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Trump vs. Musk: The Billionaire Budget Brawl · Bourbon & Rum

0:08
Welcome to another episode of Bourbon and Rum.
0:11
This is a podcast of two brothers from opposite ends of
0:15
the spectrum. My name's Kent, I'm a rum
0:22
drinker, and I'm from the left side of the aisle.
0:24
And I'm Kyle. I, like bourbon, tend to be a
0:26
little more conservative. Join us as we explore this
0:32
experiment. Can two brothers from different
0:35
sides of the political spectrum have a civil conversation and
0:39
celebrate our differences? What are you drinking?
0:54
Well, it's 9:00 in the morning, so I am drinking a little bit of
0:56
coffee, but I figured it'd be a good time to pull off my shelf
1:00
my bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon cream, which is kind of
1:04
a Kentucky version of Bailey's Irish cream.
1:06
But, you know, yeah, I got AI got a things to do today.
1:11
But you know, a little bourbon cream in the morning, it's not
1:14
going to hurt anybody, right? You'd be crazy not to.
1:17
I'm getting my lycopene in the form of you told me this is
1:22
called a bloody Maria. Yeah, Bloody Mary made with
1:27
mezcal. Well, interesting.
1:33
Newsweek. We're talking about the the feud
1:37
of the century. Trump and Musk and I, I tasked
1:41
our our producer with digging into the archives.
1:44
I'm pretty sure when this came up I if I didn't say it out loud
1:48
I was thinking it This doesn't end.
1:50
Yeah, and, and I, I probably stuck to my guns and and was Oh
1:54
no, the the two biggest eagles in the world can't.
1:57
It's good. It's going to turn out great.
1:58
You know, I, I, I'm, I'm actually sure.
2:00
I, I, I probably thought in the back of my mind this was a
2:04
possibility. For sure.
2:05
It was, I mean, just the, you know, the fact that guys camping
2:10
out at Mar a Lago, I mean, you know, you could have Mother
2:14
Teresa at your side and you'd be sick of her.
2:18
As much time as they spent together.
2:19
It was ridiculous. How much of this do you think
2:21
was inevitable? I mean, I think it was
2:25
inevitable, but how much of this was just these short attention
2:28
span egomaniacs just kind of got sick of each other and around to
2:32
the next thing? Musk has made a lot of noise
2:34
that his like the precipitator of his decision with Trump was
2:40
over the the bill and the the spending in the bill.
2:43
You believe that or not? I mean, the, I kind of do,
2:48
although I mean, obviously there's a lot of conjecture.
2:50
A lot of people are even saying it, it's orchestrated like it's
2:53
all planned. Like, I don't, I don't know what
2:55
this gets in either one of them really.
2:58
They don't need more press, you know, like, so like, what
3:01
exactly do they get out of this? But you know, I'm not I'm not
3:07
thrilled about this bill either. I don't think it's is to me,
3:13
it's a status quo bill and not now you what you're going to
3:17
hear around the world is are all all the news media is.
3:20
It adds X trillion dollars to the debt to the deficit.
3:24
Yes, on paper, nothing else the same.
3:28
Well, I don't one, I'm not sure exactly how they get to that
3:30
number based on if I look at the overall numbers, but I, I think
3:34
those CBO estimates can be, I don't know that it's a cut and
3:37
dry math, I guess is my point. I also think there's, you know,
3:41
if you're just looking at keeping things the same, you
3:46
know, you can make a case that more tax cuts, more productivity
3:49
in the market. The CBO also, did you know, like
3:53
they're saying it's going to add 2.4 trillion over the next
3:58
decade. But the CBO, the same
4:00
organization, also estimates that tariffs are going to
4:03
produce 2.8 trillion of surplus in the next 10 years.
4:07
So, you know, again, not sure that's a valid measurement
4:11
either. So I mean, they're all kind of
4:12
projections. If I'm looking at this through
4:15
the eyes of Elon and I go to Doge, you know, the beef is,
4:22
hey, the, the spending in fiscal year 24 is 6.7 trillion when we
4:31
collected 4.4 trillion. And so he's out there trying to
4:34
find ways to cut money. And you know, a lot of you might
4:39
say, you might argue it's been sloppy and kind of, you know,
4:44
I'm sure, I'm sure you've made that argument a bit like, you
4:46
know, kind of drastic cuts. To your point too, though, they
4:51
haven't touched the big stuff. I mean, yeah, we can save some
4:54
money on USAID, but you, you know, you cut a aircraft carrier
4:58
strike group and that's probably about 10 USAID.
5:01
So I think that's a valid thing too.
5:03
If I look at the budget breakdown, this isn't a budget
5:07
bill. This is a reconciliation bill.
5:09
So they just like it's like puts and takes.
5:11
They're like, well, we're going to cut this and we're going to
5:13
add this. You know, it's basically, and my
5:16
understanding is like a, it's like a redlining the, the, the
5:20
existing budget and making some tweaks to it.
5:23
But if you lay it all out and it's really hard to get to a
5:27
number because like anytime you search on the web, all they
5:30
focus on, well, the CBO estimates.
5:32
So that's a 2.4. You know, everybody just repeats
5:34
the same talking point. It's hard to get to the facts.
5:37
But if you, by my math, if you lay it out, the revised FY20 6
5:44
budget for after this is 6.9 trillion.
5:49
So it's basically, you know, with inflation, essentially the
5:53
same freaking number that that Biden spent.
5:57
Now you're going to hear a lot of people on the right say,
5:59
well, you know, you're going to have tax cuts and that's a plus
6:01
and everything else. But I think where Elon was
6:04
trying to go and what you know, you like him, you love him or
6:07
you hate him. He's trying to make this a lot
6:09
simple like, hey, we're spending 6.7, we're making 4.4.
