Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-10-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Morning news, to the Trump Critics, what is YOUR plan? I hear lots of complaining, but can the critics do math?? Mark Mix from the National Right To Work is on, TSA no longer has collective bargaining...why it matters.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at clauserdrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. Hey, good morning. Welcome to Monday, Mario Monday. I guess today is Mario Monday, so it's like M-A-R-1-0, right? So it looks like Mario, like Mario Brothers game.

There we go. But welcome to the show. Join in at 7705633, 770KMED, the email bill at BillMeyersShow.com, the Facebook.com slash Bill Meyers Show feed is up there. Fortunately, he's my face. Never claimed to be a video star, but I guess you have to do that even in the radio world now too. Okay. Hey, remember when I was talking about on Friday, actually it may have not been Friday, it could have been Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, that sort of thing, kind of a theme that continues to be building in my mind in the show is that do you think that the United States of America is willing to take any kind of pain whatsoever in order to have a better future, in order to even

save the entitlements that are right now under threat. And I just, you know, the news that I still see seems to indicate the answer is no. And I want you to tell me if I'm right or not. And where I am going here with this is that I'm wondering if maybe some of the biggest protesters against President Trump may end up being President Trump's biggest supporters at some point. I don't say that happily. I'm just talking about how entitled maybe we all are these days. Maybe all Americans have primed to feel somewhat

entitled to a whole cavalcade of federal benefits that are not affordable or federal services or federal grant stream funding. I just start wondering, I'm just going to toss it out to you, I'm just asking for your opinion on this one. Now I know this was kind of a funny story that I saw over the weekend, but it's kind of illustrative of where I think we're finding ourselves right now. This is from News Watch 12. News Watch 12. Callahan, California. About 60 people came together Saturday in the small town of Callahan with a population in the hundreds to protest the actions of the Trump administration.

Oh my goodness. The Trump administration has lost the tiny town of Callahan. What will we do? Anyway, digressing. And listen, okay, you want to get together, you want to talk about it in Bleat and stamp your feet, it's okay. But anyway, here we go. The group expressed concerns over how actions of the Trump administration will affect rural communities such as those in Scott Valley, specifically highlighting concerns for the result of federal cuts in regards to firefighting success as well as the cuts to the Veterans Affairs Office.

Despite only a 24-hour notice of the protest and no social media use, those who attended said it had a surprisingly good turnout, serving as a reaction to the anxiety and concerns those who attended him. Now, what I couldn't help but notice is this focus on firefighting and Veterans Affairs. This is a serious question. Is there anyone out there who really thinks that when you have a federal government right now spending $6 trillion but getting taxes of $ trillion. Remember, okay, I know talking about math on talk radio is hard. Does anyone who is listening to me right now really think that a government that spends six trillion and takes in only four trillion dollars in money is going to get down to four or five

trillion dollars in spending with only nibbling around the edges at the fraud, waste, and abuse. What would you say to that? What would you say to that? Do you think there's really one third? Is one third of it spending? Maybe one third of it is fraud. I don't know. I'm just trying to be realistic about this. And I've noticed that there have been some people who have weighed in on my Facebook page Who are just you know, hissy-fitting at me, you know people there's this one Democrat in Josephine County specifically that that I must live inside her head. I don't I don't know what the thing is. It seems to live inside your head and and and She was yelling at me and he all you Republicans you just want to cut the entitlements, you want to do this and that, the other end. And you know what I'm starting to do, and I even commented on this News Watch 12 story,

about dozens protests. All right, so the VA services have been cut and some federal firefighting has been cut or firefighting, it could be firefighting, grant stream funding, you know, going into Callahan. What's your plan? What is your plan to get from $6 trillion to $4 trillion or maybe even $5 trillion? Maybe we're only borrowing $1 trillion for a little while. What is your plan? And nobody has any answer to this.

I have yet to have seen anybody who has really answered me back effectively to this, including the complainer from Josephine County, but just more or less talking about you Republicans want to kill everything. And I'm thinking, listen, the system is killing itself right now and it will very quickly take care of itself if you continue to borrow $2 to $3 trillion a year and spend 50% more than you take in, because that's what we're doing right now.

