Speaker 1: It's nice time with Dan Ray. I'm tell you Boston's Radio.
Speaker 2: I welcome back. Everybody. Want to thank my guest last hour,
Speaker 2: Josh Kraft, candidate for Mayor of Boston. And I think
Speaker 2: that when you look at some of the issues that
Speaker 2: are starting to percolate in this campaign, it might be
Speaker 2: a more interesting race than anyone, including Mayor Woo expects,
Speaker 2: if Josh Craft gets some footing, particularly in some of
Speaker 2: these issues. And I feel very strongly about the White
Speaker 2: Stadium situation, I really do. I feel that at its core,
Speaker 2: the people who are losing out the most are people
Speaker 2: who live and who rely upon Franklin Park as a
Speaker 2: an island of respite. You know, communities from Dorchester, Mattape
Speaker 2: and Roxbury, West Roxbury, Jamaica, Plane, any of those you know, Roslindale,
Speaker 2: Inner Circle communities in Boston, and for that matter, everyone
Speaker 2: in Boston and everyone in the in the in the
Speaker 2: suburbs surrounding Boston go to the Franklin Parks. Who would
Speaker 2: have fabulous who we have under the auspices of John Lennehan,
Speaker 2: who has done such a great job there over many
Speaker 2: many years, and the staff that he's assembled there. The
Speaker 2: golf course, I've never played Franklin Park, but I'm told
Speaker 2: that it's a beautiful course right in the middle of
Speaker 2: the city. And you have now this opportunity to do
Speaker 2: something with white stadium which would primarily benefit kids in
Speaker 2: the city. That's that's that's what bothers my mind and
Speaker 2: boggles my mind right now. But we'll believe that for
Speaker 2: another night. I just wanted tonight mention that at this
Speaker 2: time last night, we were talking about the uh, the
Speaker 2: the alleged anti Semitic teaching materials on the Israeli Israel
Speaker 2: Hamas War that the Massachusetts Teachers Association under the leader
Speaker 2: ship of Max Paige, had made available to some said,
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventeen thousand. It's just an amazing number
Speaker 2: of teachers. What a political force. One hundred and seventeen
Speaker 2: thousand teachers, many of them, I'm sure are embarrassed to
Speaker 2: be associated with that union in terms of the allegations
Speaker 2: against the union. However, however, the union today decided to
Speaker 2: withdraw those materials controversial materials. They were, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: clearly antisemitic. I mean, if you looked at any of
Speaker 2: the materials we had invited. The president of that Teachers
Speaker 2: Association to be on the show last night. They have
Speaker 2: declined on a number of points. They are hoping to
Speaker 2: win somehow here in Massachusetts, either through the legislature or
Speaker 2: through a ballot ptition to give teachers the right to strike,
Speaker 2: which that should never happen in Massachusetts. All of these
Speaker 2: teachers strikes in recent years where the Teachers' Union and
Speaker 2: specifically the mass Teachers Association have gone out on strike,
Speaker 2: they're sort of like testing the waters. But anyway, they did,
Speaker 2: with some reluctance, do the right things, so they have
Speaker 2: to be given credit for that. But it can never
Speaker 2: be forgotten that they circulated these teaching materials. And I
Speaker 2: want to thank my guest last night. We had some
Speaker 2: really outstanding telephone calls last night, but we also had
Speaker 2: a couple of outstanding guests, Jeff Robins and also Sarah coleb.
Speaker 2: They're both with the Anti Defamation League. And I'm told
Speaker 2: that that those two hours, and specifically the hour with
Speaker 2: Jeff Robbins and Sarah Cobe, was circulated today a lot.
Speaker 2: If you want to listen to that hour that I'm
Speaker 2: hoping might have helped influence the leadership of the mass
Speaker 2: Teachers Union, because I don't think I think the President,
Speaker 2: Max Page had dug his his feet in you know,
Speaker 2: very uh. I shouldn't say he was dug in deep.
Speaker 2: And and I think the Teachers' Union probably said to him, hey, look,
Speaker 2: this is this is We're doing the wrong thing. This
Speaker 2: is a losing issue for us, uh and for our
Speaker 2: reputation as teachers. So however it happened, it happened, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad it did, and we can we can move
Speaker 2: on from that story. But again, never forget what they
Speaker 2: attempted to do. This was some virulently antisemitic material. You'll
Speaker 2: you'll read them about it tomorrow morning in the Boston
Speaker 2: Globe and the Boston Herald. I think it will be
Speaker 2: front page on paid stories. Now, what I'd like to
Speaker 2: do is talk a little bit about what's going on
Speaker 2: at the federal government. Yesterday, at about two o'clock, people
Speaker 2: who were on their way or arriving at the Boston
Speaker 2: Public Library, excuse me, at the John F. Kennedy Library
Speaker 2: and Museum. We're told that the JFK Library and Museum,
Speaker 2: which I've visited many many times. I've had the privilege
Speaker 2: of being there as a guest, as a visitor. I
Speaker 2: actually anchored the live opening of the library back in
Speaker 2: October of nineteen seventy nine when the library officially opened,
Speaker 2: So I'm very much a kindred spirit of the library.
