Speaker 1: You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty.
Speaker 2: This is KFI Bill Handle here on Tuesday Taco Tuesday,
Speaker 2: September the third. Some of the stories were looking at
Speaker 2: Britain is suspending some arms exports to Israel because well, frankly,
Speaker 2: Israel is losing a lot of support among the world
Speaker 2: because the number of Palestinians that have been killed by
Speaker 2: Israeli attacks over forty thousand now and reaching into that war.
Speaker 2: The latest that happened over the weekend is the demonstrations
Speaker 2: in Israel. Hundreds of thousands of protesters hit the streets
Speaker 2: against what Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back and said, We're not
Speaker 2: going to cut a deal with the Jamas, with the
Speaker 2: Arrists and Hamas because they're not doing enough. They're the
Speaker 2: ones that are stopping the negotiations from going forward.
Speaker 1: And he's just saying no, he's saying he will not
Speaker 1: give in.
Speaker 2: And what set off the latest was six hostages, including
Speaker 2: one America. One American were found dead, and it's they
Speaker 2: were found dead, It's not as if they were killed
Speaker 2: during the initial raid October seventh, when the terrorist group
Speaker 2: overran the border and massacred twelve hundred Israelis.
Speaker 1: This has to do with six that.
Speaker 2: Were being held in tunnels, and what looks like happened
Speaker 2: is Israeli forces raided the tunnels and as Israeli forces
Speaker 2: got near the tunnel entrance itself, it looks like what
Speaker 2: Hamas did is execute the hostages minutes before the Israeli
Speaker 2: forces were able to enter the tunnels. And that seems
Speaker 2: to be a new level of horrificness that's going on.
Speaker 2: And what the protests are about is simply saying, cut
Speaker 2: a deal with Hamas, no matter what they want, you
Speaker 2: cut a deal. Hamas wants the end of the war,
Speaker 2: Israel to leave Gaza completely. Israel says we have to
Speaker 2: maintain a presence there because Hamas has said over and
Speaker 2: over again, October seventh will be repeated over and over
Speaker 2: again until Israel is destroyed.
Speaker 1: That's kind of fun. What does a government in Israel
Speaker 1: do with that?
Speaker 2: And the families of the hostages, and you can't blame
Speaker 2: them because these are family members, saying it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what Hamas wants.
Speaker 1: You cut the deal, you get our hostages back. And
Speaker 1: that to out netting.
Speaker 2: Who's holding firm, holding firm, and what makes it even worse,
Speaker 2: and this is where it's a new level. Hamas has
Speaker 2: said any attempt to rescue the hostages will then cause
Speaker 2: the immediate death of those hostages. We will kill them
Speaker 2: and they will return to Israel in coffins. Well, Israel
Speaker 2: has exploded and it's going both ways.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of.
Speaker 2: People that back up Natanyahu, and he certainly has a point,
Speaker 2: and he said we cannot let Hamas continue on.
Speaker 1: The problem is Hamas will continue on.
Speaker 2: There are those who are saying we should cut a
Speaker 2: deal because Israel has degraded Hamas's ability to create any
Speaker 2: kind of a war, any kind of an attack on
Speaker 2: Israel like it did. It will not happen again. Israel
Speaker 2: will be prepared. Others say that it doesn't matter. You
Speaker 2: have to kill these people, you have to cut off
Speaker 2: the head. And both sides have point, they really do.
Speaker 2: And Hamas is saying.
Speaker 1: We're willing to negotiate.
Speaker 2: For example, instead of five hundred Palestinians for each hostage,
Speaker 2: each civilian hostages were now down to only fifty Palestinian
Speaker 2: prisoners released, some of them, by the way, convicted of murder,
Speaker 2: some of this which convicted of planting bombs, planning the
Speaker 2: attack on civilians to try to kill as many as possible.
Speaker 1: We want them all back.
