Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 02-26-25_WEDNESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Morning news and opinion, Grift alert over baseball, other stories, Eric Peters, EP Autos journalist is on talking the under-appreciated Pontiac Aztek, and a lot of other car and politics news.

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clouserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Myers. Welcome to Wheels Up Wednesday. Eric Peter's going to join me here in about a half hour or so. Always a good time to talk transportation and more. He had a great article I was reading last night in which he was actually talking,

and we'll talk more about this in about a half hour. That the Pontiac Aztec, we can actually appreciate the Pontiac Aztec now. Remember that ugly kind of SUV thing that was introduced on Survivor, CBS Survivors? They gave one away, I think, back then. You know, all that. And it didn't particularly sell well. It wasn't actually a bad little SUV, sort of four-wheel drive thing, but it was kind of ugly, kind of weird-looking.

The Honda Element, I think, was a better-looking SUV in that particular era, but still even it kind of looked like a Tonka truck with the big plastic panels and things like that. But needless to say, he actually has a new appreciation of it because of the engine. The engine that you can no longer get today. But we'll talk about that and more and other things going on here. Kevin Starrett, I haven't talked to him for a few weeks from Oregon Firearms Federation. He's actually coming out against a bill that the Republicans, a bunch of Republicans have introduced to allow them to conceal carry within the Capitol, but not allowing the regular little people to do so. Because the state legislature ended up banning that a couple of years ago, probably understanding that people were really getting even angrier at the democratically controlled legislature.

So I know what we're going to do. We're going to stop the most law-abiding people from carrying within the state capitol. Anyway, we'll have a little conversation about that and other craziness going on in the legislative session. Danny Sheehan, who is, of course course a famed ufo lawyer has been involved not a lawyer for ufo but he's been an attorney that has been uh suing the government for getting disclosure doing all sorts of things like this for a number of years and i think his uh his institute his new paradigm institute and he is coming on the show eight o'clock hour because he's going to be

putting on a seminar at Southern Oregon University in mid-March and it's kind of a donation thing you know you have a donation to to get in there to defray the expenses and things he's going to be talking about the UAPs and the unidentified objects and other things like that and the government disclosure which seems to be moving forward so we'll kind of pick his brain after eight o'clock. I'm looking forward to it. And he's an interesting attorney. He has law degrees longer than my arm, all that kind of stuff. And I've talked to him.

Pretty interesting. I think we'll just see what he has to say coming up after 8 o'clock this morning. All right. And let's see. What else we got going on? Well, the big beautiful bill, at least the beginning start of the big beautiful bill, got passed yesterday. It was a very close vote, 217 to 213.

It was a lot of drama last night. And Trump's budget resolution ended up passing so it's moving this is including a lot of stuff including no taxes on tips no taxes on social security benefits etc etc it would also raise the federal debt limit for trillion dollars and yeah i know i i know it's it's like all right this is the big beautiful bill we're going to really cramp crank down on the uh on the spending well all i can say is that you know when you're going to raise the federal debt limit four trillion dollars you are serious about uh about cutting spending and by the way this is a joint effort. You know, it's not just President Trump, what President Trump wants. It's all of them. But the party line vote, 217 to 213.

Three House members abstained. So we had 213, well, 212 Democrats voted no on this. All right. Representative Thomas Massey, the Republican from Kentucky, was the only Republican who had voted no. He was the only one who voted no. He said and this is what he said. This is in the town hall. If the Republican plan passes under the rosiest assumptions, which aren't even true, we're going to add three hundred twenty eight billion dollars to the deficit this year. We're going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, and $242 billion, this is adding to the deficit, after that, Massey said. Why would I vote for that? Now, apparently, Representative Massey, Congressman Massey,

just does not understand playing chess. Because I mention stuff like that a little bit like this on my social media posts. Because to me, the way that you cut spending is that you just cut spending. And I would have thought they were more serious if I had heard something like, okay, we're only going to raise the debt ceiling a couple trillion dollars, maybe even a trillion, maybe just a trillion. But we're still going to raise the debt ceiling a couple trillion dollars, maybe even a trillion, maybe just a trillion. But we're still going, boom, we've automatically assumed that we're going to blow through everything and we're going to borrow another $4 trillion.

And that's just kind of the way I'm looking at it. The way that you stop spending is that you just have to stop spending. You can't politically BS this sort of situation. And when I'm looking at the bond markets, I think it's always important to look at the treasury markets, the bond markets, which seem to be flashing that they're not buying this, fighting against inflation. In fact, what the bond markets seem to be indicating right now is that what is going to be moving forward is recessionary and inflationary. MishTalk.com has a pretty good article on that. If you want to take a look at it, I kind of, I like Mish because Mike Shedlock is his name, actually. And he writes on these sort of things is that, you know, he votes for Trump, but, you know, he didn't give

Trump his brain, you know, that sort of thing. And when it comes to the spending, the money people just look at this and go, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't baffle us, that sort of thing. But like I said, this is just the beginning, though, because remember, it has to get negotiated with the Senate, and it goes back and forth in conference, in committee, and then, you know, chances are, chances are they're really going to be able to cut the deficit and cut the deficit, and they won't have to raise the debt ceiling as much. I'm sure that's what's going to come.

