Speaker 1: Or taxi.
Speaker 2: I'm around.
Speaker 3: This is the seventy seven WABC Mini Cast.
Speaker 1: We are back, folks. This is Steve Moore, Economist. This
Speaker 1: is the More Money Show. And thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: I always say we have the smartest audience in the country,
Speaker 1: so we will be taking your calls later in the show.
Speaker 1: Don't call in yet, wait till maybe twenty twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty minutes from now will be will be taking your
Speaker 1: cause about what is your solution? Give me one or
Speaker 1: two solutions to bringing down this national debt. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about politics and economics
Speaker 1: with two of the very best in the business. I
Speaker 1: always bring them back because they're so popular in terms
Speaker 1: of we've got great listener response when they are on.
Speaker 1: One of them is John Fun. You know John Fun
Speaker 1: from his many many years at the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: He was also he's also been a senior writer at
Speaker 1: National Review. You see him on Fox News all the
Speaker 1: time and so on. And then we have Tom del
Speaker 1: Bacarro is also a good friend. Tom. You see him
Speaker 1: on Fox all the time. He is an author of
Speaker 1: many books, and Tom tell us about your most recent ones.
Speaker 1: But also he ran the Republican party. He was the
Speaker 1: chairman of the Republican Party in California, so he knows
Speaker 1: about how to deal with liberals. Gentlemen, thank you for joining.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll start by asking you both, just take one
Speaker 1: or two minutes, what would your two best ideas be
Speaker 1: to help bring down the national debt? And Tom del Bacarro,
Speaker 1: I will start with you, my friend.
Speaker 2: Well, at the end of the day, we have a
Speaker 2: spending problem, yes, not a revenue problem, that's true, and
Speaker 2: the parties need to get serious about that because we
Speaker 2: hit forty trillion and the biggest problem in the budget
Speaker 2: today is interest on the debt. It's overtaken defense. It's
Speaker 2: overtaking so security and medicare eventually. So we have a
Speaker 2: spending problem and the parties need to get serious about that.
Speaker 2: And the Democrats are offering only more spending. So this
Speaker 2: election is what matters to the debt, because the Republicans
Speaker 2: need to say to the American people, you have but
Speaker 2: two choices here, humor and one point trillion more in
Speaker 2: spending and more inflation and making it harder to get
Speaker 2: a car and harder to buy a home. Or our
Speaker 2: program which will be to reduce the fraud that is
Speaker 2: helping to save social security or not. So A we
Speaker 2: promise to do less spending and B we're the ones
Speaker 2: who can grow the economy.
Speaker 1: Not to democrats, jaumpund, what are your favorite solutions to
Speaker 1: bringing down this enormous debt that's gone on now for
Speaker 1: forty to fifty years. It just keeps bigger and bigger,
Speaker 1: and people are concerned. Justify So if you were Donald
Speaker 1: Trump or a member of Congress, what would your solution be?
Speaker 3: Well, not to repeat Tom's excellent suggestions, I would say
Speaker 3: the recent shortage of munitions and weaponry and missiles that
Speaker 3: we have because of use in Ukraine and Iran tell
Speaker 3: us we really need to improve. Finally, our socialistic military
Speaker 3: procurement system. Donald Trump has made a good start on that,
Speaker 3: but we need to bring AI and we need to
Speaker 3: bring a form of private sector competition so that four
Speaker 3: or five defense contractors don't use cost plus contracts to
Speaker 3: gouge the taxpayer, and that would actually, over time, would
Speaker 3: save a lot of money and give us a better
Speaker 3: and more flexible military. Secondly, and might have to wait
Speaker 3: until after Donald Trumplic's office, we are going I think
Speaker 3: the next president, assuming it's a Republican, and maybe even
Speaker 3: if it's a Democrat. We need to expand the savings
Speaker 3: opportunities that people have to save for their retirement. It
Speaker 3: probably won't mean touching Social Security, but I think we
Speaker 3: can dramatically expand on the Trump accounts and the iras
Speaker 3: and the savings plans that people are allowed to have.
Speaker 3: Even Governor Gavin Wilson held a press conference this week
Speaker 3: in California praising the Trump thrift accounts for young people.
Speaker 1: So I like both those answers. I just would disagree.
Speaker 1: I think, look, we can do something about Social Security.
Speaker 1: It's time we put that young people.
Speaker 3: Del Trump is poisoned. Donald Trump's personality has poisoned that.
Speaker 3: We're going to have to wait for another president.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so it's only two years away. But my
Speaker 1: point is, Tom, we need to allow people to put
Speaker 1: young people like my kids, they should be able to
Speaker 1: take twelve percent of their paycheck and put that money
Speaker 1: into a private indexed fund where they'll get three times
Speaker 1: the benefit. And when they do that, you're reducing the
Speaker 1: long term debt because they the government won't owe them
Speaker 1: any money. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 2: Well, from my perspective, to keep in mind that FDR
Speaker 2: actually wanted a program that look like that. Singapore has
Speaker 2: always had the program like that, and one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why Singapore's economy does so well is because all
Speaker 2: that money gets reinvested into the Singapore economy. So John's
Speaker 2: I agree with John that it's going to be a
Speaker 2: difficult transition in that regard. But at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, our government is causing its own problem of
Speaker 2: running out of resources. Now these kids face a definite
Speaker 2: problem in the future. So look, I'm in favor of that,
Speaker 2: But Republicans need to start controlling the narrative. They don't
Speaker 2: have a narrative yet for this fall. Fortunately the Democrats
Speaker 2: are rescuing them with their own civil war and socialism.