But it's also illustrative of how corrupted we have become over benefits and grant stream funding. How many years have I been telling you about even in downtown Medford the situation where the road diets come in? And the road diets come in usually because there's some U.S. Department of Transportation kind of grant and it's funneled through ODOT. And what happens is that in order for us to get our streets paved in downtown Medford, well we'll get our streets paved in downtown Medford. This is the latest one that happened. Well we can't afford, we don't have enough money to pay for the streets.

Really what that means though is that there's money that's put into other things that the city of Medford would rather do. And so if you're going to get some free money to pave downtown, well then you have to do the road diets and you have to have the bicycle bumways, you know, that sort of thing. This is what the feds have done and the state of Oregon is more than happy to go along with this and also dance to the tune of the grand stream funding in order to push a certain policy. And the policy is usually about, uh, you know, you don't drive a car and you're going to be living in your pack and stack climate friendly, equitable

community, downtown, a little hamster trail, a habit trail kind of house, that sort of thing. And by the way, that was an executive order from, uh, governor Brown when she was in power. That's been pushed in city to city to city to city. It's all been part of this, but you know, especially the transportation stuff, we see this coming with grant stream funding. Well, we're running out of money to do the grant stream funding.

And so you're going to start seeing grants for fire departments going away. You're probably going to see things going away for VA. And I know everyone's saying VA is important. It's all important. Everything's important. Social Security is important. Medicare is important. Medicaid is important. It's all important. National defense is important. Taking care of the military industrial complex is not so important, but that seems to be a big part of it. But I digress. That's why they need to take a look at the spending there. But honestly, when you're spending, you know, when you get in 4 trillion and you spend 6 trillion, all right, let's just put it in your, let's just put it in regular everyday family, family way of looking at the world.

Let's say you made $40,000 a year. That'll be like $4 trillion a year. You're making $40,000 a year, let's say you have an apartment or maybe small home, something like that, $40,000 a year, and you got your family, $40,000, and you're spending $60,000 a year, which means you have to borrow another 20,000. That's like the equivalent of the two trillion. I'm using 40 and 20 instead of four trillion and six trillion. But it's the same thing.

How long could you function spending $60,000 a year if you only earn $40,000 a year? How long could you keep piling it up? Now we're able to pile the debt up a lot longer because of being the reserve currency and being able to print money. That's coming to an end too. I think Trump knows it. We're at that tipping point.

The United States is at that tipping point, but yet we the people have been so easily corrupted by a few shekels being put into our community accounts. You know, Callahan is an example, the town of Callahan in Northern California, protesting about the fire department there. Well, firefighting is more likely a community function, but yet we've been kind of convinced that, well, no, there needs to be grant stream funding coming from the federal government for this. All right. Well, I guess we're going to have to find ways to do it ourselves, I guess. In some respects, maybe we're going to have to be raising our taxes and

fees and things in our local governments in order to make up for all the borrowed money that might not be coming. But it's a serious question though. How long? Every time someone is complaining and protesting about Trump, I'm going, okay, what's your plan? What's your plan? Well, it's to keep borrowing. That's not a plan.

That's not a great plan. They're going to have to borrow some anyway. They're going to have to borrow a lot this year just to try to keep the lights on for right now. But at some point, don't we have to go back to spending what we actually generate in taxes? Kind of a pay as you go sort of thing. You know, the money comes in.

State of Oregon already has to do that. State of Oregon has had to do this for a long, long time. States can't print money. And the state of Oregon always claims to be out of money, which is why, oh, we don't want to send back your kicker, you know, this and that and the other, because they can always find some non-governmental operator to be able to funnel some grant stream funding into, under the guise of homelessness or whatever, whatever the case might be. Gender affirming care, whatever.

