actually does try to address the counterpoint.
He goes, you know, I've spoken to some of these people and they say their issue is that you're, well, you're not going to, you're, you're going to shut down oil production soon.
So why should we invest in domestic oil production when you're out here saying you're going to shut it down?
And his message to them is, well, we're going to need it for at least another 10 years.
And then of course people start laughing because the idea that we'll only need oil for another 10 years is absurd.
Like, I mean, maybe, maybe that's true, but like it's ridiculous to say when you don't have the substitute for that.
It's also ridiculous to say that you want someone to invest.
When you're talking about oil companies investing in domestic production of oil, you're talking about them spending at least tens of billions of dollars in investments in infrastructure for domestic production.
And most people, I don't know how many, like if you've ever been around someone who's even building like a small business, but if you're saying to someone, well, you'll be around for at least the next 10 years, that's going to drastically change how much they're willing to invest.
And if you're talking about an investment of tens of billions of dollars and you say, okay, you have a few years to make that money back.
That's going to make a lot of people go, yeah, I don't want to invest tens of billions of dollars into that.
I don't want to invest tens of billions of dollars into something that I think is going to be shut down in a few years.
I mean, you say 10 years now, maybe that turns into five years.
Maybe I invest tens of billions of dollars and it's going to take me seven, eight years before I start turning a profit on that investment.
And then I got to just wait and see whether you really meant it, whether you really meant 10 years.
And by the way, Joe Biden in 10 years probably won't be alive.
Certainly won't be in power.
So what does it mean that he says 10 years?
It's just so absurd.
Crowdfunding Health Care Costs with Bitcoin00:03:35
You're like, you just answered your own question.
That's why, like, think this through logically.
If you're saying that these oil companies should invest in domestic oil production and that that will make them a lot of money, why wouldn't they want to do that?
Obviously, their goal is to make a lot of money.
Why wouldn't they do that then?
Because they're concerned that you and your party are going to shut them down.
And if you're going to do that, what is their incentive for investing in that?
What is their incentive in doing that?
Like imagine if someone told you, like, if I, if I were to say, like, I got this house that I really love and I'm going to, I'm going to build an addition onto it.
I'm going to invest my money into building an addition onto my house because I really want to have like this extra space.
And they go, okay, we're going to take it from you in two years.
We're going to seize your house and it's going to be our house in two years.
Would I still build that addition onto the house?
Probably not.
Because at this point, I'm just building it for you.
And then if you go, what do you mean?
You still have two years to enjoy this house.
You go, yeah, but I'd rather just enjoy the money I have right now than spend my money and my time and hiring workers and all of this to build this whole thing.
Well, I'm just building it for you.
It's not even for me.
I'm just building it for you.
So that's what is happening here.
You just admitted that you're disincentivizing them from building this, and that's why everyone's laughing at you.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth.
With CrowdHealth, you put aside money for health expenses in your own account.
You can even hold part of it in Bitcoin.
So, if Bitcoin goes up, you get the upside.
Let's be honest: the insurance model is broken.
CrowdHealth has a better way to fund your health care costs.
See any doctor you want, no deductibles, exclusions, or co-pays.
Only pay the first $500 of any healthcare event.
The crowd health community takes care of the rest.
No exclusive doctor networks, no huge premiums or high deductibles, no surprises.
CrowdHealth puts the community back in community health care.
Pay one low monthly total to fund your account.
You can hold up to 75% of that in Bitcoin if you want.
Your monthly subscriptions help you fund crowd health costs of the entire crowd health community.
And unlike insurance, there's no doctor network so you can see any doctor you want.
It's simple.
By totally revising the vicious incentives that got us into this mess in the first place, CrowdHealth provides true peace of mind, something insurance companies don't seem to care about.
And unlike insurance companies, CrowdHealth helps you find great care at a fair price, always pays doctors as quickly as possible, and actively negotiates to keep your costs down for everyone.
You got to go check out CrowdHealth.
Take charge of your health care today.
For a limited time right now, you can join for just $99 a month for your first six months when you go to joincrowdhealth.com/slash P-O-T-P.
Go check this out right now.
Joincrowdhealth.com/slash P-O-T-P.
CrowdHealth is not insurance.
It's a totally different way of paying for healthcare.
Terms and conditions may apply.
Joincrowdhealth.com/slash P-O-T-P.
Fixing Deficits by Revising Vicious Incentives00:09:07
All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
If they had, in fact, invested in the production to keep gas prices down, instead, they use the record profits to buy back their own stock, rewarding the CEOs and shareholders.