Speaker 2: Haya Sinhwar, who heads the militant group Hamas heads the
Speaker 2: military arm was one of the prisoners returned when negotiations happen.
Speaker 2: Remember Ghilid Shalit or Ghilad Shalit, who was that soldier
Speaker 2: was captured by Hamas. After six years, he was returned
Speaker 2: for one thousand Palestinian prisoners that were held them. Sinwar,
Speaker 2: who came back to head the Palestinian military. Natanyahu has
Speaker 2: pledged total victory. He says it's their fault. Will have
Speaker 2: a cease fire if that includes the release of some hostages,
Speaker 2: a partial pull out of Israeli troops, a release of
Speaker 2: some prisoners held by Israel. But we're not going to
Speaker 2: have a full withdrawal. It simply isn't going to happen.
Speaker 2: And of course Hamas is saying that they offer great
Speaker 2: flexibility inclusing their demand.
Speaker 1: Well, here's great flexibility.
Speaker 2: Any attempt to free those hostages will cause the immediate
Speaker 2: death of any.
Speaker 1: Hostages that are in that area.
Speaker 2: And to show you what kind of absolute animals Hamas is,
Speaker 2: and even those of you who are in favor of Hamas,
Speaker 2: arguing that they had no choice because of the oppression,
Speaker 2: because of the years of being treated as second class
Speaker 2: citizens in Israel and being just oppressed, and they have
Speaker 2: no land and Israel has taken it all. Okay, you
Speaker 2: have a point. How do you defend number one? The killing,
Speaker 2: the massacre of twelve hundred and the holding on to
Speaker 2: bodies of dead Israelis for negotiation purposes.
Speaker 1: Won't even return the.
Speaker 2: Bodies to the families so they can lose, so they
Speaker 2: can be buried.
Speaker 1: I mean, where do you go with that? Now?
Speaker 2: Is Natanyahu going to collapse? Is the government going to collapse?
Speaker 2: Is he going to fail?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 2: But the pressure not only internationally, but the pressure domestically
Speaker 2: is growing more and more in Israeli families, as I said,
Speaker 2: are saying it doesn't matter what Hamas wants. You cut
Speaker 2: the deal with them, you get our hostages back.
Speaker 1: We don't care.
Speaker 2: Well again, they have to have a pass, even though
Speaker 2: I don't believe in it. I don't believe Israel shit
Speaker 2: cave on this. I don't have a family member. It's
Speaker 2: easy for me to say, sitting here in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: behind a microphone Costco as you know, is my favorite
Speaker 2: place to go to. As a matter of fact, I'm
Speaker 2: doing a Costco run today. And in addition, when you
Speaker 2: go to Costco, in addition to getting a palette of
Speaker 2: toilet paper or paper towels, or getting bags and bags
Speaker 2: of frozen food and frozen burritos, you'll notice they have
Speaker 2: a pharmacy and people are well.
Speaker 1: Are those of us who go to.
Speaker 2: The pharmacy know that it is well? It's Is it
Speaker 2: a secret? Not really.
Speaker 1: You'd think there'd be lines and lines, and they're not.
Speaker 2: But it turns out that Costco pharmacy, the price of pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 1: Is low low.
Speaker 2: For example, I take ambient zulpidem and I was out
Speaker 2: of it. I had my prescription and the Costco was
Speaker 2: too far away, so I called the local CBS and
Speaker 2: the local Walgrens. At Costco, thirty pills cost me eleven
Speaker 2: dollars ninety nine cents. At CVS, it was one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five dollars. At Walgrens it was one hundred
Speaker 2: and forty dollars. This is for thirty generic pills. And
Speaker 2: so what is happening is Walgreens and CVS and ride
Speaker 2: Aid are basically imploding. They are imploding, they're cutting costs,
Speaker 2: they're closing stores. Now, this reflects challenges in an industry,
Speaker 2: and these challenges we're brewing four years and they're shutting
Speaker 2: down stores. Walgreens in June said a quarter of the
Speaker 2: company's eighty six hundred US stores were underperforming and a
Speaker 2: good number of them are going to be closed down.