Speaker 2: But Republicans need to win this midterm and come up
Speaker 2: with the narrative as to why they're going to do
Speaker 2: it before very long, I mean within the next two
Speaker 2: and a half three weeks.
Speaker 1: So I agree with that. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: was on with Liz Peak earlier. You both know Liz,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about this issue and she made
Speaker 1: I thought a really interesting comment. I want both of
Speaker 1: your reaction to this. We have to stop calling these
Speaker 1: people these crazy people have been winning these democratic elections
Speaker 1: Democrats socialists and call them communists. Because you saw, John,
Speaker 1: I think you have submitted the item in our hotline
Speaker 1: the other day that the Democrat socialists basically celebrated celebrated
Speaker 1: the one hundred birthday of one of the greatest villains
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, a communist who killed tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of his own people and threw an entire country
Speaker 1: into a massive poverty. And that's Fidel Castro. And they
Speaker 1: also celebrate, by the way, Shea Gavera, Shay Gavera, was
Speaker 1: one of the greatest butchers that ever lived, and they
Speaker 1: celebrate him. They're commune. They do not disassociate with those people.
Speaker 1: So you know this is I'm opening us up to
Speaker 1: both of you. We should call these people communists, John, go.
Speaker 3: Ahead, Well I'm not. You know, it's a fine line
Speaker 3: between conducting arguments with them about their policies and pointing
Speaker 3: out their contradictions and using the famous word. That's simply
Speaker 3: I think calling someone a communist if they say they're
Speaker 3: not a communist, brings you back to you know, you're
Speaker 3: just being Joe McCarthy again. So yes, I think that
Speaker 3: we need to make the ASSISI I would say communist
Speaker 3: adjacent is a good phrase. That means it means you're
Speaker 3: basically in bed with the communists, even if you don't
Speaker 3: clean yourself one.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing, Yeah, here's the thing to argue
Speaker 1: that they're not that. Yeah. By the way, though a
Speaker 1: lot of the people of Macarthy accused of being communists
Speaker 1: were communists, but I wouldn't want to get into that.
Speaker 1: But but the point is that, Tom, if you look
Speaker 1: at the public opinion about socialists, Americans are pretty split
Speaker 1: on socialism. If you ask people like conoism, it's ninety
Speaker 1: to ten against it. That's why I think changing the
Speaker 1: terminology might be advantageous.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, you definitely. I think what we need to
Speaker 2: keep in mind is people always want to know what
Speaker 2: you're going to do for them with their next vote,
Speaker 2: and I agree that we should call it what it
Speaker 2: is that they are. Many of these people are actually
Speaker 2: saying they want to seize the means of production, which
Speaker 2: means they want to seize your money to pay for
Speaker 2: their programs in a very real sense. But Republicans don't
Speaker 2: aren't saying what they're going to do next, right, and
Speaker 2: therefore you can't beat you can't beat their giveaway with
Speaker 2: you r nothing. And so I have no problem of
Speaker 2: saying what you know Piker is suggesting, or saying what
Speaker 2: Mundamie's actually doing, or what Sayid wants to do. But
Speaker 2: if the Republicans don't get to the point where they're saying,
Speaker 2: we're going to address your needs doing these five things,
Speaker 2: then voters don't have anything to beat. The communist comment. Okay,
Speaker 2: they may be communists, but at least they're going to.
Speaker 1: Do something for me. Yeah. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that is, you both know, we have a big event
Speaker 1: coming up, Unleashed Prosperity, and Nick Shirley will be one
Speaker 1: of the people we're celebrating as the journalist of the
Speaker 1: year because he is the journalist of the year. He
Speaker 1: did something that none of the networks could do. That
Speaker 1: sixty minutes never did that, wash Your Post or Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal or New York Times ever did, which is
Speaker 1: exposed the massive fraud in these government programs. It took
Speaker 1: a twenty year old kid with an iPhone to do it,
Speaker 1: or what none of the people in the media would do.
Speaker 1: And now John, Well, this is for both of you
Speaker 1: because you're both from California, and now they have a
Speaker 1: law in CALIFORNI I mean, I'm just so stunned by this.
Speaker 1: That basically is the Shut Up Nick Shirley Act, which
Speaker 1: basically makes what he did illegal. It's almost, as I said,
Speaker 1: you know earlier on the show, It's almost like if
Speaker 1: you see somebody robbing a bank and you tackle them,
Speaker 1: and then the police come and arrest you, not the
Speaker 1: bank robber. Sow. What do you make of this?