Corporations ought to do the right thing.
That's why I propose we quadruple the tax on corporate stock buybacks and encourage long, long-term investments.
They'll still make considerable profit.
Let's finish the job and close the loopholes and allow very wealthy to avoid paying their taxes.
Instead of cutting the number of audits for wealthy taxpayers, I just signed a law to reduce the deficit by $114 billion by cracking down on wealthy tax cheats.
That's being fit for the last two years.
My administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion.
The largest deficit reduction in American history.
Under the previous administration, the American deficit went up four years in a row.
Because those record deficits, no president added more to the national debt in any four years than my predecessor.
Nearly 25% of the entire national debt that took over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone.
The last one.
They're the facts.
Check it out.
Check it out.
How did Congress respond to that debt?
They did the right thing.
They lifted the debt ceiling three times without preconditions or crisis.
They paid American bills to prevent an economic disaster in the country.
So tonight, I'm asking the Congress to follow suit.
Let's commit here tonight to the full faith and credit of the United States of America will never ever be questioned.
So some of my Republican friends want to take the economy hostage.
I get it.
Unless I agree to their economic plans.
All you at home should know what those plans are.
Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset.
I'm not saying it's the majority of them.
Okay, let's pause it.
Let's pause it here because that was an interesting little thing that he had to say.
He blames Donald Trump for blowing up the national debt, which is not completely unfair.
The ridiculous part is him bragging about bringing it down, still having deficits that are higher than any previous president before Donald Trump, but saying, hey, look how high Donald Trump's deficits were and then measuring against the difference.
That's all stupid.
But there's something very interesting about him acknowledging that it's wrong.
At least he seems to be right implicitly acknowledging that it's wrong to have the deficits so high.
And it's a point of a point of pride that they've been brought down.
So even Joe Biden seems to be acknowledging that it's better that we don't have huge deficits.
That's better.
There's really no way to understand the point he's making without accepting that it is preferable to have smaller deficits than larger deficits.
And even though he's using some fuzzy math to get to that point, okay, let's grant him that point.
That's better.
It's better to have smaller deficits as opposed to larger deficits.
But if that's the case, then why is it a given that we should raise the debt limit?
Why is it a given that we should always just accept that we can raise the amount of total debt that we have?
Because those two things don't jive together very well.
You know, if you're going to say that it was really horrible that my predecessor drove the debt up so much, and it's such a great thing that we're bringing it down, then okay, then wouldn't it be even better if we brought it even down more?
Why would it be preferable to raise the debt limit every time we oppose it?
He goes, look, it was so horrible that my predecessor drove the debt through the roof.
And you know what happened under him?
They raised the debt ceiling every single time.
So let's do that again.
That's where things don't make sense.
All right, let's keep playing.
Anybody who doubts it, contact my office.
I'll give you a copy.
I'll give you a copy of the proposal.
That means Congress doesn't.
All right, let's pause it again.
I'm sorry.
I should have addressed something else because what he said that seemed to get them so upset was that he said that the Republicans were interested in limiting Social Security and Medicare.
And the Republicans seem to act outraged about this, that's not true at all or something.
You know, they're probably right.
It's probably true that the Republicans don't actually give a shit about limiting Medicare or Social Security.
But here's the thing.
They should.
They really should.
And some of them should have the courage to stand up and just say this and just admit the truth.
And none of them do.
And probably because none of them actually care about Social Security or Medicare or the future of these programs.
And they're just interested in continuing what they are, which is vote buying schemes.
But here's the reality.
Social Security and Medicare are bankrupt and they are both Ponzi schemes in essence.
And they're Ponzi schemes in the sense that they're these programs that have been paid into for many years.
The money has been spent and the only way that they can pay out current recipients is to collect new investors.
And the investors aren't really investors.
They're kind of forced to invest.
But that's the deal.
You know, I understand where there's lots of, there's lots of people who are, let's say you're somebody in your late 60s and you're collecting social security.
And you go, well, look, I've been paying into social to social security my entire life.
And so I'm entitled to collect it now.
I understand that.
And I understand why it's very unpopular amongst that demographic for someone to come along and say, you know, we're going to cut social security.
Okay, I get that.
And that's, that makes sense.
I understand where they're coming from.
They go, I paid into this and I want to collect it now.
But the reality of the situation, like the factual reality is that what you paid into your whole life was spent and wasted on nonsense and none of it's there anymore.
