Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 01-20-26_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Morning news...missing 15-year old Ava Wall is found! Tommy Aiello from the National Taxpayers Union issues a cautionary take on the plan to cap interest rates for credit carts at ten percent.

This hour of the Bill Meyer Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Now more with Bill Meyer. Welcome to the show. It is Pebble in Your Shoe Tuesday. You got a pebble, let you know 7705-633-770 KMAD, and a gentleman who has a, I'm assuming as a gentleman,

could be a woman for all I know, but seems to be a growing concern, concerned about Medford's photo radar in downtown Medford. You know, the traffic cameras. I'll share this. An anonymous letter calling for greater action. I'll have a little bit of that coming up here in just a moment. Anyway, I appreciate you being here wherever you happen to be. 1063, 1067, 105, 9, and of course, 993.

in Grants Pass and Josephine County. But I actually wanted to start the show this morning with some of the best news that I've heard over the last few days. And it was a great story. It was a horrendous story, though, when we found out last Friday, how Ava Wall was missing. Aval Wall, the 15-year-old, going away with some unknown person, unknown adult in a vehicle, not being seen since Friday night. parents just desperate. And you know, so many times in the media and the news media, I get up in the morning and you're coming in here and we're just talking about all the bad things that happened to those beached starfish on the beach, you know, that old parable, which person's throwing starfishes, you know, back into the sea.

Well, you can't save them all. Well, I save this one, right? Well, a starfish was saved. and Ava Wall don't know what the whole story is at this point. Jackson County Sheriff ended up locating Ava yesterday, and there was a social media post or a lead that ended up leading them to the Eugene area. So a 15-year-old Ava Wall found safe three days after she was missing. Now, there is talk about criminal charges for the individuals who harbored this runaway team,

and they don't have any more information available at this moment, okay? Now, I ended up talking with Ava's father yesterday morning, 710, Jason, and you could just hear the concern in his voice and the worry. And there's a couple of times it sounds like he was going to break down. And a couple of times I think I was going to break down just listening to him getting ready to break down because you had children, relatives, something like this happens. He just don't know. But this is the story that they released, that Ava's parents released yesterday. We wanted to share the news as soon as we could. Ava has been located.

It's now with authorities. She is not home yet, and we don't have many details to share right now, but we're beyond grateful to know that she's been found. Thank you to every single person who shared posts, made calls, searched, prayed, and refused to give up. A community tip from social media ended up playing a critical role in bringing her to safety. We cannot thank you enough. As you can imagine, this is an overwhelming moment for our family.

We will share more updates when we will. are able. But for now, we ask for continued thoughts and understanding as we focus on her well-being from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you. This community helped bring our girl back. So that is a great ending to a bad story. I don't know what I don't know what kind of family dynamic may have played in this, but I recognize it. Growing up, my Mike and I, my brother Mike and I, were reasonably well adjusted. My middle sister, Diana, she had her challenges, still has her challenges, really, I guess. And I can't tell you how many times that, you know, she ran away or went and lived with friends. Now, in Diana's case,

she'd be the first to admit she didn't want to live under anybody else's rules other than her own, yeah. But we always knew where she was. I remember there was a time in which my daughter, Sarah, in the custody of a, of an ex-spouse of mine, ended up, just disappearing. You know, they ended up, you know, just left the state. Mother left the state with her, too, and we're just like, what, what, you just take off? Yeah, I know. Family court gets really serious when guys do things for the most part, but when mothers do

things with daughters and sons, I don't know what it is. There seems to be a lighter touch. I guess it must be the magic female. parts that holds sway in the judicial system. But I'll set that aside right now. But I'm here. Yeah, she was gone for weeks. Couldn't get a hold of her.

Couldn't get hold of her for weeks there. And yet I'm technically supposed to be sharing custody. Oh, boy. But anyway, back to the walls. Enough about me. The walls, though, hopefully they'll get this situation knitted back together and whatever problems are going on there. You can find a better way out.