I can't even say that. I can't say that with a straight face. All right. All right. All right. So the bottom line is that everyone's just trying to get the big, beautiful bill passed, and we'll see. I mean, right now, all we could do is just – we're talking about hypotheticals right now. I was talking to my boss this morning, George, and I said, George, if they're going to not tax tips, which I understand. I mean, it used to be that taxes, that tips were not taxed before, you know, back about the 1980s or so. People in the restaurants did not pay taxes on tips.

I remember my first wife, Jerry, was working the late night at Denny's. Denny's over on North 205th Street, North Seattle. And she worked the night shift, and she'd bring home a big pile of quarters and dollar bills and things, and we, hey, paid the electric bill, kept things going, and we didn't declare that.

We didn't declare that at the time. That's assuming that the homeless people didn't come in there and dine and dash. Even then, Seattle had a homeless problem at that point. People just come in there and order the Grand Slam and then slam their way out the door, you know, that kind of thing. But as a matter of law, it's never made sense to me to claim that tips weren't part of your income.

I've just never been able to see how anybody... Now, if you work in the restaurant business, maybe you can explain this because everybody would know, okay, well, the pay working in the restaurant might not be all that great, but you make it up in tips, they would say. Well, if you're making it up in tips, that's then considered part of your income. And the fact that now they want to go back to saying, well, this is is just a gift and now if they're going to do this now if they're going to do this where people working the restaurants i don't have to pay taxes on the tips i would like to have about half of my salary as a tip you know every month i'll get my uh you know my you know the paycheck stuff from uh

from the boss you know that kind of thing and says, okay, Bill, here's half your pay. Oh, and here's a tip. And here's a tip. This is to ensure proper service, right? That kind of thing. I would like that. That's the only problem I have with this in which it treats different types of wage slaves differently in the tax world. I know I will be shouting down i get this but uh you know if we're going to if we're going to say that someone just wants to give you money

as a tip that's okay then why couldn't i have my uh negotiate for a tip from my from my boss and just say hey hey boss how much you want to tip me this month? Of course, that could be dangerous. It could be how well I have... Well, you know, you did okay last week. But then you brought me up on the air talking about the tips. You're not getting a tip this month. Better knock it off. All right?

So anyway, this is where we're going at. It's the beginning of the negotiating process on the budget. The market's reacting to it. They're thinking that this is both recessionary and inflationary. It's the way they're looking at it because the borrowing will still continue to go up and up and up. And so we had 212 Democrats voting against it and Thomas Massey voting against it. Now, I will translate. What this means is that 212 Democrats would never vote for this because it is Trump's bill, okay? Doesn't matter. Orange man bad. We're not going to vote for him. Thomas Massey voted no against

this budget bill because he can actually add and subtract, and we'll talk about it, which means he's committing a great faux pas in Washington, D.C., which is telling the truth about budget bills and deficits and things like that. So that's how I see it. What about you? This is the Bill Myers Show, 621 on KMED. You can nominate

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Now the proposal has finally made it into some legislation. no taxes on the tips and no taxes on Social Security, which makes sense to me, only because it's kind of like a return of money that was already stolen from you, tax money. But I could be wrong about that. Let me go to Steve. Steve's in Sunny Valley. Steve, what's on your mind? Take it away, huh? Well, I think that any way you can avoid paying taxes is fair and proper. The reason why

big businesses handed out benefits originally was not because unions demanded it. It was so they could get good employees without paying more taxes. And wasn't that also part of World War II wage controls at that time? Wasn't there also something in there about that, if I recall correctly? I am not as familiar with World War II wage controls, but I am familiar with why I had excellent medical benefits when I worked for the railroad and the airline. But that all went away with Obamacare when the government got their fingers and messed up insurance. Well, everybody has to have the same level of misery. That's how that is supposed to work, right? Same level of misery. Pay 10 times more and get half as much. There you go. What could go wrong, Steve, right? Gotta love it here. But overall, do you think that by the time this

budget deal goes through the Senate, will it be better or worse than it is right now? I don't know if it'll get through the Senate. I really don't. Right now, there's too many rhinos. Look at our Crenshaw. I just don't know. But you know what? I agree with Massey.

I think that it was a bad idea, but I just don't see any way around it. Because if we're going to get any of Trump's agenda, we've got to get him out from under this threat of shutting down the government. Yeah, it's all it's all part of the you have to get something through there. Yeah, you're right. And I would agree. All I would say, though, is that I don't know if you're talking about immediately raising the debt ceiling for a trillion. It doesn't sound that doesn't sound positive, though, overall, right? When numbers are that big, they don't make any difference. They're just not real.

Oh, okay. So the $4 trillion hike in the government debt limit or whatever it is, that's the bond market's problem. Those stupid people who buy the bonds, it's their problem, right? I don't know. I think that the government that governs best governs least. And if people quit demanding stuff from the government, we'd all be better off. We could spend our hard-earned money on what we want instead of

giving it to the government to spend it on what somebody else wants. Good for you, Steve. I like that. Let's go to Randy here next. Randy, you've been holding on. What's on your mind today about this? Go ahead. Well, I think this whole tip thing is going to be a boon because what they'll do is they'll lower their prices and raise their tips. You think that'll happen, huh? Oh, yeah. I mean, why not? If you go to some restaurants, if you have a party of more than four, you have mandatory gratuity of at least 18%. Yeah, and it's all reported right now. I know that. Or at least a good percentage of that ends up being reported, especially with the trackable non-cash purchase systems,

