In this Hot Mic episode, host Erik Fleming talks about the price of and the investment in independence. He also dives into the recent appropriation bill passed by the U.S. Congress.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:21 --> 00:01:56 Music.
00:01:57 --> 00:02:02 Hello, and welcome to Another Moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:03 --> 00:02:10 So, as I am recording this, this is our 249th Independence Day.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:19 249 years ago, the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental
00:02:19 --> 00:02:24 Congress that had convened to declare the independence from Great Britain.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:33 At that point, we had been in battle with the kingdom of Great Britain for about a year.
00:02:35 --> 00:02:39 And, you know, significant events had taken place, the Boston Massacre,
00:02:40 --> 00:02:43 the Boston Tea Party, Lexington and Concord.
00:02:44 --> 00:02:51 So this was a formal declaration by the colonies that existed,
00:02:51 --> 00:02:56 that they wanted to govern themselves and be independent of a king.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:04 And so we commemorate that day as the day that this country was founded.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 The Constitution would not be ratified until 13 years later.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:16 But as far as the United States being an independent nation,
00:03:16 --> 00:03:19 this is the day that we commemorate that.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:28 So I hope that when you listen to this, that you have, you had a good holiday weekend.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:37 That despite what's going on in the nation currently, that you personally had
00:03:37 --> 00:03:43 a good holiday and that you got to hang out with friends, family, neighbors,
00:03:43 --> 00:03:47 got to see some fireworks, got to watch some baseball,
00:03:47 --> 00:03:49 tennis, whatever you're into.
00:03:50 --> 00:03:54 And that you enjoyed a moment, you found some fun.
00:03:55 --> 00:04:01 This is also a significant time for me because, as far as this podcast is concerned,
00:04:01 --> 00:04:09 because on July 1st, 2019, is when I first aired A Moment with Erik Fleming.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:19 And in the beginning, for those who are just now finding this show, it was just me talking.
00:04:19 --> 00:04:25 It started off with me being upset about the current president,
00:04:25 --> 00:04:30 who was the president at that time as well,
00:04:30 --> 00:04:35 and just trying to vent some frustration.
00:04:36 --> 00:04:44 Because all my life, I revered the presidency of the United States as one of
00:04:44 --> 00:04:47 the most important titles in the world.
00:04:48 --> 00:04:54 Definitely the most important job in this country because that individual was
00:04:54 --> 00:05:00 a symbol of how we could unite and choose a leader.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:05 And of course, when I first started paying attention to that,
00:05:05 --> 00:05:09 like when I was three, four years old, you know, I was real naïve about that.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:14 I just thought it was cool that somebody could be chosen to be the President of the United States.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:20 Now, of course, as I got older and I got personally engaged in politics,
00:05:20 --> 00:05:27 I realized it's not as smooth or as unifying as I thought it would be.
00:05:27 --> 00:05:33 But it's still a great concept that the citizens of the nation choose somebody
00:05:33 --> 00:05:39 to represent them in front of the world and to govern,
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 not rule, because there's a difference, but govern.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:49 Work with the Congress, work with the judicial branch,
00:05:50 --> 00:05:57 coordinate with the different governors and even the mayors of cities to make
00:05:57 --> 00:06:04 this country function and to allow people to live their lives and thrive in
00:06:04 --> 00:06:05 the lives that they're living.
00:06:06 --> 00:06:10 I think it's an incredibly noble concept.
00:06:11 --> 00:06:17 But with all things, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
00:06:18 --> 00:06:25 And where we have not gotten to the point where we have absolute power in the
00:06:25 --> 00:06:26 presidency, it's pretty close.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:32 And it's not because of one dynamic individual.
00:06:33 --> 00:06:41 That's really never the case. it's the capitulation of many individuals ceding
00:06:41 --> 00:06:43 power to that one person.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:49 If you're the Speaker of the House or the President Pro Tem in the Senate or
00:06:49 --> 00:06:57 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, you have a unique role to play in governing the nation as well.
00:06:58 --> 00:07:02 You're not the President, whereas the whole nation doesn't choose you.
00:07:02 --> 00:07:06 Heck, the chief justice doesn't even come before the people for a vote.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:14 But the way that that constitutional document was written, there was a science to it.
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 Having experienced being under a monarch,
00:07:19 --> 00:07:26 it was very deliberate of those men who boarded themselves up in the heat to
00:07:26 --> 00:07:31 craft a document that would help govern the nation,
00:07:31 --> 00:07:35 that people would swear to defend with their life.
00:07:36 --> 00:07:39 There was a science and a rhythm to that document.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:47 And Henry Clay, who some people consider one of the greatest Congress people ever to live,
00:07:48 --> 00:07:52 basically said that it was a living document, right?
00:07:54 --> 00:08:00 And the majority of us, the overwhelming majority of us understood that.
00:08:00 --> 00:08:07 And if we didn't understand it, we hope for it, especially those of us who identify
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 or come from the black community.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:18 We have always believed that a document written by people that owned us that
00:08:18 --> 00:08:22 could include us, right?
00:08:23 --> 00:08:34 And so, you know, I admire the people that acknowledged Frederick Douglass' speech on July the 4th.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:39 I think it was in the 1840s. I have to go back and look at that.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:42 Might have been earlier in that, I don't know. But, you know,
00:08:43 --> 00:08:48 he was one of the great orators of our time, of our history, I should say.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:59 And he was expressing the viewpoint of African-Americans, the slaves and, you know, for that time.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:08 And there's still some relevance to it today, but I have always made the argument
00:09:08 --> 00:09:12 that those descendants of slaves who went to law school,
00:09:13 --> 00:09:18 went to universities and colleges, whether they were HBCUs or PWIs,
00:09:19 --> 00:09:26 took their knowledge and took the challenge that Frederick Douglass offered
00:09:26 --> 00:09:32 and demanded that this nation recognize us as full citizens.
00:09:33 --> 00:09:37 And there's three amendments, the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th amendment,
00:09:37 --> 00:09:43 that above all else gives us that credence, gives us that credibility, right? Right.
00:09:45 --> 00:09:53 And because of those three amendments, we've been able to make the Constitution,
00:09:53 --> 00:09:58 make the Declaration of Independence, our documents as well,
00:09:58 --> 00:10:05 and has given us the strategy and the foundation to fight battles to this very day.
00:10:06 --> 00:10:11 So, you know, I know a lot of people get frustrated about where we are.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 I'm one of those people. And I've said this before,
00:10:15 --> 00:10:21 but it's always good to remind folks that I bought into the fact that we can
00:10:21 --> 00:10:29 do a lot of what we need to do being engaged in the political system rather than abandoning it.
