All Episodes
Previous Next
June 6, 2023 - Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy
28:13
Pro-family Policies & Economic Prosperity with Balázs Orbán | The TRUTH Podcast #31
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I think
the next phase of our conservative movement is to move on from just running from something.
And we need to start running to something.
We've identified the poison, whatever it is, wokeness, gender ideology, climatism, covidism, globalism.
That poison exists.
It's going to fill a void, though, and it traces a vacuum.
It fills a vacuum.
That actually lives in our hearts because it's created by the absence of real purpose and meaning.
And I think if we want to be a true conservative movement in this country, around the world in the United States of America, we're going to have to fill that void with the things that used to fill that void.
That's how you actually stop the poison from entering.
Let's not just be against, though I think we've done that plenty, race, gender, sexuality, and the climate.
What are we actually for?
What do we stand for that fills that vacuum of purpose?
Let's talk about the individual.
The fact that there's only going to be one you.
You're you, regardless of the color of your skin.
You're endowed with your own free will and commitment to achieve whatever you want to in the world.
Let's talk about the family.
That you are a child of two parents, a mother and a father.
All of us are And that's the best unit of governance known to mankind.
Let's talk about the nation, the idea of not being some nebulous global citizen, but a citizen of this nation, in my case, the United States of America, and that we won't apologize for it and that we do believe, yes, we are a nation under God.
Individual, family, nation, God.
These are the things that satisfy our hunger for purpose and meaning.
And yet today's conservative movement has all but abandoned an actual affirmative vision of our own.
That's what I'm running to revive in our country.
But one of the things I've found over the years is that sometimes you can see things clearer if you're looking from the outside in than if you're just looking at yourself from the inside out.
And I actually like to do the same in return.
One of the countries I have been carefully paying some attention to, I would say even studying over the last few years, is what's happened in Hungary.
What Viktor Orban has done as the leader of Hungary.
I traveled there a long time ago.
It's a different nation today than when I first went there for the better.
And I think a lot of that is because of Orban's leadership.
And, you know, I think that there's a lot we can learn outside of the partisan struggles of the current moment, Republicans versus Democrats.
We can get wrapped up in an echo chamber in a bubble of our own.
Sometimes we have a refreshed perspective by actually looking abroad and then bringing those lessons back in.
And equally good to talk to someone who's from one of those countries who's looking at the United States and describes what he sees.
So that's what we're going to do today.
And that's why I'm pleased to welcome to today's podcast Balazs Orban, who works in Viktor Orban's administration.
I believe he's the political director for Viktor Orban.
He's going to talk to us a little bit about some of the lessons from Hungary and the experience in Hungary, pro-family policy, what that means, what it means to actually stand up to the managerial class and bureaucracy within a government, maybe an extension of a broader globalist agenda and how Hungary has managed to stand up to that.
In a way that we could actually do well to learn from here in the United States.
And so with that, Balazs, I want to welcome you to the podcast.
I've been looking forward to this conversation.
I'm glad you're finally here.
Hello.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Good afternoon, Vivek.
It's wonderful to be here.
Thank you very much for having me at your show.
So tell me a bit about what you think Viktor Orban has done successfully in Hungary.
That we could stand to learn from here as a conservative movement in the United States.
I'd love to hear from you on it.
Viktor Orban and his right-wing conservative party won the elections first in 2010 and since then we are in power.
So right now we have 13 years of experience and I think It could be that this is the most important reason why the word looks on Hungary.
It's because we were just not talking about important values on the conservative side.
We were not just talking about what should be done, but we actually did it and we introduced these We put these conservative values into everyday governmental practice.
And it turned out that this is a kind of a very unique experiment on the Western world.
And it's actually turned out that this is This is working and the country can be successful based on conservative, right-wing, Christian, democratic values.
The values you also mentioned, like family, nation and God, these values could turn into practice and it will bring prosperity for the country.
So it's actually the opposite.
It's happening what is said by the Liberals, that these conservative values will bring down the countries.
The opposite is true.
If you follow these values, if you are able to turn them into everyday governmental practice, then you are going to be successful economically, culturally, politically.
And not the political party, but the country as such.
Give me some examples of when you talk about reviving, let's say, family.
I know that's been a big part of the pro-family policy agenda.
What are some of the things you did to make that happen?
It is, and it's connected to the problem of mass illegal migration.
So all the Western countries are in demographic decline.