you know, the debit cards, credit cards, things like that, right? Well, I'm just saying that if you have the opportunity to not pay tax on your tips, you're going to lower your price and raise your tips. Okay. Well, we'll see if that ends up happening, assuming that this would go through. So the restaurants would have a room then, a scoush bit of room to reduce prices because everybody knows that the tipping and whatever you put there on the gratuity then is non-tax. We know that then. Right. The idea then of thinking that you have to pay 20 i've noticed have you noticed how the rate of tip has been creeping up it used to be a standard uh 15 is like uh uh no now they're

like suggesting 18 20 23 you know that sort of thing exactly and I don't see why it's limited to restaurants. Why not everybody? Well, I was telling my boss I want a tip. I want part of my wages to the tip. I'm providing a service. So, you know, I charge people enough to pay for my, you know, well, I don't have employees, but I do have, you know, contract workers that come in with me. And so I'm just going to lower my price and say, okay, here's my price,

but there's a mandatory 50% tip. I wonder if the tax law will permit that, if they would. Well, eventually they'll come around and say, okay, you can't do that. But, you know, right now there's evidently no limit. Of course, like I'm with Steve. I don't know if it's going to get through the Senate. Yeah, well, devil's in the know, right now there's evidently no limit. Of course, like, I'm with Steve. I don't know if it's going to get through the Senate. Yeah, well, devil's in the details, right? Yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Hey, thanks for the call, Randy. Always good hearing from you. Let me go to the next line here. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hello? This is Vicki from the Applegate. Oh, hi, Vicki.

What are you thinking? How's it going? I'm doing fine. Yeah, I have a quick story about tips. Sure. Normally, we tip very well when we do go out to dinner, my husband and I. And there is an establishment in Jacksonville that we went to for our anniversary about, oh, my God, 15 years ago or so. And they knew my husband because he's a contractor and

he frequents there for lunch. And I had never been there. So we went there for our anniversary. And I don't know if the waitress like had a crush on my husband or what, but she walked up to the table and instead of asking me what I wanted first, she asked him. And then she looked at me and said, well, what do you want? And I was like, I was kind of thrown back by it. How much did you tip her? I told my husband, I said, well, she said, I said, yeah, it's our anniversary. She's all, aren't you a little old for him?

She said that? Yeah. You've got to be kidding me. No. Oh, man, she was coming on to hubby is what she was doing. You bet. And I told my husband, I said, if you leave her a tip, you're not getting dessert when we go home. Oh, what a story. Did you ever go back to that restaurant again? Oh, hell no. I told him, I don't want you to go back either but uh yeah we didn't leave her a tip and and i think it was justified you know i mean that was so rude and just uncalled you know what i would have done though is probably left a note on why on why you did well my note probably

would have had a lot of beep beep beep beep beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Yeah, yeah, good for you. Well, you know, it's kind of like the same sort of dilemma that men have if they're walking over, you know, walking down the street, their wife's with them or whatever it is. And all of a sudden you have a hot-looking woman who has some car trouble. And then we guys, of course, always want to help women, just period. Right. But if she looks too hot, we can't go there. Oh, no. Hey, I'll call AAA for you if you want. We'll get somebody else because you don't want to look like you're responding to a come on.

Well, I'm pretty mechanical, so I would just tell my husband I got this. Okay. Thanks for the call, Vicki. All right. Let me go to uh line four hi good morning you're on kmed this is bill who's this bill it's cherry cherry the bull how are you hey i'm doing very well this morning good uh now i just caught part of the recent conversation here and i heard tips brought up yes yeah that is in the uh in the preliminary budget structure which is going to be then negotiated with the senate and uh no taxes on tips and no

taxes on social security benefits either would be part of that and i was just kind of musing and joking i'd like half my salary as a tip then if that could be done but right i just don't like the idea of treating different wage uh people differently within the tax world i just think you know i just looked at it as real money you know coming in but i'm wrong i guess apparently but what are you thinking well you know bill most people these days use credit cards and they put their tip on the credit card or whatever. Right. I've never met this guy, but I listened to some of his interviews, and he had a unique way of tipping people. How's that?

Where they didn't have to declare it. He said, listen, thank you for the meal, and I want you to know that I'm not giving you a tip. I'm giving you a gift. And the tax law, from what he was saying, allows people to gift anybody they want to up to $16,000. That's true. There is a limitation on it, but yeah, about $16,000. How did he end up accomplishing that, though, in the restaurant structure, let's say?

Well, I'm assuming he just handed them cash. Oh, okay. Yeah, if you do it that way. Right. So now, you know, whether the waitress or waiter would understand what he was doing, I don't know. They probably, I'm assuming, just tell their boss, hey, the guy gave me $10. He told me it was a gift.

Yeah. You know. Good point, yeah. And maybe we'll just see more of that, too. Thanks for the call, Jerry. We go to line three. Hi, who is this? Good morning.

Hi. Hi, Bill. It's Francine. Hello, Francine. How you doing? I am well. Good. Hi, Bill. It's Francine. Hello, Francine. How you doing? I am well. Good. Well, listen, I spent a lot of years, my younger years, in the service industry, mostly restaurants

and bartending, things like that. And tips, in my opinion, are what you give somebody in gratitude for the quality of their service. Okay? It's not supposed to for the quality of their service. Okay? It's not supposed to be a portion of my wages. You know, which when I worked in Florida for a short period of time, that's what they did. They didn't even pay me minimum wage.