00:10:30 --> 00:10:35 And again, I always state that you don't have to be a political junkie like
00:10:35 --> 00:10:37 me, but you do need to be engaged.
00:10:38 --> 00:10:42 You do need to vote. You do need to pay attention to who these people are in
00:10:42 --> 00:10:44 these positions, right?
00:10:45 --> 00:10:50 When you go to the tag office to get your tag, the guy who runs that office
00:10:50 --> 00:10:53 is on the ballot every four years.
00:10:53 --> 00:10:56 Now, the guy in Georgia has been around for a long time.
00:10:57 --> 00:11:02 I would venture to say he's probably one of the longest serving tax commissioners in the country.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:07 Definitely one of the longest serving black ones, right?
00:11:08 --> 00:11:13 But it's like he runs unopposed. I think this last election he had some opposition.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:18 But it's just kind of like, you know, he's been there so long as the name you know.
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 And as long as people can still get their tags and they can get in and out and
00:11:22 --> 00:11:25 everything's automated and it's convenient.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:28 There's no need to really get rid of him, right?
00:11:30 --> 00:11:35 But it's only a select few people that pay attention to the fact that he doesn't get elected.
00:11:36 --> 00:11:43 In Mississippi, there was a position, every county had a position called a county surveyor, right?
00:11:43 --> 00:11:51 So this is a person that you elect to decide who gets the contracts to do the work in the county.
00:11:51 --> 00:11:58 As far as parceling out land or, you know, determining where the right-of-way
00:11:58 --> 00:12:05 is on the road, selecting who, you know, having some say-so in who does work on the road.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:12 That person's elected. Now, I don't know, since I've been gone from the legislature
00:12:12 --> 00:12:16 there for a while, I don't know if they've abolished that position or what have you.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:21 I don't think there's been a constitutional amendment to do that, but it may happen.
00:12:21 --> 00:12:24 But every county elects that person.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:33 So little things like that, you think, well, you know, it is what it is.
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 No, Well, there is a process.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 You have to have somebody to do that work.
00:12:39 --> 00:12:43 And you, citizens, choose who that person is.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:50 My wake-up call in politics was, first time I ever voted, I'm going to vote
00:12:50 --> 00:12:52 for Harold Washington in Chicago.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:58 And I'm excited about all that and all that, but now I'm going down the ballot
00:12:58 --> 00:13:00 about all these different positions,
00:13:00 --> 00:13:08 the court of deeds and city clerk and council, you know, the alderman, all that stuff, right?
00:13:10 --> 00:13:13 So, you know, some of that stuff, because I was engaged a little bit,
00:13:14 --> 00:13:17 I knew. And then we had judicial positions.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 But then it came down to a part of the ballot that said the University of Illinois
00:13:22 --> 00:13:24 Chicago Board of Trustees.
00:13:25 --> 00:13:31 I had to pick eight of those people. I had to vote for eight people out of a slew.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:36 And I forget how many names were actually on the ballot, but it was three times
00:13:36 --> 00:13:37 the amount that you needed.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:41 At least three times. It was more than 24 names.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:48 And I had no clue who any of these people were. I had not received any campaign literature.
00:13:48 --> 00:13:50 Nobody in the media talked about it, nothing.
00:13:52 --> 00:13:59 So I just voted for the people who seem like they may come from my community, right?
00:13:59 --> 00:14:01 And then when I thought about it and remembered their names,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:05 I said, I'm sure there are people in other parts of the city that are doing
00:14:05 --> 00:14:06 the exact same thing I am doing.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:11 Because they have no clue who these people are. They had no clue that they had to vote on it.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:14 There's some people who probably just skipped it altogether,
00:14:14 --> 00:14:18 just said, look, I don't know who these people are. I'm not even voting for that.
00:14:18 --> 00:14:21 But not voting made a difference.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:25 And to be honest, voting out of ignorance made a difference too,
00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 but not voting made a difference, right?
00:14:29 --> 00:14:34 Because your vote could have determined whether a qualified person got in,
00:14:34 --> 00:14:36 even if you didn't know if they were qualified or not.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:41 Just the fact that you marked their name gave them a shot, right?
00:14:42 --> 00:14:46 And figure in the scheme of things it would balance out and,
00:14:46 --> 00:14:51 you know, it was pretty reflective of the community because there were some
00:14:51 --> 00:14:53 people that knew who these people were.
00:14:55 --> 00:15:00 Whatever additional votes they got, besides the people that actually knew them, made a difference.
00:15:01 --> 00:15:10 And so now in this day and age where we see books being banned and superintendents
00:15:10 --> 00:15:17 mandating that you have to learn about the 2020 election was stolen and you
00:15:17 --> 00:15:19 had to use Trump Bibles and all this stuff.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:24 I think people realize that even those positions that you didn't think folks
00:15:24 --> 00:15:28 need to be elected to, you need to pay attention to that.
00:15:28 --> 00:15:32 I was very fortunate to live in a state that was progressive.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:38 But just imagine if I was voting for the University of Oklahoma Board of Trustees
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 and I didn't know any of these people's names.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 Pretty dangerous. Right.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:49 So I don't even know if you vote for the Board of Trustees of the University
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 of Oklahoma, to be honest, but I just use that as an example.
00:15:54 --> 00:16:01 So I say all that to say that we have to be diligent. We have to pay attention because it matters.
00:16:02 --> 00:16:07 The right council person could determine how safe your streets are,
00:16:08 --> 00:16:15 how safe your community is, how effective garbage pickup is in your neighborhood.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:20 Electing the right mayor will determine how safe your city would be,
00:16:20 --> 00:16:28 how a vision for affordable housing could come into play, how people perceive
00:16:28 --> 00:16:29 the city throughout the world.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:36 Very, very important, you know. And I always made the argument that more people
00:16:36 --> 00:16:40 should vote for the, if you had to have a disparity,
00:16:41 --> 00:16:44 more people should vote for who their council people are and who their mayor
00:16:44 --> 00:16:47 is than who should be president.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:54 Now, I'm one of those people that believe that you should vote for everybody and everything, right?
00:16:55 --> 00:17:01 Every amendment that comes up, a referendum, whatever. Pay attention.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:07 Because when they put an amendment on a ballot in your respective states,
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 that's going into your state constitution.
00:17:10 --> 00:17:16 That's going to be the law. When you swear to take an oath to your state constitution,
00:17:16 --> 00:17:19 you're taking an oath to that thing that you had a chance to vote on.
00:17:19 --> 00:17:29 Whether it's making hunting a constitutional right or determining how schools
00:17:29 --> 00:17:31 are going to be funded, right?
00:17:32 --> 00:17:35 All that stuff can be on your ballot.
