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Three Things You Better Pay Attention To This Year · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Speaker 1: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, ruminators, males and females only
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  Speaker 1: near and far. Thanks so much for making time Morning
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  Speaker 1: Show with Preston Scott is OSEI I'm Preston. It is
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  Speaker 1: show five five two two. That's right, twenty two, and
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  Speaker 1: we are thrilled to have back with us on the program.
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  Speaker 1: He is the vice president of policy with the Heartland Institute,
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  Speaker 1: and he is our friend. Justin Haskins. Happy New Year,
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  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas. How are you, friend?
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing very well. Happy new Year to you and
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  Speaker 2: the whole team over there in the Preston Scott universe.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, all all two of them, but thank you, Justin.
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  Speaker 1: I hit you with quite the challenge. Name the three
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  Speaker 1: things that you think are most important that need to
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  Speaker 1: be front of mine for our listeners. What in what
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  Speaker 1: particular order do you want to attack this?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I want to go with the affordability crisis first,
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  Speaker 2: That's what I want to do first. They're all related,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, I think they're all connected with each other,
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  Speaker 2: so I don't think there's a whole lot that people
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  Speaker 2: are going to be shocked by. In this first one.
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  Speaker 2: The affordability crisis that Americans have been dealing with now
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  Speaker 2: for several years. Really it amped up big time during
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  Speaker 2: the Biden administration. This is not going away anytime soon.
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  Speaker 2: It's going to continue to be a problem. It's going
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  Speaker 2: to define this election and probably the next election as well.
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  Speaker 2: And the real issue with the affordability crisis isn't just
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  Speaker 2: that everything has become significantly more expensive for the vast
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  Speaker 2: majority of things and what people remember from four or
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  Speaker 2: five years ago. The real issue that people need to
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  Speaker 2: keep an eye on is the understanding of the cause
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  Speaker 2: of the affordability crisis. Because what happened is beginning with
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  Speaker 2: Biden and moving forward, I don't think most Americans really
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  Speaker 2: understood why we have an affordability crisis. And the Biden
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  Speaker 2: administration's reaction, as Democrats always do, is to say, let's
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  Speaker 2: have more government programs, let's spend more money, let's put
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  Speaker 2: more you know, subsidies into people's lives, and this is
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  Speaker 2: going to fix the affordability crisis. And none of those
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  Speaker 2: things did, of course, it only made things worse. And
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  Speaker 2: now we are starting to see the Trump administration do
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  Speaker 2: similar things. Flowed out similar ideas. We saw this just
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  Speaker 2: the other day with capping credit card YEP. We've seen
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  Speaker 2: this with mortgage rates and other things. And the reality
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  Speaker 2: is the affordability crisis is caused by government. Government is
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  Speaker 2: the one that created the affordability crisis in the first place,
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  Speaker 2: and the biggest reason they did it is the endless
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  Speaker 2: printing of money. This is the biggest cause of the
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  Speaker 2: affordability crisis. During the Biden administration, they poured gasoline on
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  Speaker 2: the fire that started at the end of the Trump
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  Speaker 2: administration during COVID. COVID happened. The Fed came out and
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  Speaker 2: gave a blank check to the Democrats running Congress and
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  Speaker 2: the Trump administration, and they said, you can print as
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  Speaker 2: we will print as much money as you want. Just
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  Speaker 2: do whatever you want to do during this period because
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  Speaker 2: it's a crisis. And so they did. A lot of
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  Speaker 2: it was driven by the Democrats in Congress. They printed
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  Speaker 2: unprecedented amounts of money. Trillions and trillions and trillions of
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  Speaker 2: new dollars entered into the economy. And when you just
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  Speaker 2: create new money and you dump it into an economy,
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  Speaker 2: that causes inflation, and that creates an affordability crisis. When
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  Speaker 2: the economy reopened, because at that time the economy still closed,
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  Speaker 2: the economy reopens. Now all this cash that had been
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  Speaker 2: printed and sent out to Americans all across the country,
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  Speaker 2: including millions of people who had never lost their jobs,
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  Speaker 2: now all of a sudden it's being spent, and that
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  Speaker 2: causes prices to go up. Well, Biden comes into office,
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  Speaker 2: Biden now is running the economy. Even when the economy
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  Speaker 2: is open up, he starts printing even more money, and
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  Speaker 2: the problem gets worse, and we have an inflation crisis
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  Speaker 2: that coupled with war in Europe and other things may
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  Speaker 2: exacerbated the problem. Americans never understood that that was the
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  Speaker 2: real issue, and so what they want is government to
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  Speaker 2: come in and fix the problem. And that's what Trump
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  Speaker 2: promised to do. He didn't exactly say how, but he
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  Speaker 2: said he was going to fix the problem. When people
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  Speaker 2: are not seeing prices go down, they are wanting more
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  Speaker 2: government action. And the Trump administration is starting to lean
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  Speaker 2: into government heavy handed solutions. And that is not going
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  Speaker 2: to fix It's only going to make it worse. And
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  Speaker 2: I think all of this whole affordability issue is going
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  Speaker 2: to drive the country towards significantly bigger problems moving forward
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  Speaker 2: in the years ahead.