Speaker 2: One of the other things, CBS has a store every corner.
Speaker 2: It's like Starbucks.
Speaker 1: I don't get it.
Speaker 2: You have a CVS and then a quarter mile away
Speaker 2: you have another CVS, and I guess people go to
Speaker 2: CVS not as much because the cost has gone up.
Speaker 2: At the same time, they're trying to cut costs and
Speaker 2: they're between a rock and a hard pat place. One
Speaker 2: of the things that is makes up drugs so expensive
Speaker 2: is well, first of all, you've got giants like Amazon
Speaker 2: and Walmart that's going on for drugs, certainly Costco and
Speaker 2: other places where you get pharmacy pharmaceutical So what do
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what happened.
Speaker 2: The companies depend on something called Pharmacy Benefit Managers PBMs,
Speaker 2: who have control over how much pharmacies get reimbursed for
Speaker 2: the drugs they sell to customers, and they basically are
Speaker 2: the middleman between insurance companies and the pharmacies. And they
Speaker 2: were there to help lower prices. Well it's turned around.
Speaker 2: What they're doing now is helping to increase prices. Our
Speaker 2: system is broken, completely broken. The big pharmaceutical companies make
Speaker 2: all their money in the United States. Why because they can? Okay,
Speaker 2: this is the old philosophy is why do dogs lick
Speaker 2: their gonads? Because they can? And that's precisely the point
Speaker 2: in this country. Go to any other country, you'll see
Speaker 2: the same drug packaging is just in a different language,
Speaker 2: and you're going to pay a third, a fifth, a
Speaker 2: tenth for the same drug.
Speaker 1: Why because it's controlled in those other countries.
Speaker 2: And here we go back to why I believe we
Speaker 2: need a single payer, which is another way to describe
Speaker 2: national health. I've always used the example of France and
Speaker 2: Germany and Italy and the UK. The government negotiates, there
Speaker 2: are any middlemen. The government negotiates And can you imagine
Speaker 2: how much power when you have any entity representing thirty
Speaker 2: million people talking to a pharmaceutical company. Yeah, well here
Speaker 2: we don't have that. Not only do we not have that,
Speaker 2: Medicare for the first time is able to negotiate prices
Speaker 2: from the pharmaceutical companies for those of us who are
Speaker 2: over sixty five. Before that, it was illegal for Medicare
Speaker 2: to negotiate prices on behalf of Medicare patients. Impossible. You
Speaker 2: couldn't do it by law. So it's now turning around.
Speaker 2: And as I said, Costco is where I go because
Speaker 2: look at that price.
Speaker 1: And I use ulpidem but also antibiotics.
Speaker 2: You know, when I go to the dentists because I
Speaker 2: had my heart thing, I have to take antibiotics.
Speaker 1: When I get my teeth cleaned, I go to Costco.
Speaker 2: It's eight bucks for a whole bottle full of antibiotics.
Speaker 2: Thirty bucks at a Walgreens or Ride Aid. By the way,
Speaker 2: Rite Aid is the one that's in the most trouble.
Speaker 2: The other day, I went to Rite Aid and I
Speaker 2: wanted to get.
Speaker 1: A toothbrush because I was out for some reason.
Speaker 2: My toothbrush broke, and so I'm going in there and
Speaker 2: the place was empty, empty.
Speaker 1: There was no one in the store. And this is
Speaker 1: a big store, and I couldn't see anybody.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine going to a major pharmaceutical, a major
Speaker 2: pharmacy a major drug store and they sell everything else,
Speaker 2: of course, and there's nobody in there. How does a
Speaker 2: business stay alive, Well, they don't, they don't. Ride Aid
Speaker 2: has filed for Chapter eleven bankruptcy. They did that in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, and they just announced plans to shut
Speaker 2: down eighteen more locations because you've got creditors. Lawsuits are
Speaker 2: happening over the opioid prescription. That's also what's killing all
Speaker 2: of them, and all three of the big ones Walgreens, CVS, and.