6:14
We got to find a way to cut slice out 2 trillion in the
6:17
budget and it's not nearly drastic enough and it doesn't
6:23
attack the core issue. And I, you know, and I think the
6:25
problem is because I think if you, if that was clearly
6:29
articulated, I think this is bad, really bad for Trump
6:32
because it's like, Hey, you said you were going to get rid of the
6:35
deficit and all you're doing is getting another version of
6:38
Biden's bill. Now you're going to get all
6:40
kinds of spin on the right and the left about this ad and this
6:44
decrease. But to me, it boils down to the
6:46
overall numbers. Am I looking at this too
6:49
simplistically? Let me ask you that.
6:50
Well. I, I, I agree with you more than
6:54
you probably expect that I do. I am worried about the deficit,
6:58
although again and I we can make all the excuses for COVID that
7:03
we want, but these are the deficit numbers starting with
7:08
fiscal 20. Let me share my screen.
7:11
I want to talk about that because this is fiscal
7:15
data.treasury.gov. This is the fiscal deficit by
7:19
year. So this is 2020.
7:24
The CARES Act is what resulted in the spike.
7:28
So without CARES Act, it's a $1 trillion deficit.
7:33
With the CARES Act it's a 3 point.
7:35
You know, it, it basically like a, a $900 trillion or $900
7:39
billion. With CARES, it's 3.13 total
7:43
deficit. So that's the big spike.
7:47
Well, then come 2021, you know, there's another.
7:51
I don't know if there was another bill.
7:52
Remember the lineup of these dates?
7:55
Trump was Trump left office at the beginning of 21, but it was
7:59
solidly It's halfway through the fiscal year 20.
8:01
Those two spikes are Trump. Yeah, that makes sense.
8:05
And then what's odd about this, I think, is that it drops down
8:11
and then it just keeps going back up.
8:13
It never really, you know, I think ideally you could have
8:16
gotten this thing down a lot lower.
8:18
And I think that's the complaint.
8:19
I agree, but again, take a look at and our listeners won't see
8:22
the screen. I've just got the numbers, but
8:24
take your two spikes out. Let's let's, let's call it COVID
8:28
was expensive, right? Look at the slope of the lines
8:33
going from about 2012 or 2015. The the last three years, the
8:40
Biden budget years. It's too much money, but the
8:44
slope of it is in straight line with what was happening before.
8:50
Well, and that's, and I guess that's my point better
8:55
articulated by you. But the problem is his next, you
8:59
know, you add 26 on to this thing and it's going to be it's
9:04
going to follow right in the same line.
9:06
So I think where Elon was at was like, no bullshit.
9:12
This thing is to come down here. You know, this thing needs to
9:14
come down below a trillion, which means you're going to have
9:17
to make some really deep hard cuts.
9:20
And they were, I, I feel like they were on track to make some
9:22
deep hard cuts. And then, you know, they didn't
9:26
because honestly, the way, for all the criticism of Doge, all
9:30
they did is they went in through and they didn't identified
9:32
stuff. And then they teed it up.
9:33
And, and the, the, the, the departments are the ones that
9:38
had to make the cuts. Well, you know, I think
9:41
politically, yeah, especially where we're at, it's easy to
9:46
make some of these social cuts, which I think many of them were.
9:50
We can argue about that, but I think many of them were
9:53
fraudulous and didn't and could be cut.
9:55
But if you cut an aircraft, you know, to your point, if we said,
9:58
hey, we're going to cut out the, the B 21 fleet and save 5
10:03
billion trillion dollars or whatever, you know, very
10:07
politically unpopular. So to me, that's what's going on
10:12
here is and I, I think you're, you're 100% right.
10:18
It's a lot of talk. I mean, we thought we were going
10:21
to get some action with those and everything else.
10:24
The result of this bill is just more of the same bullshit.
10:27
I do want to point out, and again, I'm not just, well, I am
10:30
trying to make a point because I'm hypersensitive to the fact
10:35
that as a Democrat, I, I, I spent most of my adult life
10:38
saying that Democrats just want to tax and spend.
10:41
Look at the slope of the deficit now, still, it's too much money.
10:45
It's, it's a deficit, but look at the slope over the eight
10:48
years of Obama's president. And, and again, a part of it's
10:52
because there was a huge jump in 2008 to cover the housing
10:55
crisis, but those numbers were decreasing every year until we
11:02
got the 20/15/2016. And I don't mean to be, I'm not
11:08
trying to be a jerk about it, but it's like, can we really say
11:13
over the recent experience that Republicans have a fundamentally
11:21
better approach to deficit spending?
11:24
And it it doesn't look like it to me.
11:26
Well, and I wonder, you know, we could have a whole pot.
11:31
Well, we are kind of having a podcast about this.
11:33
I mean, we're kind of having the podcast about the Elon Musk
11:36
thing, but it's kind of like the stuff that's in the problem is
11:42
the stuff that's important to Democrats probably doesn't cost
11:46
as much as stuff that's important to Republican.
11:48
And so it's like, you know, like Republicans want defense,
11:52
defense, defense. Well, that's where all the money
11:54
is. And, you know, the Democrats
11:58
want the the cheaper stuff. And so they get rid of defense
12:01
stuff and reduce the spending that takes off the Republicans.
12:04
But the result, the net impact is a lower budget.
12:07
I. Mean.
12:09
Fair enough. I don't know, I.
12:10
Don't. I don't know if the liberal.