Speaker 2: And yesterday apparently either someone misunderstood a communication from and
Speaker 2: we still don't know exactly what happened, from the National Archives,
Speaker 2: which apparently is the agency that runs or oversees the
Speaker 2: sixteen presidential libraries around the country, and we're told that
Speaker 2: there were five relatively new young people who were they
Speaker 2: called it the term that uses interface with the public
Speaker 2: selling tickets at the door to enter the library or
Speaker 2: selling books of souvenirs at the library of the Kennedy administration.
Speaker 2: That they were told at some point that their jobs
Speaker 2: had been terminated. And I think I saw one picture
Speaker 2: of a couple of these, they were younger associates, carrying
Speaker 2: out looked like a box of their personal belongings from
Speaker 2: the library. And no one wants to see anyone lose
Speaker 2: a job. I mean, who takes any glee in that?
Speaker 2: I hope no one would actually take joy that someone
Speaker 2: would lose a job, whether they're a veteran of thirty
Speaker 2: years working for a company, or whether they have just
Speaker 2: started a job. But with what's going on with our
Speaker 2: country these days, and that's going to happen, and it's
Speaker 2: going to happen to a lot of people. So I
Speaker 2: want to take two approaches to it, and I hope
Speaker 2: you'll bear with me on the first approach and on
Speaker 2: the second approach. The first approach is, you have to
Speaker 2: feel sorry for anyone who loses a job, But a
Speaker 2: lot of people lose the job their jobs in private
Speaker 2: sector fairly frequently, fairly frequently, many people have looked at
Speaker 2: jobs in government, whether it's at the state level, the
Speaker 2: city level, or the federal level, as a career opportunity.
Speaker 2: Once you get in somewhere, and in the federal system,
Speaker 2: you become a I think it's called GS twelve or
Speaker 2: GS fourteen, and you move up every year, you make
Speaker 2: a little bit more money, and you get some seniority,
Speaker 2: and you're there for life. You there for life, and
Speaker 2: there comes a point in time where you're pretty protected
Speaker 2: whether or not the Republicans are running Congress or the
Speaker 2: Democrats are running Congress, or there's a Republican in the
Speaker 2: White House. We're a Democrat in the White House. And
Speaker 2: part of that is to protect people. And the Trump
Speaker 2: administration has arrived with a thud. Here. They now have
Speaker 2: been in office just a little short of a month.
Speaker 2: I guess it was a month on Monday, but it'll
Speaker 2: be technically a full month tomorrow when it turns February
Speaker 2: twentieth at midnight. And they have done a lot and
Speaker 2: a lot of what they've done has been controversial, and
Speaker 2: they have made a lot of statements which have proven
Speaker 2: to be untrue. For example, there was some comments that
Speaker 2: I think attributed to Elon Musk and even were mentioned
Speaker 2: by the new Press Secretary at the White House that
Speaker 2: there were people receiving or receiving social curty checks who
Speaker 2: were one hundred and fifty years old. All that's pretty
Speaker 2: much been debunked. Is there fraud abuse? Yeah? Yeah. The
Speaker 2: Government Accounting Office did GAO found a few years ago
Speaker 2: that they believe that in any federal budget there was
Speaker 2: anywhere between two hundred and fifty one billion and some
Speaker 2: other figure like five hundred and thirty billion, million billion
Speaker 2: dollars billion would be waste. So so how do you
Speaker 2: get at that, Well, there's some of it that's waste
Speaker 2: that's not going to cost people their jobs, but then
Speaker 2: when you when you look carefully and you realize that, hey,
Speaker 2: how many people are doing this? How many people are
Speaker 2: in this office? You know, there are more and more
Speaker 2: and more in more people working for the government every year. Now,
Speaker 2: let me ask you a question, and then we're going
Speaker 2: to go to phone calls. Let's assume you worked for
Speaker 2: a company. Bear with me on this hypothetical. You worked
Speaker 2: for a company, and let's say it was a small company,
Speaker 2: a small company, five or ten people, and you were
Speaker 2: producing widgets, and the owners of the company came to
Speaker 2: the employees who were not unionized because there's only five
Speaker 2: or ten of you, and said, look, folks, we got
Speaker 2: some bad news. We're going over the books and last
Speaker 2: year we lost three point seven million dollars and we
Speaker 2: can't recover. We may never recover. But in order to
Speaker 2: at least try to save the company, we are going
Speaker 2: to have to terminate half the staff. Now, that has
Speaker 2: to be a tough job, a tough mess to deliver.
Speaker 2: But you would say, okay, I work for a company
Speaker 2: and we're in the whole three point seven million dollars.
Speaker 2: You know, they got to stop the bleeding. The most
Speaker 2: recently hired employees probably are going to be showing the door. Okay. Fine.
Speaker 2: So let's say you're in a bigger company, and let's
Speaker 2: say that that company has a couple of hundred employees.