Speaker 1: Ride Aid, although I don't know how big Rite Aid
Speaker 1: is anymore.
Speaker 2: They don't have the same financial positions where CBS is
Speaker 2: the strongest. They are looking at their footprint, how big
Speaker 2: there's are, what their business model is, the lowering margins
Speaker 2: and changing consumer trends. And at the same time, when
Speaker 2: you talk about drugs that are new on the market,
Speaker 2: the astronomical cost of drugs.
Speaker 1: And it's to the point where.
Speaker 2: Every single drug that's out there you see on TV
Speaker 2: if you can't afford the drug, Astrozenica or Eli Lilly
Speaker 2: will help you get the drug.
Speaker 1: What does that tell you when.
Speaker 2: Every single commercial says if you can't afford the drug,
Speaker 2: that's pretty much everybody isn't it.
Speaker 1: But they don't tell you on those commercials because they.
Speaker 2: Will tell you how wonderful you are and you're dancing
Speaker 2: around and you're having a great time, and thirty seconds
Speaker 2: of that commercial are the disclaimers.
Speaker 1: You will die, you will lose your limbs, you.
Speaker 2: Will have a hacking cough, your stomach will fall out
Speaker 2: of your body. Whatever they do, they have to tell
Speaker 2: you that. What they don't tell you is how much
Speaker 2: a course of that drug is.
Speaker 1: That they don't tell you.
Speaker 2: For example, the drug and I don't see the commercial
Speaker 2: anymore that cures hepatitis C. It's not just a vaccine.
Speaker 2: It is an outright cure. After you got hepatitis C, man,
Speaker 2: that was when you look at that.
Speaker 1: And you go, what a breakthrough.
Speaker 2: What they didn't tell you is the eight week course
Speaker 2: that it took. You have to do an eight week course.
Speaker 2: I don't know how many injections per eight weeks. That
Speaker 2: cost a very affordable one hundred thousand dollars. But if
Speaker 2: you can't afford it will help you. I don't even
Speaker 2: know what that means. All right, Now, here's a job
Speaker 2: for you, and that is working for the California highway patrol.
Speaker 2: One in six of those jobs are vacant, even in
Speaker 2: light of historic raises and a new hiring campaign. By
Speaker 2: the way, one in six are vacant, much higher than
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, and the last two years have been massive,
Speaker 2: massive races raises. Gavin Newsom agreed to a new contract
Speaker 2: with the union that represents the officers that's expected to
Speaker 2: cost four hundred and eighty million dollars over the next
Speaker 2: three years because of raises enhanced pay incentives. He's been
Speaker 2: promoting a recruiting program called CHP one thousand, and he
Speaker 2: launched that in twenty twenty two to hire hundreds of
Speaker 2: new officers. So let's go and examine how much money
Speaker 2: you can get. Let's start with twenty twenty three officers
Speaker 2: got an eight percent wage increase.
Speaker 1: That's their biggest raise in twenty years. Now.
Speaker 2: There aren't too many of us that have gotten eight
Speaker 2: percent wage increase. Matter of fact, CONO and I much
Speaker 2: what kind of wage increase have we gotten in the
Speaker 2: last four or five years.
Speaker 1: Nada.
Speaker 2: No, it's got to the point now and by the way,
Speaker 2: iHeart isn't alone in this. Corporations have come to the
Speaker 2: point where you know, you just get a stay at
Speaker 2: your job is considered a raise, and that is so
Speaker 2: many corporations are doing that because they're simply demanding.
Speaker 1: More of their workers.
Speaker 2: So there aren't too many of us that have gotten
Speaker 2: eight percent raise. In twenty twenty two, they got a
Speaker 2: six percent raise.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you have.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two to six percent raise and twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three another eight percent raise.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this?
