Speaker 1: Station little theme song music.
Speaker 2: Welcome back and a Happy New Year from the Taxpayer
Speaker 2: Protection Alliance, which you can find online of Protecting Taxpayers
Speaker 2: dot Org. Dave Williams, great to have you back on
Speaker 2: this year.
Speaker 3: Happy new Year, Brian, and it's good to hear my
Speaker 3: theme song. Good to hear the old streetcar. And I
Speaker 3: was talking to Joe before I came on. He was
Speaker 3: mentioning the big snowstorm you had, and of course that
Speaker 3: streetcar that was chugging along.
Speaker 2: It was and they actually, you know, it was kind
Speaker 2: of really a crazy, great illustration of the allocation of resources,
Speaker 2: scarce resources, I might add, given the financial situation going
Speaker 2: on the city of Cincinnati. They actually kept the tracks
Speaker 2: on the streetcar clear. They shoveled them or otherwise you know,
Speaker 2: treated them. But there was a reporter out in the
Speaker 2: middle of the street with a picture of they call
Speaker 2: it the Connector moving along, although not a single human
Speaker 2: being in sight along the long stretch of roadway that
Speaker 2: they photographed it on. Certainly, and the which is typically
Speaker 2: the case, no one on the streetcar when they took
Speaker 2: the photograph. But in spite of the fact that they
Speaker 2: failed to shovel a lot of roads in the city
Speaker 2: of Cincinnati, so people could actually use them. You could
Speaker 2: sure get on the street car if you're able to
Speaker 2: make it downtown.
Speaker 3: It's amazing how city officials, national officials doubled down on
Speaker 3: bad ideas. Right, is that they just can't admit when
Speaker 3: they've made them, you know, the wrong mistake, and they
Speaker 3: just can't they can't move on with it, and they
Speaker 3: have to double down on their mistakes.
Speaker 1: It's so typical, it really is.
Speaker 2: They get they get singular focused, and that's all they
Speaker 2: care about, and they don't care that everything else is
Speaker 2: falling apart. We regularly complain here in the city about
Speaker 2: the roads, just the deteriorating and and and just worsening
Speaker 2: state of many of the roads. They haven't been cared for.
Speaker 2: And every calendar year that rolls by, Dave, they all
Speaker 2: further behind on the Responsibility're supposed to do X number
Speaker 2: of roads annually and they never even meet that loan goal.
Speaker 2: So the amount of.
Speaker 3: Bryan, Bryan, think of this, So the amount of money
Speaker 3: they spend on the streetcar per year, how many potholes
Speaker 3: could that fill every year? And I'm serious about this
Speaker 3: is if you look at what it costs to fill
Speaker 3: a pothole, right, and what it costs to operate the
Speaker 3: streetcar five millionaires. There needs to be an analysis here
Speaker 3: of like how much the streets because you've just alluded
Speaker 3: to this, like how much the streets would be so
Speaker 3: much better and the damage to the cars would be less.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what people need to realize, is that
Speaker 3: this money is being taken from somewhere. So when you're
Speaker 3: bottling out in that pothole, think about the money that's
Speaker 3: going to the streetcar.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, And then we're going to get to it a
Speaker 2: little bit. But now they're talking about building a new
Speaker 2: arena here in the city, which we know you and
Speaker 2: I both love.
Speaker 1: Must have so much cash. We did, we must have
Speaker 1: so much money you can just spend.
Speaker 2: Just flush with cash. Anyhow wonderful article, David McGarry. You
Speaker 2: can find it at protecting Taxpayers dot org where she
Speaker 2: is the Taxpayer Protection Alliance web page. Consumer Financial Protection
Speaker 2: Bureaus added again targeting credit card reward programs. And this
Speaker 2: is actually almost I mean, if it was a Babylon
Speaker 2: b article, we could laugh at it. But apparently like
Speaker 2: two people in the world have complained about credit card
Speaker 2: rewards programs, even though there are hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of cards out in the world. Consumer Financial Protection
Speaker 2: Bureau has decided it's going to go after credit card
Speaker 2: reward programs. How they're going to solve the problem that
Speaker 2: really doesn't exist, Dave? And what is the problem that
Speaker 2: they're claiming they want to address.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is the most baffling thing.