But it's just great. It was just wonderful to be able to report that because you always think the worst about these kind of things and harm coming to a young woman or a young man because, yeah, we've all done stupid things at some point in our life. I don't think any of us escape this world without having done some stupid things. You just hope that you're able to survive most of the stupid things

that we end up doing, especially when we're young. I think of those 120 mile per hour. Routine runs home that I would take over the rural, the rural streets of Milan, Ohio, northern Ohio, okay? All right, so there we go. Great story there. Not so great story coming up north in the northern part in Salem. In Salem, I believe this was a speech yesterday.

I really don't like Dr. Martin Luther King Day because I find it tedious and just tiring because it is a day to listen to Democrats with lots of communist rhetoric. And from House District 22, State Representative Leslie Munoz. I hope I said the name correctly. If you don't have a union, we're a union. Oh, wait a minute. I got started at the beginning. You have to hear all of the good in the Democratic Socialists of America in Oregon.

I'm Laszimoñoz, everyone's state representative in House District 22, the only district in Oregon where Latinos are the majority. Hey, that's great. I'm so humble to stand not just before you, but with you today. I stand with you as the daughter of immigrants, as the mother of students, and as an organizer with the largest teachers union in the country. Boy, you know, you actually hold up as a great thing. Largest organizer of the Teachers Union. The Oregon schools are number 50, 49, 50, 51, 57, if you're talking about Obama. But, okay, she likes it.

Let's let her continue. I also stand with you as a proud, unapologetic Democratic Socialist. Yay. Because I believe, as Dr. King believed, that our economy should serve people, not the other way around. What would Dr. King think about what's happening right now in our immigrant communities? I'll tell you what I think he'd be thinking. You all need spanked. On January 7th, working people were outraged by the news that an ICE agent murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. One day later, Border Patrol shot two Venezuelan immigrants.

immigrants in Portland. I just wanted to remind you about the shooting of the two Venezuelan immigrants in Portland. Immigrant. When she says immigrant, it's illegal alien. The shooting in Portland occurred. We had a border patrol agents conducting a targeted stop on a vehicle. Two people affiliated with the Trende Aragua gang. Okay?

Gangbangers. In fact, one of them was suspected of being involved in a shooting. a few weeks prior. So anyway, and we had the passenger who apparently is involved in human trafficking. But Leslie Munoz, a couple of immigrants. We'll let her continue. Now 3,000 ICE agents invade Minnesota shooting a third Venezuelan neighbor while raining stun grenades and tear gas on women and children.

Another Venezuelan neighbor. A neighbor. Okay, that was a federal officer shooting a Venezuelan neighbor in the leg during a traffic stop after he allegedly attacked the officer along with two others. So once again, being praised by Leslie Munoz. This all comes after the Trump regime kidnapped the president of Venezuela and threatened the workers of Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba with the same fate. And here's what I'm going to tell you. Organize with your union. If you don't have a union, form a union.

Power is the foundation of economic justice. Dr. King was assassinated while supporting, striking sanitation workers. He understood that organized labor is how we shift power back to the working people. Join a movement like the Democratic Socialists of America, my political home, or other organizations, fighting for justice. Find your people. Find your community. Build power together. These organizations are building the multi-reliaments.

racial working class movement, Dr. King and vision. Junta, we're most fortes. When I say abolish, you say I's abolish. I abolish. Democrats. Okay, yeah, it's enough. See, this is the problem I always have with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

These are the kind of people that come out of the woodwork and tend to get the airtime. Rather than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I would almost prefer Caesar Chavez Day. I notice how the Democrats almost never want to bring up Caesar Chavez these days because Caesar Chavez understood economics in many ways. And he was very big on getting rid of illegal aliens out of the country because he realized that it ended up pushing down the wages of his farm worker folks.

As long as you're able to have lots of illegal aliens coming across the border, the wages were cheap. That's why you also don't see a lot of African-American. that are against all of this, well, okay, maybe the liberal African-Americans, but a lot of African-American males, I think they understand, they understand what is going on if you're on the lower side of the economic, of the economic meter, so to speak, and you're competing with an illegal alien from south of the border

or north of the border or west of the border or wherever it is, but anywhere other than here, that it is a real issue. Caesar Chavez understood that, too. But Democrats don't like to talk about Caesar Chavez now, except they like to try to make him out as to be some big liberal. But he was pretty darn conservative when he came to keeping illegal immigrants. The neighbors, the neighbors, as Leslie Munoz refers to them, out. This is the Bill Meyer's show, 622 at KMED. Rain is synonymous with the Pacific Northwest.

