Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 06-09-25_MONDAY_7AM

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

Morning news and open phone topics, a talk with State Rep. Dwayne Yunker, what is being passed, what if any fight is left in the GOP caucus to stop the worst of Dem legislation...Frustrating 4 conservatives.

It could be anything on your mind this morning and some open phones here for the next 15 or 20 minutes or so that I'll talk with State Representative Duane Younger. We're into the final stretch of what's happening in the state legislature. I'm just wondering if there is any fight to resist. We'll find out. Jane's here. Hello, Jane. How are you this morning?

Are you on the way in on thumping watermelons or was there something else on your mind here too? What's going on? You can tell a watermelon is right by something You knock on it and you listen for the sound and you can tell whether it's ripe or not What is the difference between a non ripe a thump in a ripe thumb? What's going on? What's that? and I Send letters and mail

well through the mail, so I use the labels. And also in Los Angeles, you could arrest anybody starting a fire with arson and if they throw something at you, assault. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. And I don't know how many people have been arrested at this point, but according to the at least the letters that were released from the departments, they didn't look to be very How do I put it this way? It didn't look like a really strong law enforcement response when you see the LA County Sheriff's response and the LA

Police Chief there too, You know, kind of like, well, it's wishy-washy. Kind of a wishy-washy approach, which is disappointing, but not surprising for Los Angeles, wouldn't you say, given the political realities of that city? And the political realities of California, Oregon, Washington, yeah, a lot of... of California, Oregon, Washington, yeah a lot of them. But they should start arresting them, putting them in jail. And if you're flying a flag that is not American, send them back to the country that they're flying the flag for. That part just irritates me to no end. It's like I'm saying this, all right, you love Mexico so much, you're here, You need to go back and apparently make Mexico great

That's the way you're looking at it. All right Thanks for the call there gene 7705633. We'll have the Sean Hannity update here coming up in just a moment Gold silver, you know, just the first four or five months of this year gold. I'm sorry not gold The dollar has lost nine%, 9% of its value on the purchasing power, just this year alone. That's pretty big. I'm talking about the international trading the way it looks compared to other currencies.

Dollar has lost some purchasing power. That's also driven some of our inflation there too. Gold is naturally reflecting this now up to more than $3300, and it's been kind of holding the last few days. Silver now joining the precious metal party too, $36.55. Maybe you're a seller at these prices. Maybe you're a buyer at this and you wanted to stack some up. Either way, talk to my friends, and that's at J. Austin & Company,

Gold & Silver buyers, the recognized experts. They have been doing this for years when I need physical gold and silver or need to sell it. You know there's time that I ended up selling a whole bunch of silver back in the day to help buy my home, the home that Lindy and I be. You know we had tucked some away and I had been stacking it there for a while and sold it and it really ended up working out well. And I ended up, gosh, at that point, silver was on a bit of a tear. I think I sold silver at 45 ago at that point. Well, right now it seems like we're getting back into that neighborhood, 37 or so, very close to that. But one way or the other, whether you're a buyer or a seller, it's about protecting wealth for the long term and protecting wealth that nobody else has a call on

it's not sitting in an IRA account something like that talk to Jay Austin about it 1632 Ashland Street in Ashland 6th and G in downtown Grants Pass jayaustinbrokers.com and the best website fortunereserve.com if you don't plan on cooking tonight plan on dining at freddy Diner. Save now, support our veterans, and switch to America's wireless company, Pure Talk. You're hearing the Bill Meyers Show on Southern Oregon's home for conservative talk. Mornings on KMED at 99.3 KBXG. Call Bill at 770-5633 at 770-KMED. Here's Bill Meyer. Appreciate you being here.

It's up and following anything on your mind for the next few. State Representative Duane Young will join me. It's also the return of Dr. Dennis Powers. We haven't had a Monday show for two, three weeks between, you know, lawsuit appearances and then some vacation, Memorial Day, various other things. So everything's all cool here now. We'll get back on where where past meets present. And also talking about a lot of the the legal victories, I think, that have been coming out of the Supreme Court as of late.

