Latest / The SEANC View / Budget Battles Continue at NCGA

Transcript

Budget Battles Continue at NCGA · The SEANC View

0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I am your host, Jonathan Owens, communications director here at Scenic,
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alongside Artis Watkins, the executive director, government relations director
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Suzanne Beasley, and podcast producer Sam Klein.
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Let's get ready for a great episode.
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Music.
0:30
So we've tried it a few times here now. We've tried it, what,
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like three or four episodes. We've done the little intro and then the music. Do you guys like that?
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I like it. It's pretty radical of us.
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It's working for us. Oh, man. It's just totally out there.
0:46
So today is Thursday, June 6th. We're in June. Does that mean we're in summer
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to you guys? Or what do you think of summer?
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Once it hit 80 degrees. Well, I mean, it's not technically summer,
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right? It's summer starts, what, June 21st or something like that?
1:01
Really? That's the summer equinox. That's right.
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Or the summer solstice? North Carolina summer, to me, starts after Mother's Day.
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Yeah. It starts, oh, that's pretty early. I say after Memorial Day weekend. I'm more like Suzanne.
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Honestly, it's when it starts feeling like summer. Yeah.
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Kind of steamy out there today. So we got starting to get a little hot.
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The pools are open and we're in the studio ready to deliver an awesome podcast.
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Not a lot going on at the legislature these days, right? Well, there's a lot going on.
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It's just not out where we can see it. A lot is going on behind closed doors
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where conferees are hammering out the details for the budget.
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We were hearing rumors yesterday that they do plan to wrap the budget up on time this year.
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What does that mean, on time? Well, so the fiscal year ends on June 30th.
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So, you know, everything in a perfect world, you would have a budget in place
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and ready to rock and roll when the new year starts. Doesn't happen often.
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And, you know, remains to be seen whether it will truly happen this year.
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But the goal apparently is still to be finished with the budget by June 30th. So we'll see.
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I don't have any details of what they're discussing behind closed doors.
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But you guys know that pay for active state employees and retiree money was
2:15
in contention. So that automatically goes to the conference committee to be
2:19
decided upon the final amount. So stay tuned for that.
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Bills are moving, though. So we have to, you know, we're just attending a lot
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of committee meetings right now, keeping up with bills, because one of my colleagues
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yesterday had said, you know, when something goes to the other chamber to be
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heard, there's always going to be an amendment to it.
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So we have to watch all the bills that are moving right now just to make sure
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some language hasn't been added to a bill or that a bill hasn't been gutted
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and other language put in that wasn't in the original bill.
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It makes me think of that year that a license plate bill, a bill about what
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kind of different personalized or novelty plates you could do,
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was amended around the desk back in the days when you could do that last second.
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And it was going to remove all the State Human Resources Act,
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all the employment protections of everybody at DOT at that time.
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Those are similar things. Right.
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And then there was one about hairdressing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But that got gutted
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and something else got put in it.
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Didn't the motorcycle bill, that's the famous one that became the HB2 law?
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Oh, that's true. That happened. So, yeah, you never know at this time of year.
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You don't. You have to watch everything that's moving.
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So even if it sounds like nothing's going on, our lobbyists are down there watching
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everything. We are. Right?
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And from what we hear, the House and Senate are still in their own corners about the tax package.
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So depending whose tax philosophy you go with, that completely changes what there is to spend.
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So until they work that out, I don't know how they're, I mean, they may or may not.
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I mean, they may not get to a budget at all, much less the end of June.
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Yeah, won't be the first time, you know, that they've put everything down and
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gone home for a while and come back. So we'll see.
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Stay tuned. We'll keep you posted. But we have reached out, again,
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to leadership to let them know
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that state employees and retirees were not treated well in either budget.
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That and those positions, you know, just cutting vacant positions is very dangerous.
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And it leaves the public without a lot of services they would want if they knew
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they were getting ready to lose them.
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But also, you know, those jobs aren't vacant because we don't need them.