Speaker 2: Rookie CHP officers, which is why you may want to
Speaker 2: line up to get this job, can expect to earn
Speaker 2: up to one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars first year
Speaker 2: on duty, according to the CHP. Now, I'm assuming that's
Speaker 2: an insane amount of overtime. But even the Legislative Analyst
Speaker 2: Office can't explain why the vacancy rates skyrocketed by ninety
Speaker 2: four percent between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty three. Twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: five percent of the positions were unfilled today over sixteen
Speaker 2: one in six. Now, part of the problem is that
Speaker 2: and that's just the way it works with the CHP.
Speaker 2: I got to tell you this agency is really sweet in.
Speaker 1: Terms of the workers.
Speaker 2: They have what is called a favored Nation clause in
Speaker 2: their contract. By law, CHP officers are based their raisins
Speaker 2: are based on the average compensation at five other law
Speaker 2: enforcement agencies La County Sheriff's LAPD, San Diego, Oakland, San
Speaker 2: Francisco PDS and you put all those together the average wage.
Speaker 1: Then the CHP gets a raised the next year.
Speaker 2: So if LAPD gets a raise, it raises the average.
Speaker 2: And for some reason it's hard to get cops. And
Speaker 2: I don't know why. Well, maybe because cops are hated.
Speaker 2: That may be one thing, because it's considered more dangerous
Speaker 2: than it was before. Officer Krupski on the street is
Speaker 2: no one knows who the cop is. They used to
Speaker 2: have walking cops who had their own neighborhood and everybody
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood would know who they are. Every local
Speaker 2: donut shop a cop would walk in. Of course, they
Speaker 2: wouldn't pay for donuts, which is why all police officers
Speaker 2: looked like they had dandruff.
Speaker 1: They don't. It was powdered sugar. And there aren't too
Speaker 1: many people that just love cops.
Speaker 2: I do when a cop shows up, I feel safe,
Speaker 2: But then I'm not a young black man in my
Speaker 2: twenties either.
Speaker 1: Where there is. What's real is driving while black.
Speaker 2: I totally believe that, even though cops and I have
Speaker 2: a huge disagreement on that. So you've got these raises
Speaker 2: that are automatic based on favored nation. When that goes
Speaker 2: up and other agencies, you average that and the CHP
Speaker 2: goes up. Also, the retention contracts, officers with more than
Speaker 2: twenty seven years of experience now get an incentive for
Speaker 2: ten percent of their base wages. So if a rookie
Speaker 2: officer is making one hundred and seventeen or one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year, you would think that a veteran
Speaker 2: would be making.
Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. I think
Speaker 1: that's fair.
Speaker 2: Well, they get fifteen thousand dollars to stay another year,
Speaker 2: more money for motorcycle cops, more money for officers who
Speaker 2: work with police dogs.
Speaker 1: I think a couple of.
Speaker 2: Reasons why there aren't enough officers out there, and HP
Speaker 2: is just a poster child for this, is that the
Speaker 2: love for police officers has for the most part disappeared.
Speaker 2: It has become more dangerous to be a police officer,
Speaker 2: although statistically I don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker 2: But we hear about the ambushes. Cops are considered the
Speaker 2: bad guy, especially in minority communities. Today, if a cop
Speaker 2: is called to a domestic violence call, the assumption is
Speaker 2: or they're fearful of.
Speaker 1: Getting shot being ambushed. I don't know.
Speaker 2: If you've been stopped by a cop lately, when they
Speaker 2: go up on the street, you will see that the
Speaker 2: cops are a lot less friendly and they're more apt
Speaker 2: to be just more cognizant of what you're doing, doing
Speaker 2: what your hands.
Speaker 1: Are doing than they did before.
Speaker 2: Also, I think the good news is I don't believe
Speaker 2: that they have lowered their standards. I do not believe
Speaker 2: that police forces have lowered their standards.