Speaker 2: You feel a little more confident, okay, And whatever they make,
Speaker 2: they make. And the boss comes to you and says, well,
Speaker 2: look here, we got problems last year. We've been losing
Speaker 2: money for many years, but last year we lost three
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five million dollars. Okay, and we have
Speaker 2: two hundred employees. We can't carry We can't lose three
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five million dollars and maintain stay in
Speaker 2: business with two hundred employees. So we're going to ask
Speaker 2: about fifty of you. We're gonna lay you off, we
Speaker 2: gonna terminate you. If we get back on our feet,
Speaker 2: we'll bring you back. That happens in companies across America
Speaker 2: every day of the week. You read it on the
Speaker 2: business pages. What happens. Let's say you work now for
Speaker 2: a huge company, a huge company, I mean a big
Speaker 2: international company, and they say, look we lost last quarter
Speaker 2: three point seventy five billion dollars. You know, layoffs are common.
Speaker 2: They you can't keep losing, you can't keep losing money.
Speaker 2: That's what happens if you work for the federal government
Speaker 2: and they tell you, look, we have a debt. We
Speaker 2: have a debt of thirty six point two trillion dollars.
Speaker 2: We can't even keep up with the debt. We have
Speaker 2: no choice. I listen to one person today who said
Speaker 2: that federal workers are are the life stream of the company,
Speaker 2: the bloodstream of the country. Yeah. I don't think so.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think more and more things
Speaker 2: that the federal government does can be turned over to computers. Sadly, okay,
Speaker 2: they're not right now, child Security checks and Medicare checks
Speaker 2: by hand anymore. So there's gonna be people who are
Speaker 2: going to lose their jobs. And some of the people
Speaker 2: are going to lose their jobs. It's going to be
Speaker 2: really unfair. It's going to be sad. Okay. There's gonna
Speaker 2: be people who lose their jobs who have recently lost
Speaker 2: the spouse. There's going to be people who lose their
Speaker 2: jobs who have a kid who's very sick. There's going
Speaker 2: to be people who lose their jobs who maybe we're
Speaker 2: in the military and suffer wounds in the military. I
Speaker 2: hope they can they can mitigate some of those losses,
Speaker 2: but government employment cannot be guaranteed for everyone for life.
Speaker 2: That's the reality that we're looking at now. Call me cold,
Speaker 2: call me cruel, call me insensitive, call me anything you want.
Speaker 2: Don't call me late for dinner, but call me anything
Speaker 2: you want. Am I making sense or no? Six ones
Speaker 2: that opened myself up to that criticism. Six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty lines are full. Two lines at six 't seven, nine, three,
Speaker 2: one ten thirty. Be prepared, brace yourself. There's going to
Speaker 2: be a lot of government employees who are going to
Speaker 2: be shown the door, who have been shown the door,
Speaker 2: and there may be some government services that are going
Speaker 2: to be shut down. But something has to be done
Speaker 2: to eliminate fraud, abuse and duplications. And I don't take
Speaker 2: any joy at anyone losing a job. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I don't take any joy in thinking that we,
Speaker 2: the baby boomer generation and the generation two or three
Speaker 2: after us, are going to pass from this mortal coil
Speaker 2: mortal or if you will, and pass on thirty seven
Speaker 2: trillion dollars in debt to our kids and our grandkids
Speaker 2: and our great grandkids, grant grand children. That's the issue
Speaker 2: coming back on nights. You have the numbers. Let's get
Speaker 2: it going right after the break.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World,
Speaker 1: Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get it going here, and I'm going to
Speaker 2: try to move everybody a little bit more quickly than normal,
Speaker 2: but we'll see. Let's see how we do. Matt and Franklin.
Speaker 2: Matt first, as hour and nights.
Speaker 3: I go ahead, Matt, Hey, Dan, I we're just giving
Speaker 3: you a call about it. So I agree that like
Speaker 3: a lot of these cuts need to happen, and but
Speaker 3: they're like really should be approved by Congress and studied
Speaker 3: because I mean, there's like five contractors for every one
Speaker 3: federal employee, and a lot of these cuts are going
Speaker 3: to affect red states, like they're already cut in the
Speaker 3: Park Service not hiring new ones, so it's like you're
Speaker 3: not really saving that much money per employee, and then
Speaker 3: like what it does to these rural and local economies
Speaker 3: is going to like really hurt it. And you have
Speaker 3: the hospitals talking about laying off because they're not getting
Speaker 3: the federal funds. It seems like we're doing all this
Speaker 3: while talking about laising the debt for trillion dollars next
Speaker 3: month has cut.
Speaker 2: So that's the debt. That's that is the debt ceiling
Speaker 2: that we're talking about. That's similar a little bit. So
Speaker 2: let me ask you this. Okay, I don't know how
Speaker 2: old are you? You selling your fully young guy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm mid thirties, mid thirties.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm going to say, just for the fun,
Speaker 2: I'm say you're thirty five. Okay, so you got another
Speaker 2: at least thirty years you're going to work before you
Speaker 2: even consider retiring.
Speaker 4: Right, that's correct.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know what the federal debt is right now?
Speaker 2: It's thirty six point two trillion dollars. That's an extraordinary number. Okay,
Speaker 2: extraordinary number. What are we going to do with that?
