00:00:00
Power corrupts. Government is power and it's been corrupted. Nobody knew in total how
00:00:06
much we spend because we never even talk about it. The first goal of this Republican budget reconciliation should
00:00:12
be don't add to the deficit. I voted for President Trump because I wanted him to
00:00:18
defeat the deep state. You don't defeat the deep state by continuing to fund it at Biden's levels. Our base is going to
00:00:24
go, "What? Why did we elect you guys? You're really no better than Democrats." I don't think President Trump, he's not
00:00:29
focused on reducing spending. This is our one opportunity and right now we're blowing it and I'm going to do
00:00:35
everything I can to make sure we don't blow it. I can't be pressured by President Trump. He's willing to sit
00:00:39
down with me, look at the numbers, acknowledge them, working forward in a reasonable plan forward. That's the only
00:00:45
way he's going to get my support. So, everyone has assumed that the House passage of the reconciliation bill is
00:00:52
going to go to the Senate with some minor changes and then make its way to President Trump's desk for signing. But
00:00:58
that may not be the case. There are several hardliners in the US Senate who have made it very clear that the budget
00:01:05
and the fiscal deficit problems that arise from this bill are insurmountable and they're going to take a very hard
00:01:11
stance on voting no on this bill. Taking the lead on that point of view is Senator Johnson from Wisconsin, who's
00:01:17
going to join us today for an emergency pod to talk about what's next with the Senate review of the reconciliation
00:01:22
bill, what his thoughts are, what's the future of the republic, and what's ahead. We're really excited for this
00:01:28
emergency pod. Thank you for joining us. All right, besties. I think that was another epic discussion. People love the
00:01:36
interviews. I could hear him talk for hours. Absolutely. We crush your questions in a minute. We are giving
00:01:41
people ground truth data to underwrite your own opinion. What do you guys think? That was fun. That was great.
00:01:48
Senator, thanks for joining Chimathan for this conversation this morning. Good morning, guys, and thanks for having me
00:01:54
on. And just by way of background, Senator, you were elected to the US Senate in 2010. You've had two
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re-elections since then. More recently, we've taken notice, and I gave a shout out to you for your comments on the
00:02:08
scaling of the deficit and the US federal debt. And as a Republican against the stated intention of getting
00:02:15
this bill passed and through the Senate as is, and we'd love to kind of hear from you today about your points of view
00:02:21
on the bill that was passed in the House this week, the reconciliation bill, and
00:02:25
then take a step back and talk a little bit about the fiscal picture for the United States and where things are
00:02:29
headed. So, thanks for that and thanks for joining us. Maybe we could just start a little bit with a very basic
00:02:35
primer for our audience, something that we don't talk about very much on the show. Can you just tell us what a
00:02:40
reconciliation bill is and how it's used so folks can understand a little bit about the process that the House just
00:02:46
undertook and what's ahead? Sure. Let me start. You talked about when I first ran
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for election in 2010, I spray out the Tea Party. Never had been involved in politics whatsoever and didn't even
00:02:57
decide to run until the end of April. announced in May, started a campaign during the summer, did all those
00:03:04
parades. My what I would shout during the parades was, "This is a fight for freedom. We're mortgaging our children's
00:03:10
future. It's wrong. It's immoral. It has to stop." That was my campaign theme. In
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2010, I still view myself more Tea Party than Republican party. We we have a lot
00:03:19
of big spenders in Republic Republican party as well. And I ran again because of Obamacare, which I knew would not
00:03:27
work. And it's not working. That's, by the way, that's the problem with Medicaid right now is Obamacare is now
00:03:32
called Medicaid expansion. But to answer your question, uh, budget reconciliation
00:03:38
was set up by the in the budget act, I think it was 1974. Um, it doesn't work in terms of
00:03:45
controlling spending. By the way, nothing ever has. We'll get into that in terms we've never had a process for
00:03:50
actually controlling spending, but it allows us to pass a budget and then to reconcile the budget. you're able and
00:03:58
you can pass a budget that's not a law, but you pass this budget with just 50 votes, 51 votes, majority, and then you
00:04:06
can reconcile to that budget also avoiding the Senate filibuster. So, that's the main component. What's weird
00:04:12
about it is you pass this budget, but you can only through budget reconciliation address mandatory
00:04:19
spending. You can't touch the discretionary spending accounts, which is about 25% of our budget. That's one
00:04:25
of the one of the ways the budget's gotten completely out of control is you know we put so many things into the
00:04:31
mandatory category. You know initially was entitlements social security Medicare Medicaid but we have I would
00:04:39
say deviously slid all kinds of discretionary spending into other mandatory that really exploded during
00:04:46
COVID where I think other mandatory hit well over$ two trillion dollars. uh last
00:04:51
fiscal year is about $1.3 trillion. This year it'll be over a trillion. So it went from about $642 billion in 2019.
00:05:00
Other mandatory again not social security, Medicare, even Medicaid went from 642 to last year 1.3. This year
00:05:07
it's going to be over a trillion dollars and it's going to keep you know pretty much at that level as far as the eye can
00:05:12
see. So again, that's a trillion dollars of other non-entitlement spending that we never looked at. And that's the whole
00:05:19
point about mandatory spending. It's never looked at. Um so anyway, so we can address mandatory spending, not social
00:05:26
security, through this reconciliation process. Uh change programs, do whatever we want to do as long as it has a
00:05:34
primarily budgetary impact, not changing policy. So you can change policy as long
00:05:39
as it has a budgetary impact. I know that's reasonably complex, but it's an insane system and it doesn't work. What
00:05:47
is the alternative? Well, right now we don't really have one. Uh, again, let's just go through
00:05:54
why we've never had a process to control spending. We don't have a balanced budget requirement like states do, and
00:06:01
we have the capability of printing money, which we're doing, uh, incurring this enormous debt. So, we don't have a
00:06:07
b balanced budget requirement. I didn't realize this until just recently. The appropriation committees were literally
00:06:13
set up because the authorized committees were big spenders. So, they set up appropriation committees to control
00:06:19
spending. That didn't work. The budget act didn't work. Simpson BS didn't work. The budget control act didn't work. It
00:06:26
did restrain discretionary spending for a couple years until we weasled our way around it. So, again, we've never had a
00:06:33
process to control spending. And one of the things I've been arguing in some Wall Street Journal columns is let's use
00:06:39
the example of Doge. I come with the private sector. We probably spent more time reviewing my
00:06:46
line by line budget for my business. And I think other private sector businesses
00:06:51
spend more time analyzing what they're going to spend than Congress spends over the entire federal budget. So we've got
00:06:59
to develop a process. Do you shown us how to do it? Go contract by contract. expose the grotesque waste, fraud, and
00:07:07
abuse. But we got to do that through thousands of lines through the federal budget. But nobody's willing to do it.
00:07:12
Nobody's willing to take the time to do the work to do it. They they're doing what they've always done. They exempt
00:07:16
most spending. They look at a couple programs. They try and tweak them, try and get a big score out of CBO so they
00:07:22
can say, "Hey, look at we saved $1.5 trillion." And yet that's completely divorced from reality.