Speaker 1: The LAPD says, well, no.
Speaker 2: The CHP said that it received more applications to its
Speaker 2: academy in the first half of this year than in
Speaker 2: saint period in twenty twenty three. And I have talked
Speaker 2: to many police officers. It is not easy to become
Speaker 2: a cop. Standards are very high, the psychological testing. You know,
Speaker 2: for example, you want to be a cop because you
Speaker 2: like shooting people. You want to be That's what I
Speaker 2: why I can't be a cop because you know, frankly,
Speaker 2: I would go out of my mind. At a point
Speaker 2: there was one very highly placed officer that for years
Speaker 2: invited me to do a ride along with the police.
Speaker 2: Occasionally you can do that people in the media and
Speaker 2: some people in the police. You can do a ride along,
Speaker 2: actually sit in a police car and drive and when
Speaker 2: they go, when they have a call, you're there. And
Speaker 2: if there is a call where someone with a weapon
Speaker 2: is involved, you're there. And they tell you get behind
Speaker 2: the car. I mean, they are not going to stop
Speaker 2: simply because a civilian is there in the car.
Speaker 1: And I would never ever go.
Speaker 2: You know why I would never go because I would
Speaker 2: always ask can I kill someone? Will you let me
Speaker 2: shoot someone? And it was always no, you cannot. All
Speaker 2: you can do is ride along. So then why I'm
Speaker 2: not interested? You know, why would I go on a
Speaker 2: ride along if I can't actually kill someone. The point
Speaker 2: is you've got kids that don't know what the hell
Speaker 2: they want to do.
Speaker 1: You know, how about the CHP's it's a pretty good career.
Speaker 2: The money is very good, the best and if it's
Speaker 2: very good, and you have to go over the hump.
Speaker 2: And I think at some point the police are going
Speaker 2: to come back to being admired and loved by the
Speaker 2: general population.
Speaker 1: I would think so. And I want to end with this.
Speaker 2: When I see a cop, I feel safer unless I'm
Speaker 2: being pulled over.
Speaker 1: I just like it. In the meantime. I once asked
Speaker 1: Moe A.
Speaker 2: Kelly, who is African American, and I asked him, when
Speaker 2: you see a cop or you're pulled over, what you
Speaker 2: think he said? He says, I think there's going to
Speaker 2: be some kind of an altercation, or at least I'm
Speaker 2: going to be looked at very differently than you would, Bill.
Speaker 2: And I believe that. By the way, I totally believe that. Okay,
Speaker 2: A quick word about the state and the plan to
Speaker 2: fund our transportation system. And I'm talking about the roads.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about public transportation. Thirty nine million people rely
Speaker 2: on it every day. And so what and who pays
Speaker 2: for all of that? Well, the main source of funding
Speaker 2: is gas tax revenues. And what is going on, Well,
Speaker 2: people like me are buying evs and that means we
Speaker 2: don't pay gas tax. I don't use gasoline. Now, there
Speaker 2: is a special registration fee of one hundred and eight
Speaker 2: dollars a year.
Speaker 1: However, if you drive a car that is an eternal
Speaker 1: combustion engine.
Speaker 2: Your normal car, you're paying about three hundred dollars per
Speaker 2: year in taxes, so you're paying three times as much
Speaker 2: as I do, and that means there is a shortfall. Also,
Speaker 2: California is among the worst rated states for road and
Speaker 2: highway conditions and transit and other modes of transportation. We've
Speaker 2: been edging close to a fiscal cliff. This is not sustainable,
Speaker 2: this is not equitable because I don't pay taxes.
Speaker 1: You do.
Speaker 2: And what's going to happen is you've got some serious
Speaker 2: consequences for communities across the state unless state.
Speaker 1: Leaders can agree on a viable plan.
Speaker 2: Now that gets kind of fun because you've got EV
Speaker 2: drivers and manufacturers. The VV cars are saying no, that's
Speaker 2: the whole point of EV is not to pay taxes
Speaker 2: or not to spend money on gasoline, which includes taxes.