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  Speaker 1: I suspect it leads right into the midterms, which are
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  Speaker 1: coming now in about ten months.
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  Speaker 2: Right, midterms are obviously going to be the big political
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  Speaker 2: issue of the year, and if the big voting issue
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  Speaker 2: is the affordability crisis, you're going to see both parties
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  Speaker 2: start to lean into what you know, advocate stronger for
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  Speaker 2: their so called solutions to the affordability crisis. But what
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  Speaker 2: you're not going to hear is someone advocating for a
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  Speaker 2: solution that actually deals with the problem that I just outlined,
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  Speaker 2: which is when you print trillions and trillions of dollars
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  Speaker 2: and you dump it into the economy, you're going to
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  Speaker 2: end up with inflation. You're never going to see deflation
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  Speaker 2: when you continue to put more new dollars into the economy.
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  Speaker 2: That is what's been happening and it will continue to
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  Speaker 2: happen because government spending has not been reduced. It's only
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  Speaker 2: getting worse. We're running trillion dollar deficits now. It's just
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  Speaker 2: the norm. And really, Republicublicans have only paid lip surface
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  Speaker 2: to cutting government spending. And you have done things. The
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  Speaker 2: Trump administration has done what it can to reduce the
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  Speaker 2: size of government. A lot of this is being driven
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  Speaker 2: by Congress and Republicans in Congress just being completely incapable
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  Speaker 2: of doing anything meaningful. But what people have to understand
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  Speaker 2: is that the midterms are already lost for Republicans and
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  Speaker 2: it's not because of any one particular issue. It's really
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  Speaker 2: important for people to understand this. I know this sounds defeatist,
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  Speaker 2: but the pattern, the voting pattern that has been established
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  Speaker 2: in the modern era, almost guarantees that the Republicans will
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  Speaker 2: lose this midterm election. It's more about psychology than it
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  Speaker 2: is about any one particular issue. If you go back
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  Speaker 2: all the way to the nineteen seventies and you look
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  Speaker 2: at voting patterns of the American people, what you see
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  Speaker 2: is that since the nineteen seventies, there has been only
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  Speaker 2: two times that a president's when they were in control
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  Speaker 2: of Congress won a midterm election. So in this case
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  Speaker 2: would be the Republicans and the Trump administration. During Obama
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  Speaker 2: would have been Democrats and the Obama administration when they
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  Speaker 2: get to that mid term election after they won their
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  Speaker 2: their first election, that president's party has only won twice
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  Speaker 2: since the nineteen seventies. The first time was with Jimmy
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  Speaker 2: Carter in the nineteen seventies, and that was during a
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  Speaker 2: stretch when Democrats had won Congress. I don't know, it
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  Speaker 2: was like forty years in a row or something like
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  Speaker 2: that in the House, So that was just a foregone conclusion.
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  Speaker 2: The only other time it's happened was when George W.