00:07:29
1.5 trillion sounds like a lot, but over 10 years it's 150 billion against a $7,000 billion a year budget that only
00:07:36
six years ago was $4,400 billion. And if I've got one complaint in terms of the process in the House, it's basically a
00:07:44
devoid of reality. We're not talking about the numbers we should be talking about, which is a 10-year deficit
00:07:51
projected by CBO of $22 trillion, averaging $2.2 trillion a year. We don't talk about we focus all
00:07:59
on 1.5 trillion and then they're patting themselves in the back that they they didn't even achieve 1.5. I just I just
00:08:06
want to make sure senator then that we're on the same page with respect to the math. If this bill passes as is, can
00:08:13
the general public take the 33 or 34 odd trillion that we have in debt? Should we
00:08:19
add 22 and say we'll be at 58 trillion by 2035? Is that the right math or the wrong math? Uh that understates it. Uh
00:08:27
now they'll talk about dynamic scoring and I believe in dynamic scoring as well. But in this case, you take a look
00:08:32
at the tax cuts that President Trump is proposing. That's not they're not going to generate growth. They're just going
00:08:38
to reduce the deficit. The CBO projection I'm looking at assumes we're going to gain another $4 trillion from
00:08:46
increasing taxes. So again, we may not may not get that $4 trillion, but no matter what, the CBO projection right
00:08:55
now that is adding another $22 trillion to our debt, it certainly would add at least that. I would argue you'd probably
00:09:01
add another three or four trillion. So it's not going to be 59 trillion. It's going to be more like 62 63 trillion.
00:09:07
And the CBO scores assume the interest rate on the federal debt, I believe, is an average of
00:09:14
3.6%. And now we're seeing the 30-year trading above 5%, meaning that if we trade up to 5% for the cost of debt for
00:09:22
the federal government, we're probably going to add another $5 trillion of incremental interest expense over the
00:09:29
period, another half trillion a year on average over the next 10 years. Yeah. No, I I I would agree the current CBO
00:09:35
projection, that's what I'm talking about here. Uh, you know, going from 37 to 59 trillion in debt is a rosy is, you
00:09:43
know, the rosy scenario that that's as good as we're going to do. So, we're simply we're simply this does not mean
00:09:50
the moment in terms of what we have to do. Senator, let me just ask I I think one point of clarification on your
00:09:56
earlier comment which I think would be important for the audience. what has been put under mandatory that should be
00:10:03
discretionary. It covers the entire gamut of federal spending, education, you know, welfare, food stamps, uh, uh,
00:10:11
veterans benefits. Again, they've just transferred that into mandatory spending. So, it's completely out of
00:10:18
sight, out of mind, unaccountable. When it sits in discretionary, maybe just help folks understand what does it mean
00:10:23
if it sits in discretionary. Does that mean that then the administration under the president has the authority to spend
00:10:30
up to that amount to administer the law to administer the statutes but doesn't necessarily have to and the mandatory
00:10:37
demands that the capital goes out. Just help us understand for the audience what
00:10:40
the difference is. Well, discretionary is actually supposedly passed each year through an appropriation process which
00:10:48
is completely broken. We don't pass individual appropriation bills. We generally at best uh which is awful mini
00:10:56
buses or omnibuses. You know these are these multi,000page uh bills that get dropped on our desks
00:11:02
and we have to vote on them literally within 24 to 48 hours. Nobody reads them. Nobody knows what's in them. Uh
00:11:07
that process is pretty broken down. Right now we are operating for this fiscal year under a continuing
00:11:13
resolution which tweaks a few things but is basically spending at last year's levels on all those appropriated
00:11:19
accounts. So again, that's about 25% of our budget. Then 75% is in in the mandatory accounts, the the
00:11:26
entitlements, and just other mandatory spending. So the arithmetic indicates we're entering into a debt death spiral
00:11:32
in the United States. With the interest rates climbing, the deficit climbing, and we then need to spend more money to
00:11:41
pay our interest on the existing debt, that increases the deficit. We need to borrow more. The debt spirals up. uh
00:11:47
interest rates climb and this becomes an insurmountable hill to climb. As you have the conversation with members of
00:11:55
the Republican party, what's the point of view? What is the motivating factor for business as usual? Why is it so
00:12:02
difficult to get folks to see the basic arithmetic in front of them? Well, let me give you an example from about three
00:12:08
years ago. Uh this was after COVID and you know on bipartisan basis went on a massive spending spree in 2020 but then
00:12:15
the bid administration just continued that. Uh so you know we were in omnibous spending debate and for the first time
00:12:24
even though the Republican Senate conference we have a resolution against eararks. McConnell is negotiating an
00:12:31
omnibous spending bill and all of a sudden we're members are are sucking down ear marks. So I asked my colleagues
00:12:38
at that time I said hey anybody know how much in total we spent last year in the
00:12:41
federal government room was dead silent I went out to Washington press corp asked the
00:12:48
same question I mean hey anybody know how much we spent last year and one reporter said it was over a trillion
00:12:52
dollars no that's just discretionary spending the answer was something like $6.3 trillion because we had gone from
00:12:59
4.4 4 trillion 2019 up to 6.5 and we've never looked back. Right? And the analogy I used is no family if they had
00:13:07
an illness borrowed $50,000 to pay medical bills if they got well the next year. They would keep
00:13:13
borrowing $50,000 to spend at that level. But that's exactly what we've done. But the point of my story was
00:13:19
nobody knew in total how much we spend because we never even talk about it. Never even talked about. So So that's
00:13:26
out of sight, out of mind. So it's completely out of control. I mean, I am the guys, you know, starting with my
00:13:30
Wall Street Journal column of January 1st about return to a prepandemic prepandemic level spending. I mean, I've
00:13:36
been hammering the Senate Republican conference on a weekly basis and just, you know, Ed Naz quite honestly. What's
00:13:44
the push back? What are they? They just throw they've thrown the towel. They go,
00:13:47
"Well, it's too hard. I mean, that's unrealistic. You just can't do it." Even though I lay out Well, these are So, let
00:13:53
me just tell you you how I laid out my pre- pandemic levels of spending. This is during between Christmas and New
00:13:57
Year's. I'm trying to figure out how can I communicate this? You know, how can I
00:14:01
justify this? What kind of control can we put on things? So, I I literally went back in history. I went back to Clinton
00:14:07
in 1998, Obama in 2014, and Trump in 2019. And I exempted social security, Medicare, and interest. You know, spend
00:14:15
what you needed to spend. But all other actual outlays in those three years, I increase them by inflation and
00:14:22
population. You know, reasonable control, right? It's what we should have. We don't have a balanced budget
00:14:27
amendment. At least we should have some reasonable control over outlays. Population growth inflation would make
00:14:33
sense. Senator, if we take your math and say that we are headed to, let's take the midpoint $65 trillion
00:14:42
of debt by 2035. I think it's fair to say that the bond market will have a negative reaction to that.