And what you're getting paid out with is what some 25 year old today is paying into Social Security from their paycheck.
That's what's paying you out.
That's the factual reality of the situation.
And so it's not as if you're like, what's happening is that some 25 year old is paying some 70 year old welfare.
And the 25 year old is way poorer on average than the 70 year old is.
So that's the reality of what's happening.
And the same with Medicare.
Your money, the money was spent.
It was wasted.
Look, we're 30 plus trillion dollars in debt.
We don't have any of what you paid into anything.
It's all been spent.
And what was it spent on?
Well, mostly really dumb shit.
Mostly, you know, bombing Iraq, you know, blowing up a bridge to build a bridge again.
That's mostly what it was paid into.
And so you can sit there and say, hey, I paid in and I deserve this money.
But the reality is that you paid in and your money's gone.
And now you're robbing someone.
You're robbing your grandchildren's generation of the money that you want to get paid out.
So the truth is, if you want to really think about, if you look, listen, for someone who's 70 years old who's collecting Social Security or Medicare, if you want to look yourself in the mirror and go, fine, this is what I'm doing.
I believe that I want my grandchildren to be forced to pay for my medical care and my retirement, then okay, fine.
Forcing Grandchildren to Pay for Our Retirement00:03:11
At least just say that.
At least just face the reality of the situation.
This is what the libertarian response to this nonsense should be.
If you want to say that, fine.
But at least I insist you acknowledge the reality of it.
Acknowledge the reality.
The reality is not, I paid into this thing my whole life and it's my money.
Nope.
You paid into bullshit your whole life and your money was wasted.
And now, because your money was wasted, you're demanding someone else, your grandchildren's generation, be robbed from in order to pay you because the money you paid in was wasted by criminals.
If you're okay with that, fine, but at least acknowledge what you're really saying because that would, I know for me at least, I don't have grandchildren, but I got little children.
I know that would make it a whole different thing for me.
You know, if I was saying, hey, this is my money, I want my money, I could understand feeling that way.
But if I recognized that I was like, hey, I put my money into something and it was wasted by criminals and now I'm demanding my kids pay for it, that would change things for me.
That would change things for me where I'd go, yeah, I don't, okay, I can't demand that anymore.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Grove Collaborative.
Grove creates and curates everything you need for a sustainable home.
Their aim is to make living a healthy lifestyle easy and accessible for you and your family.
They're on a mission to make household products a force for good.
Their Grove co-products from concentrated cleaners to laundry detergents to hand soap are crafted with the highest standards for efficacy, sustainability, and peace of mind.
Today, Grove carries over 360 plastic-free products and has many more on the way.
By 2025, everything Grove makes and sells will be 100% plastic-free.
Every product at Grove.com is guaranteed to be healthy, effective, eco-friendly, and affordable.
Shop with confidence, knowing everything you buy from Grove is good for you, your family, your home, and the planet.
With every first Grove order, they'll set you up with a free 60-day VIP trial, which includes unlimited free shipping, seasonal gifts, and early access to exclusive sales.
Let me tell you, check out this company.
Grove is incredible.
As someone who has two little kids, it's more and more important to me that everything I bring into my home is safe and not going to be anything toxic for my family.
Go check them out right now.
Grove Collaborative is an incredible company.
They're really trying to make a difference, make your household healthier, make the world healthier.
Go to Grove.com slash POTP today to get a free starter set worth up to $50 with your first offer.
Plus, shipping is fast and free.
Get started right now at Grove.com/slash P-O-T-P.
That's Grove.com slash P-O-T-P.
Cutting Junk Fees and Wasting War Money00:10:21
All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
Well, I'm glad to see you.
I tell you, I enjoy conversion.
You know, it means if Congress doesn't keep the programs the way they are, they'd go away.
Other Republicans say, I'm not saying it's the majority of you.
I don't even think it's even a significant, but it's being proposed by individuals.
I'm not politely not naming them, but it's being proposed by some of you.
Look, folks, the idea is that we're not going to be moved into being threatened to default on the debt if we don't respond.
Folks.
So, folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right?
All right.
I'm ready.
We got unanimity.
Social Security and Medicare are lifeline for millions of seniors.
Americans have to pay into them from the very first paycheck they started.
So tonight, let's all agree.
And we apparently are.
Let's stand up for seniors.
Yep.
And well, we can pause it there.
And of course, and Kevin McCarthy and all of them stand up for seniors.
And I guess that's nice.
I mean, I'm all for standing up for seniors, but like, will anyone ever stand up for the young people?