00:17:35 --> 00:17:41 One constitutional amendment in California changed the education dynamic so drastically.
00:17:41 --> 00:17:46 They went from every citizen of the state of California being able to get a
00:17:46 --> 00:17:53 free college education to now you got record number of people taking out student
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 loans and defaulting to go to a California institution.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 That's the power of voting. That's the difference voting makes.
00:18:02 --> 00:18:09 And so I do this podcast to highlight people in the community to do the work
00:18:09 --> 00:18:14 to talk about the issues that are before us but the most important thing is
00:18:14 --> 00:18:17 I want you to be engaged so if you're engaged,
00:18:18 --> 00:18:23 you're going to vote if you're paying attention to what's happening and you
00:18:23 --> 00:18:26 believe in the process you're going to vote.
00:18:28 --> 00:18:32 I can make suggestions about who to vote for and all that. I don't really get into that.
00:18:33 --> 00:18:37 I'm very opinionated about where I stand about issues.
00:18:38 --> 00:18:42 So I want you to take that with a grain of salt. If you agree with me,
00:18:42 --> 00:18:46 you'll vote accordingly. If you disagree with me, you'll vote accordingly.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:53 But I want you to vote. I want you to take the information that I provide and use that.
00:18:54 --> 00:18:59 Do your own research. church, it's kind of like the rule with the pastor, right?
00:18:59 --> 00:19:01 When you go to church, for those of you who are in the Christian church,
00:19:01 --> 00:19:05 when you go to church, a lot of pastors, a lot of preachers will say,
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 don't take my word for it. It's in the Bible.
00:19:09 --> 00:19:13 So they're basically encouraging you to do your own research.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:17 If you don't believe what he's saying or she's saying in the pulpit,
00:19:17 --> 00:19:23 then grab the book yourself and read it and determine what it means, right?
00:19:24 --> 00:19:29 And if you agree with that, good. If you don't agree with that, question.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:35 In the political process, if you agree with that, vote for the person you agree with.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:38 If you disagree with that, then don't vote for that person.
00:19:39 --> 00:19:44 Vote for the other person, and hopefully you agree with that person, right? Okay.
00:19:45 --> 00:19:50 It comes up in these presidential elections a lot of times, speaking about that,
00:19:51 --> 00:19:55 about voting for the person you agree with, that a lot of folks say,
00:19:55 --> 00:19:58 well, voting for a third-party candidate doesn't matter.
00:19:59 --> 00:20:07 I won't say that it doesn't matter. I will say that you need to be accountable for that vote, right?
00:20:07 --> 00:20:10 Whether you vote for a Democrat or Republican, a Green Party,
00:20:11 --> 00:20:13 Libertarian, whatever, that's
00:20:13 --> 00:20:18 the person you support it. and you need to defend that position, right?
00:20:18 --> 00:20:22 If you're saying I'm looking for an alternative to the two-party system, cool.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:25 But there's consequences to that, right?
00:20:26 --> 00:20:30 But it's not the voters' fault that they're displeased.
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 What I blame is the people who offer these
00:20:34 --> 00:20:39 folks to run for the highest position in the land and they don't offer candidates
00:20:39 --> 00:20:51 to run for Congress or governor or state legislative positions or mayor or city
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 council positions or county positions.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:55 They just run somebody for president.
00:20:56 --> 00:21:03 If that person gets in and the rest of the Congress is comprised of people who
00:21:03 --> 00:21:09 are either Democrat or Republican, how effective would that third-party person be?
00:21:09 --> 00:21:16 It's okay to be a protest candidate or a protest vote, but I think it's disingenuous
00:21:16 --> 00:21:18 when you tell people that you can win,
00:21:19 --> 00:21:23 and that you can do anything once you get in there because you haven't done
00:21:23 --> 00:21:25 the groundwork to make sure that you can get people in.
00:21:25 --> 00:21:32 See, as great as Michael Jordan, as great as Tom Brady, as great as Sandy Koufax
00:21:32 --> 00:21:39 were individually in their respective sports, They played on a team, right?
00:21:41 --> 00:21:48 Politics is not like golf. Well, in some instances, but it's not like tennis.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 You know, one person can't make the difference.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:57 It's a team thing. Not only do you have to get elected, but you've got to get
00:21:57 --> 00:22:01 people who think like you to get elected in order to push forward the agenda.
00:22:02 --> 00:22:06 If you don't believe me, look at what's happening now. Right?
00:22:08 --> 00:22:14 Is able to do what he wants to do because he has a team. And if the team bucks
00:22:14 --> 00:22:21 a little or challenges, he threatens to kick them off the team and they get in line, right?
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 So you gotta have a team concept.
00:22:25 --> 00:22:29 And we have to have a team concept, black folks, as far as voting.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:35 We gotta vote for the individuals that we believe are going to look out for our best interests.
00:22:36 --> 00:22:42 Now, we're not monolithic, So we're not going to agree that every person in
00:22:42 --> 00:22:47 every race, you know, we're not going to agree on voting for that same candidate.
00:22:48 --> 00:22:50 And we have options.
00:22:50 --> 00:22:55 A lot of that can be worked out in the party primary. And then once we get through
00:22:55 --> 00:23:01 that, then people can coalesce behind that one candidate that manages to get to the primary.
00:23:02 --> 00:23:07 But we do have to look at what's offered, especially in the general election.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:10 And make a determination who's the best person.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:16 And again, it's not going to be 100 percent. But we got to we got to make the
00:23:16 --> 00:23:18 case and we got to show up to vote.
00:23:19 --> 00:23:23 Can't root from the sideline and say, oh, I hope they win. You got to do your part.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:29 And people say, well, you know, the president's not elected by popular vote,
00:23:29 --> 00:23:31 so my vote really doesn't count.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:37 Yes, it does, because it may not mean anything from a national perspective,
00:23:37 --> 00:23:45 but your candidate wins that state that you live in, then that person wins those electoral votes,
00:23:46 --> 00:23:48 and they get some closer to being president.
00:23:48 --> 00:23:54 I don't like the electoral college, But until we change it in the Constitution,
00:23:54 --> 00:23:56 that's what we deal with.
00:23:57 --> 00:24:01 So we got to win. We got to vote to win our state.
00:24:04 --> 00:24:08 Candidate that's best suited for us needs our support.
00:24:09 --> 00:24:14 Again, not cheering, not as my friend tells a classic story when he's out campaigning
00:24:14 --> 00:24:19 and he has some guy, hey, I need you to vote. He said, I can't do it today. I'll get you tomorrow.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:24 It wasn't early voting. It was election day, Right.
00:24:25 --> 00:24:34 So, you know, democracy, governance, politics is a participatory activity.