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  Speaker 2: Bush his Republican Party won the midterm elections in two
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  Speaker 2: thousand and two, and that was right after nine to eleven.
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  Speaker 2: And that was the only reason that happened. Every other president,
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  Speaker 2: including Barack Obama, no matter Bill Clinton, matter how popular
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  Speaker 2: you are, you never win this election. And it's got
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  Speaker 2: to do with the psychology of American voters feeling like,
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  Speaker 2: wait a minute, I thinks my life was going to
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  Speaker 2: get so much better and it hasn't. It's been two years,
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  Speaker 2: and I want change again. And this is a pattern
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  Speaker 2: that goes on and on and on. So Republicans who
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  Speaker 2: are grasping desperately, we got to do something to win
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  Speaker 2: this election. They're starting to turn to policies that are
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  Speaker 2: getting away from first principles and in order to win
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  Speaker 2: an election that they probably can't win anyway.
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  Speaker 1: Justin Haskins, Vice President Policy with a Heartland Institute, prolific writer, researcher,
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  Speaker 1: and Justin we're ticking off the two things that you
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  Speaker 1: think are most important for people to keep front of mind.
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  Speaker 1: And we started with affordability, which, of course, as we
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  Speaker 1: were just talking about, is a huge issue in the
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  Speaker 1: upcoming Florida legislative session which began, which begins today in fact,
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  Speaker 1: and then Republicans the midterm elections. What's going to come then.
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  Speaker 1: But you've got a third item on the list.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I think those two items are
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  Speaker 2: going to be absolutely huge, and they lead to the
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  Speaker 2: third item, which is this tendency that we're starting to
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  Speaker 2: see within the Republican Party. And we've already seen it
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  Speaker 2: forever now, for a long time within the Democratic Party
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  Speaker 2: of embracing leftist policies as a way to try to
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  Speaker 2: win voters on the issue of affordability. And we're start
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  Speaker 2: we've seen this now with the Trump administration. This is
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  Speaker 2: not to say that Trump administration is some secret socialist
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  Speaker 2: administration or the worst administration we've ever had or anything.
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  Speaker 2: The Trump administration is probably the best administration of my lifetime,
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  Speaker 2: so I'm not not complaining about that. But on the
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  Speaker 2: same but they are embracing increasingly more embracing leftist policies
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  Speaker 2: like price controls, as we've seen recently with credit card
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  Speaker 2: interest rates, with mortgages, where they've thrown out this idea
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  Speaker 2: of having a fifty year mortgage, increasing subsidies. There's this
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  Speaker 2: no plan at all to reduce government spending, really any
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  Speaker 2: meaningful plan. They want to continue down this road where
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  Speaker 2: we're running bigger and bigger deficits. The Trump administration wants
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  Speaker 2: interest rates to come down, and I agree with that,
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  Speaker 2: but partially they want interest streets to come down so
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  Speaker 2: that they can go deeper into dead and it's more
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  Speaker 2: affordable for them to do it, and that means more
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  Speaker 2: government spending. There's a million of these policies, and the
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  Speaker 2: things that I'm hearing behind the scenes, the little inside baseball,
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  Speaker 2: the things that I'm hearing behind the scenes are that
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  Speaker 2: this is just the beginning that there are forces within
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  Speaker 2: the Republican establishment that's saying, you know, we need to
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  Speaker 2: lean into populism and populist economic policies, and that means
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  Speaker 2: things like more subsidies and more government programs designed to
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  Speaker 2: help the middle class. That's the idea. But this is
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  Speaker 2: only going to make things worse. It is not going
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  Speaker 2: to help with inflation, it's not going to bring prices down.
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  Speaker 2: The only way to help with to get out of
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  Speaker 2: this mess, with the affordability crisis is to increase economic production,
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  Speaker 2: real economic growth, and that requires doing other things the
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  Speaker 2: Trump administration is doing right, like reducing regulations, trying to
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  Speaker 2: lower taxes in various areas, making it easier for the
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  Speaker 2: economy to grow. The Trump administration is doing a lot
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  Speaker 2: of those things, but they want to couple it and
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  Speaker 2: other Republicans are saying the same things behind the scenes,
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  Speaker 2: with big government policies that are ultimately going to drive
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  Speaker 2: prices up and create more problems for people down the road.
