Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for
your support. So once again, today's show will be abbreviated,
but extra long if you will. So it's going to
be abbreviated. The radio side is going to be abbreviated
because we have the tar Heel Game. We normally put
the show out as three episodes. Basically every single day
is a podcast, but because we are preempted at one thirty,
an hour and a half into the three hour show,
we're just gonna cram it all into one single podcast
today because the tar Heels one blew out notere Dame yesterday,
and that means they're going to be facing Wake Forest
starting at one thirty right here on WBT. Wake is
the number four seed and basically they're both trying to
secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament. So we'll see
what happens. But either way, we'll be back to our
full show on Friday. Win or lose, doesn't matter. We
are back to the full show on Friday. Alrighty, So
last night we had the State of the State address.
This was our new governor, Josh Stein aka Roy two
D two because he's a protege of Roy Cooper, our
former attorney General. Josh Stein now the governor. This is
his first address. He's only been in the office for
what ten weeks, I want to say, and so you know,
it's there's not a lot that he can kind of
tout at this point. So these kinds of speeches at
the very beginning of your term and you've not been
governor before, a lot of it is just going to
be sort of predictive. You know, you're going to hopefully,
you know, try to rally people to a vision. And honestly,
I thought he did a decent job. He's not a Republican.
I don't expect him to do or say Republican things,
but I will say I did catch a whiff of Obama.
I caught a whiff of Obama Esque language with the whole.
Remember when Barack Obama ran for his in the first
race in two thousand and eight, when he beat John McCain,
Obama towards the end of the campaign sounded almost like
if I hadn't heard Obama's speeches throughout that campaign, if
I didn't know anything about the guy. As a lot
of voters did not know anything about the guy before
they went to cast their vote for him in two
thousand and eight, they could have been forgiven for thinking
that this guy was like a Reagan Democrat kind of
a candidate, almost like a blue dog. He wasn't, but
that's what he sounded like, and it was captured in
that famous phrase, there are no red states, there are
no blue states. There are only the United States. And
that is an aspirational thing that's uniting, and it gave
people some bit of comfort, right. It assuaged concerns that
he was going to govern like a radical leftist, like
he's some community organizer out of Chicago, and so that
allayed a lot of fears. Now, of course he didn't
govern like that, but that's what he was pitching in
the final days to try to win over. As Rush
used to call him, the mushy middle right, the so
called quote moderates, and it was successful. Now, he lost
a lot of those moderates in the re election against
Mitt Romney, but it was a successful strategy the first
time around. And I caught a whiff of that kind
of language last night in Josh Stein's State of the
State speech. And maybe he will actually attempt to govern
more as a moderate. He might, I we're gonna wait.
I mean, we're gonna find out. And the first big
test is going to be what comes forth out of
the legislature with their budget proposal, because that's what he
kind of ran through last night. Some you could call
them positive signs. I guess I would consider it to
be kind of a positive sign that he you know,
he called for the top priority, as did the response
from the Speaker of the House Hall and I have
some audio from his address also, but they both seem
to be on the same page with regards to the
top priority being Helene relief western North Carolina recovery efforts
after Hurricane Helen. One of the things that I took
away that was I think a bit of a positive
is that he told the General Assembly that he is
ready to sign their next recovery bill, which is the
five hundred million dollar bill. Remember he had come out
and this is sort of classic Democrat governor strategy against
a Republican legislature, which is whatever the legislature is proposing, basically,
just double that and then say you care more about
the problem, and then you can veto everything under the
sun and say it's because you care more that you're
blocking all the funding for the things that you care
about because you wanted I want a thirty percent pay
raise for teachers, and I'm only getting a fifteen percent
pay raise, and so that's not enough. I'm going to
veto it. And then the you know, the media and
the Democrats, but I repeat myself, will celebrate you as
you know, being the defender of the teachers or something,
and so like that's the strategy has been the strategy,
and so far on the relief and recovery funding aspect,
that's what Stein has been doing. But last night he
said he would sign the bill when it comes to him,
the five hundred million dollars and urge them to approve it.
So that indicated to me that maybe he's like that's
an olive branch. This is a Okay, I want a
billion dollars. You've carved out five hundred million. We all
know that this is not a recovery that's going to
be done in a week. This is going to be
a long term thing. So there are going to be
more recovery bills. That would be an honest policy approach, right,
But too often you end up with politicians that demagogue
these issues, which I think Roy Cooper was particularly guilty of.