Dr. Dr. Power is rather always a great person to have on here. Do have some emails of the day, and those are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson in Central Point Family Dentistry. It's next to the Mazatlan Mexican restaurant in Central Point. They accept most dental insurance plans whether in-network or out-of-network and they offer their own dental plan for people who don't have dental insurance. It's kind of like dental insurance with better benefits and fewer limitations. We just appreciate that. Randy writes me this morning about the LA riots. Bill, law enforcement is

using the wrong tactics to combat rioters. Instead of spraying them with tear gas, spray them with indelible dye that marks them for months. Is there such a thing? I wasn't aware of that. That's really interesting. Spray them with indelible dye that marks them for months. That way everyone knows who was participating in the insurrection. A bright color like orange would do the trick. That way shop owners, banks, landlords, every other business could immediately identify rioters and refuse to do business with them. Wouldn't be able to buy food, rent a house, or open a bank account. Anyway, it's a nonviolent method of marking those

involved to be ostracized from society. I think the riots would end quickly. Peer pressure is powerful, but also let law enforcement spot them after the riots break up. Look at the measures used to identify anyone who happened to be in Washington, DC on January 6th of 2021. Whether they were at the Capitol or not,

they ended up in jail based on cell phone records. Of course, that's a little scary, wouldn't you say, Randy? Hosed down the rioters with neon orange dye, force them to deal with the consequences of their action. Of course, I'm kind of wondering, do you think that they would actually be shunned in Los Angeles, Randy? That would be the question I'd have for you this morning. Is there a chance that there may be more support for that kind of behavior given the Reconquista movement than we might otherwise think? I'm just, you know, raising the issues. Michael writes me this morning about LABS. Bill, headshots

to those not peaceful. Gavin Knossom and Karen Elmasterd should be forced to ride in one of those CHP vehicles. I'm so angry, but what's new? Love the radio show, keep up the good work. Okay, we appreciate that Michael. Betty writes to me this morning, hey Bill, about that Daily Courier headline over the weekend about the balanced budget of Jackson County and the direct slam to Josephine County. I know you have a direct connection with Colleen Roberts and I understand that, but a few quick questions about that. What is the difference in the population between the two counties? I would say I think we're looking at about 220 versus maybe 225,000 Betty in Jackson County versus ready 85,000. I'm just kind of spitballing at that. And how many people in each county are on welfare, SNAP, food

pantries, etc.? A lot in both counties. I don't think that's anything unusual. We have about 40% of both counties that are on Medicaid, which is Oregon Health Plan, meaning they can't afford health insurance on their own or else they're kind of bombs and they've been brought on. Now they have strong reserves according to that story. How many strings are attached to each grant, etc.? Well, the reserves are just extra money that they had. It's essentially the savings account, Betty, in Jackson County. One of the major differences, though, between Jackson and Josephine County is the, well, even just the basic tax rate.

The basic tax rate is larger in Jackson County to start with. Now, Josephine County, of course, you had that 95-cent, wasn't it a 95-cent tax rate on just the law enforcement fund that you have for the sheriff's department, but the actual county basic rate is very small, less than a buck from what I recall. I don't have the exact number in front of there. Jackson County's basic property tax rate for the county, just from the start, we're not talking about school districts or anything else that get glommed on top of it, or library

districts or anything else. Jackson County is at $2.00 and a penny. And they have to pay for everything about that. But I think the major difference, if I was to choose something between the two cities as far as besides population, though, is that Josephine County is just a massively large county. And a lot of the county is not taxable,

because it ends up being a lot of federal land that's in there. So you're not getting much from that. So you have a huge county by area, you have about one-third the population of Josephine County, and I don't think you could tax those people enough to be able to get all the services that Jackson County might be able to do because higher population and I can't say that there's no untaxed land but probably a smaller percentage of the untaxed land and a higher basic property tax rate. So that's it. It's just a tale and a lot of people, you know, you move to Josephine County because you like those lower tax rates but of course, I don't know.