I guess my point is that if people really want the social safety nets to be preserved, the social securities, the Medicare, Medicare's in really bad shape too by the way, Medicare SNAP benefits for the hungry, Medicaid which would be part of the Oregon health plan here in the state of Oregon, which a lot of people are on. Isn't there going to have to be some pain? Doesn't that mean you're going to have to put up with, okay, there may be fewer people yes even working at the VA? And fewer grant stream funding bills coming in through the state for transportation deals,

for new fire trucks, for all these other sort of things. Maybe we're going to have to... and maybe what's going to end up happening is that we're going to have no choice but to get economically productive and active so that we can actually start taking care of ourselves again instead of hoping that the the borrowed money spree from the federal government which is unsustainable in any financial definition. As that gets weaned away and we get weaned off of this we're gonna have to take care of ourselves. This whole idea that the federal government is going to be able to continue to bail out bad state policy here in Oregon and California for that matter, it's coming to an end, isn't

it? Isn't it really? And ultimately, it'll probably help us run a better state, run a better system. A lot of craziness has been papered over by the grant stream funding, backfilling Oregon's budget. Remember about one-third, about one of a... It's kind of funny, you know, about a third of Oregon's budget is money from the federal government. Could be passed through funding, that sort of thing. It's so funny.

One-third of Oregon's money is coming from the feds, but that money coming from the feds is one-third borrowed too. Federal government has been creating money, creating credit, and I think we're just at that point where the irresistible force is up against the immovable object. And right now, everyone's sitting around and protesting. And I'm going to continue to ask, do you think that the states and the people can take anything whatsoever? I wonder if we've been so used to all of that grant stream funding coming in from the back doors and Uncle Sugar and how often have we done things like, oh well, the city of Medford has done a grand thing and they're going to be getting a brand new SWAT wagon or whatever it is,

partially contributed to by the federal government and the state and the FBI and all that kind of stuff. We're probably going to see fewer of those, right? But I would say ultimately that's a good thing because then we're forced to prioritize and come up with ways of paying for it that we control. We control rather than having to dance to the tune of the federal government. I think that's a good thing, don't you, ultimately? Probably hurt for a while, though. of the federal government. I think that's a good thing, don't you, ultimately? Probably hurt for a while though. Probably hurt for a while. You know, essentially we're

like a drunk that's finally having the the punch bowl taken away. Oh no, I like the taste of that punch. I liked that money punch. That money punch was really good. Well, when you're borrowing two trillion out of every six trillion dollars that you're spending here in the federal government, they have no choice but to take away the punch bowl. In fact, even President Trump over the weekend was talking about the possibility, yeah, you know, there could be, I'm not going to, you know, rule out a recession. I think we're already in one right now in many parts of the country, already are. And you could have predicted this one. And you could have predicted this one. And now things are terrifying.

And then the whole idea is that he's hoping to impose some temporary pain for longer-term gain. And I don't know, our Oregonians and Californians and Americans, for that matter, disciplined enough to be able to take some pain in order to have a better, brighter, more prosperous future. Jury is still out on that. But as long as the media is continuing to promote and hype dozens, protest Trump administration, even in little Callahan, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if people can understand it. Maybe this is another example of where people can't add and subtract. They're enumerate. They had difficulty constructing the whole concept of being out of money in their own mind because they've been so used to there always being a hot check from the federal government. Could be a long four years, maybe eight to 12 years, you know, who knows. But anyway, just a few thoughts musing about that this morning. Kristy Noem working on some stuff. We'll talk with Mark Mix about this in the next few minutes because Kristy Noem has ended

collective bargaining for TSA. Big article over the weekend in Fox Business and various other newspapers and other headlines about what they're wanting to do with TSA because it appears that the TSA has been yet another make, of course we already knew this one, you know, kind of a make work organization. We'll have more on that story and a bunch more. This is the Bill Meyer Show, 628. It's amazing. What's right under your floor can impact your whole house.