Speaker 3: That we've been talking about for the past couple of years.
Speaker 3: Is that a certain member of whereas this is Dick
Speaker 3: Durban from Illinois.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dick Derbin was flying back.
Speaker 3: To Illinois and the flight attendants walking down and she said,
Speaker 3: if you sign up for uh, this credit card, you
Speaker 3: get fifty thousand miles and you're part of the rewards program.
Speaker 1: And He's like, what's going on here? Why are airlines
Speaker 1: doing this? And this is how it all started. I
Speaker 1: am not lying to you. This is how this started.
Speaker 3: And now he is convinced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Speaker 3: to go after credit card rewards programs. Now, mind you,
Speaker 3: these same rewards programs are used by millions of people
Speaker 3: of all income levels to travel to get discounts at
Speaker 3: the supermarket. You know, rewards programs cover so many things,
Speaker 3: but this takes one member of Congress to have an
Speaker 3: idiotic moment.
Speaker 2: So wait a second. The rewards program, like, for example,
Speaker 2: when I use my credit card and it's American Airline.
Speaker 2: I used to fly to American all the time when
Speaker 2: I was practicing law in Chicago and I had to
Speaker 2: travel a lot, and they had you know, big major
Speaker 2: hub up there, and that was the airline of choice
Speaker 2: for me. So I've been collecting American Airlines points on
Speaker 2: my credit card purchases for years and years and years,
Speaker 2: I mean a couple of decades worth. That's the kind
Speaker 2: of reward program you're talking about. Because I use those
Speaker 2: to help pay for my entire family and my daughter's
Speaker 2: fiance to fly out west to see Yellowstone National Park.
Speaker 2: It was awesome. It was like, I finally am going
Speaker 2: to get these back and I didn't have to pay
Speaker 2: the four or five thousand dollars it was going to
Speaker 2: cost to buy five airline tickets. I was really happy
Speaker 2: about that. A lot of people are what is it?
Speaker 2: How is that a bad thing?
Speaker 3: Though, Because what Dick Durbin and others are saying now
Speaker 3: is that it's anti competitive, that they're hooking people into credit,
Speaker 3: that it's benipulative that the credit card company. And there's
Speaker 3: no competition with credit card companies because it's only Visa
Speaker 3: and MasterCard and American Express. I mean, there's a whole
Speaker 3: host of ration now for this, but none of them
Speaker 3: make any sense. First of all, credit card companies are
Speaker 3: very competitive because it's not the send MasterCard, it's the
Speaker 3: different banks that are competing with the different interest rates.
Speaker 3: So there's a whole host of things you can choose from.
Speaker 3: And who cares if an airline wants to give you
Speaker 3: fifty thousand miles if you sign up for their credit card.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, you know the other component.
Speaker 2: The other component of this is does Dick have a
Speaker 2: problem with people getting credit cards? Because last time I checked,
Speaker 2: and I know this to be a fact. If you
Speaker 2: want a good credit score, if you're going to buy
Speaker 2: a house, for example, the factor in your credit score.
Speaker 2: You can go up to eight hundred and fifty on
Speaker 2: your credit score, but you need a good and the
Speaker 2: better your credit score, the more likely it is you're
Speaker 2: going to get a well good terms and conditions. You
Speaker 2: are considered a low risk and if you have more
Speaker 2: credit available, the higher your credit score goes. So is
Speaker 2: he going to reform the entire credit score thing as well.
Speaker 2: Maybe that needs reform, I don't know, but I mean
Speaker 2: that just going to the point, it's important that you
Speaker 2: have available credit, not that you use it all and
Speaker 2: maxim out and get charged thirty percent interest rate for
Speaker 2: not you know, getting rid of your balance every month.
Speaker 2: But you need credit available and that someone's willing to
Speaker 2: offer you an extra fifty thousand miles. That will help
Speaker 2: you in one respect by increasing the amount of credit
Speaker 2: available to you, plus you get an extra fifty thousand miles.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean you have to use the damn.