00:14:52
And what Dave just talked about, which is a 5% borrowing rate for America, could be on the low side. And that's the
00:15:00
that's the spiral that he's talking about. On Friday, Secretary Bessant tried to get in front of this and his
00:15:07
commentary was we will grow our way out. Can you talk to us about what he means by that and what the boundary conditions
00:15:16
need to be to grow our way out? First of all, by by my calculation, our average interest rate over the last 50 years on
00:15:23
government debt is about 5.8%. So that that's 50 years and we're we're down here about three somewhere
00:15:29
around 3%. Um those are not exact calculations. Uh listen, that is the hope of all of us. I mean I I will
00:15:37
absolutely agree that the the number one component of a solution to our enormous
00:15:43
debt investment problem is economic growth. We have to grow the economy. But here's the problem is when the
00:15:49
government is sucking out of the private sector all you know we're the ones borrowing the money so there's not a
00:15:56
whole lot of money left for businesses in the private sector not enough capital there. Now you can print more money uh
00:16:06
but then that sparks inflation and that of course erodess everybody's balance sheet. It also makes our debt debt less
00:16:13
less expensive as well. But because we're so in debt, that drives up the interest rates and again it ends up
00:16:19
being a death and debt spiral. So So nobody can predict this. But I mean that's just the the wishful thinking of
00:16:26
people putting forward a policy a one big beautiful bill that doesn't live up to its name but actually actually
00:16:32
exacerbates the problem. What are the tools then in your toolbox? So you get back in the next week or two and you
00:16:42
talk to your colleagues and now it's on your desk. How do you start getting your
00:16:46
arms around this? What do you do starting on Monday or next Monday? So I try to lay out the basic numbers. That's
00:16:53
what I was talking about. You know my prepandemic goal of spending Clinton if you use that process go from 1.7 to 5.5
00:17:00
trillion. That's how you plus up there. That's been Obama would be 6.2 to Trump's 2019 6.5. So now now you've got
00:17:08
a a baseline budget. You've always heard these Republican members of Congress running for office saying we're going to
00:17:14
go to zerobased budget. They're not even willing to go to 5.5 to 6.5 level baseline of budget. So again, go what is
00:17:22
the process that just might work? Doge has kind of shown it to us, you know, line by line. You have to scrutinize all
00:17:29
this. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. And that's why I've always
00:17:33
argued for a multiple approach here, multiple step. Provide the border funding. Uh I would just extend current
00:17:40
tax law. I mean, again, I would have voted for that. If we had been smart enough to use current policy back then,
00:17:46
we wouldn't be even having this conversation. Extend current tax law. Takes an automatic massive tax increase
00:17:51
off the table. Increase the debt ceiling enough for a year to keep pressure on the process to do the work to go line by
00:17:59
line. Expose spending. I've got to believe when you've gone from 4,400 billion to $7,000 billion worth of
00:18:06
spending, if you start scrutinizing that line by line, there would literally be hundreds of billions of dollars that the
00:18:12
public wouldn't even know we're not spending. The only people who would know would be the grifters who are sucking
00:18:18
down the pork. Mhm. So, when you say the folks in the Republican party that aren't willing to do the hard work, it's
00:18:24
just so obvious how big of a crisis we are in and everyone's kind of being blind to it. So, I'm just trying to
00:18:31
understand what is it that's keeping the blindfold on. Is it that there are donors, that there are constituents?
00:18:37
I'll give you an example. A couple years ago, I went in for the Farm Bill review
00:18:42
with the Senate A Committee 2012, so a long time ago. And we started talking about one of the agencies in the USDA
00:18:48
and they have 10,000 employees and said, you know, does why does this make sense
00:18:54
in a digital age? And the answer was it doesn't. It's like, well, why is the agency still running and employing all
00:18:58
these people? Well, because the senators don't want to lose the jobs in their state because that's 10,000 jobs split
00:19:04
amongst roughly seven states and it's really important to those seven states to keep those jobs. Is that the
00:19:09
motivation that there's economic dollars flowing into the states that keeps the representatives and the senators from
00:19:16
making the tough decisions? Is it that they're getting donor dollars? What's the real motivation here that's keeping
00:19:22
everyone from tackling reality? Well, again, as I pointed out, most don't even recognize the full
00:19:29
reality. They don't they don't know the numbers. I've I've heard it said, I didn't hear McConnell say it personally,
00:19:35
but I've heard him say, "Show me a member of Congress who ever lost the election because they spent too much
00:19:40
money." So, there's no public pressure not to spend. You know, people love tax cuts. People love the free money. You
00:19:48
know, we collectively as a society are whistling by the graveyard. Nobody wants to say that this is unsustainable
00:19:55
because you to fix it is painful. I mean you you you are going to have to reduce
00:20:02
spending and then you're very open to the the political accusations as you know coming in we're trying to slash
00:20:08
Medicaid for disabled children. No, we're trying to preserve it for disabled children, try and get the able-bodied
00:20:15
childless uh working age adults back to work and and on private sector healthcare. Uh but again, that's that's
00:20:22
a more difficult argument to make. So it it's just the way that the process just
00:20:26
plows on. We've never, as I said, there's never been a process to actually control spending. So this way we've
00:20:33
always done it. You come up to these deadlines, you put everything into one big bill, you give people, you know,
00:20:38
things that you have to vote for. You don't want to default on the debt. You don't want to increase taxes. So, you
00:20:43
know, those elements you bundle up with a bunch of crap and you twist people's arms to pay for it having and keeping
00:20:50
them basically ignorant because you never talk about the the the massive numbers the massive problem that we're
00:20:56
really in. I mean, people kind of know it, but as long as the the press isn't reporting on, as long as the press isn't
00:21:03
connecting the dots that the massive desk is spending is why you can't afford things, why your dollar you held in 2019
00:21:09
is only worth 80 cents versus the bucket should be. By the way, a dollar you held
00:21:13
in 1998 is worth 51 cents. Okay? So, we again, we don't teach people there's no there's no
00:21:21
public pressure in terms of reducing spending or reducing the deficit. There's just virtually none. I mean, you
00:21:27
know, from conservatives right now, I'm getting it all the time. Boy, make sure that you make no tax on tips permanent.
00:21:32
Make sure you make no tax on overtime permanent. So, well, first of all, we probably shouldn't even be doing either
00:21:38
of those. By the way, I'm all for no tax on cash tips. You know, we can't can't collect it anyway, so don't even try.
00:21:46
I'm all for that. But you got to recognize these other tax cuts. They're not going to grow the economy. They're
00:21:50
not going to focus on the one component that Besson's talking about that we have
00:21:55
to grow our economy. I actually am very supportive of the no tax on tips, no tax
00:21:59
on overtime. The monetary cost of those things are relatively not that meaningful. And so it has a broad-based
00:22:06
positive impact with a lower cost is actually the reason why we should do it. The thing that I was sort of like
00:22:13
puzzled by when 50 people or 60 people are constructing something, you get this bill that comes out of the house which
00:22:20
has the things that the president asked for, but with all of these other Christmas tree ornaments hanging from it
00:22:25
and it's impossible to figure out what's actually going on. Well, I don't even think it's even 50 and 60 people
00:22:30
constructing this. I think it's a much smaller group of people and then you maybe have 50 or 60 chiming in on one
00:22:36
issue or another. Let me push back on overtime with you though. You know, I ran a plastics operation continuous
00:22:42
shift. If you're gonna have you work 247, you need four shifts. So, part of the problem with no tax on overtime,
00:22:50
first of all, no tax on some overtime. So, that's going to add to the regulatory burden. I want wouldn't want
00:22:54
to be the accounting clerk having to keep track of that, but you know, I know computers, it's easier to do so. But, in
00:23:00
public service employee units, they will they refuse to go to four shifts because
00:23:05
they like the overtime. they should be forced to go to four shifts because they burn out. Pay them more. But from my
00:23:12
standpoint, having run a continuous shift operation, I think there's enough incentive paying time and a half or
00:23:17
double time on Sunday for people to work. Uh income is income. I don't want to segregate. I I don't want to socially
00:23:23
or economically engineer through the tax code. And that's just part of that economic engineering through the tax
00:23:28
code. I love the fact we're focusing on working men and women. Great. But I would rather simplify the tax code for
00:23:35
them and and overall lower their tax burden. But again, lower the rates, broaden the base. But we're not doing
00:23:40
that. We lowered the rates and we made it more complex. So yeah, we did not simplify the tax code in 2017. One of
00:23:46
the reasons I actually wanted a two-step process was to take time to simplify and
00:23:51
rationalize our tax code. Can we talk about other things that didn't make it in that we thought were going to get in
00:23:56
there? Another way to generate revenue would have been to close the carried interest loophole. I don't know if you
00:24:02
have any points of view on that. Well, I' I've talked to numerous people who benefit from carried interest. I always
00:24:07
ask them, can you explain to me why that's not or ordinary income? And they can't. It is ordinary income. Uh
00:24:16
speaking to other ones that are pretty big into it, they do make a pretty powerful case that, you know, all all
00:24:21
these deals, all these structures, all these business arrangements are already structured that way. You can eliminate
00:24:26
that break and it's really not going to raise any revenue. They make reasonably convincing case there, too. So that's
00:24:32
kind of where we at on that which is sort of like at a at an impass. Yeah. My guess is just not going to
00:24:39
happen, right? And kind of going the overtime. It's just not that big a revenue generator one way the other.