Well, I don't think much of that is going on, Val, but everybody knows, though, that that is considered, you know, it may not be part of your wage, but it's certainly part of your income, isn't it? Well, basically, this, you know, where they kind of pressure everybody to pay, you know, a certain amount of it as a gratuity, which will get taxed. They're essentially asking the public to help pay the person's wages because it's no longer a gratuity it's this is you're paying for that for their job you're not paying for this you know a thank you it's not a thank you for the service and i just don't think that's right that's not you know i think tips they should stay the heck out of the kids okay or tips are between the the customer and and the service

person well then i guess make sure it's in cash and don't have it show up on the bill then. All right? Well, yeah, they just need to stay out of it. I mean, if you hired somebody to do your driveway and they handed you the bill and they said, here's the bill for the materials and for the work and, oh, and here's another 15% added to it to help pay the wages for our workers. I'll tell you what, we're going to revisit this after Wheels Up Wednesday with Eric next, okay?

We'll revisit this. We'll have some open phone time after 7 this morning. We'll continue that conversation, folks, on the tipping and more. And something else that I also wanted to raise the issue about, it hasn't been reported in our local media yet, but the Eugene Emeralds reportedly went to the medford parks and recreation department yesterday and made a presentation because uh they would like to move the eugene emerald sports team to medford because they're not happy with the way eugene has treated them of course what that would mean though is that the taxpayers would have to pull up you know

fork over a lot of money to build them a nice new shiny baseball stadium yeah so it's kind of a grift alert we'll have more on that coming up after eric peters if you're remodeling your house start with the foundation millet construction offers a no pressure thorough inspection of your home's foundation and a no obligation estimate if your house needs work The foundation is most important because all the repairs and upgrades you're planning from the floors, windows, doors, cabinets, even the roof, can be affected if your foundation is unstable. Be sure you're on solid ground. Millette Construction will level your house and correct the shifting soil problem.

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Service, speed, accuracy. That's Lithia Body and Paint on Bullock Road in Medford. Latest news brought to you by locally owned and operated Artisan Bakery Cafe in South Medford. It's a full service cafe offering breakfast, lunch, and specialty coffees. You'll be wowed one bite at a time. From the KMED News Center, here's what's going on. The Eugene Emeralds High A Minor League for-profit baseball team, which tried to have Eugene residents in Lane County pay for a nearly $100 million stadium

and failed, are now trying to find a new home. The Emeralds met Tuesday with Medford Parks and Recreation to pitch the idea of moving to Medford. There's no statement yet on the results of those talks. Oregon's Department of Education is reeling after reading scores showed Oregon students were among the worst in the nation. Now, ODE is launching a new program aimed at improving literacy among middle and high school students. The Adolescent Literacy Framework builds on the Early Literacy Success Initiative, offering guidance and best practices for research-based literacy instruction. 30 years ago, improving literacy was called going

to school. Rural Oregonians rallied outside the Capitol in Salem Tuesday calling for the repeal of the wildfire hazard map. Protesters say the map is inaccurate and if allowed to stand, will reduce the value of their property while increasing costs. Bill London, KMED. 637, Eric Peters standing by. Chris is here, too. Hey, Chris, we had that caller that mentioned at the dinner in town one time, and the waitress was coming on to her husband at their anniversary dinner.

And you had something similar happen to that? Tell me about that several times i have and uh the waitress treated me like i was golden to act like my wife wasn't even there uh and i had i handled it a lot different than she did i had my wife pay the bill so my wife you pay the bill and of course that resulted. Uh-huh. So, one way or another, you think the message got through? Oh, I hope so. And your marriage is still strong, right? Oh, yeah. Glad to hear it, Chris.

We always tip and cash. All right. Thanks to hear it. Thanks for telling me the story, all right? Appreciate that. 6.38. Eric Peters and the Wheels Up Wednesday segment is here in a minute. This is Jeff at Quality Tree Service.

We've seen the letters being sent by the state of Oregon regarding properties in the wildfire hazard zone. And, well, we can't change your classification, but we can help create that defensible space. Removing limbs that overhang buildings, raising tree canopies, and brush removal can help mitigate fire risk. We are offering special rates for February and March to encourage people to get this done before it's too late. Fire season will be here before we know it. You can find us at qualitytreeservicemedford.com. If you're a business owner, you know time is money.

As a business owner myself, I know that your time is best spent working within your business. Hi, it's Megan McPherson, your local farmer's insurance agent. Allow me the opportunity to put my years of experience to work for you, helping with your insurance needs. Give my office a call at 541-776-0673 to start the conversation. That's 541-776-0673. A straightforward and personalized approach is what you'll get when you choose me, Megan McPherson, as your insurance agent. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106.3 KMED. Tom, quick story before Eric's here. Go ahead. Fire away.

Here we go. Well, when I was living down in Santa Cruz, lived in a communal house, there were five of us, and two of them were women. And the two women were out on a drive, and the car conked out. One of them had to pull off the road there. And, boy, they just didn't know what to do. And the one gal says, well, watch this. She crawls in the back seat, puts on little short, short shorts, gets out there, lifts up the hood. And the first big truck coming by pulls over

and almost causes a wreck, and, oh, I can handle this. Yeah, it works every time, doesn't it, Tom? Well, it certainly did, and the one girl, her jaw was dropped. She couldn't believe what uh mary jane was doing she had long blonde hair and so forth oh yeah the other one with the babe in the woods she just couldn't believe her ulterior uh motivations i love the story thanks for that yeah yeah everybody gets what they need right and uh good call good call let me go to eric peters automotive journalist at ep autos all right i don't know if your hood's up or not but gets what they need, right? And good call, good call. Let me go to Eric Peters, automotive

journalist at EP Autos. All right, I don't know if your hood's up or not, but wow, what a story you got going on here. Eric, welcome back. Great having you on. Oh, thank you, Bill. I'm feeling a little bit nostalgic today, and in a little of a weird kind of a way. I'm feeling nostalgic for the Pontiac Aztec. You and I have talked about the Aztec before. In fact, I had mentioned how when it was first, that was debuted a number of years ago on that old CBS show, which I think is still on. I can't believe it. The Survivor, you know, all that kind of stuff. And they gave it away to whoever didn't end up getting voted off the island in the very end.