And instead of just saying, okay, you're doing this one bill,
we have more bills coming down the pike. That's great,
let's keep doing more bills. Instead of instead of encouraging
more bills and supporting the ones that come through, it
was you know, I want more money, You're not giving
me more money, so you're evil, and that does not
inspire cooperation. So maybe this is a maybe this is
going to be a good idea, a good approach. Right,
we'll see my advice on I don't I don't know, Okay,
I don't know what caller Bill wants to talk about.
So I guess if Bill wants to hang on during
the break, I'll talk to Bill. I have no idea
what that comment is on the board. I thought it
may have been about the about the budget. We have
audio from the State of the State speech. I pulled
some of the clips from the speech last night. Also,
I would point out that the Democrat female lawmakers, a
lot of them, were wearing white, which is what the
Democrats on Capitol Hill were doing and have been doing.
It's like a women's suffrage thing, It's like a protest
or whatever. But they wore it at last night's State
of the State speech for their own Democrat governor. So
I'm unclear as to why, and I haven't seen an
explanation for why they all decided to wear white like
their Democrat colleagues on Capitol Hill, war in protest of Republicans.
So maybe he was also in protest of Republicans. I
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Last night, Josh Stein, governor of North Carolina, gave his
State of the State's speech, and he's only been in
office for about you know month and a half or
so two months.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: Almost three months two and a half. He began the speech,
I think appropriately by talking about, you know, the worst
natural disaster to ever hit North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Assuming this office's responsibility has led to prayer and reflection.
When any of us faces an important challenge, we search
for strength. Strength to rise to the occasion, strength to
reach across differences in search of common ground, strength to
stand up for what we know is right, Strength to
meet the moments. Sometimes you don't know how strong you
are until you were put to the test. Hurricane Helene
and it's horrific aftermath, tested our state and our people
in unprecedented ways. The storm flooded western North Carolina, stealing
too many lives from us and devastating too many communities.
But in the days, weeks, and months that followed, I
have seen, we have all seen that the state of
our state is strong, North Carolina strong.
Speaker 1: Perfectly appropriate. I think that was the right note to
start on. I know people in western North Carolina want
to feel like they have not been forgotten, and honestly,
there have been times over the last six months where
they may have felt that way because it seemed like that.
So I thought it was good to focus on something
that's unifying. This is something that everybody in the state
should be on the same page about, and honestly, I
feel like we are. I'm not aware of anybody that's
running around saying that we shouldn't be focusing on western
North Carolina recovery. He then highlighted tax cuts as good,
and then he opposed tax cuts or something like that.
Speaker 3: We can cut taxes to help families manage the cost
of raising a child. We can cut taxes to make
childcare more affordable. We can cut taxes on working families
to put more money in their pockets, lift children out
of poverty, and stimulate local economies. These three targeted tax
cuts are what being pro family looks like.
Speaker 1: There's no mention by the way of the standard deduction
on any of this stuff, So I'm guessing rich people
are also going to get these weak tax cots.
Speaker 3: Them and still meet our critical education, healthcare, and public
safety needs.
Speaker 1: But we won't be able to make.
Speaker 3: These necessary investments if we do not address the self
inflicted fiscal cliff that we face in a couple of years,
especially given today's economic.
Speaker 1: Uncertainties in the road.
Speaker 3: When it comes to our budget, we can go ahead
with the nearly ten billion dollars in tax giveaways over
the next four years, mainly to the wealthy and to
corporate shareholders. And by the way, very few of those
shareholders are North call Indians.
Speaker 1: Most of them aren't even American.
Speaker 3: Or we can help our neighbors recover from Hurricane Aleen,
invest in our public safety and public schools, provide targeted
tax cuts to support our working families and keep up
with the needs of our.
Speaker 1: Fast growing population. So what is it going to be?
Speaker 3: Are we going to give money to out of state
shareholders or invest in North Carolina families? We cannot afford
to do both. We should choose North Carolina's children's and
family every time.
Speaker 1: All right, I detect, I detect a false choice, everybody.
There's a false choice in those comments, right, giveaways versus investment?