Speaker 3: Card exactly exactly and listen, I think, yeah, the credit
Speaker 3: card industry is under a lot of pressure from Congress
Speaker 3: because there's talk about capping interest rates on credit cards
Speaker 3: at ten percent. Now, superficially, that sounds great for consumers,
Speaker 3: but what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's going to.
Speaker 3: Squeeze credit because credit card companies are not going to
Speaker 3: give credit cards to people that may not have great
Speaker 3: credit that need to build that and establish it.
Speaker 1: So you're going to have people that cannot get a.
Speaker 3: Traditional credit card go underground and be paying twenty five
Speaker 3: and thirty percent. So again it's government manipulating the market.
Speaker 3: Let it be, Let the market be. And there's just
Speaker 3: there's no need for them to do this. I mean,
Speaker 3: there are bigger fish to fry in this country. For Congress,
Speaker 3: we're talking about a thirty six trillion dollar debt, We're
Speaker 3: talking about border security, tax cuts. This is what Congress
Speaker 3: needs to be laser focused on, not credit card rewards
Speaker 3: and whether or not we can use, you know, get
Speaker 3: fifty thousand miles by signing up for a credit card.
Speaker 1: It's just a nonsensical issue.
Speaker 2: Well, does the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even have the
Speaker 2: authority to do this?
Speaker 3: They do because they have this weird authority. First of all,
Speaker 3: they don't have a budget like Congress doesn't set their budget.
Speaker 3: They determine what their budget is every year up to
Speaker 3: a certain amount, like twelve percent. You know, the Fed.
Speaker 3: The Fed determines their budget. So the Congress has nothing
Speaker 3: to do with this at all. So their budget, I
Speaker 3: believe it's about seven hundred million dollars right now and
Speaker 3: can grow to eight hun undred million dollars with dot
Speaker 3: Congress batting an eye.
Speaker 2: But this is controlling the terms and conditions of contractual
Speaker 2: relationships between credit card companies. And the individual who applies
Speaker 2: for the credit card. I I guess I want to
Speaker 2: know how this independent, you know, an agency has any
Speaker 2: authority whatsoever to manipulate the terms of conditions between these
Speaker 2: two separate individuals or the company issuing it and the
Speaker 2: person signing up for it. How under what government law under?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I'm saying here. This seems and
Speaker 2: this seems to be like one of those extra regulatory exercises.
Speaker 2: Congress never gave the authority to do anything like this,
Speaker 2: and yet here they go doing it, and somehow we're
Speaker 2: supposed to comply. It sounds to me like this is
Speaker 2: going to result in litigation.
Speaker 3: Oh, when we hit the nail on the head, it
Speaker 3: absolutely will result in litigation. And again that's going to
Speaker 3: take months and years, and maybe we get a court
Speaker 3: that sides with consumers, maybe we don't. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: the problem is that at some point it's a crapshoot
Speaker 3: right on what course the side, And if it even
Speaker 3: gets to the Supreme Court, who knows what happens. But
Speaker 3: we don't need the CSPB, we don't need the Consumer
Speaker 3: Financial Protection Pewer.
Speaker 1: It's just it's unnecessary.
Speaker 2: Totally unnecessary. I'm just completely baffled by this, Dave, and
Speaker 2: you're right, this is one of the stranger, more baffling
Speaker 2: things that you and I have talked about in a
Speaker 2: long time. Stare around. We've got more baffling things to
Speaker 2: talk about, including what you and I paid for through
Speaker 2: our labor, like trimp on treadmills and bearded transvestites on ice.
Speaker 2: A couple of comments about Rampau's Festus report plus taxpayer
Speaker 2: funded arena. It's more with Dave Williams coming up after
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Speaker 2: There's your nine first morning weather forecast. Uh, it's cold,
Speaker 2: get that out of the way. Twenty three is gonna
Speaker 2: be our high today. We'll have sunny skies though nine degrees.