Musty smells, wall cracks, 295-8100. Hi, I'm Randy with Diner 62 and I'm on KMED... 6.30, we'll catch up with news here in just a moment. And I'm also going to have Mark Mix on like I'd mentioned. Mark Mix is from the National Right to Work Committee. We're going to talk about this and what they're doing to the TSA. Maybe we'll see shorter lines. Maybe we'll actually have more TSA people actually working. That's the story that came out over the weekend,

that there are more people working in the unions than actually working on the front lines. Now see, there's an example of waste, fraud and abuse that I think we'll be happy to see go away. Jay Bieber is going to join me, executive director of policy over at National Motorist. We're going to be talking about the automated law enforcement, the red light cameras. Of course, that's been a big thing here. The speed cameras here in downtown Medford that have been ticketing thousands

after they changed the the speed limit a little while ago. We'll have that good conversation. I think you'll enjoy that talk. I always enjoy talking with a Bebe. Well also, or I should say Jay Bieber. Also have, pardon me, got a little bit of, I don't know if it's a bit of allergies working in the, I was doing a lot of weed whacking and doing stuff yesterday

and today I'm kind of like, you know, that sort of thing. But anyway, also where past meets present, Dr. Dennis Powers will be joining me too. 632 at KMED, a quick phone call, we'll see who's there. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Good morning, Bill. This is Tom here.

Hey, Tom, how are you doing this morning? I was talking earlier about can the country take any pain whatsoever? What do you think? Boy, that's, you know, in answer to that question, I don't know how it happened, but I spent this weekend, I wrote a long article about just that very topic. And I'm kind of surprised by the resistance even in conservative circles. Some of the ideas they put out in terms of, we need to rein in the federal government. It's just nuts with this funny money system.

And I was calling for a completely different financial system that actually works for us where we have some kind of control over the issuance of money that's not the current system. There was one article put out that, well, we should put the Federal Reserve under the President's guidance. No, that's nuts because, you know, somewhere along the line another... Every president will always want cheap money, the cheapest money, which means inflating to the moon. That's the way they are.

Yeah. Okay? Everybody wants cheap money. Even President Trump's call for cheap money on his watch. Everybody wants that. I get it. I understand that. Yeah, exactly.

And yet we're at this point where we're on the edge of bankruptcy chaos. I think it may not be too far down the road. I mean, this system cannot continue. But I'm really surprised that more people can't see it, understand it, even in conservative circles and so forth. Well, that's why I brought up though, do people really think that all of the cuts that need to be made are just going to be waste, fraud and abuse and then all of a sudden we're back to a balanced budget? Right? You see what I'm getting at? Exactly. Exactly. You're spot-on with that.

And I put out several proposals, solutions, and so forth, but it really comes down to, do we the country have the moral and intellectual fortitude at this point to create the kind of system that we really need to get us out of this whole big mess of mega government? Yeah, well, I don't know right now, and I'll bet you don't either, but at this point, I think we're going to find out pretty quickly. Oh boy. You know, I don't know right now and I'll bet you don't either but at this point I think we're going to find out pretty quickly That's what I'm afraid you're right on that and and it's kind of scary but I call for a

Conference of the biggest economic brains in the country and say come look What can we do about this at this point Tommy? it's we're almost at a point like like it was when we founded the country and they had what can we do about this at this point, Tom? We're almost at a point like it was when we founded the country and they had to come up with articles of confederation and then the Constitution itself. We had these really big brains trying, well, let's try to devise a system that works. And we're at that point now where we either figure this out or we're going down. And that's why I was talking last week that there really is like an arguing in the world here between

two types of reset because the Western welfare states, and I was talking about this on Facebook too, making this clear that the Western welfare states, and that includes the United States of America, are bust. All of them. We are less bust than the rest of the world at this point because we're able to continue to print money for the time being. But that's sort of an end game. That's sort of an end game sort of situation.