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They're vacant because we cannot fill them because we're not paying enough.
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So we're just creating a bigger mess. Yeah, that's the bottom line.
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Yeah, I want to revisit something from last. Well, I guess it was two weeks
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ago, and we're going to talk about last week's episode in a second.
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But I was listening back to our episode two weeks ago after the House budget
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came out, and we were talking about the Democrats supporting the House budget.
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And it occurred to me, and I think you brought this up in the episode,
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but that budget does fund the Opportunity Scholarships, right?
4:55
Yes. And it's amazing that it was a huge fight last time over there.
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And they just, they supported it this time. Right.
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Again, the strategy makes no sense to me in so much as I get what they're saying.
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Hey, the Senate wants to remove even more taxes, which means even less money
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in the next few years out.
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I don't disagree. That's exactly what happens. Revenue not coming in means you
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have to make worse cuts as time goes on.
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I get that part. But spending, you have to also look at your spending,
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not just making sure revenue is coming in, but now you're rubber stamping the spending.
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I don't know why you wouldn't have just drawn a line overall,
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because I don't see how you win if you keep with that.
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And by the way, it was just today it was reported that the State Board of Education meeting,
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staff from DPI said, hey, look, I think it's only 8% of those opportunity scholarships
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in the first year were people moving from public to private.
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The rest of them were people who were already in private, staying in private,
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but now subsidized by the taxpayers, no matter what their income.
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And I know a private school that requires you to apply for that scholarship.
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I'm sure a lot A lot of them do.
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And I also know private schools that have increased their tuition already.
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I remember you saying that, that one where you live increased it by exactly the amount.
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So, I mean, but maybe that's a different topic for a different day.
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Is it, though? Because if we're talking about taxpayer money and whether taxpayers
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are getting what they're paying for or getting ripped off, How is that incentive, you know,
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to give people parental choice for where their kids go to school if those schools
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just do what the market always does and go ahead and mark it up?
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It still stays out of reach for your average person.
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It just seems so out of character or out of, I don't know what the word is,
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but how can you call for so many cuts to jobs and things and then support this
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huge expenditure, you know? Right.
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Because for the reason anybody supports any legislation, on balance,
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They felt it hit enough of their priorities as a caucus.
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Now, again, that's where groups like Scenic took issue with that because it
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doesn't in terms of what you've articulated your positions as a caucus to be in so many cases.
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But you said, well, it's the less offensive of the two. So we're going to vote with it.
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Yeah, I wonder also cutting vacant jobs. Like there's no one to fight for those
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vacant jobs because nobody's in those jobs.
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You know, nobody is willing to fight so far in a meaningful way on any legislation,
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much less the budget affecting state employees.
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That's how this session has gone. Either side. Right.
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They are not state employees and retirees have not been the priority for lawmakers.
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And that's something that state employees have to look at.
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And I think Scenics, we have a political action committee and our political
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action committee has been very clear for many years.
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They are not driven by party at all. They look at every legislator individually
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for exactly that reason, because you do have some that will absolutely go out
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there and fight for state employees and retirees.
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And we know who they are, and we are very thankful for them,
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and we make sure our members hear what they're doing for them.
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But you have to take every person as a person down there, because you just really
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can't pigeonhole people the way some people would like for us to.
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I know, John, you said on our social media, we'll have people saying,
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y'all are just a bunch of liberals or y'all are a bunch of rabid Republicans.
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People can't make up their mind what we are, and that's exactly what we are. Yes, all of the above.
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I think we mirror our membership, obviously. We're a member organization.
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We have members of every political persuasion there is.
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And at the end of the day, the reason they come together to be in this association
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is so that we can push state employee and retiree issues.
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We're not here to talk about a bunch of other issues that might be really sexy topics. Oh, sorry.
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But we're here to make state employee and retiree issues the sexy topics.
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We're sexy. You can quote me. You said.
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Don't even know what to do with that do you josh that made you giggle too hard
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john we all just kind of looked at each other okay uh moving right along.