Speaker 2: More and more, Politico had an event where you had
Speaker 2: public officials and industry leaders figuring out what we're going
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: And it's so many things are thrown up in the air.
Speaker 2: California's gas tax accounts for eighty percent of the budget
Speaker 2: for maintaining the state highway and road repairs, and Boy
Speaker 2: we have some great road repairs. You ever go to France,
Speaker 2: for example, do you know even the back roads, you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of roads that you can't drive on because
Speaker 2: your car is going to lose its suspension in the
Speaker 2: first ten feet. Even those back roads are perfectly maintained.
Speaker 2: The United States is way way behind. Well, you've got no,
Speaker 2: that's not true. You got Yemen, South Sudan. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: a little worse in other countries where not it's not
Speaker 2: quite as bad. But I keep on using France as
Speaker 2: an example. But I don't know why.
Speaker 1: But even with the.
Speaker 2: DMVFS for the EVS, without the tax at the pump,
Speaker 2: we're looking at an annual funding gap between four point
Speaker 2: four and five billion dollars needed for maintaining public transit
Speaker 2: pedestrian bike lanes, local streets, roads, highways, bridges, overpasses.
Speaker 1: And bus and railroad transit.
Speaker 2: The gas tax generates about one point three billion dollars
Speaker 2: for bus and rail and so the Metro, which, by
Speaker 2: the way, a quick word about the Metro, A lot
Speaker 2: of there's got a lot of hassle about the Metro,
Speaker 2: how unsafe it is. It occurred to me a little
Speaker 2: while ago that if you want to commit suicide and
Speaker 2: you don't have the balls to do it, buy a
Speaker 2: ticket on the metro.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. Why not if this has.
Speaker 2: Become a critical issue, not the suicide part, but the
Speaker 2: declining revenues, and it's literally threatening, sorry about that, threatening
Speaker 2: the funding of essential transportation.
Speaker 1: So what do you do?
Speaker 2: What are the experts telling us? A multi pronged, equitable approach.
Speaker 2: This has to be multifaceted, which is always the case.
Speaker 2: Nothing moves without tran transportation infrastructure, so that has to
Speaker 2: be at the top. One is a fee base road
Speaker 2: user charge. Drivers paid by the mile instead of by
Speaker 2: the gallon. All right, that makes sense because that means
Speaker 2: all of us are paying the same amount. I still
Speaker 2: think EV drivers are going to pay less.
Speaker 1: Maybe not so.
Speaker 2: Now it just becomes a question of the environmental impact.
Speaker 2: Am I upset about the environmental impact with fossil fuels?
Speaker 1: Actually?
Speaker 2: Yes, For someone who doesn't give a rats about much
Speaker 2: of anything, you know, particularly how you are affected by anything,
Speaker 2: I actually do care about fossil fuels. I also you
Speaker 2: ready for this? I recycle? Would you ever have thought
Speaker 2: that I recycle? My daughter is getting getting married a
Speaker 2: coming up November and I'm trying to convince her to
Speaker 2: instead of doing a traditional wedding, just a bunch of
Speaker 2: people's encircling a tree, eating bushes and keeping fossil fuels,
Speaker 2: don't have the lights, et cetera going on. She doesn't
Speaker 2: believe in that, But I'm actually concerned. I have a
Speaker 2: solar system, so I don't go on the grid.
Speaker 1: I have an EV you know, I actually give a
Speaker 1: rats about that. Yeah, I'm surprised too that I do.
Speaker 1: I really do.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna see what happens as we go and
Speaker 2: transfer to the EV's more and more. California is certainly
Speaker 2: the United States central location for EV's by a long shot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got to We got to figure something else because
Speaker 2: it's not going to work. Kf I am six forty
Speaker 2: live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2: Catch my show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
Speaker 2: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.