00:24:34 --> 00:24:43 Now, if I had this podcast and I never voted, then what I would be saying would be worthless.
00:24:44 --> 00:24:50 But not only did I vote or do I vote in every election, but I actually was elected.
00:24:51 --> 00:24:57 That's how much I believe in what we're doing. And again, I'm not asking you
00:24:57 --> 00:25:05 to go as far as I go or be as engaged as I am engaged, but I do want you to be somewhat engaged.
00:25:05 --> 00:25:09 I do want you to at least know what's happening and I do want you to participate.
00:25:10 --> 00:25:11 I need you to participate.
00:25:12 --> 00:25:18 The democracy that we've had for 249 years, as flawed as it may have been,
00:25:18 --> 00:25:24 has only gotten better because we engaged, we participated.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:28 When we were outnumbered, we still participated.
00:25:29 --> 00:25:34 When we were denied a voice, we found one. And here we are.
00:25:35 --> 00:25:41 But the only way we can lose it is if we stop, if we disengage,
00:25:41 --> 00:25:44 if we give up, if we lose hope.
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 And we don't have that luxury.
00:25:49 --> 00:25:55 And on the other side of the break, I'll give you an example of what that means.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 All right, guys, we'll catch y'all on the other side.
00:26:00 --> 00:26:19 Music.
00:26:18 --> 00:26:25 Are back. So when I left you all, I was saying that I wanted to give you an
00:26:25 --> 00:26:32 example of what disengaging or not participating would lead to.
00:26:33 --> 00:26:41 So this week, the United States Congress voted on a budget, H.R.
00:26:41 --> 00:26:46 1, for this term that, well, maybe it's S.R.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:49 1 now because they voted for the Senate version instead of the House version.
00:26:50 --> 00:26:59 Anyway, they voted for an appropriations bill that is going to do some major, major impact.
00:27:00 --> 00:27:04 It's going to have a major, major impact on all of us.
00:27:05 --> 00:27:09 Now, most federal legislation does, but this one is really, really significant
00:27:09 --> 00:27:18 because for a long time, I have made the argument that America does capitalism wrong.
00:27:19 --> 00:27:22 We pay to go to college.
00:27:22 --> 00:27:32 We, even at state schools, right, government-funded school, we pay for our health care.
00:27:33 --> 00:27:39 Doesn't matter if we go to the community hospital like University of Mississippi
00:27:39 --> 00:27:47 or Grady or Stroger, Cook County, doesn't matter. We got to pay for our health care.
00:27:48 --> 00:27:49 When we go to the doctor, when we
00:27:49 --> 00:27:52 go to the dentist, when we go to the eye doctor, we got to pay for that.
00:27:54 --> 00:28:00 Money to, like Israel and a few others.
00:28:00 --> 00:28:07 We give them money, but their folks don't have to pay to go to school.
00:28:07 --> 00:28:10 Their folks don't have to pay to go to the doctor.
00:28:11 --> 00:28:17 But we've got so much money in this country that we can give to those other folks, right?
00:28:18 --> 00:28:29 And that's a good thing because the money that we give to help people assures in a soft,
00:28:29 --> 00:28:33 diplomatic way that maybe these folks won't go to war, and maybe if they do
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 go to war, they're not going to go to war against us.
00:28:36 --> 00:28:42 If we help them out during famines and economic crises and all these other things
00:28:42 --> 00:28:49 that maybe, just maybe, we can say, hey, you might want to treat your people a little better.
00:28:49 --> 00:28:51 Hey, do you really need to go
00:28:51 --> 00:28:55 fight this other country? Can we talk about this? Gives us some leverage.
00:28:56 --> 00:29:02 But this government, this current administration has ended that as of this week.
00:29:03 --> 00:29:10 So now we've lost leverage. And so this budget doesn't have money for that.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:17 Right? But not only that, the aforementioned healthcare that we talked about,
00:29:17 --> 00:29:22 the program that we do offer to help people that can't afford.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:26 Healthcare, we're scaling that back.
00:29:28 --> 00:29:34 Of close to a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
00:29:34 --> 00:29:37 We're scaling back food assistance.
00:29:38 --> 00:29:43 For those of us of a certain age, food stamps. Current term is SNAP.
00:29:44 --> 00:29:52 We're scaling that back over a quarter of a trillion dollars over the next 10 years, right?
00:29:53 --> 00:29:56 And they say they're doing this to eliminate waste and fraud.
00:29:57 --> 00:30:03 But if you are concerned about waste and fraud and you're trying to balance
00:30:03 --> 00:30:05 the budget or reduce the deficit or whatever,
00:30:06 --> 00:30:13 then why would you increase the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement budget
00:30:13 --> 00:30:18 to the point where it is bigger than some countries' militaries?
00:30:19 --> 00:30:20 $45 billion.
00:30:22 --> 00:30:25 This legislation that just passed, this appropriations bill,
00:30:25 --> 00:30:33 makes ICE the largest law enforcement agency in the country and arguably the
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 largest law enforcement agency in the world,
00:30:36 --> 00:30:38 larger than the FBI.
00:30:39 --> 00:30:46 So we're putting ICE in a territory where it's rivaling the military.
00:30:46 --> 00:30:52 We're putting more money in ICE than we are in the actual Border Patrol. right?
00:30:52 --> 00:30:57 The men and women who are assigned to protect the border, we're putting more
00:30:57 --> 00:31:01 money into the people that are rounding up people.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:09 And not in any kind of law enforcement ethical way, or ethical enforcement.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:14 You don't know if you're being kidnapped or you're being arrested.
00:31:14 --> 00:31:19 And we increased their budget, $45 billion.
00:31:20 --> 00:31:26 The guys that you've seen on TV covering their face, see on TikTok not identifying
00:31:26 --> 00:31:29 who they are or even what agency they're with, right?
00:31:31 --> 00:31:37 They're bounty hunters or they're actually federal law enforcement. You don't know.
00:31:38 --> 00:31:43 Some of these guys look more out of shape than me. We're giving them $45 billion,
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 and we're cutting money to feed people.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:57 Overall border security over the next 10 years, we're increasing the budget $129 billion, dollars.
00:31:58 --> 00:32:05 Whereas the military, we're increasing their budget over the next 10 years by $150 billion.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:11 So, you know, part of that is going to be corrections, right?
00:32:12 --> 00:32:16 Or in the term with immigration, detention.
00:32:18 --> 00:32:23 Plus, there's some other things that we need to get into, but Like,
00:32:23 --> 00:32:24 for example, well, let's get into it.
00:32:27 --> 00:32:33 So one of the disturbing things is, y'all remember when folks kept talking to
00:32:33 --> 00:32:37 you about Project 2025 and Donald Trump said, well, I don't know nothing about that.