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So let's talk about the the old gen z podcast
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that was really good episode and millennial i
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think i think adam said he's a millennial maybe oh he is the
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first year of gen z's last year
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millennial you already lost me so he's a baby millennial
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i'm yeah i'm 1981 what am i i was
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born in 1981 i think that's a millennial okay
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it might be a gen x it's probably a cusp okay
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suzanne and i are no y'all baby boomers um
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so there's a generation i almost said something we can't say i was born
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in 64 and there's a generation between 64 and gen.
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X so it's called the jones generation like jim
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jones the guy well i don't think like jim jones well yeah
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like his name jones it's called the jones generation
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that we are a part of and there's just like probably with
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you i'm 66 yeah you aren't six are
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you she was born no i was like oh you know what john honestly i
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was like you're not did that i'm like what the
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heck's wrong first she laughs at me saying we're
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sexy and now he's anyway okay boomer 66
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so yeah my parents are
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1966 babies oh being sammy's
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parents but anyway yeah we digress as
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usual yeah so far y'all really did an amazing
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job thank you and more importantly
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i think everybody learned a lot but i
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really was hoping some politicians would listen to that because
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yeah if i were a politician some of
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that was fascinating to me yeah it's important to
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y'all are very generation coming up your generation
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is very y'all don't tend to stake out
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these extremes yeah extreme political
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positions y'all are kind of like you're taking it issue by issue and show me
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what you got you know yeah i was never a fan of politics growing up because
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i did see so much surrounding it with just stress it wasn't even necessarily
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argument amongst the parties at that time.
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It was more just, I saw how stressed my parents were, especially during the
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2008 stock market crash. Yeah.
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And just seeing the stress surrounding them that I was like,
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I don't want to talk about politics. I don't like politics.
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And as I grew up, I grew up with very supportive parents who were like, be what you are.
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Support what you support. We're not going to tell you what to support. Do your own research.
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Yeah. Yeah. And figure out what will work best for you and your generation and the future.
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Well, it was clear that that whole group that was on the podcast that you guys
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are well informed and have your own thoughts and opinions.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I was, I guess I came of age of intellectually maybe in
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the 90s when I was in high school and in college. And there wasn't a lot going
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on in the 90s. I mean, like it wasn't so much turmoil until we got to 2001 and
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the whole world changed.
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It was. We didn't go through the things that Z and the younger millennials have
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gone through. I mean, we didn't.
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It was just a different world. But it does make me wonder, especially in terms
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of public employees and whether people would be drawn to public service or almost repelled by it.
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Because we always had stereotypes around public service that we heard.
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And, you know, it's just a bunch of people's leaning on shovels.
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That's state employees.
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Stuff like that that was really derogatory and that could keep some really talented people away sometimes.
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Usually not. Usually people knew that's just a bunch of stereotyping. Yeah.
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I wonder, with your generation, they're seeing public employees absolutely trashed in the public.
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I mean, just the idea of being a government employee is like you're stealing from the government.
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Yeah, and I think that some of the things Allie was saying and some of the things
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Adam was saying showed pride in being a public employee.
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I thought that our values came across in that podcast.
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Allie, for one, is very proud of what she does. she knows that some things that
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she does as a probation and parole officer are going to be hard for individuals.
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They're going to be hard for families to hear, but she knows that what she is
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doing is making a difference and it's keeping people safe.
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Well, Allie, we're so proud to have you as a scenic member and leader,
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and we're really thankful to have you protecting us as North Carolinians.
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You know, people like Allie are the future of this state and of public employment
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and people who want to keep other people safe and make our communities safer.
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So we have to figure out ways to bring more people like Allie into state government.
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And to scenic. Yeah, and to scenic, for sure. I was just talking with Stacey Meyer,
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the director of the Office of State Human Resources, who's trying so hard to
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bring OSHR as the HR arm of state government into the modern world because so
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much of it has been stuck policy-wise in the 60s.