12:11
Person is cheap. I mean, Medicaid's not not
12:15
cheap. I mean, it's, it's, it's a lot
12:17
of money. But yeah, I think that the
12:19
different priorities do have have a different impact on
12:23
things. Again, I'm not sitting here
12:26
saying that the Democrats don't have a spending problem 100% we
12:29
do. I have unpopular opinions for a
12:32
Democrat. You know, I've talked about
12:35
aircraft carriers, but I'll say it, Social Security, Medicare
12:40
are every bit the problem that defenses and more.
12:45
However, I think that there is a, there has to be a solution,
12:49
there has to be fundamental change to those programs.
12:52
But there's a way to do that, that even if it's not
12:55
politically popular, it's fair and it's reasonable, and that's
13:00
boosting the ages. Right, that's what we have.
13:02
To do if you graph this would be an interesting exercise.
13:07
Graph a person's, a male's life expectancy at age 65 and start
13:14
that back in 1933 and graph that to today.
13:19
And I, I'd have to validate this, but I believe I've heard
13:23
that in 1933 when they created the Social Security Act, the
13:27
normal lifespan of a 65 year old man who retired at 65 was you
13:34
were expected to collect Social Security benefits for 18 to 24
13:38
months. And, and now people live 30
13:40
years after that. And so we fast index the ages.
13:44
There's just no other way around it.
13:46
And 33 average life expectancy for adults in the United States.
13:50
Men 59, women 63. So they weren't going to collect
13:54
anything. No, that's a little that's a
13:57
little misleading because that's total life expectancy and so
14:01
that factors infant, mental infant mortality.
14:06
But so you have you can calculate.
14:08
I don't, I don't. They can calculate what the life
14:11
expectancy was for someone who reached 65 by that time, but
14:16
none the less they weren't living 30 years on average,
14:20
right? They were living five years on
14:22
average, maybe. Yeah.
14:24
OK. So a 20 year, a 20 year old and
14:27
33 could live to about 60 to 6667 for men.
14:31
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you think about
14:34
that. I again, it's unpopular.
14:36
Everybody's like don't touch Social Security.
14:38
Well, the kind of proposals that we've seen from Republicans
14:42
through the through the past. And you you said when we talked
14:44
about this before that you didn't feel like that was a
14:46
current thrust. But, you know, privatize it.
14:50
Just give everybody, let everybody take their Social
14:52
Security, put it in their four O 1K.
14:54
You know, like, like those things scare the hell out of me
14:57
in part because you put all that money in equities and you're
15:00
over funding companies that don't need the money anyway.
15:03
But yeah, I think we've got to make change, but I don't way to
15:06
make the change is the age. Yeah, I don't know that
15:09
anybody's really put. I mean, people have talked about
15:12
privatizing. I don't know if you have, but
15:15
I've never seen like a legitimate proposal.
15:18
It's all been like talk, you know?
15:20
Be that as it may, I'm just saying the, the equitable, fair,
15:24
reasonable way to fix this is to change the age.
15:27
And you need to, and, and you need to, you need to exempt
15:31
people in their late 50s from that age change because I'm
15:35
kidding. But you know, you go back
15:37
further. So people have some runway to
15:39
fix it. You know, you don't tell a 64
15:42
year old today, Oh yeah, we moved the goal post by three
15:45
years. But if you're 50 or you're 45
15:49
and your retirement age now your full retirement age is now not
15:52
66. Now it's 68.
15:54
And if you're 40 or 30 now, it's going to be 72.
15:58
Honestly, you don't even have to move those ages that much and
16:03
talk about your Congressional Budget Office and your
16:06
extrapolation of those figures. It it wouldn't take that much to
16:10
fix it. It's interesting this is doesn't
16:13
seem that impactful. I I don't get this, says the
16:17
According to the CBO, increasing the full retirement age from 67
16:23
to 70 would save 150 billion / a decade.
16:27
Well, that's nothing. That's not much money.
16:30
I'll do that. Maybe we got to make the
16:31
retirement age 94. Yeah, exactly.
16:35
Wow. Yeah.
16:36
No, but I mean like start now. I think part of the problem with
16:40
the whole budget converse and the thing I liked about Doge is
16:46
it's gotten so alike. There's so much BS and nobody's
16:51
seeing the numbers. Like I had to do a lot of
16:53
searching to figure out that 6.9 trillion is the number.
16:56
You know, like it's not readily. It's not like somebody says,
17:00
hey, last year the deficit, the budget was this much and now
17:04
it's this much. And this is how much revenue is.
17:06
And you know, like nobody's spitting out a balance sheet.
17:10
It's all just talking points and you got to try to weed through
17:13
all the talking points. And if you know, like this whole
17:17
talking point, the CBO says, well, it raises the, the deficit
17:20
by 2.4 trillion over the next 10 years.
17:23
I, I feel like the Democrats are using that and a lot of
17:27
mainstream media are using that as a sounding board to say, hey,
17:29
this is bad and it's increasing the deficit.
17:31
But I guess I don't think their tactic is right.
17:34
If I'm them, I'm going to say no, it's going to create, it's
17:38
going to extend a $3 trillion deficit.
17:42
That's the freaking problem. I, you know the, the two point
17:45
what they're comparing that 2.4 trillion is what they're
17:48
comparing it to status quo. Well, the whole point of the
17:50
government that Trump brought in, I was hoping was to take a
17:55
chunk out of that $3 trillion deficit.
17:58
That's our problem as a country. Well.