Anyone, when we talk about Social Security and Medicare, will anyone stand up for the young people who are actually footing the bill?
You know, I know seniors want to get their benefits.
I understand that.
And, you know, I'm not against seniors getting their, you know, their money and getting their health care and their living costs paid for.
But if we're just talking about objective reality, who's paying for it are the young people who are working right now.
Like some young kid, some 20-year-old who's working at Starbucks, who has $100,000 in student debt, is getting Social Security and Medicare taken out of his paycheck.
And that's being given right now to some seniors.
So that's great to stand up for the seniors, but who's standing up for that kid?
Like who's standing up for the 20-year-old who is looking around and he's going, okay, I'm $100,000 in debt from college because everyone in my life convinced me that going to college was the right move.
And the average cost of a house in my neighborhood is $500,000 and I make $1,250 an hour.
How the fuck am I ever going to buy a house?
How am I ever going to like actually like start a family and live a life and all of this stuff?
Who's standing up for that kid?
Not to mention like, what does he have?
Or what does she have?
What type of role models?
What type of culture?
What type of, like they have nothing.
And so that's, that's some, you know, that, that's an interest group that Joe Biden or none of these people in Congress care about standing up for.
And you know why?
Because they don't really vote as often.
So no one cares.
So no one cares about what they think.
You know, it's just, it's so blatantly obvious that if you had this like scheme that's taking from one group and giving to the other and you go, wait, we're going to cut what we're giving to the other?
Who's going to stand up for the other?
Yeah, okay, fine.
But how about the group we're taking from?
What about them?
They're far poorer, by the way, than the group we're giving to.
I think it's about time someone stand up for them.
All right, let's keep playing.
Stand up and show them.
We'll not cut Social Security.
We will not cut Medicare.
Those benefits belong to the American people they earned it.
And if anyone tries to cut Social Security, which apparently no one's going to do, if anyone tries to cut Medicare, I'll stop them.
I'll veto it.
And boom.
I'm not going to allow them to take away, be taken away.
Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
But apparently it's not going to be a problem.
Next month, when I offer my fiscal plan, I ask my Republican friends to lay down their plan as well.
I really mean it.
Let's sit down together and discuss our mutual plans together.
Let's do that.
I can tell you, the plan I'm going to show you is going to cut the deficit by another $2 trillion.
And it won't cut a single bit of Medicare or Social Security.
In fact, we're going to extend the Medicare Trust Fund at least two decades because that's going to be the next argument.
How do we keep it solvent, right?
Well, we'll not raise tax on anyone making under 400 grand, but we'll pay for it the way we talked about it by making sure that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share.
Look, here's the deal: they're not just taking advantage of the tax code.
They're taking advantage of you, the American consumer.
Here's my message to all of you out there.
I have your back.
We're already preventing Americans from receiving surprise medical bills, stopping $1 billion surprise bills per month so far.
For protecting seniors' life savings by cracking down in nursing homes that commit fraud, endanger patient safety, prescribe drugs that are not needed.
Millions of Americans can now save thousands of dollars because they can finally get a hearing aid over the counter without a prescription.
Look, capitalism without competition is not capitalism.
It's extortion.
It's exploitation.
Last year, I cracked down with the help of many of you on foreign shipping companies that were making you pay higher prices for every good coming into the country.
I signed a bipartisan bill to cut shipping costs by 90%, helping American farmers, businessmen, and consumers.
Let's finish the job.
Pass the bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms giving their own products an unfair advantage.
My administration is also taking on junk fees, those hidden surcharges too many companies use to make you pay more.
For example, we're making airlines show you the full ticket price up front, refund your money if your flight is canceled or delayed.
We've reduced exorbitant bank overdrafts by saving consumers more than $1 billion a year.
We're cutting credit card late fees by 75% from $30 to $8.
Look, junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most other folks in homes like the one I grew up in, like many of you do.
They add up to hundreds of dollars a month.
They make it harder for you to pay your bills or afford that family trip.
I know how unfair it feels when a company overcharges you and gets away with it.
Not anymore.
We've written a bill to stop it all.
It's called the Junk Fee Prevention Act.
Surprise resort fees that hotels charge on you on your bill.
Those fees can cost you up to $90 a night at hotels that aren't even resorts.
All right, let's pause it there.
What do you want me to say here, man?
So just imagine that you have the president saying, oh, yeah, this is the major problem that working class people have is that these resort fees, you know, hotels charge you these resort fees and they're not even resorts.