When you have the sheriff's levy on there, maybe it doesn't feel so low to you. And then you have a library district on tax on top of that. And then you have the various school districts, the school districts, those are the big ones. You look at your tax bill, you'll see that, oh my gosh, the biggest bill ends up going to the schools, which are all usually kind of failing miserably, but I digress, all right? Anybody else that I missed here over the weekend here? And, oh, no name here, Bill.

A whole week was focused on this marginalized group. So Oregon Glad, I'm just glad I don't have kids in the schools there, opting out of these activities who definitely put a student in the minority and peer pressure would probably prevail. Yeah, Oregon Middle School hosts a drag day encouraging students cross-dressing during Pride Week. Yeah, yeah, we get that. I understand it. I had Lynn write me. By the way, I'm gonna have Lynn Barton on the show tomorrow, and Lynn's going to be speaking on behalf of Sky Park. She's one

of my sponsors. That's not why she's coming on, but I know her about insurance. We were talking about the Medicare Advantage programs. Dr. Jane Orient, MD, not a fan of that. And Lynn says that she didn't quite get the story right. So I'll take Lynn's take on it, given that she lives and breathes that information on Medicare as part of her day job. But she was responding on the education conversation we were having on Friday, remember, with mathematics, the big thing with math and people just not getting their kids learning math, especially in elementary schools.

And Lin writes, Bill, math is important also because it teaches principles and that details matter and it also gives children practice learning. But if you get a detail wrong, you get the problem wrong. It's so important for logical thinking and AI and calculators to destroy that. Also, math is spiritual. Actually, all education is spiritual because it teaches us that there are immaterial realities. When you delve into math, you learn that 2 plus 2 equals 4. And later you learn that you can calculate without using anything in the material world.

Say, two apples plus two apples to show that they equal four apples. But anyway, it literally puts you in touch with eternity, with eternal unchanging principles. The material world is always changing, and with the breakdown in culture and religion, it's an incredibly confusing and disorienting world for children. Math will help ground them in realities that don't change. David, a caller on Friday's show by the way, was talking about reducing education to competency. He's right about that. This is why I'm such a fan of classical education, the seven liberal arts, because its foundation is to discover what is virtue in what is a good life. What is truth? What is goodness? What is beauty. You can become a very competent criminal, and many will without the moral foundation to these ideas, which also don't change but are eternal.

Those who do not become competent will be ruled by criminals. Oh wait, we're there already. Finally, if parents are forced to send their kids to public school, they must make their kids learn their math facts and timetables at home, reward them, pay them, drill them, do whatever it takes because the schools don't require it and they're handicapping their students from even being able to do more advanced math to thinking. Thanks Lyn. By the way, Lyn has, I think Lynn, if I recall correctly, was also a

substitute teacher at one point, so I think she understands that aspect. 729. My email billed at BillMeyersShow.com. Dale writes me about rote learning. Thomas Edison wrote a bunch of questions he would use to screen employee applicants. Questions like, what states border west virginia what is the lightest wood or what materials are using kerosene barrels a reporter asked albert einstein a few of these questions and he failed einstein said why would i memorize anything that i could just look up yet they have a little bit of wrote and a little bit of concept thinking they'll i think you're right about that. As far as why would you want to memorize anything that you could look up,

what happens if you're in a situation where you can't look up something? Sometimes it's good to have the knowledge just plugged into you too, like the times tables and the addition tables, division tables, the square roots, etc. Serving the Rogue Valley for more than 40 years. You're hearing the Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. Now Bill wants to hear from you. 541-770-5633. Appreciate you being here, 732. Crazy Gene, don't know if we're getting the crazy Gene or the seen one here,

but we always like the nickname. How you doing Gene? Oh, pretty good. And my outside is going to be extra crazy today. Extra crazy? Okay, good. Where are you going? Yeah, it's courtesy of me. Don't expect me to give it to you for free forever. Okay. Oh, so you're going to have a sub stack channel and then we're going to have to pay you what that ten bucks a month whatever it is to to hear from you? Oh no, I work for free. Oh, alright. I'm a little confused, but please continue. Okay, but yeah, when you die, you don't have a body anymore.