Hi, I'm Lisa with Kelly's automotive service, and I'm on KMED. 24 after 677056333-770 KMED. Now, you have some more people running for governor in the state of Oregon. There's some right-wing influencer. I saw something about it. I didn't pick it up there. I don't think it's a credible run, in my opinion. But, yeah, I love people who are, you know, a right-wing influencer or whether, you know, a nail tech or whatever it is.

I'm going to run for governor. first thing out. Yeah, you can't even get an elected mayor in your town. You're going to run for governor. Yet, yeah, don't even bother me with that kind of nonsense. But state representative Ed Deal looks like he's possibly going to run. Or is he running? I think, now, what is this?

Is he running or is he not running? The rumor has it that he's going to toss into it. Okay, I'm getting mixed emotions here. I'll check back and get back to you through that. But if a state representative Ed Deal would be running for governor, that would be great. That would be great. I think that would be a wonderful thing if Ed steps in there. Ed, of course, was the gentleman behind the big quarter million dollar,

I'm sorry, quarter million signature, get rid of Tina Kotex tax deal. he was one of the founding people behind that. I don't think that's the reason why he did it. He did it because we know he knew that we needed to do something like that. By the way, Democrats are questioning whether or not that old attorney general ruling from the 1930s or so saying that, hey, they couldn't just repeal a citizen initiative on the ballot just because they get rid of the law. They're questioning that, of course, because the Democrats do not want that on the ballot. here this fall. But Ed Deal as a candidate, I'd be really good. I would be really good with Ed Deal. And one of the reasons Kevin Sterrett wrote me about this, and what he was saying is that Ed

Deal's strength in such a situation would be that he is a very good executive. In other words, he's someone that could actually take the structures in Oregon and essentially, well, kind of the old saying, make the trains run on time, you know, back from the old days. In other words, making Oregon actually work properly again, making the agencies work again, and he's very good, has very good executive skills. And if that's the case, Ed, run, right there with you, buddy, because we need someone like that. Christine Drazen, I've made this clear before. I've not been a huge fan of Christine Drazen.

As far as I'm concerned, you know, how can you go to the Republicans and ask for a vote after voting for tampons in the boys' room. You know, to me, you just set your Republican career on fire, you know, doing stuff like that. You just can't go there. And yes, I know she's got money, but it would be good to see some other people in this race, other than just Christine Drazen and a right-wing social media influencer, you know, that kind of thing. Just saying. 27 minutes after 6-77056633770 KMED.

KDRV reporting that Roegriver School District is getting a $25,000 grant to support school-based health centers. $25,000 grant from the Oregon Community Foundation to support a school-based health center that will provide accessible medical and mental health care to students. And this one will also support important work in our community to address the health-based health care. to address the health and wellness of our students, this according to Patrick Lee, the superintendent of the Rogue River School District. We're excited to bring these critical services directly to our campus

and grateful for the support of the Oregon Community Foundation. It's from the Schneider Fund, the Oregon Community Foundation. Accessing health care conveniently, supporting both their academic success and overall well-being. I've not been a fan of this deal

because, you know, the school-based health centers, generally speaking, this is where transgender services end up also being handed out, abortion services being handed out, birth control services being handed out. And I would dare say, you know, this is where someone will end up going. I don't think there should be. It used to be you had a school nurse. That was it. but I think a school-based health center is quite a different kettle of fish.

And I know that Diana Anderson has been, you know, criticizing that for a long time here. This is where a lot of the left-wing nonsense ends being pushed out. Well, even look at how they look at the transgenderism situation. Well, this is about, you know, this is about the health concerns when really you're just a whack job, you know, in your head. These are the sort of places that I would imagine that the kid goes and says, well, you know, I think. that I'm a girl, I think I'm a boy, and maybe the school health center is what ends up getting that ball rolling. I'm serious. I think that's where a lot of this kind of stuff comes because the medical world is all in.