18:00
To your point, I think that there's a lot of folklore,
18:03
there's a lot of folklore in both sides that people don't,
18:06
don't ask those questions. And again, that's why I kind of
18:08
wanted to get my dig in about the Obama administration, not to
18:11
be just a jerk about it, but you ask most Republicans, you see
18:16
how how did Democrats approach the budget?
18:19
They just want to blow money all the time.
18:21
And. It's BS.
18:22
Yeah. Well, and your numbers, I mean
18:25
that like your assessment of the deficit, I mean, that makes
18:30
total sense. You take out COVID.
18:31
It is a continual uptick. Now, you know, neither side is
18:36
really defendable because it keeps going up over the.
18:38
I mean, like I said, the Obama administration, they did well.
18:42
The Bush administration especially was significant was
18:46
that 2000? That 2000 surplus?
18:48
That was Clinton wasn't. It that was Clinton and it rose
18:51
the, the budget deficit rose modestly during the Bush
18:55
administration, second-half of the administration.
18:59
It was on the downslope. They were, they were getting it
19:02
under control again. Those big bumps I think are 2008
19:06
and 2009 and the TARP. Look at that.
19:09
Look at 2:00. 1008 was 2008. Wasn't much, but 2009 was a big
19:14
spike and then two big spikes in 11.
19:17
I mean, the only thing is, I mean, I don't know that the
19:21
Obama story is quite as good as you characterize.
19:25
I mean, I get it. Yeah, they had a major stimulus
19:28
after 2008, but it was a a $1 trillion jump per year over the
19:33
Bush administration. So.
19:34
But I mean, obviously it's it's at least admirable that they
19:38
they brought it down and they didn't keep going up year over
19:41
year. I feel like now it's like, well,
19:44
all we're going to do is go up because, you know, it's like the
19:46
government. It's like when you work in the
19:49
government and they give you a budget, it's like, you know, I
19:52
remember being the Air Force Price said this on the podcast
19:55
once before. I remember one year in
19:57
September, I got an order to buy $400,000 worth of copy paper
20:02
because we were going to lose $400,000 in the budget, you
20:05
know, And so now we got copy paper.
20:06
It's going to go bad in the warehouse.
20:08
Like what the hell? Well, you know, another factor
20:10
in this and again, I, I, I think one of the reasons that a lot of
20:14
the conventional wisdom on the Republicans is that they're more
20:19
fiscally conservative. And it, it really is a, how you
20:22
characterize it, It's our tax cuts and expense or are they an
20:28
entitlement? The tax cuts, you took too much
20:31
of my money anyway. I want my money back.
20:33
Like I understand that, but the math of big tax cuts and and
20:40
again, part of that conventional wisdom is, oh, you just cut
20:43
taxes and economic growth follows well.
20:46
I got to take except not 100. Percent.
20:49
I got to take an. Exception with you a little bit
20:50
there. I mean, the, there's a big
20:53
difference between extending somebody a tax cut versus giving
20:57
them the free money. Like we saw during COVID, the
21:01
free money we saw during COVID, those people don't want to get a
21:04
job. They'd rather sit at home and
21:05
collect a check. So now you not only are you
21:08
spending money, but you've got a net productivity loss if you get
21:11
somebody a tax cut. Well, they're actually
21:13
incentivized to go work harder, make more money because they can
21:16
keep more of it. And, and that's going to inject
21:19
money in the economy. And and you know, it's not going
21:21
to be 1 for one, but that's a much more powerful use of the
21:25
money than just handouts. I, I'm not in favor of the, just
21:30
the, the naked handover that we've done in times of crisis
21:35
did that in 2009 too, although we gave the money to the banks,
21:38
not to the people. At least the people got the
21:40
money this time around. But no, you're, you're right.
21:44
I I'm not in favor of just shoveling money out, but one of
21:48
the problems, and, and I'm going to sound straight out of the
21:51
Democrat playbook, but I'm going to tell you this, I really
21:54
believe this. Our biggest social problem, not
21:58
financial problem, our government problem, our biggest
22:00
social problem in this country is income and wealth inequality.
22:04
And it's going to come back to haunt us.
22:07
We are at historic levels of disparity and and I, I'm not
22:14
saying like tomorrow, but if we continue down this path, this is
22:18
the French Revolution is what this kind of stuff spawned.
22:21
Well, but OK, but let's back up a little bit that that assumes
22:26
that people at the top are all in charge.
22:29
Now, you know, obviously we have a billionaire running the the
22:31
country, but there's a lot of people in Congress that aren't
22:37
wealthy individuals. I mean, it's not like the
22:40
aristocracy. Wealthy by the time they're
22:41
done. Yeah, Amen to that.
22:43
I'm just saying, look at the way that the tax policy, who, who
22:47
does it, who does it benefit, who, who who reaps the greater
22:52
benefit from these tax cuts. And it's not the only problem
22:57
that's affecting our economy, but it has made the income and
23:01
wealth inequality worse. The Trump tax cuts of his first
23:04
term have made wealth and income inequality worse in this
23:08
country, not the cause of the problem.
23:11
OK, highly subjective. One, you're saying because
23:14
people they're making more money or getting more taxes, who
23:17
employs all those people at the lower end of the of the income
23:22
level? Those are people that you know
23:24
there there's all this complaint about these these high income
23:27
earners that are are taxed. These guys aren't all hedge fund
23:33
and tech billionaires. Most of the high income earners
23:38
are people that have corporations and are employing
23:40
people and that those are people that are you give those people
23:43
tax cuts in many cases that's going to create jobs for people
23:48
that to help them bridge the income inequality gap.
23:53
I you know, and the problem is you can say, well, OK, you're
23:57
giving tax cuts to the rich. The poor don't pay any taxes.