So when you leave this space after you check out the women's bathroom or whatever you want to do as a ghost, then you stand over and you head into space, which is full of energy. And you get to wherever you want to go, wherever you're home-wise, and then you can manifest, make your own body. However tall you be, a giant. You can be whatever you want to be over there. So if you want to be a transparent, no problem, huh? Oh yeah. Anything you want to be. I mean, you can be five-sexed if you want to be a trans spirit, no problem, huh? Oh yeah, anything you want to be. I mean, you can be five sectors if you want to be that. And you get over there and create your

mansion. Do you get to live in? Well, maybe what this is here though is that here you learn to deal with physical limitation. How about that? Well, this is the better place. This is where you go to learn the better parts of life so you will know how wonderful it is over there. All right. So a little bit of Crazy Gene philosophy for Monday morning to get me started, huh? No problem. All right. Hey, good hearing from you, Gene, as always.

Okay. Well, thank you, Bill. Yeah. I'm thinking that we should have a weekend talk show with Crazy Jean, Grumpy Jean, and Lucretia. I think that would be an interesting combo. Wouldn't you just have them all do the round circle? Do the round table.

All right. State Representative Duane Yunker. We're going to get a hold of him in a couple of minutes and find out where the craziness is going and if there's any fight left in the Republicans here to resist the worst of what the Democrats wish to bring here. Okay, this is the Bill Meyer show. Great to see you. Hi, I'm Matt Stone, owner of Stone Heating and Air, and I'm on 106.3 KMED. And we appreciate you being here. 738, State Representative Duane Younger back on the program. Junkyard Duane. I say that affectionately as always. Hey, Duane, welcome being here. 738, State Representative Dwayne Younger back on the program. Junkyard

Dwayne. I say that affectionately as always. Hey, Dwayne, welcome back here. We're in the final few weeks. When do you think we sign EDI at this point? Because no one's ever safe until everybody gavels out and then the legislative session is over. This has been a tough one. This has been a tough one both to be in and also to report on. What do you think? Yeah, I'm hearing two different dates on die and die that would be the 25th or like the 19th or something like around then but it really going to determine what bills we get through what I should say what the agenda of the Democrats we get through, their bills.

You know, at the end of this, we're not really dealing with Republican bills or anything to do with Republicans. It's more, what can we stop or how can we, you know, sort of really bad stuff. So that's where we're at right now. Yeah, everything that is coming out of Salem, at least from our point of view, tends to be a river of excrement. Okay? I mean, it doesn't seem to be much of a way of looking at it. And I know that you have talked about this in the past, that as long as Republicans are given quorum and trying to reach across the aisle, that's all

that's going to happen. I mean, is there any hope at all for any kind of fight? I mean, even when it comes down to stuff like, what, unemployment benefits for striking union workers? It's like, you've got to be kidding me. I mean, it's just such a blatant, corrupt political payoff, but yet, you know, Republicans are giving quorum overall. I'm going to talk about you. I mean, you can't just walk out, you know out alone at this point. You got to get the group. But there's no conversation at all stopping anything or is there? Yeah, that was like a two-hour debate on the floor. It was, huh?

Yeah, my speech is uploaded on my social media. Obviously, we know where the money flows. It flows through the unions back to the Democrats. So if they're going to get anything done, it's always for the unions. I mean, just to be crazy there is, last Tuesday we had a citizen, you know, day for conservative Republican people, and we might have had 50 50 maybe a little bit more here. On Thursday the Democrats and it was just packed out here with every unit. So you know, in the union, I guess union people get off for the day to come

here and protest, you know, and rally and celebrate. Must be nice. That's how much, yeah, it must be nice because all the rest of us are working, you know, working people, Republicans, paying the bills. I ended up getting an email from Tina Kotec over the weekend. I was thinking about the carnage. I bet you were watching what was going on down in LA. You had to watch that at some point, right? Yeah. And I can't help but see us. And I get an email here, and this is coming from the governor.