Medical world makes a lot of money on transgender surgeries. Why wouldn't they? You know, it's a good business model, at least in the state of Oregon it is. Just my opinion, though. 7-70K-M-D. Let me grab a quick call. It is Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. Good morning.

This is Bill. Who's this? Yeah, this is Brian Weldon. Hey, Brian, what's going on with you, huh? Yeah, I just wanted to really thank you for, you know, allowing Mr. Wall and, you know, everything else to go on to expose, you know, this missing girl. This is, I was blown away at how many people, how many groups from Redding, California to all the way of, in Oregon, we're posting these, you know, this information about looking for her and all of that.

It's just, I could so relate to this. I had a 15-year-old son. Actually, he was 16. He was in high school, and he was hanging out with some kids that were doing a lot of drugs and that sort of thing. And we kind of put the ultimatum on him to clean up his act and stop doing that and, you know, work on the weekends and things like that. and he left us a nasty note and ran away.

And it took us two weeks to find my son, and it was horrifying to try and understand and trying to get. You know, we didn't have a lot of cell phones back then and Facebook and all of that. And it looks like this one may have had something to do with this because it looks like the family was trying to keep her off of social media. It must have not been a very good influence in their view with her. Yes. You know, and my son learned a lot about, you know, we found him two weeks later living in a park with some other kid. And, you know, he kind of learned right down and there that maybe I should live at home and do what I'm told instead of, you know, running away and doing what he does. But a lot of young kids make those crazy mistakes, and they learn the hard way. But I was really worried because she's a girl and she's 15 with all the sex trafficking.

And what I was concerned about with all the sex trafficking is that, you know, something like that could happen to an Ava. And there are many Ava's out there. And she ends up, you know, thousands of miles away in a foreign country as a sex slave someplace. It happens, you know. And there's a lot of young girls. There's another one in Medford that's missing. And she's, what, 16? You know, and you hear about this all the time where they never see him again.

and it's horrifying, and I couldn't imagine being Mr. Wall because I went through that myself. And when a young girl, you know, you just, you can't even, you can't even think straight. You're just so worried about where she could possibly be. Well, hopefully it is a better end that they can get the family, get the situation, knitted back together, and address the issues that need addressing. So I'm just glad she was found safe, and I think everybody else is too. Thank you for sharing your story and your concern, Brian. Good morning, KMD.

This is Bill. Hi, who's this? This is Randy. Hey, Randy. What are you thinking this morning? Go ahead. Well, I've been advocating for this for the longest time, and you were talking about Ed Deal. And I'm with you.

I think Christine Drazen is a bad choice. And what we need to do as voters, as citizens, is to find. people that we choose, not the ones that are in, you know, in the political game and, oh, I'm going to run for governor because I'm so cool. No, we choose the candidates we want and we promote them and we get them in office because of the grassroots, as we call it, the citizens, the voters getting together and say, we want this person. We want this person. It's not what they want. It's what we want. Yeah, except that there's one thing about saying that what we want, but what you have to understand is that

running for governor is not like running for mayor where you do it. It takes money and a lot of it. In fact, this is probably going to be, you know, $20, $30 million election on each side easily. Well, then it's on us to raise the money. Exactly. That's what I'm getting at, though. You know, just saying we want this person is not enough. And I have to tell you, Republicans has a rule. in many cases are pretty darn cheap when it comes to opening up the wallet for political candidates. Democrats, it's like their religion. Man, they'll sit there and, you know, give you the milk money. Republicans, not so much.

Yeah, I understand all that. But the point is, we are, as a state, we are about to circle the drain. And if we don't get a governor in there that starts to crack the whip and say, look, We can't, you know, all this light rail and all the DEI and all this. We're in a big, big trouble. You know, it's like the whole country. If we had Kamala Harris for president, you know, where we'd be right now. And so we need to get people, I don't care, Democrat, Republican, this is this is crunch time.