00:32:39 --> 00:32:44 But then he appoints the guy who wrote the book to be over the Office of Management
00:32:44 --> 00:32:48 and Budget to be one of his inner circle in the White House.
00:32:49 --> 00:32:57 Well, in this bill, there's been $100 billion set aside as basically a slush fund.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:03 Now, for those of you who have heard that term before, it's usually some criminal
00:33:03 --> 00:33:05 connotation put into that.
00:33:05 --> 00:33:12 But in government terms, a slush fund basically is a reserve fund.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:14 It's set aside for emergencies.
00:33:15 --> 00:33:19 In Mississippi, it's called a rainy day fund. right?
00:33:20 --> 00:33:26 So if the budget was short, you know, on revenue, and there were programs that we needed to,
00:33:27 --> 00:33:32 you know, services we needed to continue to provide, then we would pull what
00:33:32 --> 00:33:36 we had saved out of the rainy day fund to cover the shortfall, right?
00:33:37 --> 00:33:42 This fund is not necessarily for emergencies, it's for discretion. It's a,
00:33:43 --> 00:33:46 well, we're going to set aside $100 billion.
00:33:47 --> 00:33:52 So if the president says, hey, look, we need to get, I don't know.
00:33:54 --> 00:33:59 50, 160 new FBI agents in Spokane, Washington.
00:34:00 --> 00:34:03 I don't know why Spokane was on my mind. It's just firstly that came to my brain.
00:34:04 --> 00:34:13 Then you can take that 160, that money out of that $100 billion slush fund and put it towards that.
00:34:14 --> 00:34:18 Especially if the FBI doesn't have a budget to add those additional officers,
00:34:19 --> 00:34:24 right, or agents, or whatever the agenda is.
00:34:24 --> 00:34:27 If you want to hire somebody to help you close down the Department of Education,
00:34:28 --> 00:34:32 for example, a person get a contract out of that discretionary fund.
00:34:33 --> 00:34:34 It's never happened before.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:40 If it did, they had a lot more finesse in covering it up.
00:34:41 --> 00:34:46 But, you know, any other administration that tried to do that,
00:34:46 --> 00:34:50 they'd been like, oh, it's at least a corruption.
00:34:51 --> 00:34:58 But you hardly even heard any of the news media talking about it. But it's in there.
00:34:59 --> 00:35:03 $100 billion for this guy who wrote Project 2025.
00:35:04 --> 00:35:08 And again, if you haven't read it, you need to pay attention to it.
00:35:08 --> 00:35:11 Get a summary, get the cliff notes like you did in college or high school,
00:35:11 --> 00:35:17 and just kind of get an idea of where that $100 billion may go to.
00:35:17 --> 00:35:22 I gave you a clue, like with Department of Education, for example, shutting that down.
00:35:24 --> 00:35:27 So there's that. But the biggest thing,
00:35:28 --> 00:35:31 and it was the thing that, you know,
00:35:31 --> 00:35:36 just tickled me in the coverage of all this was that people said they were concerned
00:35:36 --> 00:35:43 about the debt increasing the federal deficit, right?
00:35:46 --> 00:35:56 Is huge. It's basically some estimates by economists three times what we bring in, right?
00:35:56 --> 00:36:01 And then it all depends on what you count as deficit and what you don't count
00:36:01 --> 00:36:10 because some of the deficit is based on one government agency funding another or whatever, right?
00:36:11 --> 00:36:15 The reality is that the federal deficit is huge.
00:36:16 --> 00:36:22 It hasn't been this big since we went into a world war, right?
00:36:22 --> 00:36:24 The last one, World War II.
00:36:25 --> 00:36:34 This budget in the next 10 years will increase that deficit by $4.5 trillion.
00:36:36 --> 00:36:43 And there's only one reason. why it's going to be that high of a deficit.
00:36:43 --> 00:36:47 And that's because of the tax cuts.
00:36:48 --> 00:36:55 In 2017, President Trump put in a five-year reduction in tax,
00:36:55 --> 00:36:58 excuse me, for the richest Americans.
00:36:59 --> 00:37:03 And one of the reasons, outside of the fact that he didn't want to go to jail,
00:37:03 --> 00:37:07 one of the main reasons policy-wise that he wanted to get back in the White
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 House was to make those tax cuts permanent.
00:37:10 --> 00:37:17 And so, he was anticipating getting reelected in 2020 since that did not happen.
00:37:17 --> 00:37:22 The legislation was set up where it expired this year in 2025.
00:37:23 --> 00:37:28 So, he was basically planning to have those tax cuts go through his eight years.
00:37:28 --> 00:37:32 He could say, oh, I gave the British people a break and all that stuff.
00:37:33 --> 00:37:38 Well, he missed out on four of those years. Yeah.
00:37:39 --> 00:37:45 Out of how he wanted that plan to work. And so I'd say five years is longer
00:37:45 --> 00:37:49 than that because if he put it in 2017, eight years.
00:37:50 --> 00:37:54 So he wanted that to go through his second term, is what I'm saying.
00:37:55 --> 00:37:58 It was going to expire after he got out.
00:37:59 --> 00:38:05 But since he didn't get reelected, fought like hell to get back in so he could make them permanent.
00:38:06 --> 00:38:13 That's what he did. But he got in there, and it was like in all this talk and
00:38:13 --> 00:38:18 all these disputes about, well, we don't want the deficit to go high,
00:38:18 --> 00:38:21 and we got to make these cuts and all this stuff.
00:38:21 --> 00:38:24 That's the argument they were making about Doge, and that was the argument they
00:38:24 --> 00:38:28 were making about Medicaid and Medicare.
00:38:29 --> 00:38:33 Oh, by the way, did I mention Medicaid? They're going to cut $930. Yeah, I did.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:38 A trillion dollars. I did mention that, right? 930 billion.
00:38:39 --> 00:38:45 So I never was that great in math, but I do know that 930 billion,
00:38:46 --> 00:38:51 4.5 trillion, it's a gap there. It's a pretty big gap.
00:38:52 --> 00:39:00 So it seemed like to me that if you wanted to pass a budget that had savings
00:39:00 --> 00:39:10 in it and you didn't want to conflate the national debt or federal deficit,
00:39:11 --> 00:39:12 whatever term you want to use.
00:39:13 --> 00:39:19 Then it seems to me that the negotiating factor would have been.
00:39:20 --> 00:39:24 Let's not make these tax cuts permanent. But no matter how.
00:39:25 --> 00:39:29 And these people argued and even threatened not to vote for it.