Speaker 3: Well, the liberals, progressives, the democratic socialists only support free
Speaker 3: speech when it was the old days and there were
Speaker 3: only three networks and there were only a couple of
Speaker 3: right national newspapers. Once you have a diversified citizen journalist
Speaker 3: network out there where Tom and I and others can
Speaker 3: communicate directly with people, they're suddenly against free speech and
Speaker 3: they want to shut people up. This bill is astonished
Speaker 3: and California already protects people from intimidation and threats. This
Speaker 3: bill goes beyond that and basically limits journalists what they
Speaker 3: can say, what they can post, because they want to
Speaker 3: protect fraudsters, including the fraud network that I made California
Speaker 3: Medicaid one of the great taxpayer sinkholes of our time.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's Tom. What are your thoughts about this?
Speaker 2: Well? I actually I am looking forward to this fight
Speaker 2: because it's a great opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate what
Speaker 2: America is about.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: This law is plainly unconstitutional. What it sits on Newsom's desk,
Speaker 2: and if he's dumb enough to go along with this
Speaker 2: or support it, then this is what the election of
Speaker 2: this is going to be about. For the presidents in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty eight? Are you going to have an economy
Speaker 2: controlled by the government that is failing you in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: in La in New York City. A year ago, I
Speaker 2: wrote a piece that Mandamie, Johnson and Bass would define
Speaker 2: the Democrat Party. I made an understatement in doing that.
Speaker 2: So this is defining twenty twenty eight for me, and
Speaker 2: I'm okay with.
Speaker 1: That me too. I mean, this is you know, these
Speaker 1: are the people who've talked about freedom of speech and
Speaker 1: freedom of the process, and of course this is a
Speaker 1: First Amendment issue. And John you know, I've looked at
Speaker 1: some of these videos. To call this intimidation, all he
Speaker 1: did was knock on the door and said, show us
Speaker 1: where your kids are in the daycare center, where you're getting,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty thousand dollars per kid, you know, per month,
Speaker 1: and there were no kids, and he exposed a massive fraud.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how that's intimidation.
Speaker 3: Well, if you're used to sucking at the tex spayer
Speaker 3: teat anything that upsets your livelihood is intimidation. Is well,
Speaker 3: this is a threat to your lifestyle, right, and people
Speaker 3: will fight like hell to deserve their lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it is this is either of you,
Speaker 1: because both of you are everywhere in the media that
Speaker 1: the media just has refused to cover this story. I
Speaker 1: mean of the fraud, of the rampant fraud. I mean
Speaker 1: remember back in the sixties and seventies, this was this
Speaker 1: was kind of the story that sixty minutes would do.
Speaker 1: And they'd never do this kind of thing anymore.
Speaker 3: Tom, I think will agree with me. Government has changed
Speaker 3: in the last forty or fifty years. It used to
Speaker 3: be we were worried about government bureaucrats. Now we're worried
Speaker 3: about the welfare industrial complex. There's hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 3: NGOs in California and other states that technically or nonprofit,
Speaker 3: technically or private, but they basically take taxpayer money, spend
Speaker 3: it on themselves. Look at the salaries that some of
Speaker 3: the chief executives of these NGOs nonprofits have, and they're
Speaker 3: in a non holy alliance with the government officials. And
Speaker 3: the government officials then go to these nonprofits and say, oh,
Speaker 3: by the way, my wife, like Governor Newsom's wife, is
Speaker 3: running this nice nonprofit. Wouldn't it be nice if you
Speaker 3: could donate something for nonprofit and give employment to all
Speaker 3: of our friends. It is an insidious, insidious conspiracy to
Speaker 3: use government to create an entire parallel network of support
Speaker 3: for these progressives.
Speaker 1: Tom, we only got about a minute left. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts about that?
Speaker 2: Years ago, I wrote a piece in the Washington Times
Speaker 2: that a nonpartisan press is a very rare instance in history.
Speaker 2: Up until the nineteen hundreds, the United States didn't have one,
Speaker 2: and for about forty years we did. But then the
Speaker 2: Vietnam War changed that again. And the left is invested
Speaker 2: in government. We knew that, We saw that with PBS
Speaker 2: and all of that sort of thing. So we live
Speaker 2: in an era where government is trying to protect itself
Speaker 2: from it's from us, the voter. But we also live
Speaker 2: in an era whereas John said, everybody's at the government
Speaker 2: teep and the left and the media are there. They
Speaker 2: want to stay there, and so they're partisan and we
Speaker 2: should just call that what it is.
Speaker 1: As well. I think you guys have done an excellent job.
Speaker 1: That's John Fund formerly Well Street Turtle and now with
Speaker 1: National Review, etc. And Tom del Bacaro, who is the
Speaker 1: former head of the Republican Party in California. A great conversation.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you've just pointed out why we
Speaker 1: have a forty trillion dollar death because everybody's on the take.
Speaker 1: Everybody's sucking on the tent and when that happens, folks,
Speaker 1: we will go bankrupt if this continues.