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And she's trying to streamline that and make hiring easier and make policies make sense.
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And part of what she expressed as a hope is that we can attract more of these
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really bright young people into serving the public. And I really hope she's
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successful with that. And I told her we're trying the same thing here at Scenic.
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We want more young people involved in Scenic.
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Because the rest of us can only tell you how it was. Yeah, and they're going
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to have to eventually. We're not going to have to live with the results.
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That's right. And I feel like younger people, too. I mean, I've got millennial
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kids, so, you know, they're service-minded.
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They truly want to do things that help other people, you know,
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in whatever profession that they're in. But they do see government.
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I mean, they've seen such bad things from government.
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And I want to give a little shout-out to Adam Weinbarger.
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Weinbarger. Barger? Weinbarger, yeah. He's really coming to his own as a scenic rep, I think.
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He's the western region rep out in the mountains, and I'm sure he's had to grow
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up a lot in the last year with the whole hurricane by scenic standards,
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Adam. I'm not calling you a child.
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Oh, but yeah, he had all of those affected counties. Yeah, he was thrown to the wolves. Yeah.
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He did go above and beyond during that, so thank you for that, Adam.
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But I sat in on his interview when he was trying to get the job,
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you know, the interview process,
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and hearing him now on the podcast and the way he speaks about Scenic,
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it's just a huge—I mean, he's really— Yeah, he believes in the mission.
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He might be very articulate and clear. He might have your job one day, Artis.
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Listen, I think all of those young people are really bright that we're on that—see,
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you know you're old when you say young people.
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It's true. It's a thing. It happens when you start saying young people you've
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made— But I think all of those young people who were on that Gen Z podcast,
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really, they can run anything they want to.
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They just got to keep informed and keep doing what they're doing.
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I am always encouraged. Anytime I would go on campus, anywhere that any of my
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children were going to school, and I see, I just even see people on a college
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campus walking around or people at a young person, young person event.
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I just see the way they carry themselves sometimes and say out loud to myself
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in the car We're going to be just fine.
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Yeah The future really is bright and sometimes I think People get to our age
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and they say oh these young people don't know anything.
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That's such hogwash You can't fool them either That's why I think politicians
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would be fascinated by listening to y'all.
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It's very hard to dupe y'all in mass Yeah, we grew up in the age of the Internet
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and we constantly had things thrown in our face that were fake.
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So from a very young age, we had to figure out and learn for ourselves the difference
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between what was real and where we were being lied to and figure out where the
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deceit was. And that'll serve y'all well.
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I think it's helped us grow up a lot. Probably gave y'all anxiety,
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but yes. All of us. A lot of it.
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Not to leave anyone out, but Don Travis did a great job and Tiana as well.
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So the future is bright here at Scenic. Yeah, we're lucky. We got plenty of people to take my job.
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I think a big thing with attracting more of the millennials and Gen Zs to public
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service is breaking that stigma,
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which if there's any Gen Zs or millennials who are members or who are public
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service workers who would love to come and talk about that on the podcast,
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we would love to have you.
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We would love to hear what your experience has been as a state employee.
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So where do they contact you? They can contact us at the podcast email,
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which is podcast at scenic.org. Pretty easy.
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And yeah, we can do one of those episodes every week if y'all want to.
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We'll just sit back. New Gen Z every week.
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It was good. I think we do have to do more than one a year without question.
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I mean, we've done, at this point, we've done two in 13 or 14 months or something
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like that. But so we definitely have to pick that up because I think there's
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a lot y'all have to say that everybody wants to hear.
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So a question just came to my mind because it seemed like in my generation,
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making money was a huge deal, right?
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Like making, we want to get rich. Everything you did, you want to get rich.
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I don't see that as much with my kids, especially my 12-year-old.
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Is that a thing? Like, I mean, I'm sure you're older than her,
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but like the younger folks, are they not as obsessed with money or do you think some – it's just –.
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I think it partially has to do with the way the economy has been when we were
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first entering adulthood.