00:24:46
Might might make you feel good. Could could screw up the way deals are made. That's is it really worth messing with?
00:24:53
One of the things that Elon has been talking about recently is that we could be on
00:25:00
the precipice of an energy deficit starting next year where we need every form of power possible to be generating
00:25:08
as many electrons as possible. And so solar, wind, coal, nat gas, nuclear, there was a bunch of provisions
00:25:19
here that changed the tax incentives. What's your thoughts on all of those that may change the landscape of
00:25:24
electron availability? Well, I think it's uh insane that we've been shutting down coal fired electrical generation.
00:25:30
We need a lot of it. I would really focus on nuclear myself. I think that is, you know, if you're concerned about
00:25:37
climate change, and yeah, I'm not. We'll adapt. Um, but nuclear would be the the
00:25:42
thing we ought to be pushing. Uh, I really don't want to subsidize energy production. I I don't want to subsidize
00:25:47
anything. Again, I want a simple and rational tax code. Uh so my my approach would always be to simplify those things
00:25:54
and I don't want to pull the rug out from under people. I mean if we've subsidized things and people made
00:25:58
investment based on certain things kind of respect that the comment that I made to my colleagues is FK came out with a
00:26:05
report. It said 81% of the incremental energy that was generated in the United States were
00:26:12
backed by some form of tax credits. This is not to judge. It's just meant to say
00:26:17
that financial actors go to where the incentives are. And if we change them and we take 81% of
00:26:24
this incremental energy offline and you can't get an act gas turbine, you know, for example, I'm going to announce on
00:26:29
Monday we're building a 1 gawatt data center that I'm funding in Arizona. I can't get an act gas turbine until 2032.
00:26:36
I can get nuclear from the state of Arizona, but that's not broadly available everywhere. And so there's
00:26:40
these practical investment decisions that the financial community wants to make to keep America at the forefront.
00:26:47
It's a little murkier today unless the Senate understands these nuances and helps us because if we can't make these
00:26:53
investments, then we're just not going to do it. I say Congress in general doesn't understand what you're talking
00:26:58
about. Again, I said I don't want to pull the rug out from other people. I understand investment because I was in
00:27:05
business. Um but again, I I want to move towards a more simple system and and again, it's insane what government, you
00:27:14
know, all the green new energy thing. It it misallocates capital. Take a look what's happening in Europe in Germany
00:27:19
and stuff. They're artificially driving up the cost of power for what? Okay. I mean, it's it's a fantasy. It's it's a
00:27:27
self-inflicted wound. It's we spent something like five or six trillion dollars globally on climate change.
00:27:32
Again, whether you believe it or not, we haven't bent the needle. That's just five or six trillion dollars basically
00:27:37
wasted. So, again, I recognize the fact we've wasted a lot of money. We've incentivized people for certain type of
00:27:42
power. The solution would be quit doing it. long term and let the marketplace provide as as much energy cheap as
00:27:52
possible. Again, protecting the environment. I don't want pollution, but the whole climate change thing is I care
00:27:58
about electron surplus and having an infinite supply of electrons, which is effectively the threshold issue between
00:28:06
us and whatever form of abundance we're going to find with robots, with going to
00:28:11
Mars, with building AGI. The threshold issue is just do we have enough energy to do it all? And if as long as we have
00:28:17
that, we're going to win. And if we don't, China's going to win. Where it comes from, I really don't care. But the
00:28:23
reality with nuclear is, you know, we can't wait till 2035 for electrons to turn on. That's just a non-starter. So
00:28:28
as much as we have to pay for the sins of the past, and the sins of the past is we turned all that stuff off idiotically
00:28:34
to your point because of some, you know, crying child, but now we have to pay for
00:28:38
the conditions on the ground. I have a different question, which is I want to go back to Dave's question on Doge.
00:28:43
Senator, which is there was a $9 billion recision bill that went to the House and
00:28:49
unfortunately it didn't make a lot of progress. What is the future of Doge as you see it?
00:28:56
First of all, it it was beneficial for no other reason than it exposed how oblivious and ignorant Congress was of
00:29:07
all this waste, fraud, and abuse. Okay? I mean, that has value right there. It should have embarrassed every member of
00:29:13
Congress, all these department heads that this kind of spending, this kind of crap was going on and they weren't doing
00:29:18
oversight on it. They weren't taking a look at it. And but and I I tried getting Elon's attention quite honestly
00:29:25
about you know, can give me somebody in Doge that I can work with so that as soon as you identify the spending, we
00:29:32
can connect it to an appropriation account. We can connect it to a mandatory spending account so we can
00:29:38
actually codify it. He he didn't seem to have the time and quite honestly in a personal conversation he said well we
00:29:43
don't have to do that well we do have to do that and so you know we we've been hammering Russ vote you know send us a
00:29:49
recision package you know finally he bundles up $9 billion when on I think the last time I looked at Doge's website
00:29:56
they were up to 165 I think it's higher than that now they're kind of they have fallen short of the goal listen and I'm
00:30:02
not criticizing for them that for that at all but the fact of the matter is it has to be codified just putting on the
00:30:09
website is valuable but we got to bank the savings and so anything that's mandatory has got to be done through
00:30:16
reconciliation otherwise got to be done from recision you you got to get the public support for this I don't know why
00:30:22
they haven't done it so can you just explain that to us like what what we see on the website is that not saved
00:30:31
it's there's a question they've stopped contracts they're no longer spending money that way but the question is
00:30:38
whether the president on his own can impound those funds. So they may not be spent, but they're just going to be, you
00:30:44
know, sitting out there as, you know, unallocated uh spending to be spent sometime in the future unless you resin
00:30:51
them. And again, that's the beauty of recision reconciliation. We don't need Democrats to help us there. We can do
00:30:58
that with simple majorities, both the House and the Senate. And again, it'll be pretty depressing. President Trump in
00:31:04
this first administration sent up a $15 billion recision package and has voted down in the Senate. Two Republican
00:31:10
senators vote against it. And my guess is they paid no political price for doing that. Any Republican that voted
00:31:16
would vote against the recision package ought to pay a pretty huge political price in voting that thing down. But
00:31:22
it's going to take presidential leadership. He's got to be f he's got to be focusing on that. And and I'm sorry,
00:31:28
I don't think President Trump, he's doing all kinds of great things. He's not focused on reducing spending
00:31:34
from what why do you think that is? Have you talked with his staff or him directly about it? Was this not as
00:31:40
apparent to him and his staff as it is to you? I I just think they are overwhelmed. I mean, you see all all the
00:31:48
activity and this just hasn't hit his radar yet. Uh it's going to hit his radar here this next the next few weeks
00:31:53
because So again, he he liked the concept the slogan of one beautiful bill. I don't think he was overly
00:31:59
concerned or understanding what the details were. You know, I'm I'm going to force him to take a look at the details.