Speaker 2: How do we deal with that? We talked, We had
Speaker 2: Jeff Myron on Monday night at nine o'clock, great economists
Speaker 2: from Harvard University. It's a huge number, man, What do
Speaker 2: we do with that? How do we deal with that?
Speaker 2: I mean, at different times we all had debt. You know,
Speaker 2: we buy a house, we take a mortgage. You buy
Speaker 2: a car, maybe you don't pay cash for do you
Speaker 2: get a car loan? Everybody understands the car debt.
Speaker 4: This just reminds me of like you're a gambling addict.
Speaker 4: You max out your credit cards and you're like, you
Speaker 4: know what, I still have all this stuff in my house.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna pond to go back and then if it
Speaker 4: doesn't work out, then you lost all the services that
Speaker 4: you had. So if I just get all this stuff,
Speaker 4: like basically the hell of it, because I mean all
Speaker 4: we're saving like one percent of the budget on an
Speaker 4: annual basis, But then you're talking about, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: like raise this by four trillion, cut taxes by four trillion.
Speaker 4: It's like really not going to help things in the
Speaker 4: grand scheme of things. And it's kind of like probably
Speaker 4: upset a lot of people going forward, and there's an
Speaker 4: election in two years and you have all these congress
Speaker 4: when they're like, oh well, I mean like I have
Speaker 4: like we're a low cost state and we have nothing,
Speaker 4: but we have the national parks. Oh yeah, like none
Speaker 4: of my low cost resident's going to be able to
Speaker 4: jobs there.
Speaker 2: Well, if you look there is politics is always and
Speaker 2: if Trump and the Republicans don't handle this smartly, uh
Speaker 2: and and do it effectively and produce some results they
Speaker 2: should be thrown out of office. I mean, it's a
Speaker 2: simple that's the way it works, That's the way it.
Speaker 4: Went, all across the all across the board. They should
Speaker 4: be I mean, I think only like what twenty of
Speaker 4: them want their job a lot of elections. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's the biggest problem.
Speaker 2: Most Congress we've done. We've told you before that everybody
Speaker 2: loves their local congressman. They hate Congress, but they love
Speaker 2: the guy that they see at the diner a couple
Speaker 2: of times a year when he walks through and hats
Speaker 2: you in the back. Hey, buddy, how you doing great
Speaker 2: to see you, say to the wife and the kids
Speaker 2: for me, will you He has no idea what your
Speaker 2: name is, but he's patting you in the back, So
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's it's a dilemma. You're right, I mean,
Speaker 2: but I do not.
Speaker 4: They haven't done a lot since the last the Clinton impeachment.
Speaker 2: They haven't won.
Speaker 4: I feel like they haven't done a lot since the
Speaker 4: Clinton impeachment. It just like every single year we're going
Speaker 4: to like this fight with each other, and then that's
Speaker 4: probably like the last time I really accomplished buch of any.
Speaker 2: When Clinton left office in two thousand and one and
Speaker 2: George Bush took over. We had a federal debt of
Speaker 2: about ten trillion dollars. And by the way, you know,
Speaker 2: you know as well as I do you if you
Speaker 2: take a million dollars, in order to get to a
Speaker 2: billion dollars, you got to make you got to make
Speaker 2: a thousand million dollars to get to one billion. Okay,
Speaker 2: if you get to a trillion, you got to make
Speaker 2: a thousand billion to get to one trillion. And we
Speaker 2: old thirty seven trillion dollars. It's a lot of mone
Speaker 2: there's a lot of money.
Speaker 4: And unfortunately we can't get rid of the military because
Speaker 4: it's kind of it annoyed the whole world. So yeah,
Speaker 4: that that's one solution there. You can't get rid of.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think we want to disarmed. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't think that would be a good idea. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 4: We'll be posting like two seconds, so what would be toasted?
Speaker 4: I think we'd be toasting about two seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, r'd be worse than toast. Well, all right, I
Speaker 2: got you down as you're a skin optic, but you
Speaker 2: still haven't given me a solution. And do you want
Speaker 2: to get.
Speaker 4: You about probably like a ten year budget cut or
Speaker 4: five to ten year set in stone, like similar at
Speaker 4: the UK austerity plan, and see how that works out.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's see if they put something like that
Speaker 2: in place. I mean that's that someone has has said
Speaker 2: some of those before. You Just you cut the budget
Speaker 2: by one percent every year, there will be some harm there.
Speaker 2: But if you keep if you're able to cut it
Speaker 2: by one percent. It's just like in your own budget,
Speaker 2: if you say to yourself, look, I'm going to cut
Speaker 2: back my spending this month. What can I get rid of? Well,
Speaker 2: you know, instead of having five beers every Saturday night,
Speaker 2: I'll just have two.
Speaker 4: I don't know, go to the ball and spend twenty million.
Speaker 4: That's about a solution. What's that Go to the super
Speaker 4: Bowl and spend twenty million dollars for the afternoon.