What is he talking about these shareholders that aren't even
an American. He's talking about foreign investment by companies. And
the Republicans have been over the course of over a
decade knocking down the corporate tax rate and the individual
tax rates. They've been bringing down the tax rates. And
so when he talks about quote giveaways, that's what he's
talking about, the same guy who will go out there
with an oversized, ridiculous pair of scissors and cut ribbons
to announce tax giveaways to corporations to relocate here is
giving you a false dichotomy, a false choice, saying, Oh,
it's either the children's or it's the foreign shareholders. Yeah.
And so it's like, dang it. I was so hoping
he would be more of a, you know, a unifier
type of a candidate here. But you know, we shall
see if this is just rhetoric that he's throwing out
there for the Democrats in the chamber, or is he
actually going to make this sort of a centerpiece like
Roy Cooper did of his gubernatorial term. All right, hey,
real quick, if you would like to get your product
or service in front of about ten thousand people multiple
times a day, send me an email at Pete at
the Pete calendarshow dot com and ask me about advertising.
It's super affordable, it's baked into this podcast forever, and
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can show you how it works. Run the numbers with
you again. That's Pete at the petecalndarshow dot com. Let's
head over and talk to Chris on the telephone. I think.
Let me say here, can I get Chris pet? Okay, hello, Chris?
Speaker 4: That is correct, I'm here, Yes, sir, sir. It's always
the best privilege there is in Americas be able to
talk to you peek calendar.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't know if I'm going to live up
to that, but okay, I'll take it.
Speaker 4: So anyway, you know, in the national politics stage, we
got like the past administration kind of was probably with
the deep state in Obama and probably Pelosi and the
Clintons baby were in influence there. Do we do? We
have the possible same thing in state politics. And I
want to refer back to the several past year or
two that you've always thrown out there with our good
friend Ray Cooper. He I don't know if he had
been astratively pulled out some people and replaced him, but
you did, I know, you did tell us that there
were several people he would primary because they weren't I
want to say your words. Was he wasn't they weren't
liberal enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they would, Yeah, they wouldn't support his they weren't.
They weren't falling in line behind whatever his priorities were
or his vetoes were.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the way and the way I get that
from you correct if I'm wrong, but that it seems
like there was, so that lends a power to him
where he got an influence. So my question kind of
comes down with Josh Stein and do you think that
there's a big influence with him on Josh Stein?
Speaker 1: So yeah, man, that's a yeah.
Speaker 4: Can we quantify that and then really we can pick
it out and see it in the future.
Speaker 1: So it's a fair question. Josh Stein is using a
lot of the same personnel that Roy Cooper used, political
consultants and stuff like that. Right, So there I expect
to see similar kinds of tactics. Now, will Josh Stein
get involved in primaries against insufficiently loyal or I guess
disloyal Democrats in the legislature? I don't know. I don't
know if he's had Yeah, I mean because Josh Stein,
you know, came out of a different era than Roy
Cooper did. Roy Cooper was in the legislature when Democrats
ruled the roost right like they never had to care
what Republicans thought. And Josh Stein comes of age in
a different era when Republicans were in charge, and so
maybe he is not as inclined to, uh, to engage
in that kind of effort, that kind of overtly, you know,
political effort. I don't know, but I think he does
have aspirations beyond the governor's mansion. And so I think
if he is thinking in those terms, he's going to
want to piggyback onto Roy Cooper's national fundraising machine that
Cooper built. So I think I don't know, Like I
can't predict which way this may come as a shock.
But the Democrats don't ever tell me why they're thinking
what they're thinking. They ever you got.
Speaker 4: That insight, though, so and that my only thing is
so when I say if we can quantify it, if
there and I didn't, I didn't mean that Josh Stein
would do what he's he he did because I'm saying
that influence is on Cooper. What I'm saying in his
decision making, could we possibly see that's a Roy Cooper
thing compared to Stein. And I'm guessing we don't have
enough information on Josh Stein to really quantify that, but
it wouldn't be right to be able to see that's
definitely a Roy Cooper thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I think, yeah, yeah, no, I think
that's right, Chris. I think like I'm watching and waiting
to see how he actually governs, and I think this
budget is going to be the first example that we
shall see. I'm not aware of him throwing his weight
around like Cooper did before. Remember Cooper before he even won,
when he was attorney general, but he had been attorney
general for sixteen years prior, and he was a leader
in the state Senate. He was a very big part
of the Democrat machine. So he had that political weight
to throw around. I don't know if Stein has that.