And I'm looking at this thing. I said, boy, that is one of the most butt-ugly SUVs I think I've ever seen, right? Yeah. And yet, it ended up shutting down. Of course, Pontiac ended up shutting down, too, for that matter. And I don't know if the Aztec ended up leading to some of that. But you look back at it now, and it looks pretty good in comparison in the rearview mirror, doesn't it? Yeah, you know, it's not so much about what it looks like.

It's about what it is. Of course, the poor thing became the butt of every latter-day automotive joke, kind of like the Edsel used to be. But it wasn't a bad vehicle. And more to the point, compared to what we have available today, it was almost an exotic vehicle. Here you have a vehicle that's about the same size as a current Toyota RAV4, in other words, a small crossover. And it comes standard with a V6. It had a V6 engine, about 190 horsepower. It was able to scoot around just fine, wasn't it?

Yeah. I mean, but back in the day, you know, 2001 to 2005, everything in that category came with a V6. It was unexceptional. You know, it was the bare minimum that you expected to get, certainly, when you spent more than $30,000. And the four-cylinder car was certainly relegated to the economy world, right? That's what you would think when you would see a four-cylinder, right? So now, I mean, I guess the way to put it is that a V6 engine in our time has become what a V12 engine was when you and I were in college. In other words, it's exotic. You have to literally spend $50,000 plus today to get a V6 in anything. Everything

under that pretty much comes with a little four-cylinder engine, and increasingly, even three-cylinder engines. All of that, of course, has to do with this compliance stuff that's essentially pushing engines altogether off the road. Now, the thing is, though, is the boot coming off the neck of the automobile industry yet? Are we getting any regulatory relief? I know that Orange Man's only been in for a little more than a month, you know, at this point. But is there a lifeline about to be thrown to the automotive industry? Because really what's going on is almost an existential threat to their ability to be...

I think it's not even necessary that a lifeline be thrown, per se. I think we are now arrived at a very propitious moment. What I mean by that is, all it would take is one major automaker, for example, Toyota, to come forth and say, you know what? We're going to take orders for that little Hilux truck that we're selling everywhere else other than America. And if people want to buy it, we'll be happy to deliver it to them. And then let's see the regulatory apparat do anything about it. And I think that Trump and Sean Duffy, the new transportation secretary, I don't think those guys are hostile

for that. I think they might actually say, that's good. Let's see it and let's do it. But at the same time, aren't they also talking about terror thing uh putting terrorists on you know trump is not stupid at least politically and how can you possibly say to the american people hey you're not going to be allowed to buy a 13 000 pickup truck you know how well i mean you could really make america great again by giving americans the opportunity to buy inexpensive and perfectly safe and not polluting cars. And it would give Trump the perfect opportunity to mount his steed and shove his lance right up the EPA's butt, you know, and say, look, this is not about safety. It's not about emissions. It's all about compliance. Explain it to the American people. Good. I hope that's the case. I hope you're right

about that. Could be done. And so it's really going to probably come from a car manufacturer, you believe, is what's going to happen. Someone's going to have to break with the compliance mafia. Well, I hope so. And, you know, there's an instructive case in point. You know, during the height of the coronamania, when Florida and DeSantis specifically said, you know what, we're done with masking. You know, after that happened, the whole thing began to fall apart, didn't it? Sure did. It took one person to do that. Speaking of which, you wrote a pretty great article on DeSantis in here, and he is wanting to end the property tax in the state of Florida, which is,

wow, what a deal. In my entire lifetime, and probably you'll amen me on this, I can't recall a politician of his stature, you know, a sitting governor, saying something like that. It's remarkable, and it's a real breath of fresh air. Even if it doesn't necessarily go anywhere right now, the fact that that topic is being broached is important because the property tax reduces Americans to serfs, literally. What was a serf in the Middle Ages? A serf was a person who was allowed to live on a patch of land that was owned by the lord of the manor, and they owed the lord a portion of everything that they earned. Well, that's what happens today in this country. You know, you pretend that you're a homeowner.

It has your name on the title. You never truly own it, though, because if you don't pay your property tax, you'll find out who actually owns your home. You really don't. And it's become a limitless piggy bank for these county governments and these city governments who can just cover whatever shortfall they have in their budget by jacking up what we're forced to pay.