Speaker 2: Well, I often people who are going to be doing that,
Speaker 2: that's for sure. I appreciate your comment. Talk soon, Okay,
Speaker 2: thanks Buddy, Tuck to you. Here there goes Matt Line
Speaker 2: open six seven thirty. Here comes the news and when
Speaker 2: we get to everybody, I promise Bill L Bill L.
Speaker 2: Ryan and Susan coming up right after the break.
Speaker 1: Night side with Dan Ray ONBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: We're going to try to move people just a little
Speaker 2: more quickly here so we can get more folks in.
Speaker 2: Dylan Danvers Bill, your thoughts on what's going on with
Speaker 2: the Doge cuts.
Speaker 5: Wow, I mean, you know it has to even with
Speaker 5: it happening and they're restructuring, may not even be enough.
Speaker 5: I mean, hopefully we can grow the economy at the
Speaker 5: same time. You know they can. They can, you know,
Speaker 5: get those tax cuts past and get fuel prices down
Speaker 5: and everything else. Because but you know the fact that
Speaker 5: they closed. They always do this basically, you know, they
Speaker 5: want to show on important that you know, the world's
Speaker 5: going to stop if you know, government work. He gets
Speaker 5: laid off and because they want to inconvenience to public,
Speaker 5: you know, and then people buy into it. The media
Speaker 5: seems to love it. I mean, you got the USA
Speaker 5: today writing stories ar it's terrible these guys got laid
Speaker 5: off and Trump's a bad guy and Musk and or whoever.
Speaker 5: And but I don't see the USA today They didn't
Speaker 5: write any stories about the guys that got taken out
Speaker 5: in the Keystone pipeline. When Biden came in and they
Speaker 5: were productive citizens, all the guys in the trades when
Speaker 5: they were out there working and all those.
Speaker 2: And there's also there's also a lot of newspapers that
Speaker 2: have folded in recent years in America, a lot of
Speaker 2: newspapers that have gone from being you know, delivered at
Speaker 2: your front door down to just be a digital newspaper
Speaker 2: that you get up on your screen. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: that the payroll at the Boston Globe and the Boston
Speaker 2: Herald is substantially different than it was twenty or thirty
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 5: So yeah, you know, I mean this basically comes down.
Speaker 5: You know, let's face it, most of the mainstream media
Speaker 5: who basically basically parts of the elites and the government structure.
Speaker 5: They're basically another rail of the government basically, and and
Speaker 5: you know, they support the big government apparatus, and you know,
Speaker 5: the people that are out there basically, I mean, if
Speaker 5: if Trump, I think it's you know what I.
Speaker 2: Think, Bill, You're throwing some of the terms around the
Speaker 2: elite medium and all that. I think it's a little
Speaker 2: different than that. And let me tell you what I think. Okay,
Speaker 2: have you ever noticed the guys that the guys and
Speaker 2: women that cover sports teams locally. They got to get
Speaker 2: close to the players. They need the players to interview,
Speaker 2: get you know, if if, if, the Red Sox, you
Speaker 2: know whatever. Alex Bergman is the hot topic this week.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants an interview with Alex Bergman. How do you
Speaker 2: get those interviews? A lot of the times when you
Speaker 2: read the sports page, you read the sports page, it's
Speaker 2: the nice stories. There were no negative stories. It's like
Speaker 2: someone's gonna have a great year this year. Last year
Speaker 2: he was injured, but this year he's going to hit
Speaker 2: thirty home runs, have one hundred RBIs, and he'll be
Speaker 2: on the All Star team. So I think with the
Speaker 2: media covers Paulic Titians, and they need access to the politicians,
Speaker 2: and I think that's where you get this sort of
Speaker 2: symbiotic relationship. I really do, I really do. I don't
Speaker 2: want to be going to go into journalism and say, now,
Speaker 2: some of them may be a little bit more progressive
Speaker 2: than you were me, but I don't think they go
Speaker 2: into it saying what I want to do is I
Speaker 2: want to go to Washington. I want to work for
Speaker 2: the New York Times, and I want to extoll the
Speaker 2: virtues of Bernie Sanders. I don't think so. I think
Speaker 2: they that's that's who they were assigned to cover.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but they go to the same cocktail potties Dan too,
Speaker 5: and they just seem being able leader.
Speaker 2: They interact, They interact. It's the same way with the
Speaker 2: sports writers and the sportscasters. They're they're on the road
Speaker 2: with the guys, so they have you know, they have
Speaker 2: an off night, they haven't dinner with a couple of
Speaker 2: the players. What do they do say? No, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm a sports writer and I cannot My ethics don't
Speaker 2: allow me to socialize with the players. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's the same thing.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine some reporter or call him to saying
Speaker 2: I refuse to interact with any politician Democratic, Republican there
Speaker 2: are beneath me. I will cover them objectively, but I
Speaker 2: will not interact with him. That's just the human nature.
Speaker 5: And in a way, you really think they would almost
Speaker 5: like Trump with the access. I mean, the guy every
Speaker 5: time he does something, you'll take questions for twenty minutes.