And you know, when Cooper was running against MCA, remember
he told his fellow Democrats they will have no role
in his in his term if they were to help
undo HB two before the election. He wanted that issue
to remain so it would help him politically at the
detriment to the state, according to him, right, he wanted
the state residents to hurt and so, but he thought
that was good. That was a good trade off for
his own personal political ambition. I have not seen something
similar yet from Stein. So I think when we get
the budget, he's going to make his proposal, the legislature
is going to come forward with their ideas, and will
Stein find a reason to veto. I think that's going
to be the thing for me. Is Stein going to
find some sort of fig leaf reason to veto the
budget in order to fundraise off of it? Yeah, that's
that's what I say, Chris. I appreciate the call Buddy thinks,
and I don't know how it's going to shape up yet.
And then after you get the budget, then we're going
to be moving into the next election cycle. And at
that point we'll see if he starts like cracking the
whip on Democrat lawmakers those who are not sufficiently in
line with, you know, his budget proposals, or if he
vetoes the budget, do any Democrats cross him in order
to get stuff? Does he then try to primary them?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: All of that is uncharted territory. I think right now
with regard to Josh Stein, we saw the way Cooper
behaved and honestly it didn't hurt him. It didn't right
like the media still loved him. They gave him all
the softball questions, and he got to skate past all
of the national scandals of the failure to respond to
natural disasters adequately, so he got a pass. That's what
democrat privilege looks like. So there's a lot of room
for Stying to run if he wants to be a
clone of Roy Cooper. Another Star Wars reference. All right,
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get unlimited access to every feature your subscription then not
only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News
as they make the media landscape more transparent. Governor Josh
Stein took to the joint session of the House and
Senate last night delivered his State of the State's speech.
And whenever he talks about investments, he's talking about more spending.
When he talks about quote giveaways, he's talking about tax
cuts and tax cuts for the wrong people. See he
touted tax cuts for the right people. He's in support
of that, but he's against tax cuts for those other people.
They're double plus on good unless, of course, he's handing
them a big bag of cash to relocate into the
state so he can do a big photo op. That's
a different type of giveaway, which isn't a giveaway, that's
an investment. See how that works. Okay, Then he pitched
what seems to be kind of like doge at a
state level.
Speaker 3: Of course, we have to be fiscally prudent, to be
smart about how we invest our taxpayers' dollars.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm directing my budget.
Speaker 3: Office to set up the Impact Center to ensure that
our government is run effectively and efficiently, because people should
know that their taxpayer dollars are being well spent.
Speaker 1: I thought Doge was bad. Wait, but let's get it right.
Speaker 3: Let's use a scalpel, not a chainsaw.
Speaker 1: Oh you see what he did there the chainsaw.
Speaker 3: Right today, the state of North Carolina is strong. Let's
invest to keep it that way. That includes investing in
our teachers.
Speaker 1: Okay, And then he's going to pivot in to the
teacher pay issue and stuff. He wants starting teacher salaries
to be the highest in the Southeast, which coincidentally is
exactly what the Republican lawmakers have proposed. They're running a bill, right,
We've talked about it. I think last week we went
over the details of the teacher pay bill, and he
said this is an area where Democrats and Republicans can
work together. Now, the question in my mind is will
they Will Democrats work with the Republicans or will they
make demands that Republicans just cave to whatever the Democrat
demands are and then if Republicans don't cave, then they
will vote against it, right, That's how I see it
playing out, or they will vote against it as part
of the larger budget bill, which will probably also continue
school vouchers school choice, and that usually is enough for
Democrats to oppose any budget bill. If it's got voucher
money in it, Democrats oppose it. Roy Cooper did this
vetowing budgets, and Democrat lawmakers have done this. So it's
like Democrats still haven't realized even though it's been fourteen
years since they last held majority power, they still don't
realize that they don't dictate the terms of the budget
any longer. It's pretty amazing. And then yes, Josh Stein
pivoted to attack school choice.
Speaker 3: North Carolina is forty eighth in the nation and per
pupil investment, let that sink in forty eight. We should
not be taking money from our public school kids to
pay wealthy parents sending their kids to unaccountable private schools
to the tune of seven and a half billion dollars
over the next decade.