00:32:06
I'm I'm going to force a discussion on stranding. It feels like we're about to enter some form of like people conclave
00:32:12
where you and your Senate colleagues are going to go into a room. There's either
00:32:15
going to be white smoke or black smoke. So, can you can you walk us through like
00:32:19
what what is the mechanics now? like what will it be like when you when Senator Thun brings you together, you
00:32:24
all caucus or how how does this work now for you? So, so we've been in finance committee, we've been working on these
00:32:30
things, but again, we're all it's all about scores, right? I've got to point this out. You hear these scores, right?
00:32:35
But they're divorced from they're not tied to anything. It's like, okay, I got a score of 65. Well, good. I mean, it's
00:32:42
good if you're golfing. It's awful if you're bowling. So, you get all these scores. They're divorced from reality.
00:32:47
So again, the the process is complete. It's it's by and large a charade. Okay? Somebody else is going to
00:32:55
write this thing and it's going to be shut down people's throats. I mean, so what I intend to do is I intend to open
00:33:02
it up and bring this to the light of day. I've been doing it since January 1st, writing about giving, you know,
00:33:08
three prepandemic levels, you know, three options on prepandemic levels of spending. next column. Here's a process,
00:33:14
a line by line deep dive forensic audit. You know, I'd love to take the Doge team
00:33:19
right now and just bring them over. Let's focus on this. Let's spend months doing this, but we'll need time. We'll
00:33:25
need a two-step process, you know, and then, you know, literally my my last column just kind of put it all together,
00:33:31
the big numbers, and this is why we have to do it. But but again, you you were following the debate in the House. Did
00:33:36
you ever hear $2.2 2 trillion average deficit being projected. $22 trillion, you know, $59 trillion in debt. Nobody.
00:33:44
It's just $1.5 trillion. Oh, like that's a lot. I mean, it's it's it's it's almost meaningless. It's a rounding
00:33:50
error. So, I'm going to force this debate. That's what that's why I'm on your show here today. That's why I'm
00:33:55
going to be doing Jake Tapper tomorrow. You know, I'm bring the numbers to the four. Senator, is there a a hard line
00:34:02
that you'll have that if we don't get this deficit level to X because that's the focus, that's the objective, that's
00:34:10
the primary objective rather at this point in time in this republic that you'll say I'm a no vote and have you
00:34:17
been that declarative about your position on this? I've been pretty upfront. You know, the first goal of
00:34:23
this Republican budget reconciliation should be don't add to the deficit because that ought to be the first goal.
00:34:30
Uh beyond that, what I've always said is I want a commitment to return to a reasonable prepandemic level spending
00:34:36
and a process to achieve and maintain it. I'm I'm reasonably open. Yeah, I recognize we have to get the votes. So,
00:34:45
I always say I don't have a hard number, but what I've done is I've laid out these options. And right now, the hard
00:34:50
number accepted by and expected by a lot of senators enough to not pass this until we achieve it is $6.5 trillion of
00:34:58
spending in 2026. And I can I can you walk through how you get to that point, but that's
00:35:04
kind of the number. Right now, we're expected to spend about 7.3 trillion next year. So that implies about 8008
00:35:12
trillion in deficit reduction rather than 1.5 trillion that the House has in their meager uh House reconciliation
00:35:20
bill. So it's a pretty big delta. What scoring do you go off of? Is that the CBO scoring that you would use to make
00:35:27
that estimate? Some of the conversation that we've heard is that the revenue effects of some of the new programs are
00:35:35
not taken into account fully. That there may be revenue coming in from tariffs. There may be revenue coming in from the
00:35:40
sale of the Trump immigration card at 5 million a pop and there's a limited effect of the tax cuts on GDP growth
00:35:49
etc. So there's a lot of arguments to be made to make the line seem a little more
00:35:54
blurry than perhaps the scoring might indicate. That's why to try and simplify things. Okay, I'm focusing on spending.
00:36:00
We went from 4.4 to it'll be 7.3 next year. You know, let's bring it down to a reasonable prepandemic level 6.5.
00:36:07
spending, spending, spending. I voted for President Trump because I wanted him to defeat the deep state. You don't
00:36:13
defeat the deep state by continuing to fund it at Biden's levels. So the the minute you start bringing revenue,
00:36:19
nobody can project that. Nobody knows exactly what the impact's going to be. And so that starts, you know, muddying
00:36:25
the waters. So I focus on spending. Uh I don't really want to fund the deep state. Okay? I I would like to bring
00:36:32
certainty to the economy. I'd like the trade wars to end so we can bring that level of stability. I don't want to
00:36:38
increase taxes. So again, my approach would be multiple step. Border defense, bank the savings, take whatever good
00:36:45
work the house did, bank that. Extend current tax law is awful as complex it is. Just extend that. Increase the debt
00:36:52
ceiling for a year to put pressure on us to come back and do the work on on the spending. And then we can bring up
00:36:59
President Trump's taxes as well. I mean, I would keep this as simple as possible.
00:37:03
get it passed and start doing the work. That would be my approach. Do you think that there's
00:37:09
any upside or legislative resolve to think about monetizing assets? So, for example, Secretary Lutnik has talked
00:37:17
about the vast resources. Secretary Bergam has talked about as well, the vast resources that America has, whether
00:37:23
it should, you know, we should consider thinking about monetizing some of those things, selling federal land, selling
00:37:28
drilling rights, selling royalty rights. What do you think about that as an incremental way of softening the landing
00:37:34
here? I would say the only reason I'm not in a full-fledged panic is because people like Art Laugher do point out we
00:37:42
have vast wealth. I mean so our debt our debt to GDP ratio is probably not the the most relevant. It is relevant for
00:37:50
inflation that type thing but you know debt to total assets is probably the more relevant. So, so we we literally we
00:37:57
can afford this level of debt, but you have to you do have to compare it to income as well and our ability to
00:38:03
service the debt and the debt spiral. So, again, this all ends up being a lot of different
00:38:08
uh factors coming into what's going to make it possible for people to live. And again, inflation is probably the one
00:38:17
metric that we need to avoid. And I think that's the thing that I'm most concerned about in terms of death and
00:38:22
spending. I'm I'm not concerned about America going bankrupt because we have this vast wealth. Um I'm concerned about
00:38:29
us being insolvent in sparking massive inflation and just wiping out people's savings, making it very impossible for
00:38:35
them to live and retire. What do you think is the future through these next 16 months of bills and the impact? To
00:38:43
your point, there's a lot of people that came together in a coalition to vote for
00:38:48
accountability to defund and to starve the deep state. And if we continue to feed it, it seems like a traditionalist
00:38:56
default. We're going back to the way things were. Can you talk to us about that and what your thoughts are about
00:39:02
that? Well, I'm highly concerned about just the conservative movement. Uh I think Trump is a completely unique
00:39:09
political figure. I think he definitely did drive turnout. he's expanded, you know, certainly our base, which by the
00:39:15
way is one of the reasons I'm I am sympathetic to what you're talking about in terms of the tax cuts he's proposed.