00:39:29 --> 00:39:33 We're just talking about the Republicans now, how they threatened not to vote
00:39:33 --> 00:39:34 for it and all that stuff.
00:39:34 --> 00:39:36 The tax cuts never were on the table.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:42 And to me, if you really were concerned about the deficit, then that should
00:39:42 --> 00:39:43 have been the first thing to go.
00:39:44 --> 00:39:50 And then you could have a more focused discussion on do we need to cut that much in Medicaid?
00:39:50 --> 00:39:56 Do we need to cut anything in Medicaid? Do we need to cut anything in food stamps? Snap.
00:39:57 --> 00:40:02 You know, let's have a real discussion about how we manage the money that we're going to get in.
00:40:02 --> 00:40:09 Let's try to actually have a balanced budget, even though it's not mandated by law that we do.
00:40:10 --> 00:40:15 Which, again, you've listened to this podcast, you know that the federal Congress
00:40:15 --> 00:40:20 is the only legislative body in America that doesn't have to have a balanced budget.
00:40:20 --> 00:40:24 All 50 states in the District of Columbia, I would assume some of the territories
00:40:24 --> 00:40:28 like Puerto Rico and Guam, they all have to have a balanced budget.
00:40:29 --> 00:40:32 Virgin Islands, they have to have a balanced budget. In some states,
00:40:32 --> 00:40:36 you can't adjourn the session until you have a balanced budget.
00:40:37 --> 00:40:42 But the Federal Congress, the United States Congress, doesn't have that.
00:40:42 --> 00:40:48 There was an amendment offered right around the time the Constitution was ratified
00:40:48 --> 00:40:53 to have a balanced budget, and it never got ratified, right?
00:40:54 --> 00:41:01 So since you don't have that constraint, then why were the tax cuts down negotiable, right?
00:41:02 --> 00:41:06 Well, the president wanted it. Well, traditionally, presidents want a lot of things.
00:41:07 --> 00:41:12 Sometimes you can give it to them. Sometimes you can't. Why was that the imperative?
00:41:12 --> 00:41:17 Why was it important to have these tax cuts at the expense of people losing
00:41:17 --> 00:41:23 their health care, at the expense of people going hungry, children, veterans?
00:41:24 --> 00:41:27 Right? Now.
00:41:28 --> 00:41:33 Some things in the bill make sense. You know, President Trump in his first administration,
00:41:33 --> 00:41:37 when he pushed for his tax cuts,
00:41:38 --> 00:41:44 he capped the deduction you could have on property value and on federal taxes at $10.
00:41:45 --> 00:41:48 Well, he was trying to punish the states that didn't vote for him,
00:41:48 --> 00:41:54 like New York and California, that have incredibly high real estate value, right?
00:41:55 --> 00:42:01 Incredibly high property values. So capping it at $10 is a drop in the bucket
00:42:01 --> 00:42:04 for what these people pay in taxes.
00:42:05 --> 00:42:09 So that got improved to $40, right?
00:42:10 --> 00:42:15 But if you take out a student loan, there's going to be a new payment plan for you.
00:42:16 --> 00:42:20 And you're probably going to pay more per month based on a new plan.
00:42:21 --> 00:42:26 And you're not going to have any grace. See, with President Biden,
00:42:26 --> 00:42:32 even before he tried to erase all student loan debt, he did get in legislation
00:42:32 --> 00:42:39 and say, well, if you paid off X number of years, the rest of the loan would be forgiven.
00:42:39 --> 00:42:43 So you can live, go on and live your life, have more money in your pocket,
00:42:44 --> 00:42:47 enjoy the fruits of your success.
00:42:48 --> 00:42:56 But Donald Trump's taking that away from you. so the bottom line is these people
00:42:56 --> 00:43:01 got elected I don't care how gerrymandered the districts are these people got elected and.
00:43:03 --> 00:43:09 Into that. So, you know, the Congress is majority Republican now,
00:43:10 --> 00:43:11 both the House and the Senate.
00:43:11 --> 00:43:14 Senate, you can have some say-so about it because it's statewide.
00:43:15 --> 00:43:21 These districts are drawn in such a way where if, you know, they're trying to
00:43:21 --> 00:43:24 give the Republicans the advantage, right?
00:43:24 --> 00:43:29 If the Republican controls the state legislature, then they control the drawing
00:43:29 --> 00:43:34 of the map, and then and they're going to try to get more of their friends in the Congress, right?
00:43:35 --> 00:43:40 Now, Democrats have done that historically, too. Let's not get it twisted. It's about power.
00:43:42 --> 00:43:47 But what has been happening is that states that have gone majority Democrat,
00:43:47 --> 00:43:52 a lot of those states are going to an independent system to draw the lines.
00:43:53 --> 00:43:57 That's kind of the new Democratic mantra. It's like, we take control of the
00:43:57 --> 00:43:59 legislature. We're going to get out of the map-drawing business.
00:44:00 --> 00:44:06 Republicans, on the other hand, we're going to do anything to give us power.
00:44:06 --> 00:44:11 In North Carolina, for example, Donald Trump won the state, but every Democrat
00:44:11 --> 00:44:14 statewide on the ballot won the state too.
00:44:15 --> 00:44:20 But the majority of the legislature that got elected is Republican.
00:44:20 --> 00:44:25 So they had one Republican win a statewide office, one.
00:44:26 --> 00:44:31 And so that Republican legislature got in there and tried to change the law
00:44:31 --> 00:44:36 so that the Democratic governor, the Democratic lieutenant governor,
00:44:37 --> 00:44:40 the Democratic secretary of state all had to answer to the state auditor.
00:44:43 --> 00:44:51 Elected. That's not how this is supposed to work, right? It is what it is.
00:44:52 --> 00:44:57 Democrats have control, they govern. Republicans have their control, they govern.
00:44:58 --> 00:45:04 But you can't put your finger on the scale to have it favor you all the time.
00:45:04 --> 00:45:09 That's not how a democracy works, especially an engaged democracy.
00:45:09 --> 00:45:12 So see how it all comes back to you all now?
00:45:12 --> 00:45:16 In North Carolina, the people elect the state legislature.
00:45:16 --> 00:45:20 In Mississippi, the people elect the state legislature. In Idaho,
00:45:20 --> 00:45:22 the people elect the state legislature.
00:45:23 --> 00:45:26 In Alaska, in Hawaii, pick a state.
00:45:26 --> 00:45:31 They choose their state representatives and state senators.
00:45:31 --> 00:45:35 In Nebraska, all they choose is state senators, right?
00:45:35 --> 00:45:39 So you can determine who gets in there.
00:45:40 --> 00:45:44 You're going to elect people who want to be fair with the process or you're
00:45:44 --> 00:45:47 going to elect people who want to skew the process, right?