And credit cards, credit cards charge you these fees and banks charge you these overdraft fees or whatever they are.
Okay, let's talk about the fees and the fines and the money that's robbed from you.
And I want you to compare that to what a libertarian plan would be for working class people, which is like, okay, let's abolish your income taxes.
Let's abolish your property taxes.
What would actually do more for working class people than to say, hey, hotels can't charge resort fees, or even if it wasn't entirely, your property taxes are cut in half.
Your income taxes are cut in half, which we could easily do, easily do if we were just willing to not waste that money on, say, like arming Ukraine and fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya and all this dumb shit.
If we were actually willing to cut down Medicare and Social Security and all of this stuff, we could easily cut those.
How about if you want to talk about fees and fines and all this stuff, let's get rid of policing for profit.
Let's get rid of like you, you know, like getting tickets for like parking tickets and getting rid of fees for, you know, cutting hair without a license to cut hair.
Good People Facing Government Predators00:03:19
Please, it's so funny to watch the government pretend that there are these other private predators that are anything like what the government predators are toward people.
So yeah, I'm all for reducing those fines and fees and all of that stuff.
Anyway, he goes on like this for a while and continues.
I was surprised that the speech didn't contain more stuff about COVID and more stuff about Ukraine.
They were both mentioned, but they were mentioned very briefly.
He did mention Tyree Nichols, who is he had his family there.
And at one point, he did shout them out and he gave a whole thing about how white people, him and his sons, he never had to give them the speech about, you know, if the cops pull you over, make sure you have your lights on and make sure your hands are on the steering wheel and don't reach for your wallet too quickly and all of this.
He did make sure to kind of blast.
It was a very bizarre clip where he blasted.
He said that police officers are so horribly racist that he, you know, he's so lucky that he's white and black people have to deal with this problem where every time they go out for, you know, they go out driving, they have to be concerned about being killed by the police.
And then also said, but the police are really great.
He said, but most of them are really good people, which I thought was a really interesting little moment in the speech where you're like, hey, like, imagine saying it.
You're almost like, hey, look, the Nazis are really horrible to the Jews and you have no idea what it's like to be a Jew.
But at the same time, the Nazis are mostly good people.
Like, which one is it?
Which one is it?
Is it the cops are really horrible racist animals?
Or is it that they're good people?
You kind of can't, they kind of can't be both.
But he tried to make them both.
The reality of the situation is that I got that talk when I was a kid.
Everyone I know got that talk when they were a kid.
Everyone I know growing up in Brooklyn, New York, everyone I know was aware of the police and that if you were going to be out there in the world, that was, look, you had to deal with certain things.
There were gangs that could get you and there were the police that could get you.
But I repeat myself.
We all knew that.
There wasn't a white or black thing.
It was just like, that's a part of being out in the world.
And believe me, If white people are out there and they're disrespectful to the police and they don't fucking have their hands on the steering wheel and they don't, my father-in-law is a truck driver.
He talks about all the time how when he first became a truck driver, it was a big speech he was given.
And he was like a blonde-haired Irish guy.
And it was a big speech he was given by his father and all the people around him were like, look, you're driving a truck.
The Reality of Rich People Not Paying Their Share00:01:45
Here's the thing you got to deal with.
When the police pull you over, you keep your hands on the steering wheel.
Yes, sir.
No, sir.
Don't reach for anything quickly.
It's just like all the things that will divide us is what they want to focus on.
And that's even with all this economic stuff.
Oh, tax the billionaire class.
That's the problem.
The problem you're facing is that they're the rich people aren't paying their fair share.
Everything's good.
If they would just pay their fair share a little bit more, then everything would be fine.
And just ignore the reality of the situation, which is that the government is fucking you over at every turn, at every turn, that they locked you down for over a year.
They unleashed this vaccine mandate regime that destroyed people's lives.
And now they've figured out it doesn't even do anything.
They had the whole mask mandates and now none of them except old ass Bernie Sanders are even wearing masks anymore.
That they've blown up the budget and that that's what's destroying the economy.
That they've printed trillions of dollars and that that's what's destroying the dollar.
And that the government police are that that's what they what they'll say, they're a bunch of racists.
That's the real problem.
It's not the problem isn't that they just have way too much authority over you.
Anyway, it's something to see Joe Biden try to give this state of the union.
I will give him credit.
He got through it.
And he did have, there were some hilarious moments where he stuttered and stammered through it, but he at least did get through the speech.