And if we don't turn this ship around, this, people are leaving this state. business is leaving the state, and money is leaving the state. I know. At this point, we don't know. It's just rumored that Ed Deal is looking at it. I'm hoping that he looks at it really hard, all right? Well, that's okay. It's not that he looks at it.

It's that we go and say, hey, Ed, we want you to run. Yeah, but he has to be committed to it, too, all right? Well, I understand that. But if the money's there and he's really got the expertise, we have to recruit. We have to become recruiters. And this is the only way we're going to turn this around. Because, you know, we're not going to find somebody like Donald Trump who, you know,

he's got some good things that he does and he's got some crazy things that he does. But at least he knows how to run a business and how to get things to happen. Exactly. And boy, if Oregon doesn't need someone like that for sure. All right. Thanks so much. I appreciate that, Randy. 636.

Catch up on other things. And then the Bill Meyer show continues, as always. Harper, what should we highlight in our Gerson's home commercial? Milk coming out of my nose. How's that? Remember when we were at the dining... Financial professional before making investment decisions. The Bill Myers Show is on.

News Talk 1063 KMED. Tommy I.E.O. joins me. And he's the Senior Director of Government Affairs at the National Taxpayers Union. And we're going to be talking critics. card rates. Tommy, how you doing this morning? Pleasure having you on. Good morning. Thanks for having me. By the way, is it Tommy, Thomas? How do you prefer to be addressed? Just want to make sure and get that right. Tommy's perfectly fine. Tommy's perfectly fine. Okay, glad to know that. Okay. It's interesting because right now we're in a situation where it is Big Mac time here when it comes to politics around the country,

and that is Big Mac meaning big midterms are coming. Okay, so that's the Mac that we're going to be focused on. And a lot of proposals end up coming out. And a lot of this is about the affordability thing. I think it's what's going on. But you have these proposals. He had executive order or proposals from President Trump to cap interest rates at 10%. And from what I understand, Tommy, there's actually some legislation that is supposed to help this happen,

capping the interest rates. Now people who have credit cards are thinking, eh, sounds pretty good. I wouldn't mind that. I think even though I have 850 credit, most of the credit cards are like 25, 26, 27% right now if you're carrying a balance. So what's the story here? Is it all good? Bad? What do you think?

Well, you know, I think you hit it right on the head, though. Everything is focused on the affordability problem facing Americans. And I think what the president wants to do is get creative and how do we try and solve that problem. And his solution is to put a federal price control on interest rates and supporting legislation. and that would impose new mandates on credit card processing. I think all of these things, both of those things, are a really bad idea. I think any time the federal government is getting involved in price fixing or trying to say, hey, the free market, the private sector businesses are not allowed to charge above a certain level,

whether it's on gasoline, rent, interchange, whatever it is, I think it's going to have the same impact, and it's going to harm consumers. And at the same time, you know, the president, he's been really great about trying to get the federal government out of the business of telling Americans what to do. That's a really good thing. If you see it right now with gas prices, it's because gas prices are down because the federal government has taken a step back from overregulation. Plus, the President Trump is putting more money in people's pockets with his big tax bill. All of those things are actually going to help people. But when you put a price control on things like credit cards, it's going to have the opposite effect.

and consumers are going to get hurt. Okay. All right, so how did we get to the point where usury laws were really good back in the day, and now we have interest rates now routinely on credit card that were above what we used to consider usury back in the day, and we just consider this is a free market, I guess, Tommy. Sorry to – I'm not – I'm just kind of playing devil's advocate on something like this, because there does seem something weird that when money is so relatively cheap, you know, your overnight interest rates are like 2, 3% with the banking system and everything else,

and your credit card interest rate is 25 to 30. Can you understand how people are looking at that and going something doesn't quite seem right here? Yeah, you know, I think when we look at that, one, the usury laws are, that's a state-level function. There's no federal price control on the usury aside. Yeah, but they used to be quite common, though. I know they've fallen out of fashion, you know, over time. Yeah, I mean, I think when you look at it, one, why are banks and credit card issuers charging the rate they're charging? And there's a number of factors that go into it.