We're in better shape than Europe, but that's not really saying much, Tom, okay? It's what I was sort of getting at. We're still just the cleaner of the dirty shirts at this point. And this is why Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, was talking about the need to monetize the federal assets. They're talking about land and forests and various other things and assets, and get something in on the positive side rather than debt, debt, debt, debt, debt. That would also seem to indicate that it's about time to actually start going to work with assets

again instead of locking them up. So I would imagine Gang Green is really upset about this because everything about them has been to lock up and just completely eliminate man from nature, is what this has been all about. But I think we're at the point where there's going to be no choice but to start looking at ways to use the resources that you actually have within your lands to responsibly create wealth again because we have to. It's not one of these things, you know, if you want to be able to continue to make Social security payment checks and Medicare payments to the doctors and the hospitals and all the rest of it there has to be wealth generation first there's not a secret pile of money sitting around to pay for it all Tom there just isn't unless you can see one

I don't know yeah you're you're right and you know you've heard me rant on the Federal Reserve many times or but one thing that system is that it allows government to be the chooser where our money is diverted. So do you want to go into healthcare or do you want to go and blow up Ukraine? Exactly, you know, that sort of thing. Andy, you wanted to persuade everybody to go gangrene, so here's grant stream funding that goes to the states in the local cities oh you got to do the bicycle bum by road diets in order to get your street repaved right you know that's

just a small example of it yes all of that so it's gonna really come down to we the people can can is there enough mental and moral fortitude to create a rational monetary system? That's the bottom line. That is it. Good bottom line there. Thanks for the call, Tom. 770566. Actually, hold the calls.

We'll take some calls here in just a little while, especially next hour, because I want to start taking some comments if you were at the SB 762 meeting Saturday. Okay. I'm hoping to get Jeff from Selma to talk about this too, all right? 638 Mark Mix will join me next. At Pressure Point Roofing, we're dedicated to delivering top- And we'll see you at the sale.

The Bill Meyers Show is on. News Talk 1063 KMED. Mark Mix joins me. He's the president of the National Right to Work Committee. The 2.8 million member public policy organization also serves as president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Mark, welcome back to the show.

Good morning, sir. Good to be with you, Bill. Hope you woke up on time. Well, I- You got the clock right. I did. One thing was I forgot to change the timer on the coffee maker. So I had to sit there and actually push the button myself.

Anyway, I got my coffee anyway. Hey Mark, what is right to work in the first place? If you could explain it to people so that they understand what your raison d'etre is at National Right to Work Committee. Yeah Bill you don't need coffee to understand this but it's real simple it's we believe every worker should have the right to join a union but no one should be compelled as a condition of employment to pay dues or fees to a union. It really is amazing that since the 1930s the federal government's position has been that you can be compelled to pay dues to a private organization or fees to a private

organization in order to work in America. 26 states across the country have solved that problem by passing what are known as right to work laws. Bill, they're really that simple. If you want to join a union, have at it. If you want to give your entire paycheck to a union, have at it. You can't lose your job if you decide for whatever reason, whether it be political or religious or just intellectual, whatever it is, you can't lose your job if you don't pay dues or fees to a private organization.

That's right to work. Do you believe it's reasonable for unions to charge, to forcibly charge people who are part of a collective bargaining agreement for the actual cost of negotiating. Are you okay with that or not? No, I'm not actually because that's really the original sin of forced unionism is the forced association that comes with this exclusive bargaining privilege that unions have. Bill, the first thing unions ask for, whether it's in the state law for your government employees or whether it's in the private sector, is a clause called the exclusive bargaining

privilege. private sector is a clause called at the exclusive bargaining privilege and that is the idea that no one can talk to the employer after the union is put in place and the only way you can talk to the employer about anything is with the union representative present so if you are the best worker in a workplace or the worst worker in a workplace you know the employer can't do anything to you rewarding you in the in the former case and punishing you in the latter case without going through a union so So in the First Amendment of the Constitution says we have the right to associate, the right to gather together.