00:39:19
I mean, we need to focus on the working men and women of this country that is really the the Trump coalition. Um, but
00:39:26
I'm concerned about how effective Democrats are, the coalition they have made up of the media, primarily social
00:39:32
media companies, that type of thing. Their relentlessness of letting all these undocumented people in this
00:39:37
country who are voting, I mean, we're starting to see that type of fraud. um that are you know they they are trying
00:39:45
to cheat. I think they do cheat in voting. I think they we don't have an real feeling in terms of how you know
00:39:51
the order of magnitude of their cheating. Uh but a quick example of you know we had that important Supreme Court
00:39:57
race here. Elon Musk came in here did some pretty innovative things. Spent a lot of money here. Uh the liberal
00:40:05
candidate got 78% of of Kla Harris's vote. The conservative candidate got 62% of Donald Trump's score. Even though,
00:40:13
you know, we were all out there saying how important this is. If you don't want to see President Trump impeached by a
00:40:18
Democratc controlled Congress in the next Congress, you got to get out and support President Trump. That didn't
00:40:23
resonate. Again, 78% of Democrats came out of 62% of Republicans. Do you think there's a risk that MAGA becomes a
00:40:32
version of, you know, Tea Party 2.0 where it starts with energy, but then there's just the gravitational pull of
00:40:39
the establishment is just too strong for the rebels to fight off. No, I think the
00:40:43
greatest danger of MAGA is it's really tied toward one individual. You know, Tea Party movement was tied toward the
00:40:50
vision of America, freedom, you know, debt and desolate, not mortgage or kids future. I think that survived. I mean,
00:40:57
they did a pretty good job of marginalizing Tea Party, but you know, we're we're alive and well. We're, you
00:41:02
know, we are the the House Freedom Caucus. You know, we're the the people that are going to stop this until we
00:41:07
just get a much better bill in the Senate. So, we're we're still alive and well, but in terms of voters, I mean,
00:41:13
the Tea Party pretty well merged with Republican party. Uh I'm not sure all the mega mega voters are just disgusted by
00:41:21
the whole process as I as am I. And they're much more likely to sit on the couch unless their guy is on the ballot.
00:41:28
Do you think that our model of representative democracy is broken and has the same sort of inevitable outcome
00:41:36
that others have had in the past that ultimately people realize they can vote themselves all the money and they do and
00:41:43
the system breaks? I mean like do like if you were to go back and be a founding father, what would you have done
00:41:49
differently here? And or am I off on this? And I'm No, I'm not sure you uh you are off at all. No, I think we may
00:41:55
have already passed that hinge point. That's my concern. I mean, people ask me, are you optimistic? No, I'm I'm a
00:42:00
pessimist. I'm looking around. That that is the death nail of a of a de democracy
00:42:05
or Republican. And a majority of the voters realize, hey, I can vote myself benefits. Don't don't worry about the
00:42:10
debt and des. We can print money. No, that that's what brings down uh everything. I mean, this is this is what
00:42:17
I've noticed is Democrats, Republicans, populists or elitists, whatever side of the spectrum on
00:42:26
whatever dimensional category you want to assess an individual or representative on, at the end of the
00:42:32
day, they're just trying to use the government to deploy capital to their constituents as best they can. I mean,
00:42:37
that's the mechanism of the electorate at this point. And just hearing your words resonates with me because I've
00:42:42
made a number of visits to DC in the last couple of months since the inauguration and there was a lot of
00:42:48
proclaim about Doge and it's a new day in Washington and I felt a degree of optimism and hope that things were
00:42:54
changing in DC but every member of Congress I sat down with was a a disappointing conversation that reflects
00:43:01
the views that you just shared that they don't really understand what's going on
00:43:04
and they don't really care. It's not a priority to solve the fiscal crisis that we're in and they're not willing to
00:43:11
admit it. It's like a stage 4 terminal patient not willing to admit that they're sick and they need to to take
00:43:17
some therapy. Well, the the the data that backs us up is, and I wrote this in my Wall Street Journal column, 1930, the
00:43:24
federal government spent about 3.5% of our GDP. 3.5. State and local governments were about 9.1. That that
00:43:32
was the foundational premise of America. government close to governed where it's
00:43:36
more effective, more efficient, more accountable. Now we're spending close to 24% the federal level. States are
00:43:42
probably somewhere 12 to 15. Haven't looked that recent. And as Lord Actton pointed out, you know, power corrupts.
00:43:49
Yeah, government is power. That's mean that is really the definition of government is power. So it gets
00:43:55
corrupted and it's been corrupted. And I don't know, we're, you know, I fear we're past the point of no return. Uh
00:44:01
why did I run again for a third term? As disgusted as I am in this process, a I couldn't turn my back on this country. I
00:44:07
can't give up on it. I'm not overly optimistic. And again, it's not just the as government grows, your freedom
00:44:13
recedes. As government grows, you get more and more people dependent on it. Well, that's right. And they're not
00:44:20
they're not doing things productive. You don't have a vibrant economy. That's right. You know, it's just it's a it's
00:44:26
it all all in all is destructive of society. to the point about your numbers, Senator, you know, and I've
00:44:32
talked about this on our show where I've tried to estimate what percent of Americans gain their employment through
00:44:37
a government paycheck, a servicing the government, or a government contractor. And I think it's probably at 50% today.