It says, Team Turner, Team Tina, rather. It says, no matter the landscape in Washington, DC, I promise I will always fight to protect Oregon's values and keep our state a welcoming place for everyone. And then everything she talks about in this letter is nothing about, well, nothing except LGBTQ+. It's like this is like the number one concern. Is that the biggest thing other than union politics driving policy in Oregon? Because this is coming straight from the government,

from Governor Kotec here. Everything's about LGBTQ+. And also, and when she says stuff like transgender, we have to be helping the transgender community, which means paying for the surgery. That's essentially what she's saying. It's almost like a code word of sorts. Is that all that matters? Is this all that the legislature cares about on the Democratic side or is there more nuance to this? You know? No, I think that if you had to pick like four things that the Democrats care about would

be probably be, you know, the unions, DEI, LGBTQ and illegals. That's it. Those are the four major constituents then of the Oregon Democrats. Those are the four major constituents. You know, we got lectured on the floor on Thursday because we brought in several of the girls that were in this track meet a week ago and they were pushed out by a boy. We had a girl, you know, women sit next to us that played sports in high school or college. And we wanted to thank them for everything they do and being a proud woman and what they've gotten from being involved in sports. And we wanted to thank them for everything they do, and being a proud woman, and what they've gotten from being involved in sports.

And then we pulled the bill for boys and girls sports. And at the end of the session, at the end of the floor that day on Thursday, the Democrats did the remonstrance and shamed us for doing what we did, bringing those women to the, you know, and standing up for them. Okay, I want to make sure that people understand this and hear this. All right?

You guys ended up, when I say guys, it's like men and women, just as a group. Republicans bring the bill forward to actually protect women in sports, right? And you end up bringing these other women that have been essentially disenfranchised by dudes in dresses masquerading as girls and then taking their sports trophies and wins and just kicking their butts everywhere we go like this. And the Democrats shame you for this. Yeah, yeah. I posted four of their speeches on my social media. You can go watch them. They shamed us for supporting women. Like they're the ones that always work for women. But when we support women, you know, my chief of staff

swim in high school. She was a high school swimmer. Yeah. I thanked her for it and everything and everything she does for me and for our district in Josephine County. She doesn't live in our district, but I want to uplift her. She is an asset to our... And here I am, I'm getting shamed for trying to support women, girls, and obviously I'm upset myself because I have two daughters that want to play college soccer and now I'm being shamed for being a supporter of, you know... Being a supporter of women. See, the idea, I guess in the Democrats' world here in the state of Oregon, you have to support

fake women in order to support women. You can't support, you have to support bio women and you have to support the fake women too. Right? Is that essentially what you're told here? Being shamed for supporting biological women. And the thing is all of us have moms, even the Democrats have a mom. No, no, no, no, no, no, they only have moms. They have birthing

people, okay? Yes, moms. And so we were all came for my mom, and I want to support women. You have a mom, you had a mom or mom, I don't know if your mom's still alive. Your mom's still alive, yeah. And you know, I'm just like, and here I am getting shamed for being supportive of biological women and lectured about, you know, supporting them and nobody wants to take the trans rights away. We're just asking for a level playing field of fairness and here we are, they're getting shamed for, you know, supporting women. That's the kind of thing.

You know, I also... I told you this as I got a letter back from the Deputy Assistant Attorney General from Civil Rights Division on Friday, too. For... We've been writing, myself and Representative Dill, we've been continuously working with them and providing information about things that are happening and they wrote us back and thanked us for all the work we're doing to protect girls' rights and safety and they've taken our information and they're going to use it.