Logic tells us we should have the right not to associate if that truly is a right that we have. But yet labor policy says you must associate with the union in order to participate or keep your job in that workplace. And then the original, then the other sin is you gotta pay for that forced association. Excellent point there. I'm glad you brought up that right to associate because that's something I've been kind of harping on

for a long, long time. The freedom to associate really means nothing unless you have the right to also say, I will disassociate. And I know that, you know, I've even talked about this when it comes to public accommodations for businesses and all this kind of thing in which private property is magically turned into, you know, public property, and you know, all sorts of kind of strange legal rulings, even civil rights law, I think, to a certain extent, is a forcing of association. And it does seem to go against the First Amendment. I don't know if we want to go off into those weeds, but I think I kind of get the basic concept that most people would too, wouldn't you figure? You know, that it means nothing? Yes, yeah, indeed. Indeed, the right to associate. I mean, and look, it may be that you're better off with by joining the union and amplifying your voice that

way, and that's perfectly legal under federal law. But the idea that I force you into this, and we just got done representing literally thousands of graduate students at colleges across the country that were Jewish that had to support and be represented by unions that were fomenting the unrest against Israel and that you know the boycott sanctioned and divest programs and then just the outright October 7th fight from the river to the sea these Jewish students came to us and said how in the world can I be forced to associate with an organization that takes money from me as a condition of my continuing my graduate studies and then be represented by them when they're out there doing, saying

that we shouldn't even exist? Well, it's not all that different from here in the state of Oregon, in which you can belong to a public employee union. And public employee unions, more or less less are there to elect Democrats in the state of Oregon because that's the controlling political party right now. So you're a Republican or even just an independent and you join the Union, you're forced to then pay the Union who then takes a certain portion of it and then recycles it into campaigning, right? That kind of thing goes on all the time. Yeah, that's one of the legs of forced unionism is the idea of the political conformity that

comes with it. You won't be surprised by this bill, but when you look at the direct contributions from unions directly to presidential campaigns, and this is just really the tip of the iceberg of all the political spending out there, but unions sent to Kamala Harris sixty million dollars sent Donald Trump 284,000 dollars, but yet unions the union membership across America certainly the private-sector union membership Voted for Donald Trump in in larger majorities than than ever And yet there are union officials that they're forced to to quote associate with and give money to we're funding the opposition Against their their ideas and their beliefs. So that's the injustice for sure. All right, that's the reason why you exist and that's why I wanted to make sure we went down that

road, all right? Now let's talk about this really interesting story that happened over the weekend. Department of Homeland Security's Kristi Noem has ended collective bargaining for TSA workers and one of the reasons that some of the stats she came up with were pretty interesting about how many people who were actually supposed to be working for the people were actually working for the Union in many of these airports. Now Southern Oregon's airports pretty small, probably don't have that same sort of situation, but could you set the table what happened over the weekend? Pretty astounding. Yeah, well let's go back to, you know, November of 2001 after the

September 1st or September 11th attack on America. The Department of Homeland Security was formed and the Transportation Safety Security Administration was part of that. Well, one of the first arguments was what can we unionize the employees of the Homeland Security Administration? And there was a question about whether or not this was a national security issue. And President Bush at the time said, yeah, it's a national security issue. Therefore unionization of these employees is not appropriate. Then came November of what, 2023, I think, or 2003.

And all of a sudden the TSA employees are unionized. And there's, I forget what the numbers are around the country. There's maybe 45 or 50,000 of them, probably closer to 45,000. Frankly frankly a less than a majority of actually joined the Union but after this last election President Biden after he lost signed a seven-year contract with the TSA employees you know basically laying out the working conditions of these people around the country and to your point

Bill about the official time there are a lot of quote unquote full-time federal employees that are doing nothing but union work and so that's a problem as well but the idea of unionizing federal government employees is something we ought to think really hard about I know in Oregon it's it's an issue out there and in many states it's an issue but in the federal government you know if you go back to Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s when asked whether or not the government should unionize their employees, he said it's unthinkable you would do that because they're not negotiating with a private sector entity, they're negotiating with taxpayers. That's a real problem. And usually there are no representatives representing and protecting the taxpayers.