And according to all the public opinion polls, mothers and fathers, boys and girls, Young parents, they actually want to have more children than at the end they will have.
So they want to have more children.
We don't have to convince them.
We don't have to We just have to help them to reach their goals.
And the problem is right now that the liberal state is in favor of supporting mass, mainly illegal, migration instead of putting all the resources into family support programs.
So we did the reverse.
We introduced the border fence.
We stopped actually illegal migration on our borders and we said that we don't want to spend our money to the very costly integrational programs which are not always successful but we want to give these money to the families to those who want to raise more children and financially through government programs and through the complete environment Should
we help them?
And we change this environment and it works.
We spend almost 6% of our GDP to family support programs.
It's three times more than the military expenditure.
Military expenditure is also important, but family...
So 6% of GDP is going to what you would call pro-family expenditure.
Yes, indeed.
Whereas normally you have 2% of GDP on military.
Yes, indeed.
Obviously, we want to increase the military spending as well.
We need to do that.
But I think if you want to take it seriously, you have to change your budget and spend at least 5-6% of your GDP to support the families.
And we started many programs.
Like what kinds of things?
Actually, we'd love those specifics.
Yeah.
So first, if you don't have to pay any personal income tax for mothers, they don't have to pay personal income tax if they have four children for their entire life.
And we want to introduce that for mothers with three children.
Wow.
So if you're a mom with three kids, you don't pay income taxes in Hungary.
If you are a mom with four kids, you don't have to pay personal income tax and we try to expand it in the future.
It's gonna happen in the future.
We try to expand it to mothers with three children.
Okay, that's a good one.
That's one example.
Another example is that you get, if you are a young couple, you get married.
And you need extra financial support to start your life, to buy a car, to buy a house or do whatever you want.
And you make promise that you will have one, two or three children.
You get this extra starting financial support.
From the government, like we are talking about around 30,000 US dollars.
So you get 30,000 US dollars if you are a young married couple and you have in 10 years times three children.
And then you can spend it to buy a house, to buy a car, as I said.
So it's up to you.
So it's sort of like a universal basic income.
But for only if you have children.
Exactly.
And only if you're married.
Married, yeah.
You have to be married and you have to have children.
Now, presumably if someone's already wealthy, then you don't have to, yeah.
Sure.
And it's working.
The fertility rate went up from 1.2% to 1.6%.
So I think it has proved that this kind of...
That's a big jump.
1.3% to 1.6%?
Yes.
But we need to have more, actually.
Right now we have kind of a strategic thinking on how to increase it further because you need to have 2.1% without immigration to have a sustainable population.
To sustain the death rate without immigration.
True.
Yeah.
Let me ask you this.
I'm sure you did, but do you think that that kind of income creates a disincentive for people to work in the country?
Oh, actually, we are building a work fair society, so people have to work.
So you need to have a job to get these subsidies.
So it's not a social aid program.
It's like you have to have a job.
So a young married couple with children, how many children?
Three.
A young married couple with at least three children gets aid, but only if one of the parents is working.
Yes.
And obviously it's just one measure.
We have many more.
Like if you are working and you have a proper job, you get tax cuts also.
So if you have children, you pay less.
And you're working.
So everything, all the family support programs are not based on social issues, but based on the fact that you have the willingness to have a job, to get married, and to raise children.
Yes.
Well, that's pretty fascinating, actually.
Because it still borrows from a liberal instinct.
Well, not just a liberal instinct, but policies that could sound like a liberal policy of government providing aid.
But to tie that to families that are procreating, contributing to the repopulation rate, And also actually working.
Yes, Vivek, in this regard, Hungary is a bit different than the United States.
And Anglo-Saxon conservatism is a bit different than the Hungarian conservatism.
So, obviously, we conservatives, we are not in favor of a big state, for sure, that this is a liberal agenda.
But we do think that conservatives should use the state To promote conservative values and support those who are ready to live a normal life with children, get married, get job, and so on and so on.
So in Hungary, this question is not so controversial.
And the government has, not only through programs, but also through PR activities, campaigns, the resource to create an environment where people think that the normal way of life is not to jump into the VOLC agenda,
But to get married, to have children, to go to work and to live a decent and normal life.
And without changing any kind of regulation in connection with abortion, for example, because of this initiative, the number of abortions halved.
In the last 10 years, number of marriages, double number of divorces, halved, and as I mentioned, the fertility rate went up.