Speaker 5: I mean probably, and well, I will say it's a
Speaker 5: month tomorrow, right, They're probably had more access and there's
Speaker 5: been more questions to be counted up in air time
Speaker 5: than Biden in six months or a year. I mean,
Speaker 5: he made a statement, used to run off you see
Speaker 5: the back of his head, and he just shoot up
Speaker 5: the back, you know, you know the guy, he just
Speaker 5: let's see what happens.
Speaker 2: Let's see what I'm just trying to expect. You know,
Speaker 2: we could. You know, if a lot of people watch
Speaker 2: the right wing newscasts and it's the mainstream media and
Speaker 2: it's the media elites, and it's all of this. I'm
Speaker 2: in the media, Okay. I have friends on both sides.
Speaker 2: I like people on both sides. But I can criticize
Speaker 2: who I want. It's I think our job is to
Speaker 2: criticize what they want. When when Elon Musk is up
Speaker 2: there the other day saying that there's whatever the number was,
Speaker 2: he was talking about like ten thousand people getting solid
Speaker 2: scurity checks who are over one hundred and fifty years
Speaker 2: of age, that was flat. That was just untrue. That
Speaker 2: was from La La Land. I have no idea where
Speaker 2: he got I have an idea where he got that figure.
Speaker 2: But I found out today something really interesting which I
Speaker 2: did not know. Did you know that funeral directors are
Speaker 2: obligated to report to the social Security system when they
Speaker 2: bury someone.
Speaker 5: No, I knew that because I have good close friends
Speaker 5: that are funeral directors and I'm in.
Speaker 2: The line of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't know that. I believe that.
Speaker 2: Your spouse or your family member was supposed to, you know,
Speaker 2: return the checks and say so I learned something. So
Speaker 2: I just think somebody fed that to Elon. I believe
Speaker 2: I understand why there was some sort of old computer
Speaker 2: system that whatever. Is this a fraud? Yeah? But were
Speaker 2: there like thousands of people getting checks one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty years after they were born?
Speaker 7: I don't think, although when I read and investigated it,
Speaker 7: although that it's still in the database does pose a
Speaker 7: problem because other government agencies that rely on that database
Speaker 7: and those people are still there, they still think they're active.
Speaker 5: So if you look into that story a little bit,
Speaker 5: you're going to read into that.
Speaker 2: I just want to What I want to do is
Speaker 2: I want to get the real facts bills. That's what
Speaker 2: I want. I don't want the facts.
Speaker 5: I don't know I did.
Speaker 2: I read it. I fed into me by left wing
Speaker 2: or right wingers. I want to get the facts. That's
Speaker 2: what I do during the day. By the way, I
Speaker 2: try to do as much research.
Speaker 5: And I believe the statement that I just stayed said,
Speaker 5: I don't you during the breaks you probably talked to
Speaker 5: Rob or whatever you playing in the show. But I
Speaker 5: believe it's even on WBZ that statement I just said,
Speaker 5: because I think I even heard it before I got
Speaker 5: out of the cot tonight.
Speaker 2: So okay, all right, Bill, thank you much, keep talking here,
Speaker 2: have a great night. Let me go to Susan in Cambridge,
Speaker 2: Susan next time, nightside go.
Speaker 6: Ahead, Hey, Dan, I wanted to second a lot of
Speaker 6: what your first caller, Matt thinks said and and but
Speaker 6: first I wanted to say that, you know you said nobody,
Speaker 6: hopefully nobody enjoys firing people. Well, Elon Musk and Donald
Speaker 6: Trump have both said that they do. They're vehemently anti union,
Speaker 6: and they have both said in the discussion that you know,
Speaker 6: they love to fire people. So, uh now, in terms
Speaker 6: of you know, making cuts, you know that may be necessary,
Speaker 6: do you feel really indiscriminate? One thing that's maybe not
Speaker 6: known is that, you know, when they talk about probationary employees,
Speaker 6: those are not necessarily entirely new employees. If employees are
Speaker 6: moved to a different department or are promoted. They are
Speaker 6: probationary in the federal government, so you're not just losing, like,
Speaker 6: you know, the last people in. You know, you're losing
Speaker 6: people who may have some valuable experience. But the big
Speaker 6: thing that I wanted to again going back to what
Speaker 6: Matt said, is that sure, you can make cuts, but
Speaker 6: then why on earth are they already asking for a
Speaker 6: four point five trillion dollars that increase the largest ever
Speaker 6: so that they can provide tax cuts. There's two sides too,
Speaker 6: you know, trimming our debt. One is spending, the other
Speaker 6: is revenue. And if you're going to just take away
Speaker 6: all that revenue, then you just create a bigger hole.
Speaker 6: And you're also going to promote inflation. I mean, massive
Speaker 6: tax cuts are hugely inflationary. And we're kind of right
Speaker 6: on the customer.
Speaker 2: Now, okay, I got the speech, and I'll let you
Speaker 2: go for a minute fifty five, which is great, and
Speaker 2: nothing you said to me surprised me. A lot of
Speaker 2: it is opinion. Let's see how it works out. My
Speaker 2: question to you is this, you are really smart, Susan.