Speaker 2: Overnight clouds rolled back in. We got snow likely tomorrow
Speaker 2: sometime around ten. They're estimating between two and five inches
Speaker 2: of snow. I have twenty eight twenty degrees overnight. Friday,
Speaker 2: snow will taper off. Slick roads are possible. Be careful
Speaker 2: and the partly thoty Saturday with a high of thirty
Speaker 2: five degrees.
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Speaker 4: on fifty five KRE seeing Deep Talk Station.
Speaker 2: Seven fifty five KRC detalk station Happy Thursday Friday eight
Speaker 2: call it what you want, good day to be listening
Speaker 2: to Dave Williams from Taxpayer Protection Alliances on and I'm
Speaker 2: sure Dave you had a lot of fun reading what
Speaker 2: you labored through. I would like to express taxation in
Speaker 2: the form of slavery because they can take whatever they
Speaker 2: want by way of the taxation level, and after we
Speaker 2: work and slave over it and they take the percentage
Speaker 2: in the slice, they don't quite get enough. And that's
Speaker 2: why we are spending two trillion dollars more annually than
Speaker 2: they even take in in taxes. Then they go ahead
Speaker 2: and spend it on stuff like I don't know, shrimp
Speaker 2: on treadmills and bearded transvestites on ice, helping other countries
Speaker 2: with their border security. I mean, we could go on
Speaker 2: and on and on. It's all laid out in glorious,
Speaker 2: gory detail in the Festivus Report.
Speaker 1: It sure is.
Speaker 3: And this is something that Rand Paul has been doing
Speaker 3: for a number of years now, and we're talking and
Speaker 3: this year he lists a trillion dollars in wasteful and
Speaker 3: unnecessary spending.
Speaker 1: Then you talk about you know, taxation. If you make
Speaker 1: one small mistake.
Speaker 3: On your tax return, get what the IRS is that,
Speaker 3: take notice.
Speaker 1: And watch out.
Speaker 3: But you know, this is an insane amount of spending.
Speaker 3: And I mean, there's so many things that jump out
Speaker 3: of me. But there's one item in here, and it's
Speaker 3: fifteen million dollars to turn the Internal Revenue Service into
Speaker 3: the tax preparer. So this was supposed to be a
Speaker 3: study to see if the IRS should do this. The
Speaker 3: IRS lied to Congress, they said they were going to
Speaker 3: study this, and they said, oh no, here we go.
Speaker 3: Here's the program, here's the software that we built, and
Speaker 3: it is wildly unpopular. Go figure because they did a
Speaker 3: pilot program this past year and they said, oh, ninety
Speaker 3: percent of the people love direct They love for the
Speaker 3: IRS to do their the returns, prepare the returns. So
Speaker 3: what we did, Brian, is we submitted a Freedom of
Speaker 3: Information Act request and we got all of the responses.
Speaker 3: They listed all their responses. It was not ninety percent.
Speaker 3: It was less than fifty percent of the people who
Speaker 3: said that they liked direct file and that it was
Speaker 3: it was working.
Speaker 1: Now here's here's the worst part of this. And we've
Speaker 1: heard whistleblowers.
Speaker 3: They've called us and said, I've been audited that IRS
Speaker 3: prepared my taxes. Now they're they're auditing me.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3: So they are going back to H and R Block,
Speaker 3: to these other private companies saying can you help me?
Speaker 3: And I'm betting audited by the IRS, and H and
Speaker 3: R Block is saying, we didn't do your taxes, so
Speaker 3: we're gonna have to charge you to get you out
Speaker 3: of this mess.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the IRS who prepared the taxes did it incorrectly,
Speaker 3: so now they're being they're auditing the taxpayer. I mean
Speaker 3: this is orwellians say the least right, I mean, this
Speaker 3: is just beyond Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, it shocks me not that the way that they
Speaker 1: prepared the software, that the actual.
Speaker 2: Federal government would have gone out and uniformly created its
Speaker 2: own version of dealing with the tax code. But more fundamentally,
Speaker 2: I think there is no reason in hell the tax
Speaker 2: code needs to be as complex and as ridiculous as
Speaker 2: it is. It is the mechanism through which the government
Speaker 2: manipulates behavior, and that just irks me to no end.