24:00
I mean, all of the income taxes are paid by like the top half of
24:05
the income spectrum. So what are you going to, you're
24:07
going to give. So then it goes back to, so how
24:10
you going to fix this? You're going to shovel out money
24:11
to people that doesn't work. And I'm, I'm not talking about
24:15
taking money from the rich and giving to the poor.
24:17
Honestly, you're right. There's there's no way to tax
24:20
cut poor when you're not when you give zero federal liability.
24:25
It really is more about the middle class to me.
24:27
I think that's where the, I think honestly, the somebody's
24:32
going to disagree with me on this.
24:33
I might get some hate mail on this.
24:35
It's not worse being poor in America now than it was 10 years
24:40
ago or than it was 20 years ago. It's not great being poor, don't
24:44
get me wrong. But even with some of the things
24:47
that have happened, even with threats to Medicaid, it's not
24:51
the worst time to be poor. It's a pretty tough time to be
24:57
middle class, to be lower middle class working labor.
25:04
It's not a good time for for those people.
25:06
And that the middle is what has suffered more.
25:10
If you if you graph out what happened to income inequality,
25:13
the problem is not the rich and the poor.
25:15
That gap is always been there and it's always going to be
25:18
there. It's the hollow middle.
25:20
That's what I worry about. That's a place where where tax
25:23
policy would make a difference and it has made it worse in in
25:28
my. I, I think that's a, a talking
25:32
point that doesn't have a whole lot of, doesn't have a whole lot
25:35
of credence. I mean, if you look at the tax
25:38
brackets pre Trump and and this goes back to like what do you
25:42
consider middle class is middle class, you know?
25:49
Median income. Making 23,000 to 94,000 or naked
25:54
94,000 to 201,000. I'd say those two probably
25:58
comprise the bulk of the middle class.
26:00
And they both got a significant cut pre Trump tax cuts.
26:05
The lower end of that with was at 15%.
26:08
Now they're at 12%. The next bracket up was it 25%
26:15
and now they're 22%. So it's a 3% decrease?
26:19
So none of those people, none of the lower group of people
26:22
itemize their deductions. Probably half of the upper group
26:26
itemize their deductions. The we're doing you a favor by
26:29
raising your standard deduction. That didn't help that upper
26:33
group that you're talking about. It didn't help them at all.
26:36
So you're lowering their taxes and that's not enough.
26:38
What do you what needs to be done differently?
26:41
I think more, more lowering taxes and honestly the biggest
26:44
place that both the poor and the middle class are going to pay
26:47
for this is paying for the damn deficit.
26:50
What I want to do is to tax the rich and to cut into that crazy
26:54
deficit. Not.
26:55
Necessarily, but OK, but then how is that going to reduce the
26:59
income if the rich pay off the deficit?
27:02
It it reduces. Then it won't be rich in the.
27:04
Wealth. It constrains the wealth a
27:06
little bit from cycling out of control.
27:09
But see, and I think that is the fundamental difference in the
27:13
right and left view, because the left view is like, hey, the rich
27:19
is making too much money, they should make less.
27:21
And the right is like, hey, maybe everybody ought to make
27:25
more money. Maybe that's the answer.
27:26
Well, that's a bit of an oversimplification.
27:29
There's some element to the left side that you're correct on.
27:32
In fact, you can even point to the words that I just said about
27:34
it. I think of it differently.
27:37
I think that that those who have benefited extraordinarily from
27:42
this country ought to pay a higher, a higher price for that
27:46
they've they've, they do that benefit.
27:48
And they pay the bulk of the tax and they paid a high percentage.
27:53
They don't pay a high. Percentage, well, they don't
27:54
pay. They pay 40% that you want to
27:57
pay 70% or 80% and want to be Europe.
28:00
We've talked about this again. Is Europe that bad?
28:03
Do you want to be Europe? Can't you want to live in a
28:05
socialized country? Sweden.
28:07
I'll take Sweden. I'd be alright.
28:09
Sweden. Move.
28:10
Why haven't you moved? Seriously though, I love that.
28:12
I mean, I'm not being argumentative, but it's like,
28:14
OK, it's so great, How how come there's not?
28:18
How come you can't? Immigration.
28:21
How come that immigration is coming this way and not that
28:24
way? Well, it is the look at your,
28:26
your, I mean, that's one of the problems that European
28:27
democracies are dealing with is the influx of, of African
28:34
immigration. Sure, somebody that with no
28:36
money, but who's moving? Who in the middle class is
28:39
moving to Sweden because, you know, they're in search of a
28:43
better life? It's if you're already in the
28:45
middle class, you're right. No, you're not going to move if
28:47
you're already in the middle class.
28:48
What you want to do is you want to be, you want to be middle
28:51
class or better in America because you pay fraction of the
28:55
taxes you pay in the rest of the Western.
28:56
World Hey, you just made my point, Kent.
28:59
No, I did. But I'm saying that people are
29:02
still going to come to America. I think the fallacy that you've
29:06
got though, is that you, I think the, the, the issue I got with
29:12
your argument and it's not yours.
29:14
I mean, I, I mean, you're ascribing to it, but a lot of
29:16
people saying like tax the hell out of the rich is those are all
29:21
the people that employ people. You double their taxes.
29:24
They're not going to employ people.
29:25
They're not going to pay people as much money because they're
29:28
motivated. They're not.
29:29
Going to employ people if if my tax rate's too high, I'm not
29:33
going to try to continue to earn money.
29:35
That's bullshit. You don't think that raising,
29:38
you don't think that corporate income tax raises and and raises
29:44
on people's income lowers employment?