You and I and everybody else, we have to live within our means. They don't because they have access to our means. And it's outrageous on so many levels. There are older people who are being kicked out of the homes that they've lived in for 50 years because they're not able to work anymore. They're on a limited income. And all of a sudden,

they're faced with this doubling in their assessment. They can't pay it. So they have to sell their house. I think it would be a really wise thing to look at here. Now, naturally, what you would have to do in this particular case for the... Because you've got to pay for government services, Eric, you know, services, right? You could see a move to more sales taxes, but I can't help but think that that's ultimately where it may go in the United States of America in general. Income tax is, you know, whatever you're taxing, you're hoping to get less of, essentially. I mean, if you're going to tax income, obviously people need to find ways to make it look like they don't have income, right? And here's a way I think that this problem could at least be addressed in the short term

that's pretty equitable, to use the term that the left loves. How about a cap? How about once you've paid 20% of the purchase price of your home in property taxes, that's it. Your obligation is done. And at that point, you own your house. I think a 20% tax on the purchase price of a home, either paid up front at the time you purchase it or over time, however you want to work it, that's enough. And I think that anybody who thinks that people should owe more than that, it's outrageous. They're being taxed on unrealized capital gains, which is another atrocity. Yeah, because as the assessed value

ends up going up. Now, of course, in the state of Oregon, it goes up 3% a year no matter what, because there was a law that was done to do this. Now, a number of years ago, a Secretary of State, Dennis Richardson, and he's no longer with us, he died a few years ago, had proposed also eliminating the property tax and turning it into a state sales tax. We don't have a state sales tax here right now. And at that time, it was estimated that it would take a 5% sales tax to perform the role of the property tax here. But, you know, in Oregon, we almost have like a birthright aversion to having sales taxes. But I think, you know, ultimately, that's where everyone's going to have to go. The main thing, though, is to have one type of tax and not have the situation, well, we got to have a property tax, and then we have to have this tax, and then

we have to have that tax, and then we have to have... It gets ridiculous after a while. You know, one thing, while I'm not in favor of any taxes, being a libertarian, at least sales taxes are optional taxes, and they're anonymous taxes. So they give people the latitude to reduce whatever they're forced to pay by just tightening their belts a little bit. You don't have to buy certain discretionary items. But the way it is now, you're handed this bill once a year or twice a year from the county just to be allowed to live in your home and not kicked out of it. You're forced to pay it. You have no option. What are you going to do?

Indeed. It's 11 before 7 with eric peters ep autos.com we're talking cars we're talking politics we're talking so much more uh and uh by we haven't even talked about the tax bill when we will do that more next week but uh you know they're only going to raise the deficit uh or the uh the debt limit four trillion it's not not a problem right no of course. It's all just monopoly money at this point. You know, the numbers are so huge, you can't even conceptualize them, right? All right. Hey, you want to talk with Eric, have a question about a vehicle or something else about being on the road? Call me at 770-5633.

We'll kick it around more next. Life's busy. This is News Talk 1063 KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. 652, belly up to the talk bar here, and talk with Eric Peters at epautos.com. Let me bring Eric back on, and let me bring Peter on. Hello, Peter. Good morning. is that I have a 86 Toyota camper that is, everything's great except it's gutless, as you can imagine.

And I'm wondering if I'm going to sell it or if I can get any more oomph out of it because I'm scared to go over, really, to go over big passes over in Colorado and stuff. Now, is that the pretty asthmatic four-cylinder in that truck, right? Wondering your opinion of this. Not that it's going to solve all my problems, but I did get one of these things of Marvel mystery oil. What do you think about these gas additives? They say put it in the crankcase and put it in the gas tank. Well, you know, a lot of them are, if not worthless, potentially damaging, and I would shy away from them.

Now, Marl-Myster oil is essentially a top-end lubricant, not necessarily a bad thing. Some of them are okay. Some of the additives you put, for example, in the tank to deal with ethanol issues, water in the fuel and so on, those are fine. Lucas oil, that's another one that's okay. But I wanted to get back to what you said about the rust. Are you worried about cosmetics, cosmetic rust, or structural rust? Oh, no.

I don't think I said anything about rust. I think it had to do with the fact that it's very low power, right? Oh, okay, I see. I said gutless. Yeah, gutless. That's not going to do anything at all about your power. If you want to get more power, you're going to have to do something like modify the engine. And there are a variety of ways you can do that or put a bigger engine in.

It all depends on how much work you want to do and how much money you want to spend. Yeah. Well, I guess my bigger question is whether or not it's, well, you know, I love the vehicle, but of course, just the power factor makes it sort of worthless. Was it like one of those dolphin campers that they had back then? Is that what they called it? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. I remember those. And they are the ones that you'll always see. It's even worse than my Vanagon with the flashers going on when you're going up the passes, right? Because you're just in first gear. The hippie rigs I've seen, they look like they're just going to explode with all the junk that's inside. It's a different kind of driving technique. I call it anticipatory driving. I've got an old Nissan pickup, and it doesn't have a lot of power either. But I don't have a lot of difficulty driving it because I just anticipate.

For example, I try to keep momentum going before I hit a red light and have to stop. So by the time it turns green, I'm already rolling, you know, and that sort of thing. And I learned those skills growing up driving a Volkswagen Beetle, which is probably right on par with what you're driving right now. Yeah, darn straight. How little power it has. Yes. So, Pete, without replacing the engine or building it up a little bit, I think it's what you're going to have to deal with but thank you so much for sharing the story great story there denise has been waiting here too and denise good to have you on welcome good morning um i just have a quick question with regard to the rodents and your wiring harness i

remember you guys talking about it a few weeks back what I want to know is what era car did that start appearing? In which they started putting, it's like, isn't it like soybean-based insulation? Was it now? I think it's a vegetable-based insulation on some of the wires. Right, right. When did that start, Eric? Do you know? You know, I'm not sure, but I would imagine probably within the last 10 years or so as this green stuff began to metastasize. I'm sure if you went back to, say, I don't know, 2000 or earlier, you'd be fine. Okay. How old is your vehicle?