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And we kind of saw it as, well, we're never going to be able to afford a house
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anyways one day. So why do we need to care so much about making the money when
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we could be passionate about what we do?
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And I think Gen Z, I see, and older millennials, I don't think they're looking
19:03
to get rich, but they're struggling. Yeah, they are.
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We're just trying to make ends meet, is what it feels like. Rather than,
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I don't need to be rich, I just need to survive and make a decent life.
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That's sad, though, because we were just hard-sold the American dream.
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I mean, we were the generations that were raised on greed is good,
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the famous line from Wall Street, the movie.
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Greed is good, but having a stable life and making a difference is just as good.
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Consider a life in public service of young folks. So what else do we want to talk about?
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Just as a final note on that, I saw somebody from the administration,
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not here, but in D.C., doing an interview on television talking about bureaucrats.
19:53
I think sometimes when people do get into public service and they've come there
19:56
from outside, they forget you are literally a bureaucrat.
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Like you are government. So I'm hopeful that people will understand you can
20:06
shift those gears from business to government and back.
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But when you're in government, you're part of the government.
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That's bizarre to me, this whole concept of, you know. You are the government.
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Like you make the decisions, you know. Yeah, so that's.
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The General Assembly sometimes think that, too. Like, we all think that there's
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somebody from outside government that can come in and tell government how to do better.
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But then people get in government and they realize, oh, my goodness,
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this is much more complex because I can't run it like my business. That's right.
20:39
That's right. Because it's not a business. Well, yeah. And you can't just set
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your price. You can't just decide if you care or not if somebody wants to be your customer.
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Everybody is your customer and you have to make all of them happy.
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It's really, really a tough business. So hats off to any of you who are running
20:55
anything at the local, state, federal level. It's hard.
20:59
So one topic I did forget to talk about and we need to go back and talk about is one bill did pass.
21:05
Was it this week? The Investment Authority bill.
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So that was Treasurer Briner was not a fan of the sole fiduciary setup of the
21:15
retirement system here and the investments for the whole state.
21:18
So his Investment Modernization Act bill would set up a board that makes the
21:24
decisions regarding investments of the state, which obviously include all the retirement systems.
21:28
We were one of three states that still had a sole fiduciary.
21:32
Say what that is. People may not have heard that. One person in charge.
21:36
Yep. One person in charge. So the treasurer. Yeah.
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So now there will be this investment authority made up of five individuals who
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will have to apply for the job.
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They have to have specific credentials to do the work of investing.
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But Treasurer Breiner thought it was better to have more heads in the game than
21:52
just one making those decisions. So I can see pros and cons to that.
21:57
Like, so if you have one person in charge and that person is elected,
22:02
then that person is beholden to the voters. Right.
22:05
Whereas if you've set up a board, those people aren't facing reelection.
22:10
Right. No, that's I mean, that's true. It can go either way.
22:14
Yeah. Yeah, we used to hate having a sole fiduciary. Yeah, we did.
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We went through a lot of discussion and action and, you know,
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trying to change that years ago.
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Yeah, and then people who were more experienced in that game than we were said,
22:29
kind of what you're saying, John, but do you understand if you get rid of that
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but you don't fix the governance?
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Yeah. The fact that you can't see the contracts, the transparency that we still want.
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If you still don't get that transparency where you can see the contracts they're
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negotiating, you've just now got exactly what John said.
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People who don't have to be accountable to voters who can make these secret
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decisions that none of us ever know.
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So I can see both sides of it, having been on both sides of that philosophically as an organization.
22:58
And I see the flip side, obviously, is five heads may be better than one,
23:02
that you get better decisions.
23:05
Well, we are very hopeful that's what's going to happen. So I think we've talked
23:09
about this before, but that board will not have a state employer or retiree
23:13
representative, correct?
23:14
Yeah. I mean, it'll be investment professionals, so...
23:18
Yeah, not just a rank-and-file person to— The previous board had a slot for
23:24
somebody who could give the input of someone who is using that system and worked
23:30
their whole career putting into that system.