00:44:44
So 50% of Americans are either working for a public agency, uh, federal, state, or local, or working for the contractor
00:44:52
of a government agency. And that's where you pass the tipping point where it's no
00:44:57
longer possible to bring down the spending because at that point everyone in a representative democracy has every
00:45:03
incentive to keep it up. Otherwise, they will individually lose, not just have something individually to gain. That's
00:45:09
where I worry we're at. I guess the hardliners like yourself may be the last line of defense here, but that's where I
00:45:16
was really curious to hear how how far are you willing to take this in this particular reconciliation bill process
00:45:21
that's about to hit your desk in the next couple of weeks. And who who else is shoulder-to-shoulder with you with
00:45:27
the same point of view in the Senate? Well, I think Rand Paul is pretty much a hard no regardless. Um,
00:45:34
again, I don't think you could get a good enough bill where he'd vote yes. Uh the my other allies for sure in this
00:45:40
thing are Mike Lee and and Rick Scott. You know, each one of us has our own thoughts. You know, may accept something
00:45:48
different than the others. I'm I'm pretty well dug in, but I'm but I'm reasonable. Uh you you give me something
00:45:54
that, like I say, commits to getting to a pre- pandemic global spending uh and a
00:46:00
process to achieve and maintain it, I I'll work with you. Now, one of the things I did, and we had it pinned to my
00:46:07
top of my ex page, I think it's further on down now, but I put together a video about a minute 30 starting with, you
00:46:13
know, President Trump at State of the Union saying he was going to balance the federal budget and then the vice
00:46:17
president and everybody on down some version of we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. At
00:46:24
the very end of the video, I I asked, "So, are we willing to fix it?" You know, right now doesn't appear we are,
00:46:29
but I I intend to insist that we do. Uh, so I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna dig my heels in. There there's no there's nothing
00:46:37
that President Trump can do to pressure me other than other than start work with
00:46:42
me. Acknowledge the numbers. You know, I'm I'm texting. They're probably annoyed with me. Bessent and Hasset and
00:46:49
Russ all the time said here here's here's my viewpoint. What am I not getting right? So they know exactly what
00:46:55
I'm thinking. They know exactly my concerns. They know exactly numbers. You know, I I had good nice lunch with uh
00:47:01
Scott Besson in the Treasury Department. I gave him my charts and graphs, all that kind of stuff. I'm He asked for the
00:47:07
electronic versions of those so he could distribute those to the Treasury Department. So, none of this should come
00:47:12
as any surprise to anybody. And again, the the ace I hold is I am going to force the numbers that we have to look
00:47:22
at out in the public because to this point, we haven't discussed it. And the number from your perspective, if you had
00:47:28
to create a hierarchy just in your messaging, is the number we should take away is that we're about to tune the
00:47:35
debt to 60 to 70. So call it 65 at the midpoint. Is that the number that we should be focused on? Is I first focus
00:47:43
on focus on spending. Okay. 89.3 trillion. Again, that's again that represents government, right? That's
00:47:49
that represents that power that's been corrupted. that that represents the just unprecedented other than World War II
00:47:56
increase in spending from 2019 of 58 to 60%. So if if you if you can't deal with
00:48:01
that in my column I pointed out, you know, our our forefathers, the greatest generation, responsible leadership, you
00:48:08
know, entered World War II spending about 11.7%. Ramped that up to 41% during the
00:48:12
war. By 1948, they were down to 11.4%. So it's entirely possible, but you need leadership. I need the president of the
00:48:19
United States. By the way, I've been in the White House with him. I've shown him
00:48:22
my charts and graphs. He goes, "I love this. I love this. The house ought to love this. Have they has this been
00:48:28
presented?" So, no, Mr. President, let's go to the house. Let's present this. He
00:48:32
didn't do that. We need President Trump to embrace the reality that we are spending
00:48:38
way too much money. He was elected to defeat the D State. You don't defeat it spending it by levels. He needs to see
00:48:44
the detail. Again, I think, you know, to be charitable, I think he's been so busy
00:48:48
doing so many other wonderful things that I support. He hasn't focused on this. I'm going to force him to focus on
00:48:56
this. This will be the moment you think. And so, when you speak with Besson, does
00:49:00
he think he can get the president there as well? I mean, I always think back to Bill Clinton with his balanced budget
00:49:05
economic poster boards that he put up, right? the like here's the simple charts, let me explain it to you and
00:49:11
every American could watch that on television and understand what he was talking about, nodded their head and
00:49:17
Congress and the entire populace went along with it. Do we need that? Do we get that moment, do you think? Yeah. And
00:49:23
again, I don't think the numbers are that complicated. Yeah. Point them out. You know, $22 trillion of additional
00:49:29
deficit spending. That's a rosy scenario. That's $2.2 trillion per year. You know, Obama his a he averaged about
00:49:37
$900 billion a year deficit. Trump before the pandemic is about 800 billion. You know, but Biden's up to
00:49:43
almost $ 1.9 trillion average deficit. Clearly unsustainable. We got to get back to a reasonable level. And by the
00:49:50
way, if we do, I think the bonds would bond markets would rejoice. We wouldn't be looking at a ramping up of interest
00:49:56
costs. uh you know we can talk about you know debt to wealth as opposed to debt debt to GDP because we've got that
00:50:04
monkey off our back. You said something interesting. I just want to come back to
00:50:07
which is you said when the government absorbs all the dollars in the system, there's fewer and fewer dollars left for
00:50:13
private industry. Just to build on this, one of the things that I brought up at the beginning of this year, I said the
00:50:19
most important thing that you need is tail insurance. The tail risk needs to get
00:50:24
managed at the beginning of this year. And there's a very important market that is a gauge of that towards private
00:50:30
industry which is called credit default. which is what is the risk of private industry not being able to pay back
00:50:36
their obligations. And unfortunately through the course of this year we've seen the cost of that insurance ramp.
00:50:44
But at the beginning of liberation day, there was some relief there because people saw a path out of this. And
00:50:50
unfortunately, we're back to almost near highs. And it is the market signaling that first we'll go private
00:50:59
industry and then the second will be the repricing of the risk for the US government. And I think that if people
00:51:06
can really understand that that's the cascade, to your point, that first card has unfortunately been turned over. Now,
00:51:12
we haven't seen the implications on Main Street of that, but that's what we need
00:51:16
to avoid. We need to get these markets to understand the bigger picture, but we need to show them something. And we also
00:51:21
have to focus on economic growth through the private sector, right? Not fueled by
00:51:26
government deficit spending. I mean, I don't know what percent of our actual growth came from $2 trillion year
00:51:32
deficits. I think a pretty good chunk. So, have we really had real private sector growth? think we have but not as
00:51:39
not as much as I think the headline numbers because so much of it has been fueled by by the government. By the way,
00:51:44
that's also true in terms of revenue coming from from the government. I mean, it is true that we beat the CBO
00:51:49
estimates, but that's because of trillions of dollars of deficit spending starting the pandemic years followed
00:51:55
through with with Biden. Prior to the pandemic, we weren't we really weren't matching even the CBO's, you know,
00:52:03
downgrade of revenue coming in after the TCGA. we weren't hitting it. But then you had COVID hit and again trillions of
00:52:11
dollars in deficit spending that also boosted revenue. So again, all these people saying, "Oh, we're going to, you
00:52:16
know, that that tax increase that's going to be dynamically scored and it's going to pay for
00:52:20
itself." Listen, I'm all for dynamic scoring, but let's let's be realistic. And and again, I'll point out the CBO
00:52:26
projection I'm dealing with, $22 trillion, that assumes we go from 17.1 to 18% of GDP in terms of revenue.
00:52:35
So, you know, if if if if we don't cancel the tax increase, uh, and there's a dynamic scoring effect, it just means
00:52:45
we don't hit 18.1 and that number is still lower. Talk to us about the setup for 2026 and maybe if you want your
00:52:52
thoughts about where the country goes into 2028. One of the things that Dave talks about a lot is moments that
00:52:58
galvanize some form of populist socialism. this idea, as he said very articulately, I can just vote myself the
00:53:04
money, so who's going to just give me the most money? Can you just walk us through some political forecasting for
00:53:10
us? That's why I'm not an optimist. Um, but you know, I've heard people rationalize this, and I mean important
00:53:17
people rationalize, you know, just just go along with this. Get us the P. I mean, this is what we have to do to win
00:53:22
the majority, maintain the majority in the House in 2027, right? What good is a majority if you literally
00:53:29
don't solve the problems that you're aware of? I mean, what good Oh, oh, oh. So, we when we have the majority in
00:53:36
2027, then then we're going to actually spend the, you know, turn the spending curve down. That's when we're going to
00:53:41
return to prepandemic level spending. I don't buy it. This is this is our one opportunity and right now we're blowing
00:53:47
it and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we don't blow it. But again, that is the reality.