Speaker 2: I've told you that before, and I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: to patronize you. How do we work our way out
Speaker 2: of a thirty six point two trillion dollar federal debt.
Speaker 2: How do we do that? When? Are you?
Speaker 6: Well, that's what I said, it needs to be. It
Speaker 6: needs to be both on both sides, spending and revenue.
Speaker 2: And then when you just so we're talking about let's
Speaker 2: talk real numbers. Okay, real numbers. Let's assume you wanted
Speaker 2: to raise taxes dramatically. We have a federal budget every
Speaker 2: year now it's somewhere around six and a half trillion dollars, okay,
Speaker 2: and we raise little taxes somewhere around four trillion dollars.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty close on those numbers. How much more do
Speaker 2: you think we can raise taxes?
Speaker 6: I'm not saying that we should raise them tremendously, but
Speaker 6: I don't think we should be cutting them tremendously either.
Speaker 6: I mean, we really don't.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna agree with you, Susan, I'm gonna agree with you. Okay, Thanks,
Speaker 2: I'll agree with you on that. Okay. So now here's
Speaker 2: my question to wipe out this thirty seven trillion dollar debt.
Speaker 2: How much do you think we can raise taxes?
Speaker 6: You know, I don't have Again, I don't think.
Speaker 2: Budgets of the budget. The federal budget right now is
Speaker 2: about seven trillion dollars, and we raise taxes of all
Speaker 2: sorts about four and a half trillion. So we'll add
Speaker 2: another two trillion dollars to the federal debt. A year
Speaker 2: from now, the federal debt will be.
Speaker 6: Thirty is not raising taxes or is that growing the
Speaker 6: or is that the tax bas just naturally growing? I mean,
Speaker 6: how much of that is just you know, what I'm
Speaker 6: saying right.
Speaker 2: Now is that every year we come up short about
Speaker 2: two trillion in depth in the deficit, which then gets
Speaker 2: added to the debt. So all I'm saying, raise taxes
Speaker 2: all you want, raise taxes till till everybody in America
Speaker 2: pays all their money in taxes. That's not going to
Speaker 2: do it. That's not going to do it. They're going
Speaker 2: to have to be some severe cuts.
Speaker 6: I agree.
Speaker 2: More we're just going to continue down the line. And
Speaker 2: then the question becomes next, The next call you and
Speaker 2: I have is I want you to come back and
Speaker 2: tell me what do you think could legitimately be cut?
Speaker 2: You know, we got it gonna have to do. We're
Speaker 2: gonna have to raise the soci security retirement age.
Speaker 6: Well, security is is a separate entity to the rest
Speaker 6: of the budget. So I mean that's it's a huge part.
Speaker 2: It's a huge part of it is a huge part
Speaker 2: of an additional unfunded liability. Okay, when so Scurty runs
Speaker 2: out of money, what do you think they're going to do?
Speaker 2: Say that's it? No more so Scurty checks. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: want you to think about those numbers, and next time,
Speaker 2: I want you to come back and I want you
Speaker 2: to talk to me about areas of cuts that you
Speaker 2: think would be legitimate, that would that actually would cut
Speaker 2: the cut the debt.
Speaker 8: Fair enough, fair enough.
Speaker 6: I just don't think they should all be born by
Speaker 6: personnel or the poorest, which is just.
Speaker 2: What I just want to know what they are. You
Speaker 2: can tell me whatever you want. You can tell me
Speaker 2: that we close the we close the national parts on
Speaker 2: Sundays and holidays, whatever. You just give me some examples
Speaker 2: of how we can save some real money. That's I'm
Speaker 2: just looking for some examples, and I'm and I'm challenging
Speaker 2: you to come up with some. Okay, fair enough, Thanks Susan,
Speaker 2: appreciate it. Take a quick break coming back on night Side.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on w b Z the news radio.
Speaker 2: Next up is Alan new Hampshire, Al next on Nightsider.
Speaker 2: Right ahead, Hey.
Speaker 8: Dan, thank you very much, if you don't mind, if
Speaker 8: you just give me a minute, I have a solution.
Speaker 8: I have four one zero based budgeting. We need to
Speaker 8: return the federal government to zero based budgeting. Every year
Speaker 8: we just increase. If there was a year, last year's
Speaker 8: increased with three percent, then the following years one percent,
Speaker 8: which was previously on the last year three percent. We
Speaker 8: need to figure out and go back to zero based
Speaker 8: budgeting where every office has to put a line item
Speaker 8: in exactly what they need and why they need it,
Speaker 8: et cetera, et cetera. This start having people bringing money back,
Speaker 8: in other words, if it's not spent, it's return back
Speaker 8: the way it is now. It forces them to continue
Speaker 8: to just continue to fund. And more importantly, the second
Speaker 8: part of that is, you know, because something's budgeted there's
Speaker 8: a line item doesn't mean that it. You know, after
Speaker 8: the budget has passed, they use it for that specific
Speaker 8: line item. Once the budget's in, you can use it
Speaker 8: the way they want. The second is we start looking
Speaker 8: at Graham Runman again nineteen eighty three emergency balance budget.