Speaker 2: Let's get to a flat tax, Let's get to a
Speaker 2: fair something that's simple. No more ride offs, no more incentives,
Speaker 2: no more dangling carrots of you know, incentive from the
Speaker 2: federal government through the tax code. Just give me the
Speaker 2: damn fifteen percent and that's it. One page, single file period,
Speaker 2: end of story. How why is that not a great
Speaker 2: idea other than the fact it's going to give up
Speaker 2: take away their power to manipulate.
Speaker 3: Us and the tons of lobbyists in you know, on
Speaker 3: Capitol Hill that are keeping the tax code complicated because
Speaker 3: they want their write offs, they want their special treatment.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really lobbyist in government working together. It
Speaker 3: absolutely is, Yep, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Where are the lobbyists for the tax preparers out there
Speaker 2: fighting against the IRS taking over their role in preparing taxes?
Speaker 2: Don't they have enough voices out there and enough lobbying
Speaker 2: money to prevent that from happening.
Speaker 3: You would think they would, But I mean, look what
Speaker 3: we have now, and now the IRS wants to expand it.
Speaker 3: This was a pilot program for twelve states. Now they
Speaker 3: want to expand it to all fifty states, because you know,
Speaker 3: if you're going to fail at twelve, why not sail
Speaker 3: at fifty? Right?
Speaker 1: Amen?
Speaker 2: Very briefly, you got to comment about taxpayer funded arena
Speaker 2: before we part company.
Speaker 1: I saw it on the list of topics, Dave, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: The taxpayer funded arenas, Oh my gosh, an absolute waste
Speaker 3: of money. This is corporate welfare for billionaires. And there's
Speaker 3: no reason that taxpayers should be paying for the construction
Speaker 3: of any arenas. It's just it is the most ludicrous
Speaker 3: things that locals are spending money on these days, and
Speaker 3: it just keeps on happening.
Speaker 1: What I don't understand is that it keeps on happening.
Speaker 3: And we've fought these battles in Kansas City in Florida,
Speaker 3: and you know, we've had some success, but they just
Speaker 3: still keep on popping up.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's because people get the idea that
Speaker 2: they need that professional football team in their city. I
Speaker 2: don't know for traditional reasons, or because it's a magnet
Speaker 2: for you know, people going to restaurants or something. But
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a really, very very small number of
Speaker 2: football teams in the grand scheme of things, and there
Speaker 2: are hundreds and hundreds of cities in the country that
Speaker 2: managed to get along fine without a professional sports team
Speaker 2: on the taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 1: I just have to observe that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Brian, so many studies have been done about
Speaker 3: the economic activity generated by these arenas and stadiums.
Speaker 1: It doesn't.
Speaker 3: These arenas and stadiums do not generate economic activity because
Speaker 3: people will spend their money elsewhere in the city. It's
Speaker 3: just shifting spending your money from a restaurant to an arena,
Speaker 3: so it doesn't bring in any new money. And so
Speaker 3: many studies have been done. It's been exhaustive, and almost
Speaker 3: every economist agrees and says no, this doesn't create economic activity.
Speaker 2: Plus, I enjoy watching a game at home much more
Speaker 2: than getting in my car, driving downtown, paying for parking,
Speaker 2: dealing with weather, and paying twelve fourteen to fifteen dollars
Speaker 2: for a beer. Dave William's tax.
Speaker 1: Baber, then the drunk guy next to you yelling there's
Speaker 1: that too.
Speaker 2: Protecting Taxpayers dot org, check out the website, bookmarket and
Speaker 2: even contribute to help Dave and the team continue holding
Speaker 2: government accountable. Dave, I'm looking forward to having you on
Speaker 2: the show regularly throughout the year, as I always do.
Speaker 2: Have a wonderful day and a very happy New Year
Speaker 2: to you and everybody at the Taxpayer Protection Alliance.
Speaker 1: Thanks Brian, Happy New Year.
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