23:32
And this will be different. But the argument in this case that I understand
23:36
that Treasurer Briner's making is that, look, we need a smaller group and have
23:40
it be people who that's all they've ever done.
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You know, that's what they know is investments. And he knows that to have this
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plan be sustainable long term, we're going to have to make a whole lot of money.
23:52
So we're hopeful that Treasurer Briner is successful in that.
23:55
Yeah, because at the end of the day, he's still treasurer.
23:57
So whatever the board chooses, if that works out, that works out for him,
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you know, as you would think politically.
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So I'm sure he's going to try to make sure they make the right call.
24:08
Well, they got a big pot of money to work with, right?
24:10
Was it 17th largest? In the world.
24:13
In the world. A public. Or maybe even higher than that. I'm not sure.
24:16
It was last time I heard it was 16th, I think. And so 17th would sound reasonable.
24:21
120 some billion dollars.
24:24
126 billion, I think. Wow. I can handle it. More than four times the same for
24:29
the state budget. I know. Isn't that crazy?
24:31
Yeah. So that's why, however it's invested, when it's four times the amount
24:35
of the entire state budget, we would love to see how that's being invested.
24:38
And you should, too. You should want to see that, too. But that's also a fourth of what Elon Musk has.
24:45
Oh, wow. Goodness. Yeah, that's an impressive. That's mind-blowing, huh?
24:48
I saw something the other day thinking of that that said if you took 99% of
24:53
Bill Gates' money away, he would still have $1.2 billion.
25:01
99% of his money, gone. And he still has that much money.
25:05
Well, he said that in an interview because they were like, oh,
25:08
you'd still be like tons of billions. And he's like, no, I would have 1.2 billion.
25:14
Goodness. Just a smidge. Well, that's depressing. I mean, that's yeah.
25:18
How would he survive on that? I know.
25:21
Anyway, we're really digressing. The podcast puffin does not like that.
25:27
Oh, what did we name him? Petey Pablo. Oh, I wish he could squeeze it and he'd
25:33
say North Carolina raise up.
25:37
We might be able to custom. You can get custom buttons. We could get one of those at Build-A-Bear.
25:43
Okay, Sammy, you're on it. Anyway. I took my granddaughter to Build-A-Bear.
25:46
She was horrified. But that's a whole other.
25:50
All right. Are you ready for the question of the week? Yeah.
25:53
Ready. John Swacky Weird Question of the Week.
25:55
Music.
26:00
So, in honor of our podcast producers' travels the last few weeks,
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Sam has been camping for the past two weeks.
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What do you guys think? She was camping the last two weeks? Last two weekends.
26:13
Oh, weekends. I'm like, what are you talking? What do you all think about camping?
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And where is your favorite camping spot, if you have one?
26:21
Been there, done that. Okay. But we had a lot of fun camping.
26:25
I think there was a campground in, what's that little town right beside Cherokee?
26:30
Of the rest of the city? No. Anyway, Cherokee area.
26:35
There was a campground there that we, you know, we were motorcyclists,
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so spent a lot of time in the mountains.
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But that was such a neat campground. And the spot we liked the best was at the
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top of a hill, you know, because we were.
26:46
Now, are you talking about camper camping or tent camping? So,
26:49
no. So, our camping, it wasn't a tent, but the truck had one of those covers.
26:53
What do you call it? Tuna cover?
26:55
Tuna cover. Tuna cover. So, I had one of those. Tuna cover. So, we opened it up.
26:58
Tuna. Yeah. Tuna. So when you open it up, you could drape the mosquito netting over it.
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And we had a foam mattress that fit in the back of the truck.
27:05
Yeah, I mean, we were very comfortable.
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We had a fan that you could plug in. You know, they had electricity there.
27:11
So we were never uncomfortable. It was always a good sleep. Very cool.
27:16
The thing about camping, though, is, you know, the bathroom situation.