Yeah, that's right. They get to elect their own bosses in many instances, that's for sure. Yeah, exactly. So what does this mean though for TSA? Does this mean that the TSA union is decertified or what is the actual status here and what is it going to look like in the airports in the near future or in the longer term future? Yeah, the union will still exist. The union can still be a voice for those working people. The question is, is the government mandated to recognize and bargain with

them over conditions of employment? I mean, in many states, for example, in Virginia, we now have what's called optional bargaining, but prior to the three years ago, we had no bargaining requirement in our state statutes. But that doesn't mean the unions aren't very powerful. The teachers union, the firefighters union, they were very, very powerful when it came to lobbying legislators in Richmond, Virginia. But the question is, are we forced to negotiate over the terms and conditions of government employees? I would say no, because for exactly the reason you articulated, you're not negotiating with the taxpayers, you're negotiating with political operatives who you've had the privilege, quote unquote, to collect money from workers that

may not want to support those candidates to negotiate with them. So, no, the union will still exist. The American Federation of Government Employees will still be a very loud mouthpiece here in Washington DC and around the country. But what power will they have then to negotiate for benefits given that Kristi Noem has ended collective bargaining? Does that mean there's just no contract any longer and that it's just a hey we pay you what we pay you? What does it mean for the workers, I guess? Maybe that's the question I would have. Well, I think one of the things that probably is the most important is that pay and advancement were based on performance, not on simple longevity, which

most union contracts have. You know, you can survive and get paid more than somebody who does twice the work that you do, just because you've been there for two or three years longer. Oh, so in other words, Kristi Noem can then reform the criteria then for promotion and bonusing, things like that, correct? Absolutely. That's what happens in, you know, 90, it happens in 95% of the private sector businesses around the country that are not part of a union or negotiating with the union It look the idea that government should be unionized is a very serious question and one that should be thought about Because right now bill almost 50% of all union members in the country are our government employees

Not private sector employees anymore government employees and that the implications of that are very very profound and here when you're talking about national security when you're talking about the ability to make sure that they're doing you know the best job they can without a process that slows everything down I mean you literally have people asking for sick leave seven months in advance under the union contract yeah I'm gonna be sick seven months from now so I can take a vacation those are the types of things that happen in these environments. We have a union official who's done work for the union for 34 years, he's got a full lifetime federal pension, but he can't go into buildings because of some sexual harassment on sexual

harassment grounds and other things because he's, you know, but he's been a full-time union employee for his 34 years of federal employment. Those are issues that a lot of people don't hear about. And yeah, there's legitimate questions to be asked, but how in the world do private sector businesses negotiate with their employees and pay their employees? And how do those employees get benefits when they don't have a union?

Well, it happens. And it happens all the time. And it's not out of the ordinary that workers have to basically perform to maintain or increase their responsibility and their pay on the job. Do you believe that we're looking at a longer term shift of power between the union,

between unions and the labor world? And the reason I bring this up is that for a long time, the whole purpose of government employment was that, okay, you couldn't get fired, or it was hard to get fired, it was a little more of a stable position, but you would usually accept a lower pay package and lower benefit in exchange of that, except that now that has completely been inverted, and I'm wondering if this is going to be almost like a reversion to the mean of some sort. Could you maybe

expound on that? Yeah, Bill, that's a greation to the mean of some sort. Could you maybe expound on that? Yeah Bill that's a great point and it's so true when you look around at the increasing cost of government you know there are a couple things that I think you can say are responsible for that and that is giving these union officials the power to negotiate and be quote equal to the sovereign when it comes to their position in these types of issues. I don't think they belong there. I think the United States taxpayer, the state taxpayer, the local taxpayer, should have a bigger voice in all of this and sometimes it just gets imposed. I mean I just got my real

estate bill here in Virginia the other day and it's a 23% increase over the last two years. Yeah one of the things that's happened is the bureaucracy of our little city has increased dramatically, and the power of the unions in our county here in Fairfax has increased dramatically. So those are issues that really matter, and you're right. I mean, when you look at the benefits and the pay scale for government employees,

and you look at it in comparison to the private sector, you're right, it is inverted and that's that should cause everyone some concern. I mean, not that these people aren't doing important work, but what we're realizing from the Doge operation and what we're seeing here in America is there's a lot of government activity that probably isn't necessary, that probably isn't enumerated in any constitution in any state around the country. And it's certainly not enumerated in the United States Constitution. So there's definitely a reform that needs to be in the air. I think things have gotten out of balance for sure.