Speaker 1: Over a decade, So that's over a decade. Meanwhile, the
budget annually is like thirty two billion dollars every year, okay,
So just to put that in perspective. Also, ap Dyllan
writing over at her substack. More to the story is
what it's called. According to twenty twenty four statistical data
from the North Carolina Department of Instruction, the average per
student spending across state, federal, and local sources was thirteen
two hundred twenty two, with state funding accounting for just
under sixty percent of that total. It's fifty nine point
seven percent okay, between nineteen seventy and twenty twenty one.
So over the course of fifty years, data from the
National Center for Education Statistics shows the US per student spending,
when adjusted for inflation, has increased one hundred and sixty
four percent. It went from like seventy five hundred dollars
in nineteen seventy to just under twenty thousand dollars in
twenty twenty one, so from seventy five seventy six hundred
to twenty grand. And the average per student expenditure in
twenty twenty two, when it went up again, was like
sixteen just under sixteen thousand dollars, So thirteen thousand sounds terrible,
but the national average is sixteen thousand, So like thirteen
thousand dollars a year to educate a kindergartener, to educate
a first grader, a second grader. And by the way,
if you do the math on that, thirteen thousand times
what twenty kids in the class you're at like over
a quarter of a million dollars, right, So if the
teacher's not getting paid a quarter million, that's a lot
of money to educate that classroom, right of twenty kids?
More kids is even more money than that, Like this
math isn't adding upright? Hey, real quick, if you would
like to get your product or service in front of
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Run the numbers with you again. That's Pete at the
Pete calendarshow dot com. We've been talking about the state
of the State address that was delivered last night. We
do have audio from the Republican response, but I wanted
to welcome to the program Rob Yates. He's the director
of communications for the Libertarian Party of North Carolina. Rob,
How are you, sir?
Speaker 2: Not too god? How's it going all right?
Speaker 1: Not too bad? Myself still recovering a little bit, but uh,
I'm running about ninety two percent, ninety three percent. So yeah,
So did you watch the State of the State and
the the State of the State Response?
Speaker 2: I did. I've actually watched them both a couple of
times though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we do. So so, okay, what's the
official Libertarian Party response to the State of the State
Address and response?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll say this first, just sort of the thirty
five thousand foot view of politicsis theater, and I think
from that perspective, they both did their jobs. Stein touched
on the topics he wanted to talk about. He brought
in all the SOB stories to go along with it.
The Republican response was very much focused on federal level stuff,
which makes sense to me. I mean, they lost the governorship,
didn't do great, council state obviously did much better in
the legislature, but Trump Trump won pretty handily here, so
they focused on the Trump priorities and then you know,
we actually we had a livestream response immediately following there's
with our Shair Ryan Brown, and one of the things
he talked about was the Republicans are preaching about fiscal
responsibility and yet they're trying to pass another continuing resolution
that is exactly what Biden had last year, which is
sort of ironic to see just the flip where the
Democrats are against it and the Republicans are supporting it,
but in particular are our senators but until it is
not known for being friends of liberty. I don't know
if you saw the Republican Liberty Caucus put out its
Liberty Index score last week for senators and I think
Bud was a sixty five and Tillis was like a
fifteen percent.
Speaker 1: So all right, okay, So the focus on the national
stuff because like I've seen some of the strategy laid
out on why doing a CR gets you to a
reconciliation vote, and that's really the prize to implement what
they want to implement from a Doge perspective. But as
far as the state goes, because the state Libertarian Party
in its statement from Ryan Brown, he said that the
party is about bold, solutions driven vision that puts people first,
not political elites, and mentioned or he mentioned week job
market rising, prices, were prices, worsening environment, education system, violent crime,
and a general erosion of our god given rights. So
what specifically is the alternate vision offered by the Libertarian
Party that we did not get last night?
Speaker 2: Sure? And that's my favorite question you could ask, because
I would love to go into all of this. So
let's start with just looking at one of the big topics,
which was the response to Hurricane Helen. We saw FIMA
openly on video avoiding people based on who they voted for.
We had a response at both I think the federal
on the state level that at best you can call mediocre.