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  Speaker 1: Justin you didn't even get to mention the fact that
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  Speaker 1: the United States government under President Donald Trump is now
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  Speaker 1: starting to take ownership and invest in private companies and
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  Speaker 1: float the idea of owning more and that is just
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  Speaker 1: so dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and what's going on with Venezuela is partially
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  Speaker 2: tied to that. There's certain foreign policy decisions that are
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  Speaker 2: being made that are kind of related to this, and
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  Speaker 2: so there's just so much going on here that involves
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  Speaker 2: the government trying to sort of manufacture growth and kind
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  Speaker 2: of increase control and influence and subsidies as a way
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  Speaker 2: of trying to drive economic growth, and that just isn't
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  Speaker 2: how real economic growth happens. All that does is create
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  Speaker 2: distortions in economies that create problems down the road, and
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  Speaker 2: that is exactly the issue that we're seeing. It's been
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  Speaker 2: a problem now for many years. And leaning into these
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  Speaker 2: policies that don't create real wealth and real growth but
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  Speaker 2: just kind of move money around is not going to
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  Speaker 2: solve the problem. And subsidies for Obamacare and all of that.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, Republicans fought fought that, but there are a lot,
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  Speaker 2: but there are some Republicans who are caving on it.
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  Speaker 2: Ultimately that's going to happen. That's one of the reasons
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  Speaker 2: Obamacare is so expensive is because of the government subsidies.
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  Speaker 2: So it's just a huge problem in the Republican Party
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  Speaker 2: to varying degrees. It's not all about Trump or anything.
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  Speaker 2: There are a lot of Republicans who support those kinds
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  Speaker 2: of things, and if they don't learn their lessons soon,
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  Speaker 2: they're going to find themselves out of jobs anyway, because
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  Speaker 2: I think that's just the direction that we're that we're
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  Speaker 2: going in. And then on top of it, they'll have
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  Speaker 2: lost their principles.
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  Speaker 1: Can states like Florida do enough independent of what the
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  Speaker 1: federal government does to illustrate a different way of doing things.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think states are really where a lot of
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  Speaker 2: the action is. A great example of that is on
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  Speaker 2: the housing crisis. Right, you have a huge part of
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  Speaker 2: the affordability crisis that people can't afford to buy homes.
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  Speaker 2: The biggest reason they can't afford to buy homes. The
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  Speaker 2: two big reasons are the government printing endless amounts of money,
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  Speaker 2: which has led to prices going up significantly through the
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  Speaker 2: financial system and such, but also the supply of housing,
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  Speaker 2: and a lot of that is a state and local issue. Right.
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  Speaker 2: If states freed up the ability for local communities, and
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  Speaker 2: if local communities freed up the ability for contractors to
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  Speaker 2: build more houses, then we wouldn't have a housing crisis.
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  Speaker 2: The idea that there is tons of demand for affordable
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  Speaker 2: housing but there isn't affordable housing means there's something broken
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  Speaker 2: in the market, and that distortion in the market is
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  Speaker 2: the government getting involved at the local level, the state level,
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  Speaker 2: and the federal level all making it hard. And states
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  Speaker 2: can do a lot to pressure local governments to free
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  Speaker 2: up zoning and do different things so that there's more housing,
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  Speaker 2: and the federal government can do that too by putting
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  Speaker 2: pressure on the states to do that at the you know,
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  Speaker 2: put pressure on the local governments. It can, it can happen,
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  Speaker 2: and I think that's a huge thing that I'm hoping
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  Speaker 2: Florida will do and other states as well.
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  Speaker 1: Justin, I appreciate you very much. I know our listeners
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  Speaker 1: do as well. Thank you, sir, and we'll talk again soon.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds good. Thank you to hear everybody.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Justin Haskins with US of the
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  Speaker 1: Heartland Institute, where he's vice president of Policy. Here in
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  Speaker 1: the Morning Show with Preston Scott