I've got a 16 and a 15 Toyota. There's a possibility. You know what you might want to do is check in with Lisa Kelly over at Kelly's Automotive because they have been selling rodent, like electronic rodent repellents for inside the engine compartment because so many of these newer vehicles have been, I mean, just been getting destroyed. Destroyed by rodents out there. They're just chewing down on the wires. Thanks for the call there, Denise. Give that a shot, okay?

Yeah, one of our station advertisers has been selling this, has been selling a bunch of them, Eric, because so many cars have been getting destroyed out in the rural lands, especially. Is that the one that emits a low-frequency electronic noise that the mice don't like? Yes, it really bugs them, and they just skedaddle. But, yeah, i was watching some videos that they had put out of them having to replace the wiring the wiring harness in like a dodge ram a dodge ram they had it off the frame because they had to get there and you know

completely uh it was just amazing because you know it's not like in the past where they left you a little wire to work with so that if the thing you know the connection was was uh was disconnected you could probably strip the wire and reconnect it. Now there's almost no margin, so you wind up having to do that, and that's assuming you can even get at it. It's a disaster if you have to deal with that stuff. Yeah, darn straight. Eric Peters with me, epautos.com, taking your calls. Let me go to line one. Hi, good morning. You've been holding for Eric. Who's this? Hey, it's David. Hey, David, go ahead. So, you know, the soy or vegetable-based insulation, it seems to get real heavy right around the year 2000. But the main thing is

if the cars sit in the rural areas for more than a couple of days and the mice start to feel comfortable with the lack of use, you know, that's the main thing. By about 2015, the Chevys and GM products, I think, are adding it to something like sugar. I don't know. I'm kind of joking. And then the guy with the Toyota motorhome that wants to get more power, one little trick you can do in any rig you need to tow with or something is, well, first of all, make sure you don't have the wrong size tires in the rear. But you can also, if you have the clearance and the ground clearance and the load rating, you can go down a size on your tires

and get a little more oomph by lowering the gears. It lowers the gear ratio and lets on your tires and get a little more oomph by lowering the gears. It lowers the gear ratio and lets the motor kind of rev a little higher into its power band. And if he has the clearance, and that Chinook usually has pretty small tires, but somebody may have put bigger ones on there, or he may be able to even go a smaller size yet and get a little more power. Yep, that's great advice. Thank you for the call, David.

Great hearing from you, as always. Let me go to next line. line hi you're on with eric good morning who's this hello hey bill brad here hey brad bill brad here good good morning hey so i i want you uh to exercise those extra large brain cells of yours with eric and think about this so you go back to when cars were affordable, not just to purchase, but to maintain because the maintenance is a big thing. This whole low price model, don't you think that Trump could really do some administrative things would be really helpful, especially not just on the DEQ side. But remember back in 2009, what Obama did was he did this cash for clunkers program that took millions, if not tens of millions, of affordable, easy-to-maintain American vehicles off the road. What can we do to enhance the used vehicle market and make the newer vehicles more affordable by lowering DEQ enforcement standards? Well, boy, there's a number of potentialities there. I guess, you know, the big one probably in most states is the state and

the emissions testing stuff that most people have to deal with in order to get or renew their registration. And I don't know how you address that one, because if the thing fails, then they'll say, oh, it's, you know, it's a polluting car and so on and so forth. One thing that could greatly help people in terms of repairability, though, and I think I wrote an article about this a couple, I think I did, a couple of days ago, about a court victory with regard to the right to repair laws. This happened in Massachusetts. There are similar cases that are pending in other states around the country.

And essentially, it's trying to force the manufacturers to allow, if you can imagine it, the people who bought the car to have access to the data stream so that they can figure out what's wrong with it and service it themselves without necessarily having to go to a dealer. Thank you there, Brad. Let me go to one more call here for Eric. Good morning. Who's this? It's Joel. Yeah, Joel. Is there any recall, or was there a problem noted on a 94 Dodge Dakota?

It was running great, and on the way to the service station, the automatic transmission cooling lines of the radiator just decided to inadvertently pop off. Oh, so it blew off and you lost all of your transmission fluid in 91? Of course, I don't know. You had it on the road. It's a 30-year-old vehicle, and more than likely what happened was the lines rusted out, and they just broke. And, you know, I can't really blame Dodge for that happening on a vehicle that's literally 30 years old.

Yeah. So was it one of those push-onon or was it a screw-on? No, it snaps on. Yeah, the line's still good. It just needs a new clip. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know about that, Eric. I haven't heard of any particular problem with those things.

I can't help but think that after 30 years, gosh, it could be just the fact that it's 34 years old, I guess. Yeah, it's wear and tear. The clip probably fatigued. The metal may have fatigued. There's probably corrosion, all sorts of things. It's causing them all sorts of problems, I know. That stuff just happens. That's par for the course when you have an older vehicle.

Stuff like that will happen. We go to line three. You're on with Eric Peters. Hello. Who's this? Hi. This is Brian Thompson. We go to line three. You're on with Eric Peters. Hello, who's this? Hi, this is Brian Thompson, and I thought the segment of cars ended at seven, but... Okay, well, you know, well, it will be ending here shortly, okay? Okay.