Yeah, and when you have a country which is spending six trillion dollars in tax in government spending each year, but only brings in four trillion dollars in taxes, that is by definition not sustainable. Okay? Yeah. How long could we do this at home? I don't know. But Mark, I appreciate this. Where can people find out more about National Right to Work Committee? What's your website? And give us the particulars, please. Yeah, Bill. It's real simple. We have two websites. The committee's website where we deal with legislation. We track legislation in all 50 states and here in the United States Congress, bills that will expand individual rights vis-a-vis unionization or give union

officials more power, that is nrtwc.org. The foundation for legal rights, nrtw.org. All right. And final question, do you believe that we will ever get the opportunity to have a national right to work bill? In other words, it just says, hey, everybody, the entire country is a right to work sort of deal, which, okay, you can join the union if you want, but nobody can force you to. I believe that we will, Bill. I believe that we will overturn this compulsion. We have a bill, the National Right to Work Act, a single page bill, doesn't add a single word to federal law,

simply repeals the compulsion that was written into the law back in the 1930s. We have over a hundred co-sponsors on the bill. It was introduced two weeks ago by Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Joe Wilson and so we'll continue to fight for that and we believe we'll win ultimately this battle over forced unionism. Mark, appreciate the talk. Thank you very much. Be well, okay? Take care. Thank you. Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee. This is the Bill Meyer Show. Appreciate you waking up on KMED and KPXG. Ready to upgrade your roof to a durable... You're waking up with the Bill Meyer Show.

Jay, before seven o'clock, we'll check in with Town Hall News and also the Hannity Update for that matter. And then Jay Bieber. And Jay is the executive director of the National Motorist Association. It's been a real push for the United States to have a lot of more automated law enforcement over time. And we wanted to talk about what is good and what is bad about it. Of course, we've seen this happen in downtown Medford. I know that we still have our red light camera lawsuit, from what I understand is still active right now. It hasn't come to any conclusion at this point.

Citi's been trying to get that dismissed, as you can imagine. But the pros and cons and what can we do? What can we actually do about this? Jay will join me here in just a few minutes. I had Jerry the Bull write me this morning. Had to do with the economic restructuring that President Trump is in the process of trying to accomplish right now. And even he said over the weekend to Maria Bartiromo that, you know, you can't rule off recession because of the adjustments, the disruption

that is going on right now. But Jerry says, hey Bill, if Trump were to eliminate the federal income tax, where would that leave Oregon? Would it eliminate Oregon's state income tax simultaneously? That's a really interesting question. It would appear that it would certainly knock the stuffing out of the ability to charge because everything is based off of what you earn according to the federal tax forms, right? And then you put that into the Oregon tax form. My response to this, would it eliminate the Oregon state income tax, Jerry? Probably not, because there would be likely the moment if there was ever a federal income tax eliminated,

you would see an instant special emergency session brought together that's saying, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. They'd be running around with their hair on fire and then they would pass an emergency bill going in immediately to effect in which it would say, okay, what was your income? And then they'll just calculate it, a percentage that you end up having to send in. That's what I would estimate. You know that right? OMG, OMG, OMG. Here we have to go. All right? Jerry, I'm going to give you an email of the day, at least asking the question, all right?

Email of the day sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson. Central Point Family Dentistry, centralpointfamilydentistry.com. By the way, while you wait, Crown's available. They have an in-house lab. Pretty cool stuff. Centralpointfamilydentistry.com. Okay? All right. Town Hall News is coming up next on KMED and KMED HD1 They have an in-house lab, pretty cool stuff. CentralPointFamilyDentistry.com. Town Hall News is coming up next on KMED and KMED HD1 Eagle Point Metford. KPXG Grants Pass.