00:45:48 --> 00:45:55 And to me, I can't support a party who believes that white supremacy is the
00:45:55 --> 00:45:59 rule, that white Christian nationalism is the rule.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:04 I can't support those people because I'm not a white Christian nationalist. I never will be.
00:46:05 --> 00:46:07 Even if I wanted to be. I can't.
00:46:08 --> 00:46:13 Because I'm not a nationalist and I'm not white. I only meet one of the criteria, right?
00:46:14 --> 00:46:15 I can't vote for,
00:46:16 --> 00:46:21 that anybody that's not white is not qualified. I just can't support that.
00:46:22 --> 00:46:27 Now, if you agree with me, then I urge you to vote to make sure that doesn't happen.
00:46:28 --> 00:46:35 That's why you can stop a Congress that would vote for a budget that would give
00:46:35 --> 00:46:38 the richest 1% every tax break in the world.
00:46:39 --> 00:46:45 And make immigration enforcement the largest law enforcement agency in the nation,
00:46:46 --> 00:46:51 at the expense of people not being able to go to the doctor or not being able to eat,
00:46:52 --> 00:46:59 or not having a federal agency to make sure that your children are educated properly, right?
00:47:00 --> 00:47:02 Because that's what this whole Department of Education thing is.
00:47:02 --> 00:47:08 As long as it's Department of Education, it's like, yeah, we, no, you can't do that.
00:47:09 --> 00:47:12 No, we're going to make sure you've got some money to do what's the right thing.
00:47:12 --> 00:47:15 We got to put our foot down when you're doing something crazy.
00:47:15 --> 00:47:21 Like making every kid have a Trump Bible in your state. That's insane.
00:47:23 --> 00:47:28 Because, first of all, not every child in that state is going to be a Christian.
00:47:30 --> 00:47:35 Just math. You know, I don't know what religion they would fall under,
00:47:35 --> 00:47:39 but they're not going to be a Christian. You're not going to be able to do that in Utah.
00:47:40 --> 00:47:44 Now, of course, I guess all those kids have the Book of Mormon.
00:47:44 --> 00:47:51 I don't know. They have to know it, but, you know, it's not impeding on their
00:47:51 --> 00:47:52 social studies, I don't think.
00:47:56 --> 00:48:01 But you have the power, whether it's Salt Lake City or Tulsa or Atlanta,
00:48:02 --> 00:48:04 you have the power to determine what happens.
00:48:04 --> 00:48:08 You have the power to not elect a Congress that will do that to you again,
00:48:08 --> 00:48:14 that will placate to the richest people on the planet, some of them anyway,
00:48:15 --> 00:48:18 and your neighbor goes hungry.
00:48:19 --> 00:48:22 Now, they say, well, if you're working, you can get that money.
00:48:22 --> 00:48:27 You can still get aid. But what they're banking on is that you're working a
00:48:27 --> 00:48:30 job where they supply health insurance.
00:48:30 --> 00:48:35 Well, it's not mandated that every company, well, actually it is.
00:48:36 --> 00:48:42 But let me say, not every company is mandated to have quality health insurance.
00:48:43 --> 00:48:49 Just have something. Just like when it was mandated for us to have auto insurance,
00:48:50 --> 00:48:54 none of us can afford State Farm and Allstate, right?
00:48:54 --> 00:48:56 Some of us have to go to the general or direct.
00:48:58 --> 00:48:59 You understand what I'm saying?
00:49:00 --> 00:49:04 It is what it is. Same thing with healthcare.
00:49:04 --> 00:49:07 You don't have to get Blue Cross Blue Shield. You don't have to get,
00:49:08 --> 00:49:09 that's another one, Kaiser.
00:49:10 --> 00:49:12 You can get whatever. It's cheaper.
00:49:13 --> 00:49:17 But cheaper means you don't get all those perks and benefits.
00:49:18 --> 00:49:21 That means you're going to have to pay something out your pocket.
00:49:21 --> 00:49:25 And if you work in a business where it's not mandated that they have to have
00:49:25 --> 00:49:29 health insurance because of their size, then you got to get your own.
00:49:29 --> 00:49:34 Okay, that's cool. But what if you're in a situation where you were working
00:49:34 --> 00:49:39 and your dad gets sick and...
00:49:41 --> 00:49:44 You have to take care of them.
00:49:45 --> 00:49:55 Now, Medicare would cover a lot of that stuff as far as supplies and all that.
00:49:55 --> 00:49:59 But Medicare doesn't pay for you to take care of your parent.
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03 So you have to quit your job that has health insurance.
00:50:04 --> 00:50:10 Now, in the midst of you taking care of that parent, you get sick and you have
00:50:10 --> 00:50:12 no insurance. Now what happens?
00:50:13 --> 00:50:21 You can't qualify for Medicaid under this rule because you're an able-bodied person that can work.
00:50:21 --> 00:50:26 You chose not to work because you're trying to take care of your parent.
00:50:26 --> 00:50:29 Medicaid won't cover you. So now
00:50:29 --> 00:50:33 you've got to figure out a way to pay for health insurance on your own.
00:50:34 --> 00:50:40 That's the insanity of this legislation. And you can't tell me that nobody that
00:50:40 --> 00:50:45 voted for that bill didn't have that simple example presented to them.
00:50:46 --> 00:50:49 Maybe a majority of them don't have people to talk to them like that,
00:50:49 --> 00:50:54 but I'm sure there's at least one or two or three or four, because all you needed
00:50:54 --> 00:50:58 was about four of the Republicans to vote against the bill and it would have died.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:06 But, you mean, four people didn't hear that scenario and didn't put in an exemption for that even?
00:51:07 --> 00:51:11 Even if you wanted to pass the bill, you didn't put that in there.
00:51:11 --> 00:51:15 You give speeches and say, well, if you're able-bodied, you should be able to.
00:51:16 --> 00:51:20 You can get Medicaid if your employer doesn't have insurance.
00:51:21 --> 00:51:26 Some of those jobs are very time-consuming, like fast food restaurants,
00:51:26 --> 00:51:31 which by the way pay lower minimum wage than the federal minimum wage and the
00:51:31 --> 00:51:35 federal minimum wage is still at $7.50?
00:51:37 --> 00:51:40 $7.25? What are we talking about?
00:51:41 --> 00:51:46 Most of these restaurants pay less than that. Now, and then the other thing,
00:51:46 --> 00:51:48 I want to get into that because I got to do this.
00:51:50 --> 00:51:54 So there was a provision in the bill. One of the things that I had pushed for
00:51:54 --> 00:51:58 when I was a state legislator was no tax on overtime pay.