One, obviously, there's a profit motive. But then also they need to take into account defaults, overhead, obviously staffing, and loyalty programs, right? Every credit card usually comes with a cashback option, perhaps lounge access, miles or something to that effect. So when you add all of these things up, that's how you get close to that 36% rate. Now, let's be clear. More people are actually entering the credit card market, and they're offering rates that are perhaps about 33% lower than what we think of around the 25 to 30% rate.

So when more people are coming in, it's actually driving those rates down, which is a very good thing. But at the same time, you know, we need to be honest, right? 80% of Americans have a credit card. A majority of Americans pay off their credit card balance every month. And so most Americans are actually paying $0, not even a cent in interest, every single month. And that's the way it is in my household. We pay off our credit card debt every month. Exactly.

So, you know, when we talk about the minority of people that carry a balance, we need to protect those people. And I think, you know, when people file their taxes and get, you know, a $3,000 tax cut, thanks to this administration. Perhaps they'll be able to help pay down their credit card balance, that way they can help get out of that cycle of debt in a more free market approach. I think that's a very fair thing to ask. And, you know, when we talk about some of the consequences about this price control,

is what does that actually mean? Well, there's been some studies that say if you impose a 10% cap or you impose credit card processing mandates as the Senate is proposing to do. And what are those mandates? What are they trying to do? are they trying to reduce swipe fees on the merchants, that kind of thing? They're basically saying you need to give small businesses and businesses a third option aside from Visa and MasterCard.

So that has its own impact as well. It might sound good, but I don't think the federal government should be in the business of deciding your market share and how much a business is basically allowed to have. Huh. Okay. It's a little bit different. Yeah, well, the reason I'm kind of concerned about it is. is that, you know, Swipee is essentially to do business, you're forced to deal with one mafia or the other mafia, either the Visa Mafia or the MasterCard Mafia, you know, essentially. I thought if we're all about competition, shouldn't the federal government actually can actually encourage that rather than, you know, just letting it be as it were.

No, no, of course. We want to foster competition as much as possible. And I think that's why you're seeing these new entrants come into the market. But, you know, when we talk about the consequences, that either that legislation or those price control, which, by the way, there's no legal basis for the president to impose a price control. There's no law on the book. So that's, you know, there's probably going to be some lawsuits right away if the president were to move forward with this. But, you know, when we talk about the consequences, one,

a majority of Americans are going to lose access to their credit card. If you're only going to be able to receive a credit card, if you have pristine credit, which you mentioned you have. So when people are going to need credit when they're in a fix, they're going to have nowhere to turn, and that's a real problem. Second, for people that are eligible for credit, they're going to have a higher annual fee associated with their cards. And then three, there's going to be a scale backing of these credit card loyalty points,

which are extremely popular with the American people. So when you take all of those things together, no one is really better off. Yes, they're capping interest rates. But one, the majority of people don't take to pay off their balance every month, which is a good thing. And at the same time, everyone else is going to be hurt. So we need to be very careful with the system that we have. Otherwise, if we break it, the majority of Americans who own credit cards are going to be very upset.

You know, Tommy, I was reading a stat the other day on a financial blog, and they were talking about how one out of every seven credit card holders right now are not able to make their minimum payment. They're in default right now. That's one out of seven. and if anything, what that tells me is that it's one out of seven people who probably shouldn't have had a credit card, don't you think? And that's part of this problem. When credit, cheap credit is so wildly available, people are going to take advantage of it.

So part of it is self-control, but the other part is if these people are in debt, how do we help them? And like I said earlier, I think what President Trump wants to do is obviously get this affordability crisis under control inflation is coming down, gas prices down, other things down. and then putting more money in people's pockets through tax cuts and regulatory reform and small business growth. That I think is how we actually help these people, one, get out of their debt, but then also make sure credit is available for people that actually need it in a pinch. And I don't think that's an unfair expectation for people, especially people who believe in free markets and limited government to support. Yeah.