27:19
If there's not one, I'm not camping there.
27:21
Tell us about your camping experiences. So I've been going camping since I was
27:26
really little. When I was going camping with my family growing up,
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we would go horseback riding camping.
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So we would take the horse trailer up there and there was a living quarters in the horse trailer.
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So my parents would sleep in the bed in there and we would clean out the back
27:40
area, like sanitize everything.
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And they would set up two cots for me and my brother. We had a fan back there.
27:47
Okay, you didn't have to sleep on the floor. No, no, no. No,
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my dad would hook up a hose and we would spray scrubs, sanitize that down before we slept back there.
27:57
But the past few weekends, we've been tent camping.
28:00
Memorial Day weekend, we went to Cliffs of the Noose State Park. Okay.
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And we went kayaking and paddleboarding on the Noose River. Very cool.
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Shout out to our state park members.
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Yes. And then last weekend, it was a girls camping weekend. and we went up to
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Yuari National Forest and stayed
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on Baden Lake, which Yuari is one of my favorite places to go camping.
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It was so much fun. We had a great time. We took a little hike to the lake.
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My dog got in water for the first time voluntarily. It was great.
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We just had some really good food and good clean fun.
28:37
Yeah. So the last time I went camping was at Yuari, and that was like 15 years
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ago. Yeah, I'm not a huge fan.
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There's a lot of discomfort. I like TV and, you know, but what about you,
28:49
Artis? Do you have camp stories? Yeah. Yes.
28:54
You know, Noah did Boy Scouts for so many years. So many camp stories, my favorite.
29:00
It's favorite in a weird way because it was very, you talk about discomfort,
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but we did canoe camping at Merchant's Mill Pond with the scouts. Oh, cool.
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And, you know, there's alligators all over the place. Oh, yeah.
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Snakes everywhere. It's a swamp.
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Merchant's Mill Pond up in Gates County And yeah, that was a unique experience
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So you canoe over, take all your stuff, set up Your little primitive camp Canoeing
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spots Those are difficult
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We were in a canoe at the back of the line, and I just hear all these 12-year-old
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boys up ahead saying, cool, and I knew something awful.
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Whatever they think is so cool. It's an alligator with a body.
29:39
It was a massive alligator.
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You know, they're usually so chill. That alligator had no interest in us,
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but I did not like being at its level.
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So it's a memorable camping trip. Merchants Mill Pond, again,
29:52
thank you, State Park. Is that a State Park?
29:54
Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, so, I mean, it seems like camping would be an affordable
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family outing, right? You don't have to pay for it. Do you have to pay at State Park?
30:01
Yeah, usually. Okay. For site. Okay. There are reservable sites,
30:05
but there are also, like, non-reserved. Where we were staying this past weekend,
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there was two spots that were first come, first serve.
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But we reserved a spot because we wanted full shade.
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So, shout out to our state parks again. And speaking of affordable family outings,
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we do have our theme park tickets still available. Oh, we got Busch Gardens.
30:25
Busch Gardens is such a fun time. I'm excited to go to Dollywood.
30:27
I need to get to Dollywood. Everybody says Dollywood's great.
30:30
The last time I went, all I remember, I was like eight or nine,
30:34
and my brother put a penny on the railroad and it smashed it.
30:39
Like, you know, it made it like this big or something. Oh, yeah.
30:42
Y'all would have thought that was very cool. That's all I remember.
30:44
And he and Nick got in trouble, too, for some time.
30:47
So it was a great trip for you. Yeah. But apparently it's like much bigger now.
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I haven't gone since I was really little I have only heard good things And Tweetsie,
30:57
we've got Tweetsie So many good memories Ghost Town in the Sky And you know,
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like Busch Gardens is not very far It's not,
31:05
you don't think about it But it's not far And then Dollywood for our folks in the West Go out there.
31:12
Exciting, well that was a great episode A little long, but maybe you'll No, not long?
31:16
Okay, cool Well thanks for joining us again, have a great week.
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Music.