29:47
I don't know that we've got history to necessarily prove
29:50
that. You're not going to have the
29:51
money to you're not going to have the money to employ people.
29:53
I mean that it's a basic math. I mean, I mean, if you're in a
29:56
small business and you Jack up my, you know, I'm a small
30:01
business, I could be, I could be filing, you know, I in fact, I
30:05
was at a, some meetings with some friends this week and you
30:08
get people that have, you know, that make $1,000,000 a year, but
30:13
they're employing 20 people and OK, I'm going to take 70% of my
30:19
income. There just isn't money to employ
30:22
people. I mean, I think, I feel like
30:24
when you look at this, and I guess maybe maybe I should ask
30:29
you like, what number are you trying to get to because maybe
30:33
$1,000,000 a year isn't enough. I mean, what like what number in
30:38
your mind is worthy of? I don't have that worked out.
30:41
I don't have that worked out in a in a concise way.
30:44
I, I don't, and, and again, I'm not just saying, well, I guess I
30:48
kind of been saying so to rich the, the fallacy that I've seen
30:52
over look, I, I'm well versed in the theoretical that you're
30:57
laying out and, and you're not wrong.
31:00
There are validity points there. But the ridiculous thing that
31:04
says whatever economic activity is going to stop, nobody's going
31:07
to start or, or expand businesses.
31:10
If you make $1,000,000 a year and if I take 50% of your next
31:16
marginal dollar, do you want the dollar or not?
31:20
Would you? You're only going to keep $0.50
31:22
of it, but don't you still want the $0.50?
31:25
There's always an incentive, my. Point though, my point is the
31:30
company that's making the $1,000,000 a year, they're not
31:33
going and spending $1,000,000 a year on vacations to Tuscany.
31:39
They're probably living off of 50,000 or $100,000.
31:43
The bulk of that money is going back into the business and
31:47
that's what sustains that business.
31:49
If you're at a business that level, you're not spending the
31:51
$1,000,000 a year you make or else you're going to go out of
31:53
business. You need the cash to run the
31:54
business, you need you, You need that, but you're still paying
31:57
taxes on it. And it if all of a sudden you
31:59
start soaking these people for huge tax bills, it will have an
32:03
impact on their business in a negative way.
32:05
Simple fact. Yeah, I agree that you're right
32:08
on that. But there are other advantages
32:11
and, and it's hard to, it's not just like, oh, the rich don't
32:16
have their money and like they're, it's a complex system,
32:20
right? If you do reduce the deficit,
32:23
you do reduce our spending on interest payments.
32:27
Ultimately, that is a benefit to the middle class and it, and
32:31
that benefits the middle class more than the rich.
32:33
And again, I don't bear anybody ill will and I'm grateful that
32:38
they've created their business. I got to call BS Kent.
32:41
I mean, OK, if we get rid of the deficit, it why is it helping
32:47
the the poor more unless you're giving that money to them?
32:51
No, you talk about you're worried that if we tax
32:54
somebody's small business that they won't create enough jobs.
32:58
And I'm telling you that if our economy goes, oh, up because
33:03
we've got a, what, $15 trillion national debt, yeah, that's
33:10
where that hurts the poor. That's why we can't buy houses.
33:13
That's why we like. What, so somebody can't buy a
33:15
house because there's a national debt?
33:18
They're not paying any. Interest rates, you don't think
33:20
that drives up interest rates? You don't think that quells
33:23
investment in this country you don't like?
33:26
I mean, like you when we were talking about the tariffs, the
33:31
whole thing is, oh, we got to get these, man, first of all
33:34
time out here. You're picking the example of
33:37
the successful small business that built it and grew it into
33:41
something and is employing a lot of people.
33:43
You already hinted at that. That's a different kind of
33:46
wealth than a sponge hedge fund manager siphoning off dollars
33:51
off of the economy. That's a different kind of
33:53
economy than a tech billionaire who their valuation fluctuates
33:59
based on whatever they manipulate the stock price to
34:01
be. And so like don't like, yeah, if
34:04
that's what we were talking about is people like that and
34:08
that alone. Those are arguments are a lot
34:10
stronger. I don't I don't think I think
34:13
you could tax Elon Musk as much as you want as long as you're a
34:17
little less than some of these other countries.
34:21
And and and it doesn't change his investment or what he's what
34:24
he's doing for businesses. So I mean, there's nuance to
34:29
this, but you pick a particular sector of the economy and even
34:32
if I stipulate that you're right and that's not the whole of the
34:35
economy. Well, I mean, how many?
34:39
How many billionaires in the US? Thousand, 1200.
34:42
So I mean, I guess what I'm saying though is when you talk
34:44
about is 813 billionaires, but I mean, I think what you're
34:50
talking about is billionaires. I mean, there's a, there's a lot
34:53
of people that make a lot of money and a lot of that is going
34:56
through their personal income taxes.
34:58
And a lot of people just think, well, there are thousands,
35:01
millions of people making a lot of money on paper, but they're
35:06
doing a lot for the economy and a lot for productivity.
35:09
And I don't think you just lump and they need a better.
35:11
The problem when you start looking at numbers is you can
35:14
lump a lot of people in one bucket and they're not the same.
35:17
Well, that's my point. And I think that your, your
35:20
example that you selected, if that's what we were talking
35:23
about, if that was the the whole story, your argument obviously
35:28
rings a lot stronger, but that's not the whole story.
35:31
And you know, you asked me for a number.
35:33
What's, what's your number? Like What?
35:35
Like who, who are you? A are you a job creator?