The fertility, yeah, exactly.
So it's kind of simple when you say it that way, right?
I mean, that it becomes a normal way of life to get married, to have kids, and to have a job.
Like that is the norm for how the society lives.
I think it's everywhere.
I think that the way it lands on an American ear, Balazs, the way you put it in saying it's different in Hungary versus the US, I don't think it has to be so different in Hungary versus the US, actually.
I think that the thing that people fear is when you talk about conservatives should use the state to promote conservative values.
I don't disagree with that instinct.
I would just, this is an American context, would frame it differently because the thing that people then think is fascism, totalitarianism, that we will, at behest of, you know, military or sort of, you know, police intervention, foist this onto you.
And then people recoil and they fight back against the very things we want to promote, marriage, having kids and work.
Versus what you're talking about is just using Really economic incentives to get people to choose the kinds of things that they would be better off choosing for themselves anyway, which is, I think, a very different proposition.
Yeah, I agree with you.
And it's the basic pillar of this thing that you have to maintain freedom, freedom of choice.
They can have the life they want.
That's why I started at the beginning with talking about the public opinion polls that we don't have to convince the people to have this kind of life.
And there are some people who want to have another type of life.
It's totally okay.
It's no problem.
The states should guarantee their freedom to live their life what they want.
But the problem is that in the Western societies, at least this is the case in Hungary, the majority of the people They want to live this life with the job, with the marriage, with the family.
And I think the state cannot be neutral or cannot be hostile because right now, if I look around in many Western societies, if you want to have this kind of life, the state itself is hostile towards you.
So it's not supportive.
I'm not talking about being supportive, but it's also not neutral, it's hostile.
Because it's a saying that all the social programs, all the social benefits, all the subsidies, All the positive discrimination elements in the system should go to that direction, which is not supportive for those who are belonging to the majority, but belonging rather to the minority.
Minority rights are important.
Freedom is important.
Without that, there is no flourishing society.
But you also have to be economically supportive, as you said, to those who want to go to another pattern.
And they are right now left behind by the political elite, by the liberal political elite.
I think there's an interesting point you made here about the pro-life movement in the US as well, is this is how you get More women to yes in having the child, or even fewer being put in the position to have to face the choice of having an abortion.
You don't have that if you're in the family context, two parents, with a level of even if you brought an extra kid in.
So we have two kids, how can I handle three kids?
Well, great.
We're promoting that because we have a population level birth rate issue.
And I think this is different than, say, the Chinese model of, you know, they went the other direction with the one child policy and mandated.
We're not mandating anything is your point in Hungary.
You're saying that we will affirmatively promote the kind of society that we think will allow us to flourish, but while giving individuals and co-equal citizens still a chance to live on their own, So I guess if I was to give you three buckets using your own language, One is, one that is, as you put, hostile to pro-family, pro-nuclear family, pro-work, pro-childbirth environment.
And that's hostile because it's giving money to everybody who doesn't do that without actually promoting those who are actually living in a family structure.
One that is neutral, one that just says the government's done subsidizing anything and let people arrive at the choice that most of them want to arrive at.
And then one that affirmatively Steers people in that direction using the power of the purse to do it.
Sounds like you'd favor the third of those.
True, true.
I would describe the first one as a current progressive model.
I would describe the second one, the classical liberal model, which did exist, which was the case in the beginning of mid-20th century.
But it's not anymore there because the state is occupied by the progressive.
So right now there is only the first model.
And I would call for the alternative model, which is the third, as you described.
This is, if you like this phrase, the conservative way of thinking.
And then even within that though, this is crucial though, even within that conservative model, there's a choice between how you achieve it.
Right?
Yes.
One is what the progressives will naturally label you to be, which is fascist and forcing this onto people.
And the other is one that says, no, we actually embrace an element of the classical liberal model of choice, but we're not neutral in the choice that we would like for you to make.
We're rooting for you to make the right choice, but it is still your choice to make.
That I think is the beauty of the final step of the act, which avoids.
Which avoids some of the accusations that you'll otherwise face.
True, and I think this is why the abortion issue is a very hard issue, it's a very hard topic, but this is why it's a good example.
Like in Hungary, we didn't change any kind of regulation in the last 13 years.
We have actually quite a liberal abortion policy, so you can choose freely whether you want to have the baby or not, but the government While it's maintaining the freedom of decision-making, gives you all the necessary financial and other kind of supports which are needed if you want to make a decision to keep the baby.