I guess here is, and I'm sorry to play a little devil's advocate on this, because I can see both sides of this situation. There's not a lot of free market in this economy right now. And there's not much that the federal government doesn't touch in our world. So I find it interesting that when it comes time for the 30% interest card or 30% credit card interest rates to maybe take a haircut, then all of a sudden everybody's coming out with it's a free market sort of thing. You know, even then, like I was talking about, you can't do business unless you're doing business with MasterCard or Visa, you know, is another example about that. Those are different because it's the card issuers, your banks, your credit unions, they're the ones that set the rate.

And like I said, there's more insurance coming in. And I actually think you're going to continue to see a decline in interest rates on that because there's more people coming into the market. And I think that there's, you know, a realization that perhaps they need to do more. And then, you know, let's remember when we talk about these 25 to 30 percent interest rates, that's over the course of a year. If we divide all of those things by 12, if you do carry a balance, it's only a 2% interest rate every month. Yes, it's still a lot. But even if you were to cap it at 10%, you would still be paying about 1% every single month. So when you think of it that way, you know, that's how these markets work. And I think there's sort of a disconnect between how people think it actually works and how it's working.

Okay. Well, you know, Tommy, I think the one thing that would be interesting is that, if they were to impose a 10% interest rate cap, you know who would be most excited about that happening? The mob? Yep. People would have to go to the black market in order to receive their credit. And I think that's what we really don't want to see. And obviously, that's not regulated and it's definitely not safe. And I don't think we want more Americans turning that direction when they need money in a pinch.

And I think it's the majority of Americans can't afford a $400, unexpected expense. That is an extremely disturbing statistic. And I think if that's the case, we need to make sure people have these tools available in those, you know, unforeseen moments. Don't you see the irony, though, of a government, which is $38 trillion plus in debt, wanting to force a lower credit card rate on everybody? You can't help but think that maybe they're looking out for themselves, too. What do you say about that, Tommy?

Yeah, you know, I don't think the federal government should be in the business of telling people about their own finance. when we run $2 trillion annual deficit, the $38 trillion debt, and the situation is not getting any better, unfortunately. All right. Tell us more about the National Taxpayers Union before you take off. So the National Taxpayers Union, we are the oldest taxpayer advocacy group in D.C. You can find our website, NTU.org, or follow us on social media. We're up on Capitol Hill every day, promoting taxpayer interests, free markets, and limited government.

Speaking of that $38 trillion debt, I know we have this big beautiful bill, which is now going to be in effect and all sorts of things that we're probably going to find out when we start filing our taxes, how things have changed. We'll probably see that in the tax rules coming up. But I can't help but be concerned that this could be short-lived. At $38 trillion, they're going to be searching under the couch cushions in the consumer world out there for some change to start paying the stuff down or paying for the bills. don't you think? I mean, every time we spend $3, one of it is borrowed right now in the federal government. It's pretty rough. I mean, it's extremely scary.

And, you know, just on your first point, tax filing season opens on Monday, so a week from yesterday. Most Americans are, every American is going to see a tax cut. The majority of people will see a $3,000 tax cut. That's great news. But this debt situation is extremely concerning. And there's conversations and movement on Capitol Hill right now to try and address this debt situation. And I do think there's a lot of momentum to do so because we know Democrats

aren't going to come to the table and play ball to address the situation. So it seems like Republicans are going to go it alone in order to address this $2 trillion deficit that we have. Yeah, so I've got to be the adults in the room. We'll see if that ends up being in the case. All right. Tommy, I really appreciate you coming on. Tommy I. ILO is the Senior Director of Government Affairs at the National Taxpayers Union. You'd be well. And so even though it sounds good, capping the interest rate, not a good idea, right? Not a good idea. Well, thank you so much for having it.

All right, you take care now. Thanks again. I'll share his open letter about this regarding, I mean, it really sounds good. I mean, wouldn't everybody like to have their rate cap to 10%, but ultimately would probably stop the availability of credit. Just as an example, if you were to say, all right, here's the mortgage. The mortgage rates, we are going to cap them at 5%, or 4%, or 3%, or something like that. Who would loan?

I don't know. Could be what we're doing. If you're considering a new garage door or opener for a new home or remodel, you can't.