35:40
Kyle, What's that? Are you, are you personally the
35:43
job creator? No, I mean, you might, you got
35:46
the person takes care of your pool and whatever.
35:48
So should you get a tax cut? Well, am I middle class?
35:52
Am I upper class? Again?
35:55
Where are you going to draw that line?
35:57
Yeah. Well, I just most people that
35:59
when you ask them to draw that line, they draw that line
36:01
somewhat north of themselves. Sure, makes sense.
36:05
Yeah. And I I'm just saying I, I don't
36:07
think my taxes should be necessarily lower.
36:10
Look, I'm going to I'm not going to pay.
36:12
I don't put more in the till than I need to when they.
36:15
Yeah, that's, that's always the question though.
36:17
These people are, I think we're to pay more.
36:18
Well, are you contributing more to the IRS at the end of the
36:21
year? No, of course not.
36:22
But I don't think a tax cut would change a tax cut on the
36:26
order of what we're talking about, right?
36:28
The single digit percentile movements.
36:31
It's not going to it's not going to change my life.
36:33
I'm not a job create. We hire a lady to help with our
36:36
house once in a while, right? Like I might do that more
36:38
frequently. That does not make me a job
36:40
created, does not make me a capitalist and.
36:44
I don't necessarily agree with you, you individually, but you
36:49
multiply that by 50 million people, there is an impact to
36:53
the economy for sure. There's an impact.
36:55
I'm just saying that I would much rather not have a tax cut
37:00
and have a budget that looks closer to balanced.
37:03
But that's a problem. Nobody's, and I think that's
37:07
what we came up with the beginning of this conversation,
37:09
is that, you know, why should we forgo a tax cut?
37:14
Because these assholes are just going to spend it anyways.
37:17
They're going to find a way to spend it every year.
37:19
We need a cut and nobody's cutting anything.
37:21
That's a problem. Agree we need a cut, but I've
37:24
said aircraft carriers and F30 fives, but I also tax policy.
37:29
You know, as I said this on, I think I said on Facebook, it's
37:32
that label of a Democrat, a tax and spend Democrat, tax and
37:36
spend Democrat, which sounds bad, But if the alternative is
37:40
the spend anyway, but don't tax Republic like that's not a
37:45
better, that's not a better place for our.
37:47
Country and we've also covered, I mean that label.
37:51
One of the reasons that label doesn't fit anymore is the
37:53
demographics of the parties are totally different.
37:55
I mean, the Trump Party is not a Republican Party of old.
38:00
No, you're right. I mean, that would be an
38:02
interesting topic for another podcast and I'd love to dig into
38:06
this further because I think your assertion, I'm not trying
38:10
to put words in your mouth, would be, hey, hey, in April
38:13
2024, US billionaires collectively held 5.7 trillion.
38:18
So you maybe your thing would be, hey, if you've got 500
38:22
million or more, you know, we're going to do a one time 50%
38:28
confiscation and we're going to pay off the national debt or
38:31
we're going to pay deep into the national debt.
38:34
We know we're going to pay half of the deficit for one year.
38:38
Yeah, yeah. What about that kind of dollars
38:41
for for what it's worth, you, you finish your point, But I am
38:44
not in favor of confiscatory kinds of taxes.
38:46
Those kind of like clean out the Piggy Bank asset taxes.
38:50
That's not what you want because that is too easy to flee the
38:53
country and avoid, right? I want I want long, slow,
38:57
permanent tax paying for the race.
38:59
OK. But I guess where I'm going is
39:02
let's, it would be interesting to kind of lay that out and what
39:05
does that look like and what is the benefit of that?
39:09
And what are the what are the downfalls that because I don't
39:12
think it's all The thing is, I think a lot of folks see this as
39:16
a politically expedient approach because, you know, what is the
39:20
voting power of the billionaires?
39:22
Now that said, they don't, their individual votes are, are few,
39:27
but they have a lot of impact. So I don't know.
39:30
I, I feel like my biggest thing is on taxes is the elements of
39:36
the economy that really impact productivity.
39:39
And that's what I was talking about kind of that, that small
39:42
to medium, even large sized businesses, you know, the, the
39:46
hedge fund tech entrepreneur, billionaire, I feel like easy
39:52
thing hasn't made a ton. They don't need it and we can
39:55
take it from them. But I think there's, I think
39:57
that's a lot more of a minefield than it may appear on the
40:00
surface. Well, fair enough.
40:02
But I, I do think that there's a difference of these things.
40:05
And again, if you pull up, I mean, I, I know from my work, I
40:10
know a lot of people that have, you know, have a small injection
40:14
molding business in a small town and they're worth 200 million
40:19
for that, you know, and they are employing 150 people in their
40:24
plant and yadda, yadda. But if that's what we were
40:27
talking about across the board, well, that's a different story.
40:30
That's actually not the only thing.
40:33
And you, we've been pretty good at writing tax codes that create
40:37
carve outs from people. Why don't we say we're going to
40:40
do this confiscatory tax thing And you prove to me for every
40:44
job that you create, I'll give you 100 grand off your taxes.
40:49
It doesn't have to be the blunt instrument.
40:51
You can have those kind of things that create incentives
40:53
for things that really matter. Well, I don't know that we'd
40:57
ever agree on this, but I think at a minimum what I'd like our
41:02
listeners to leave with is do be thinking about does the same old
41:07
description that we've used of the different parties and their
41:10
different challenges. Is that applicable today?
41:13
Probably some elements of it. I think probably the biggest
41:16
place that that shows up is to your point, I think that the
41:20
values of the left and the values of the right about kind
41:24
of defense guns versus butter, right, the defense versus
41:28
Medicare. So you, you, you're going to
41:30
have some inherent problems. But boy, I don't.
