Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It's time to check in with Congressman Josh Brick Keene and he represents a
Congressional District two, which is pretty much the eastern one third of Oklahoma.
Busy, busy, steep, no rest for you. It's either doing the
town halls or back doing the people's work at the House of Representatives. How
are you doing today? Oh, I'm good man, I'm good. It's
good to be with you. A busy with the debt ceiling. I know
that this has got a lot of folks kind of anxious today. Yeah,
palm. I hope this segment will allow time for a analogy. I'll do
it quickly. In nineteen sixty five, there was a study that Stanford University
conducted and they put about six hundred and four year olds in a room and
they said, we're gonna give you a marshmallow. We're gonna put it in
front of you, and with the one sided glass, they watched to see
how the six hundred young adults which ones would obey the instruction of not eating
the marshmallow. And they came up with two hundred young adults four year olds
who were able to think long term and not short term and not eat the
marshmallow. And they traced them fifteen twenty years from that date, and what
they found was those young adults who who did not give an instant gratification,
they were two hundred points higher years later on their essay ts. And it
had nothing to do with their intellect. They have everything to do with the
decision to not take the short term and wait for the long term. And
so of course they rewarded them in that study and said, if you don't
eat to you know, the marshmallow in front of you will give you something
better. So I don't know what the something better was, but it was
better than a marshmallow. And my point is, and then sharing that story,
we have gotten into short term thinking in America where every year or two
or three we have a debt ceiling increase. It's always a clean that ceiling.
We always continue to debtload. And what I think many of us are
contending, we've got to start thinking long term. And there was a book
written over that the little scenario I told you about, called emotional intelligence,
And we've got to understand if there's real pain coming to America, if we
don't start thinking a long term and stop thinking short term. And you know,
is this uncomfortable? Yes, I mean we have got to put security,
the blessing, blessing of liberty for our kids first, or we're not
going to have a country fiscally left in a few years when we start getting
into trillion dollar annual debt service payments, which you know that's happening, that's
that's set to happens in about five years, and that will be a financial
death blow to our ability to function in DC. We're talking with the US
Congressman Josh Faking. You're very verse in the Constitution. I'm hearing this chatter
coming from the far left and now hints of it coming from President Biden about
invoking what's called the fourteenth Amendment in order to bypass Congress on this decision.
Can you explain to us a little bit about what's a play here. Yeah,
So the fourteenth A Membi says, of aidity of the public debt as
authorized by law should not be questioned as authorized by law. Well, the
problem is they were authorized by law to go up to a certain amount of
money and then stop, and so they've not been authorized by law to go
any further. Here's what I would contend that the public debt is not to
be questioned if we're gonna pay our bills. This hyper hysteria about defaulting on
our debt. In two thou and eleven twelve, brock Obama told his Treasury
secretary, even up against a very similar situation, you're gonna pay off those
treasury bonds. We receive on any or monthly about four hundred and fifty billion
in revenue right now, and to retire our treasury notes that matures about fifty
billion a month, and just the interest payments are about fifty billion a months.
So we've got plenty of money to be able to take care of prioritizing
the things that have to take care of without defaulting. And so I will
content to them. The only one that can bring about a default is the
President United States telling the Treasury secretary not to do what has been done in
the past. And we've had twenty different government shutdowns in the last many years
since the Ford administration, eight under Reagan, the longest just a few years
ago, thirty five days. We've not defended on our dead there's hyper hysteria,
there's a difference between government shutdowns, which are usually furloughs, where you
have this contrast of opinions. Finally they work it out. People end up
getting their paychecks. And that's usually you know, the National Park Services and
a few other agencies that deal with some discomforts. And yet the national media
narrative is trying to stir up moving to default and we've been so it's just
a it's designed to put pressure on people who want to change short term think
and start thinking a long term. We're talking with Congressman Josh Packing other things
that you're in, Paul Pants, the crisis at the border, and now
that Title forty two has been removed. What we seeing, but we're seeing
that you had twice the number of apprehensions every day for once. That was
revealed last week or two weeks ago when Title forty two was lifted, and
and so what's chaos has become extraordinary chaos. And yet at the same time
that that was being lifted, we had a I'm on the Homeless Security Committee.