You know that the Libertarian Party is going to be
against any new taxes, but if we must pay taxes,
shouldn't it be going to helping people out Instead? We
had an office created under Cooper that is still forty
six hundred families in eastern North Carolina haven't been helped.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a thousand. It's yeah, I think
it's like a thousand. It's like a little bit more
than a thousand is the last number I saw. But yeah,
still it. Yeah they yeah, they're still waiting eight years later.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly. And so Stein's response is this, grow n see,
So repeat the same mistakes and ask for money to
throw at it. There's no accountability that goes there. We
are calling for direct responses. We are calling for an
immediate legislative, legislative excuse me, action to eliminate property taxes
on everyone who lost property in the storm. He's talking
about tax cuts for all sorts of other people, and
tax cuts are good for middle class families. Well, okay,
let's get rid of taxes for people who have their
property destroyed and that takes them out of worry about
losing their place right away. And then let's actually put
accountability on the money that is being going to help
this Recovery's let's really demand some results, to put some
metrics around it instead of just a bunch of platitudes.
Speaker 1: What about the education component. You heard both of the
Democrat and Republican positions. How does the libertarian position differ.
Speaker 2: So this is one of the ones that's more frustrating
for me because we have just seen a slow, steady
decline and outcomes for students over many years. And Ryan
was talking about, you know, we had the lawsuit in
Charlotte over the bussing thing. We've had back and forth
over Leandro for what feels like forever.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, thirty years, yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2: Just and absurdly long amount. So the Republicans passed the
school choice program, which has actually proven to be wildly popular.
The Democrats are coming out very just strongly against it,
but with no alternative plan except to throw more money
at it, but the Republicans failed to adequately budget for
the popularity of it. We're actually, we're really moving towards
this whole idea of free market education where we just
take the education budget, we split it up amongst all
the students absolutely equally, so there's no concern about you know,
these big buzzwords like equity. Everyone has the same and
then you put it towards education. And I know that
sounds there's a lot more that goes into it. Again,
thirty five thousand foot of you trying to be cognizant
of time, but right, we're really getting into this, so
it's real differentiated of education where every student can do
what is best for him or her.
Speaker 1: So do you do you think that the Republican legislature
doesn't have the stomach to actually keep progressing towards a
school choice model only or like that they'll eventually like
pump the brakes and leave in place sort of a
safety net at minimum of public schools.
Speaker 2: I think that with education, and again politicians, it's all theater.
But you know, you got to get breaded circuses, but
you need to get the applause. So you see this
bipartisan teacher salary raise being proposed, and that makes me
think that they're not really serious, because if you were,
you would be looking for a way toward good teachers
and incentivized programs that are working, while seeking opportunities for
teachers who aren't getting the outcomes they want, either if
it's more training or another job or whatever it may be.
But it's just across the board, let's throw more money
at it. That reeks of you know, old school democratic socialism.
Speaker 1: Follow Yeah, well, I do wonder if the strategy on that,
and I don't have any insight on this, but I
do wonder if the strategy is, you know, take that
issue basically off the table, right you you take it
up to a fifty thousand dollars minimum, and if you
think step back and think about that for a moment,
it's a fifty thousand dollars salary for ten months out
of the year and very very low cost benefits that
are charged to the employee. So you have that benefit
and you have no experience. Right you're walking in out
of college and you get fifty thousand dollars in two
months off minimum, and you've got the benefits. But once
you do that, now there isn't really any argument to
start changing the merit based component, to start saying, okay,
this is now the floor, this is what we're paying.
Now we're going to start tweaking based on merit. And
now I don't know if the Republican legislature will actually
do that, but I see that there's an opening therefore
that to occur.
Speaker 2: And certainly, of all the legislation that we would be against,
this is probably a lower priority. You want to pay
teachers more. There's plenty of people making more that probably
don't deserve it. And I do believe teaching to be
a noble profession in and of itself, but from a
larger sort of political strategy perspective, I think the introduction
of this bill indicates more smoke and mirrors and less
intent to really make meaningful change, just like you were
saying before, out of fear of political repercussions.
Speaker 1: All right, So anything else stand out for you guys?
With the speech last night.
Speaker 2: There were a few things. The sticking with education, This
whole free community college thing. Yeah, I don't know that
there's any chance that would have passed. So again, it
could be more political theater, but it's just you know,
from free community to college, all the way to free lunches.
Like Ryan said specifically in a speech, Governor Stein, would
you say free? Where do you think this money comes from?
It doesn't just materialize. There are problems, and you're taking
out of people's pockets, and yeah, an economy, inflation is
getting worse, the job market is starting to slow down.