41:33
I don't think that all of the old rules apply.
41:35
No, that's I it's just a different landscape for sure.
41:38
I think I want to key on a word you said, a blunt instrument.
41:42
I think the source of the, the the Musk Trump divorce is what
41:50
Musk was really advocating for. And I get a lot of people don't
41:53
like he wanted the blunt instrument.
41:56
Cut the crap out. We're at a crisis.
41:59
We don't have the money. We got to go find the stuff and
42:02
we got to cut it. And I wouldn't be surprised if
42:05
more came out as we go to find out that part of his frustration
42:10
is he was trying to get cuts in some of the big agencies.
42:13
And he ran into a lot of political, you know, resistance
42:18
that I think he'd hoped that Trump was going to be a much
42:22
more blunt instrument than a quo guy, which I think is.
42:27
I mean, defense alone, did he, you know, I think Elon Musk was
42:31
as aware as you and I were a couple of months ago that if you
42:36
don't have to press defense, you're not going to make a real
42:38
meaningful change in it. But no, we're not talking now.
42:42
And yeah, I think that would be frustrating if you had this
42:45
mandate to cut and like, cut everything that cut, everything
42:49
that hurts the the left's feelings, but the things that
42:52
really the dollars you can't touch.
42:56
Well, I think it's, yeah, I get your point.
43:01
I think I, I do think waste is an easy cut or frivolous
43:07
spending is an easy cut. The B21 and this and this is
43:11
something that's in the aerospace world.
43:14
You know, I get shot for saying this, but you know, we talked
43:17
about it. I think I think the B 21 is a
43:19
waste of money. We're going to spend trillions
43:21
of dollars on a manned aircraft when we go send 100,000 drone,
43:26
$100,000 drones in there and kamikaze drones and you know.
43:31
People disagree. Ukrainians have kind of paved
43:33
the way for the world. If if people aren't watching
43:36
this, they're they're out of their minds.
43:39
We, we don't need to be soldiering up guys with the
43:43
helmets and the flak jackets. We need 18 year olds with
43:46
Playstations, right? Like this is not a fluke.
43:53
This is like, man, this whole thing, it's like this is where
43:57
war is going. And I, I don't know that we're.
44:01
We need to put a man in a bomber for a 36 hour mission.
44:05
And you know, we probably told that on the podcast before.
44:10
So I had a friend flew B2 bombers.
44:14
So B2, you know, it's the wing shaped bomber.
44:18
I think the, the unit price on those things.
44:21
And this was from 30 years ago, over a couple billion dollars
44:24
apiece. And, you know, highly effective
44:26
weapon system, but it's got 2 pilots and they got to fly these
44:31
36 hour missions. Cause like during Iraq, they
44:34
were leaving from Whiteman, Missouri.
44:36
And they would fly all the way, refuel all the way, drop bombs
44:40
off over Iraq and then fly all the way back.
44:44
Because forward positioning these things is, you know, it
44:48
just, you got to bring hundreds of people and it's, it's a huge
44:51
thing. So they do these major missions.
44:53
Well, you know, you're in a plane for 36 hours and there's
44:57
two of you. And they said there's like this
45:00
small space behind the two seats in the front of the plane.
45:05
So they would go to Walmart and spend $16.00 on a chase lounge
45:10
and they would jam it in the back.
45:12
They would take turns sleeping on the $16.00 chase lounge on
45:15
the $2 billion airplane. And it's like, what in that are
45:19
we doing here? Well, I think like a lot of
45:23
these things, I don't think we're as far off as it says.
45:25
And that's the kind of thing that drives me crazy, because if
45:29
you read the conventional wisdom, you're like, well,
45:31
you're an idiot. And I'm crazy and like no, you
45:35
and I are closer to each other. I would say that you and I are
45:39
closer to each other than I am to the far left of my party, and
45:44
that you are to the far right of your party.
45:46
Absolutely fix this. How do we get a third party to
45:49
just destabilize the thing? I'd vote for any Third Point.
45:53
Just shake the thing up. Well, the problem is it's going
45:57
to be us 2 voting for the third party candidate, then all the
45:59
wackos on the other side voting for their other guy.
46:02
Yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't know the
46:04
answer, I think. But honestly, I mean, you know,
46:08
a little self-serving because we have our little podcast, but we
46:12
need more in this country like this.
46:14
We need people to talk, people to communicate about substance
46:18
and not bullshit. I mean, it's like this whole
46:20
thing with the budget, like how long did it take me to figure
46:23
out what the actual number is? You know, and we talking points
46:28
and it's like world of just we're like ships passing in the
46:31
night spewing nonsense at each other.
46:34
Yeah. And and I don't think it's an
46:36
accident. I think it's engineered.
46:38
I think that I I think that we are props on a big stage play,
46:42
but that's another day's. We'll, we'll, we'll cover the
46:44
Bohemian Grove and Trilateral Commission in the next podcast.
46:48
Yes. Exactly.
46:49
I think they're I think those days are over, though.
46:51
It's this new cabal, you know, and and wouldn't that suck?
46:54
You were like a Bohemian Grove. You were like a Bilderberger and
46:59
and now somebody else has run in the world that the tech people
47:03
like. I thought I'd made it in life.
47:06
I got my Davos invite, you know, and then no, it's worthless.
47:28
Hey, thanks for joining us on this episode of Bourbon and Rum
47:31
Podcast. We hope you enjoyed it.
47:33
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47:37
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47:39
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47:46
hear. And until next time, cheers.