Okay, yeah. I think Brian's a little bit off topic. That's fine. Hey, before we take off here eric the review what are you going to put up this because i was watching one of your videos the other day that you put up it was on the wrx and you were having great fun with this one and it's something that was in a new car that i never seen a new car still and it was a manual transmission and a manual emergency brake handle i didn't even know they had any cars that did those now. I know. I was surprised to see it, too. Something, again, that used to be very common and is now exceptional.

And those two things together add up to a lot of fun. The other thing I like about this WRX, and WRX, for those who don't know, stands for World Rally Cup, a form of racing that takes place off-road, is that you can take this high-performance car on terrible roads. I'm about to post a video of me doing just that, which is something you dare not do in a Corvette, a Mustang, or a Trans Am like mine, because you will get stuck. You might go 20 yards before you're very deeply stuck, and you're going to need a truck to haul you out of there. So the take-home point is this is a very practical, high-performance car that you can drive anywhere, any day, and that's a real boon. And the full review will be up on EP Autos a little bit later on this morning.

A lot of fun. And the other thing that you've got to read there, we're just going to touch on this briefly. The electric charger, you know the chargers over at Dodge, the ones that are electric, not the Hemi's and things like that, I guess they are just doing whatever it takes to get them out the door. You were talking about this lease deal. What's happening with that? I mean, it's kind of showing what's happening. The bloom is off.

The electric grows. That's for sure. Yeah. You know, it's really bad news. This is just sort of an unfolding train wreck for Dodge, unfortunately. This electric charger is not selling. People don't want it. And it's only been available for a few months now. And so they're resorting to the kinds of things that

emit the scent, the smell of death, as Hunter Thompson used to put it. Fire sale leases. This is a vehicle that starts at about $60,000, and they're willing to lease it to you for $249 a month. And what does that tell you about how desperate they are to get these things off their lots? Well, I guess if you're looking for an electric charger, it's a good time to go down to the dealership then, right? Well, provided, you know, you can deal with driving about 20 miles a day, because that's the range you're limited to by the 7,500-mile annually limitation. If you exceed that during the lease period, you know how that goes. They'll charge you extortionately for every mile over that that you end up knocking on the odometer.

No, read the fine print, in other words, before you sign, right? Yep. Okay. What do you think you'll be reviewing next week? Has anyone told you? Yeah, yeah, I know. The WRX goes back tomorrow, and I'm getting another fun car. I'm getting the Mini Cooper, and I think this is going to be the last one before they turn it into a device, too.

All right. Very good. Can't wait to hear about it. We'll see you next Wednesday, Eric. Be they turn it into a device, too. All right. Very good. Can't wait to hear about it. We'll see you next Wednesday, Eric. Be well. Thank you, Bill. All right. epautos.com.

Five minutes after 7, this is KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Medford. KBXG grants pass. Let me go to Brian. Brian, you wanted to call about something which was not in our normal subject matter here right now. Let me go to you right now. What are you thinking? Go ahead. That's right.

Although, boy, talking about WRX sounds awesome. Yeah, they are. I should catch a little bit on that. But what I'm calling about is, oh, boy, it is a heavy topic. It's related to the federal executive order, know men and women's sports. And, you know, I have two young daughters. I coached in the OSAA, the Oregon State Activities Association, which governs high school sports and activities.

And it was about three weeks ago when the executive order came down and the following day the NCAA followed suit like the following day yeah they caved they immediately did it now OSAA has not though right not at all it's crickets and I'm still in touch uh you know as soon as our third child was uh it was known that we were expecting my wife in Florida to focus on our family, back off the coach. And so thus I did, but I'm still actively involved and in discussion with coaches across Oregon State. And the thing that, oh man, so many things that I'm learning. Number one, coaches are silent. And there was a firing of Lake Oswego coach last year simply for sending a letter saying there should not be men participating in women's races.

Which is not a controversial statement at all, except, you know, not not in a sensible state. But we're not living in a sensible state, apparently, when it comes to the, you know, the gender affirming sports team, so to speak. All right. And so basically, I my wife and I prayed about it and we're like, I go, Lila, I have to take a stand on this issue because if I want fair and equitable play for my daughters, now is the time there is a slight shift. There could be the opportunity and we got to, you know, ride this out and, and, and get involved. And so that's what I find myself doing. Shortly after, and it was heavy from locals that knew that, oh, you know, he wants to bend the ear of our elected officials. How dare he? And so thus, I'm in contact with Salem on these issues with our elected officials.

Yeah, go ahead and give me the overall take. What has been the response so far? Crickets. Crickets, crickets. Well, I'll tell you exactly from the executive director. They're waiting on legal advice and for our elected officials to tell them what the move is. Well, you know, Brian, I think what's going to end up happening here is that the reduction in grant stream funding to the system, I think, will sharpen some minds for them. That's my prediction right now. OK, well, yes. But in the meantime, we're working on the grassroots and there's the website Oregon fair play calm it's it's

just the holding page the web designer had too much bandwidth at the moment okay so I'll tell you what I'll tell you what we'll do with burning daylight here I got a role but Oregon fair play calm to find out more about this what you're doing all right yeah and it'll be updated. But there are folks, good folks in Oregon, that absolutely want to see no men and women sports. And they're starting to raise a ruckus, and it's a good thing. And that's the only thing they can do.

No dudes in the female locker room, okay? Thanks for the call there, Brian. OregonFairPlay.com. This is KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Had an update is coming up here in just a moment. We'll have more of your calls here on Wheels Up Wednesday.