Speaker 8: We can do that the Constitution through the States. There's
Speaker 8: an Article five Convention of the States. Is our founding
Speaker 8: fathers gave us that in the Constitution.
Speaker 2: It's the federal Do know that's that's that's looney tunes.
Speaker 2: That's never going to happen, all right.
Speaker 8: And the last case is, before there's any fraud and
Speaker 8: there's any you know, before we go after Social Security,
Speaker 8: we need to make sure that we take care of
Speaker 8: the fraud. If Trump's going to go after it, or
Speaker 8: anyone's going to touch Social Security, he needs to go
Speaker 8: to the people after uh, he has taken care of
Speaker 8: the fraud and the abuse, and then the people would
Speaker 8: be more willing to take a step up and do
Speaker 8: their part. But they're not going to do it when
Speaker 8: a federal government, we don't clean out this fraud and
Speaker 8: waste any Well.
Speaker 2: The problem is that that this week Musk made some
Speaker 2: claims about fraud in Social Security which have been proven
Speaker 2: to be patently untrue. So when you when you stand
Speaker 2: in the Oval office and say that there's you know,
Speaker 2: many people on Social Security who's birth dates are getting checks,
Speaker 2: but whose birth dates were one hundred and fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: He didn't know what he was talking about. There apparently
Speaker 2: is an antiquated system where when they don't have the
Speaker 2: birth dates of individual I guess they put it in
Speaker 2: at eighteen seventy five and hence this were the one
Speaker 2: hundred fifty year. So many people one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: some RIZK kids saw all those numbers and said, we got,
Speaker 2: we got, you know, tens of thousands, maybe millions of
Speaker 2: people who are getting jags who have been dead for
Speaker 2: you know, sixty five seventy years.
Speaker 8: Point of clarification, it doesn't have to be the social
Speaker 8: Security system. I mean. And in other words, for someone
Speaker 8: to take a hit on Social Security, he would have
Speaker 8: to say the federal government has done its part throughout
Speaker 8: its government. It's looked across the board. It's fought fraud,
Speaker 8: it's fought waste. And now you know, coming to the
Speaker 8: American people in another fashion, raising the as you agree,
Speaker 8: I agree with you raising rates or you know age rates.
Speaker 2: Now you raised, you raise you raise again. That suggests
Speaker 2: you listen to our show Monday nine at nine o'clock
Speaker 2: with Professor Jeff Myron from Harvard.
Speaker 8: It was a thing, I mean, think about it. Our
Speaker 8: death about one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars per
Speaker 8: person right now.
Speaker 2: That it's more than that, it's got about three hundred
Speaker 2: thousand per person.
Speaker 8: That's the unfunded part. I agree that's crazy, though people
Speaker 8: don't in that well.
Speaker 2: Again, first of all, most people don't understand economics. They
Speaker 2: understand when they reach in their pocket and they have
Speaker 2: no money on Thursday afternoon, they have to wait until
Speaker 2: they get their paycheck on Friday. But the concept of
Speaker 2: thirty seven trillion dollar federal debt that we are, oh,
Speaker 2: that we owe other governments around the world, that we
Speaker 2: owe ourselves, and that we're paying interest on interest is accumulating.
Speaker 2: The average person doesn't have a clue. You know, if
Speaker 2: the price of eggs go from two fifty nine to
Speaker 2: three ninety nine, people are upset, rightfully, so Briyce eggs
Speaker 2: have gone up a dollar and a half of the
Speaker 2: last week. Oh my god, the sky is falling. But
Speaker 2: you ask him about the how much is the federal debt?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know how much is it.
Speaker 2: But they know the price of eggs, and and it's
Speaker 2: good to know the I know the price of eggs.
Speaker 2: I paid for ninety nine. I wasn't happy about that
Speaker 2: this week for a dozen eggs, but I'm happy to
Speaker 2: pay for ninety nine for a dozen eggs, then to
Speaker 2: pay four ninety nine for fifteen gallons of gasoline when
Speaker 2: I fill up.
Speaker 8: I thought Monday's was the most powerful your station on
Speaker 8: Monday or your show was so powerful. It really should
Speaker 8: be played again, and I'm so it's a public it will.
Speaker 2: Be played the interview with the interview, the Hour with
Speaker 2: Jeff Myron will be played on Sunday night at eleven o'clock.
Speaker 2: We played the best of Nightside every Sunday night at
Speaker 2: eleven pm, so I anyone who's missed it, let people
Speaker 2: know that. Well. I appreciate you calling your loyalty to
Speaker 2: the program. I got around. Okay, kiss, I'm up against
Speaker 2: the news. Here, talk to you, Talk to you soon,
Speaker 2: call more often.
Speaker 8: Okay, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Here comes the eleven. We'll be right back and let's
Speaker 2: light these phones up. Uh. I want to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty. Those lines
Speaker 2: are full. The line to the way to get through
Speaker 2: six one seven, nine three, one ten thirty. I'm very
Speaker 2: gratified with the number of people who have called, and
Speaker 2: the quality of the calls. That's what's most important to me.
Speaker 2: Excellent hour. Let's keep it up during the eleventh