00:53:52
Listen, I'm not I don't discount the fact that we may lose the House, we may lose the Senate, but I would say we do
00:53:59
that because we're not solving these problems. We're going to be looked at as unserious. You know, our base is going
00:54:04
to go, "What? Wh Why did we Why did we elect you guys? You didn't take the bull by the horns. You didn't solve this
00:54:10
problem. You're you're really no better than Democrats." I think we have to be concerned about that. If this
00:54:16
reconciliation bill gets done, Senator, in the next couple of weeks, what bill would you hope to see next to get to
00:54:24
that north star of fiscal responsibility? Is there a recision bill that you'd be looking for? Do we need to
00:54:31
actually have a sit down and talk about building a budget? What's the right next
00:54:34
step here in creating a northstar that creates stability for the republic? Again, it's developing a process that
00:54:42
will achieve and maintain a prepandemic level spending, you know, just a lower spending level. It's a it's it is I come
00:54:49
from manufacturing base, right? You you can't have a good product without a good
00:54:52
process. And we've just never had that process. So, the only one I can think of is what doge has demonstrated does work
00:54:59
in terms of the public supporting us in terms of eliminating just awful spending. So, you got to
00:55:06
expose it. You got to go line by line. Again, there there are thousands of lines, just top lines in the federal
00:55:11
budget. Hundreds thousands of lines under each one of those as well. So, you have to do the work. And again, I would
00:55:18
love to take that Doge team, you know, those geniuses with all their AI and their computer skills and get, you know,
00:55:25
100 200 forensic auditors and just go through this line by line. And again, my proposal was uh having this budget
00:55:32
review panel, senators, house members, members of the administration, OM. Uh then you you basically set up the
00:55:39
process just like you do in a business. You know, here's your budget review sheet. This is then you bring the
00:55:44
department heads, their financial gurus in front of this budget review panel. Just justify your spending. But again, I
00:55:51
would be comparing it to outlays under Clinton plus up, outlays under Obama plus up, outlays under Trump plus up. go
00:55:58
through every line and go, first of all, why are you spending more than even Trump? Why are you spending more than
00:56:04
Obama or Clinton? Plus, why are you spending any money at all on this? But you have to go through the work. You So,
00:56:10
you need the time. I've been proposing this now for months. Nobody's put in the the effort. OM said, "We don't have
00:56:18
enough time." And I realized they're they're busy. The House said, "No, you know, we've been working on this for a
00:56:23
year. We're satisfied with our numbers. We didn't have the time." The Senate really Senate leadership is the only one
00:56:28
that's been fully behind what I'm trying to do here. But I can't we can't do it alone. I mean, I can't do it. I don't
00:56:33
have the budget expertise. So, it really is it's getting the commitment of the president that he he is determined to
00:56:40
not keep funding the deep state buying levels, return to a reasonable prepandemic level spending, and then get
00:56:46
his OM fully behind this effort. This got to be every this got to be the biggest effort on budget ever. and then
00:56:54
set the thing up, show it works, and then hopefully maintain it over the years. I I I can't think of anything.
00:57:00
We've tried all this other stuff and never worked. Well, look, I hope you find a path towards that goal, Senator.
00:57:06
I think it's a critical time. And speaking as an American, appreciate your resiliency in the face of what I'm sure
00:57:14
is a lot of political pressure and tension right now in trying to make sure that the right thing is done here for
00:57:20
the long term of American prosperity. So, thank you for your service. Thank you for the work you do. We appreciate
00:57:26
it. I appreciate you having me on. I I will say one thing that is different about me than others. I'd rather go
00:57:32
home. That that's a significant difference when when you'd rather I'd rather return to my private sector life
00:57:39
than keep serving here in this total dysfunction. Uh that that is that is what again I can't be pressured by
00:57:47
President Trump. I I can't I mean, he's not going to flip me just by the force of his argument or any kind of political
00:57:54
pressure. There's there's just no pressure he can apply to me. He's willing to sit down with me, look at the
00:57:59
numbers, acknowledge them, working forward in a reasonable plan forward. Uh that's that's the only way he's going to
00:58:05
get my support. Well, I hope that there are others that get into the same mindset as you. I've always found it
00:58:13
off-putting that folks choose to be politicians as a career rather than rotating in and out of doing this as a
00:58:21
service and then going back into the private sector where I think that a lot of the misalignments and conditioning
00:58:26
can be avoided. So yeah, appreciate that mindset and and thank you. Thank you Senator for your cander. Thanks for
00:58:33
having me on transparency. Thank you. I mean my conclusion today is similar to how I finished the pod yesterday which
00:58:40
is concern that the bond market is not going to take this well. I do think that that puts a lot of pressure on America
00:58:48
and I think it's going to put pressure on private industry and what will happen as a result is not necessarily that we
00:58:55
go bankrupt or whatever but there is no clear dividing line between public and private industry and I don't think that
00:59:01
that's a great outcome. Not to mention the value of everyone's assets. They go to zero. They go to zero. Well, I mean
00:59:08
look like but but as this the senator made the point a dollar in 2019 is worth 80 cents today because of the inflation
00:59:16
we've experienced from the rampid spending since co and if that continues which is the steady state that we've now
00:59:24
assumed is we're now assuming to continue emergency spending as if it's the kind of standard then that same
00:59:31
level of decline in value of a dollar or decline in value of any American asset will continue and it will only
00:59:37
accelerate. And I think the worry is that in 10 years, you know, a dollar is worth 30 cents. Yeah. And that makes it
00:59:44
harder for everyone to prosper in America. The ability to buy a home, the ability to have greater wealth, the
00:59:51
ability to improve your conditions and your livelihoods are significantly diminished. That's the biggest
00:59:56
consequence that we've seen many times over the last couple of centuries as countries have gone through the same
01:00:02
cycle that the American uh republic now finds itself in. This is kind of one of those last stands of the Alamo, if you
01:00:09
will, because the arithmetic gets to the point that it becomes unstoppable. This
01:00:14
train is gone. So anyway, I I thought it was great to have some time with the senator to talk about it today. Again,
01:00:21
when when we have these conversations, Chimath, obviously, we're not fully endorsing all the views and points of
01:00:26
view. It's good to hear from people. It's good to understand their point of view. Let them speak and have the
01:00:31
conversation. There are things that we'll agree with, things that we don't agree with. But I think on the the
01:00:35
fiscal condition of the United States, I've been pretty clear, pretty vocal on my point of view on this. And on this
01:00:40
particular point, I think the senator is a very important voice. I think it's really it's really important for America
01:00:47
to let private citizens have agency and do the things that they think they should be doing. And I think that if you
01:00:54
move to a place where we become fiscally crippled and reliant on the government,
01:00:59
that's a horrible outcome. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Uh well, I'm glad we did this. I know uh it was a push to get
01:01:05
it done on a Saturday, but I thought it was uh really worthwhile to give the senators a I
01:01:11
already I already made love to Nat twice this morning, so I'm from All the boxes
01:01:15
have been checked. But what did you do after those six minutes? Did you have played with the kids? Played with the
01:01:19
kids for an hour. Yeah. So I've done everything I need to walk the dogs. Good. Yeah. All right, bro. We'll talk.
01:01:26
Love you. [Music] I'm going all in.