And the reason is, I think the result is very obvious.
More and more women, without changing any kind of regulation, which is without causing any kind of social conflict in connection with that very hard topic, are having a decision to keep the baby.
And more and more children are born.
You know, you make me want to, when did Victor first take over again?
It was 2010?
2010, yeah.
So you make me want to draw, I'm drawing it literally in my notebook as we speak, a table with three different columns.
The first column is Hungary pre-2010, second is Hungary post-2010, and the third column is the U.S. today.
And then I wanna draw across the bottom.
One is actually, let's just start with abortion rate.
Be kind of interesting to sort of think about that.
Abortions per birth.
Let's just sort of maybe make that the metric, right?
Abortions per birth.
Then we'll have birth rate, or what would you call net repopulation rate?
Death rate minus birth, you know, death rate minus- Fertility rate, but- Fertility, net fertility rate.
And then one is actually GDP as a percentage or sort of expenditure as percentage of GDP on what you'd call pro-family policies.
In the US, that'd be basically zero right now, but both for military and for pro-family.
It would be an interesting comparison.
If you're open to it, I'm going to have my team get on this, but if you can help us fill out the Hungary side of this, I would be very happy to do so.
I would be very happy to do so.
So maybe we'll wrap with this, Balazs.
What's been your observation of what this has done for the character of national pride in Hungary?
It seems to me it's gone up quite a bit, but do you think it's the family foundation and the work culture that's doing it?
Or are you guys independently focused on fostering Hungarian national pride in other ways?
And which do you think is responsible for the resurgence of national pride you're seeing in the country?
Well, it's a very complicated question.
I think that it's a complex issue, but definitely there is one basic pillar of it and it's obviously economy.
So, economically you have to be successful.
And you have to be able to build up a workforce society.
So in Hungary, we created one million extra jobs since 2010. So, you know, it's quite a significant number because the country's population is 10 million.
So it's like, imagine that in the United States in 10 years time, you have 35 35 million more jobs.
So it's quite a significant change in the society.
And we have flat tax.
So it's a completely renewed taxation system, which is encouraging you to work more and then you earn more.
This is the idea behind it.
So the economic part of the story is definitely very successful.
But there is another part of the story which is more about emotion.
The history of Hungary is...
I think it's a beautiful history, but it wasn't easy always.
We have been occupied by foreigners many times in the last 1000 years by the Mongols and then by the Ottomans and then by the Germans, by the Habsburgs and then by the Nazis and then by the Russians.
So it's like we just regained our independence After the collapse of the Soviet Union and there was quite a long transition period.
But right now we have our sovereignty.
We are able to make our own decisions in foreign policy and in domestic policy.
We are getting more and more proud of our cultural heritage, of our institutional pillars like the church, the family, the nation itself and so on and so on.
We are strengthening them.
We are making people being proud of their history and culture and being more optimistic about the future of the country.
And it's an emotional issue.
And the two things has to go, I think, in hand in hand.
If one pillar is missing, then the whole architecture is not effective.
Yeah, but I know there's this expression in, you know, often the Christian tradition of, to experience the love of God, you must experience the love of your family first.
I think that there is something to be said about an analog for the nation.
In order to be proud of your nation, you must have the pride of your family first as well.
And I think you're more proud of a nation when you're also part of a family that you're proud to be part of and a family that is proud of you for being part of it.
And it opens your heart to national pride as well, I think.
I agree with you.
Very similar emotion, very similar kind of emotion.
Balash, this is a great conversation.
Learned a lot in a short amount of time.
I'm going to ask our teams to be in touch to sort of draw this, fill out some of these data points if that's something you're receptive to.
And I know that's something we on the American side can learn from.
I can't promise the same in return, but hopefully it'll be useful to you.
Oh, but still, your country is wonderful.
I love your country so much.
And it's still, you know, we are very happy that you are interested and American conservatives are interested in Hungary.
But it's actually still a mouse and an elephant discussion where We are the small mouse and you are the bigger.
Sometimes we can be helpful.
We like an elephant and the mouse to be friends, actually.
Yes, indeed.
The friendship of the elephant and the mouse.
And let's continue to learn from each other and make ourselves better.
Thank you very much, Riva.
Yeah, I appreciate you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
Goodbye.
I'm Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, and I approve this message.
▲
Export Selection