00:52:00 --> 00:52:05 But I didn't have any restrictions in my legislation, right?
00:52:05 --> 00:52:08 There wasn't a cap as to how much you could make.
00:52:08 --> 00:52:14 I think it's like for, in this bill, if you make over $150,
00:52:14 --> 00:52:22 which you probably shouldn't make, but if you make over $150, you lose the exemption.
00:52:23 --> 00:52:28 If you make over $25, you lose the tip exemption, right?
00:52:29 --> 00:52:35 So if you get more than $25 in tips, which can be possible if you work at
00:52:35 --> 00:52:38 a high-end restaurant, that is very, very doable.
00:52:38 --> 00:52:45 California, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, you can make that kind of money off tips.
00:52:46 --> 00:52:54 But if you make more than $25, the exemption stops at $25, right?
00:52:54 --> 00:53:00 If you work more than $150 worth of overtime, then you're capped.
00:53:01 --> 00:53:04 You might could do that. You might could do that at a government job.
00:53:05 --> 00:53:09 You better be able to account for them hours you better be honest about it.
00:53:10 --> 00:53:13 But you could do it, right? But there's a cap on it.
00:53:14 --> 00:53:21 So, you know, what I encourage people to do is not just go with your favorite
00:53:21 --> 00:53:24 network and, listen, I need you to do some research.
00:53:25 --> 00:53:29 I need you to go to places, don't just, you know, American media.
00:53:29 --> 00:53:35 Go to like the BBC or Reuters or somewhere where you can get a summary of what the bill actually does.
00:53:36 --> 00:53:39 One thing that's kind of fun to do is like the Center for American Progress
00:53:39 --> 00:53:42 has their interpretation of
00:53:42 --> 00:53:44 the bill, and then the Tax Foundation has the interpretation of the bill.
00:53:45 --> 00:53:47 Read both of those and weigh it out.
00:53:48 --> 00:53:49 Tax Foundation thinks it's great.
00:53:50 --> 00:53:55 Center for American Progress thinks it's terrible. Do the compare and contrast
00:53:55 --> 00:53:58 and see where you fall on it, right?
00:53:59 --> 00:54:00 Like I said last part,
00:54:01 --> 00:54:08 not any kind of adjective about beauty or pretty or big beauty.
00:54:08 --> 00:54:12 It's legislation. It's an appropriations bill. It's the budget.
00:54:12 --> 00:54:18 This is all it is. It's the budget for this fiscal year coming up. That's it.
00:54:18 --> 00:54:22 And it says guidelines for, oh, and then here's the other trick too,
00:54:22 --> 00:54:24 right? I got to get this in.
00:54:24 --> 00:54:30 So the other trick is some of this stuff ain't going to kick in until after
00:54:30 --> 00:54:33 the midterm election in 2026. Right?
00:54:35 --> 00:54:40 So the Republicans are going to make the argument that all the Democrats are
00:54:40 --> 00:54:42 just trying to scare you. The bill doesn't do that.
00:54:43 --> 00:54:48 So here's the favor I want you to do. When a Republican says the bill doesn't
00:54:48 --> 00:54:51 do that, you respond with yet.
00:54:52 --> 00:54:56 Because the way that they put in some of the cuts, which is why it's projected
00:54:56 --> 00:55:03 for years down the road, is that they didn't want to see mass amount of people going hungry.
00:55:03 --> 00:55:07 They didn't want to see mass amount of people dying in hospitals or not being
00:55:07 --> 00:55:12 able to get to a hospital because they didn't have health care before the 2026
00:55:12 --> 00:55:15 midterm election so they could stay in power.
00:55:15 --> 00:55:19 And they're going to fool some people that don't listen to podcasts like this
00:55:19 --> 00:55:21 and say, well, you know, we didn't do that.
00:55:22 --> 00:55:25 You don't see anybody starving. You don't see anything going on like that.
00:55:26 --> 00:55:27 They did that for a reason.
00:55:28 --> 00:55:32 So they can mask the damage that they're doing down the road.
00:55:33 --> 00:55:40 So again, a Republican says, well, this budget doesn't do that. You respond with yet.
00:55:41 --> 00:55:42 And then you vote them out.
00:55:44 --> 00:55:49 That's what I would do. But I want y'all to be objective. I want you to pay
00:55:49 --> 00:55:51 attention to what's going on.
00:55:52 --> 00:55:55 And I just wanted to get my perspective on that.
00:55:55 --> 00:56:00 But the most important thing I wanted you to understand as I close out is that,
00:56:00 --> 00:56:08 again, for 249 years, we have had a democracy, the longest democracy in the history of the world.
00:56:11 --> 00:56:15 And we need to maintain that if we're going to have a fighting chance.
00:56:15 --> 00:56:18 Some people may not believe that. It's okay.
00:56:19 --> 00:56:21 History would dictate that you don't want the other option.
00:56:22 --> 00:56:27 Because if you're on the wrong side of the option, it's not going to be good for you.
00:56:28 --> 00:56:34 And it usually doesn't turn up good for the people on the right side of the option in their mind.
00:56:35 --> 00:56:40 It's only for a short term. And then the people who are on the outside kick you out.
00:56:42 --> 00:56:45 Violence begets violence, you know, the whole thing.
00:56:46 --> 00:56:53 So the best thing to do is to keep this democracy. So my podcast is a contribution to that.
00:56:53 --> 00:57:00 I'm still trying to get 20 subscribers. Please go to patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming
00:57:00 --> 00:57:06 so that my voice can join the chorus.
00:57:07 --> 00:57:12 Well, I'm in the chorus. Just to keep it going is what I need.
00:57:13 --> 00:57:15 I need the subscribers. I said to go with 20.
00:57:16 --> 00:57:19 I'm sticking to that, right? So do what you can.
00:57:20 --> 00:57:23 Hopefully we'll be back to a regular program next week.
00:57:24 --> 00:57:28 I have some guests and Grace will be back and, you know, we do what we do.
00:57:28 --> 00:57:33 But it just kind of worked out where basically on my sixth anniversary of doing
00:57:33 --> 00:57:39 this and the magnitude of where we are, I needed to go back to the roots and
00:57:39 --> 00:57:42 just talk to y'all and express my frustration.
00:57:43 --> 00:57:46 Although I'd seem pretty cool today. I wasn't really too heated,
00:57:46 --> 00:57:48 but, and just let y'all know what's happening.
00:57:49 --> 00:57:55 And as long as I continue to get good listeners like you and continue to get
00:57:55 --> 00:57:57 your support, we'll keep this going.
00:57:58 --> 00:58:02 All right, guys. Thank you for listening. Till next time.
00:58:04 --> 00:58:50 Music.