We had marked up a bill that, in tandem with the Judiciary Committee,
got put on the floor same day Title forty two. In a way
we passed the most what many are touting the the most conservative immigration legal immigration,
fighting illegal immigration bill, border bill that's ever been put forth in a
Congress had passed. So there's a contrast. There's large order being advocated by
the you know, the Republican Party, who've got the votes on the board
to pass out of the House. And yet because of this desire to bring
in more illegals, you have this this uh, highest number of illegals that
have ever come into our country under any president, five million to date.
That's a million over the population of Oklahoma. That is incredible, as absolutely
incredible. We're talking with the Congressman Josh Perkin, and Congressman tell us,
what's what else is on your mind today? What do we need to know
from yet today? Well, um, we have there's just there's just there's
lunacy operating in DC. I mean even just a constant combatment that we're having
to go in in five people that set in cubicles that are trying to legislate.
We've got a bill that we've followed a few weeks ago to push back
on taking away the authority over speed limits away from states on vehicles about twenty
six thousand pounds that's absolutely going to impact agriculture, commercial trucking. We've got
a new not voted on poem by the people. We've got a new mandate
trying to come in through FBA UFBA of making it impossible for a guy who's
trying to deal with shipping fever with his cattle herd or scours or you know,
if you want to give LA three hundred, which is an antibiotic to
your cattle. The federal government's trying to make it where you've got to get
a prescription from your vet. And that's not something to Congress ford on.
That's something that bureaucrats is setting cubicles are making decisions on. So we've got
a bill we're working on the file to try to stop that. It is.
It is just one more rule advocated by bureaucracy, the fourth leg of
government. And you know, I've heard about it on the peripheral, but
be in DC and see how much of this actually occurs and how much of
an affront to the Constitution. This is where Article one sectional oness has all
legislative power to best. In the Congress. In Federalists seventy three have Alexander
Hamilton, who decries excessive lawmaking, says the reason why we had a mob
cameral legislatures, we've only had a house in the Senate and the president can
detail we wanted to make it tough, Hamilton foundly father is saying to be
able to pass legislation, and yet you have bureaucracy who's skirting that, and
they skirting the rule of law. And we have just we've become a country
that is operating in lawlessness, that we're not adhering to the constitution the wisdom
of our founders. Wow, And it is scary that they we're being ruled
by fiat, these bureaucrats actually doing their will instead of having representative, the
lawmakers doing the will of the people. That is frightening. It is man
and and and so it's something that you know that Republicans and Democrats have got
to rethink this. When Republicans finally get in control, my hope is will
have a president and a Senate and a House altogether that will say no more
that you know, when we get in power, are we going to tolerate
this and we go back to the rule of law. And so the Republicans,
I am pleased. We do have a bill that that is you know,
um that has great support called the Rains Act, and it says that
above a hundred million dollars annual impact on our economy, that any legislation and
be proposed that would have that kind of impact would have to go before the
Congress. I'm a co author of it. That's just common sense. But
it doesn't go far enough. We need a Bridle Act to go with it,
not just Rains but you know, it should be total. Anything that
changes the law ought to be passed by the Congress, not just something that's
above one hundred million. Congressman broken, How could folks get a hold of
you? Berken dot house dot gov. H They can go to Berken dot
house dot gov. Berken has spelled be as in boy are is in Ralph.
He is an echo, she is in Charlie, h is in Horse.
He is an echo. Another he is an echo in A is a
Nike Berkin dot House dot gov. And there's phone numbers for our clam War
office, phone numbers for our DC office that can email us. I would
also encourage people to get in touch with our field reps who should be coming
to a business near you if they're calm, give your comments those field representatives
and I read those all right. Hey, thank you very much for being
with us today. Thanks Tom Having let's say