Who knows what these tariffs are going to do. There's
a lot of volatility. I don't think anyone has an
idea it's coming next. And you throwing more money at problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is one of those things that was the
hallmark of Democrat control of the state for over a century,
which was this, you know, constant patting the budget with
ongoing operational costs, sometimes using one time money, and they
just built themselves into a structural deficit, and you know,
and it led to all sorts of problems about twenty
years ago, which ended up costing Democrats' power. So it's
just kind of like it's more of the same. Yeah, yeah,
see a penny, spend a penny.
Speaker 2: And then two of the things that jumped out of
this is real quick one talking about healthcare and bragging
on Medicare for all. If we're serious about fixing healthcare,
it's time to get rid of certificate of need. Just yeah, immediately,
and then I'll give credit where it's due because our
perspective on a lot of the problems with corporations who
do damaging things to people is open them up to liability.
And Stein did go after and again more complicated as
most things are, but he did go after the opiate manufacturers.
But now he's talking about this task force on Sentinel,
and our position is, let's end the war on drugs.
You're creating criminals, you're empowering drug lords, you're incentivizing back
room market deals. You know, we have Republicans in the
western part of the state talking about a federal law
to take all money away from any state that allows
people to smoke pott in their basements, and we just
it's another situation where we're just going to throw money
at a problem to create a bigger problem.
Speaker 1: Rob Yates is the communications director for the North Carolina
Libertarian Party. You can check out their website LPNC dot org.
That's LPANC dot org. Yes, sir, I appreciate your time, Rob,
Thanks so much, Thank you very much. All right, take care.
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have some audio. Not going to be able to play
it all. Thanks a lot to our heels. But Destin Hall,
the North Carolina Speaker of the House, offered the Republican response.
He talked about how the gopiece and to took over
control of the legislature about thirteen years ago, crack the
code on how to deliver common sense policies that fuel
growth and protect communities, and he said that this state
has remained an economic powerhouse thanks to GOP leadership. He
says they cut poverty by one third over the past
twelve years. He said Trump's immigration policies will have the
full support of the North Carolina General Assembly as well.
Speaker 5: Just last year, the Republican General Assembly enacted legislation that
requires law enforcement to cooperate with eyes to keep criminal
illegal aliens off of our streets. But many Democratic officials
in our state still want to keep pursuing the same
failed open borders policies of the Biden administration. So just
this week, we introduced new legislation to close loop poys
loopholes exploited by those who would seek to turn North
Carolina into a sanctuary state. If local sheriffs avoid cooperating
with federal life officials, the citizens of this state will
hold you accountable. And if you're an illegal alien committing
crimes in our state, you got to go. This is
a common sense policy that the people of our state
overwhelmingly agree with. Another common sense issue is that men
shouldn't be in women's sports or in their private spaces.
Long before President Trump's executive order, the North Carolina General
Assembly passed to Save Women's Sport dat Sports Act to
keep men out of women's sports. It's also common sense
to work to ensure every child in North Carolina has
access to quality education that's right for them, regardless of
their income or zip cake. As we expand educational opportunities,
let's expand opportunities in the traditional k through twelve system,
so that parents have excellent options whether they choose public.
Speaker 1: Or private schools.
Speaker 5: Ultimately, it's parents, not bureaucrats, who should choose the best
learning environment for their children.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So those were the priorities that the Speaker focused on.
Destin Hall, Speaker of the House focused on tying it
back to national level politics. He also spent a good
bit of time talking about out western North Carolina disaster
relief and recovery, recognizing the resilience of the people of
western North Carolina, and he promised to support that region
for as long as it takes to rebuild.
Speaker 5: I look forward to working in partnership with Governor Stein,
who I know shares might desire to get people back
in their homes as quickly as possible. He and I
both recognized the long road ahead and the need for
us all to rise to the moment, setting aside petty
partisanship for the sake of our neighbors as we rebuild
Western North Carolina. Rest assured we will not repeat the
mistakes of the Cooper administration's failed response to Hurricanes Florence
and Matthew. Almost a decade later, thousands of people in
eastern North Carolina are still being forced to live in hotels.
That is completely unacceptable and it should be a national scandal.
We cannot and we will not let that happen again
anywhere in our state. Whether you're a Publican or a Democrat,
the challenges we face cross party lines. The challenges of
Hurricane Helene alone certainly bear that out.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So that was the Republican response, or some highlights of it.
We shall see if they are actually able to govern
together on some things in a bipartisan fashion. You know,
the legislation is starting to move through the pipeline as
we speak. All right, that'll do it for this episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I could not do
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much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.