And obviously, they're going to come after Oregon. They're working on on cases against Oregon. So, you know, we're hoping to have another meeting this week with them. Okay. Now, I kind of lost you in the beginning of this. Where did that come from, that letter about the civil rights of actual women and girls? So, we've gathered information because, you know, part of us being here, we do obviously investigate things or things that we've seen that are here in Oregon that violate these civil rights under Title IX or other discrimination or Title And so we put a package together and a letter to the deputy general, which is, I guess it's

Harmeet Dhillon. Oh, you sent it to Dhillon. Harmeet Dhillon? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Harmeet Dhillon. Yeah. And so it came back to her deputy, gave it to her deputy assistant general, Gregory Brown,

wrote us back. And then he got a couple co-counselors on here. In other words, you had a putting Oregon on the on the civil rights map then with Dylan. And Dylan is a serious, Dylan is a serious as a heart attack. She is. Yeah. If you don't see her post or her messaging, yeah. That is, that, that, that, yeah. I mean, isn't it, but isn't it sad though, Representative Younger, that you as a state representative to protect women, actual women's civil rights and girls,

you have to call the feds in on Oregon. It's essentially what you're hoping to do to actually get the federal government involved and fighting our own state government. It's like the delusion. And this is why I get irritated, Dwayne, when I see so many Republicans that are doing the social media and reaching across the aisle and saying, oh, I'm here with my Democrat friend. I'm just like, do you understand that? No, they don't think like you do they or not?

Or is this just the reality where we find ourselves? They don't think like this. I've called out, you know, Senator Frederick on Thursday also during a, I'm on a joint education for Ways and Means and Senator Frederick, if you don't know who Senator Frederick is, this is a guy that's asked for reparations. He's... I don't know how much black. He's very white looking, but he's black, I guess. And he wants reparation. He loves DEI. And he tried to tell me... He backtracks back and forth. I have this on my social media too that, you know, a teacher, if they have the same skin color, basically, we know that students learn

better. And I called them out, and then he backtracked and said, well, no, no, no, no, but if you keep listening to my video, he says it again, that children learn better when they relate and the teacher has the same skin color. I'm like, how racist can you be? How racist can you be? Well, as long as the cash is dumped into your account from reparations. I just love this. It'd just be amazing that people who were never slaves would be demanding money from people who never owned slaves. You've got to love this logic here.

So Oregon is going to continue to be the progressive open-air toilet that it was even before the start of the legislation. Now, speaking of open- toilets, House Bill 315, is there any conversation about modifying this? I know that you've been working on this one. This is the homelessness rules bill, which essentially took what happened in Boise and made it state law. So we have a harsher or we have more restrictions on cities trying to keep from being taken over by homeless than other states do. Our states make it hard to deal with this. Is there any reform happening in this legislative session, or are they just saying no and just locking it up tight?

Well, I'm going to pull the bill, my repeal to the floor again today. I promise I would do that and I'm not going to stop, but Pam Marsh is the controller of that committee and she puts out this canned letter of how well, what Rogue Retreat's doing and blah, blah, blah. Hey, listen, repealing House Bill 3115 just means that Rogue Retreat would be taking care of more of the hardcore ones and that you would be able to actually restrict. You know, you'd be able to do some kind of restriction in the various cities rather than the semi-anarchy that we're witnessing right now here, Dwayne. Yeah, well, of course, the way I look at it, she has no data to show how well Rogue Retreat's doing.

I mean, the mission in Grants Pass before all this 3-1-15 was doing 35 or plus percent. I hope Brian's not listening. I'm quoting Rob, I know it's pretty high. And they don't use any taxpayer funding, you know what I'm saying? So I would say Rogue Retreat is probably not. We don't know what the numbers are. So we got numbers that Jackson County didn't report their homeless numbers this year. So I don't know if their number of homelessness went up before, but the last few years it's always gone up. So I would say we're not making for dollars for achievement. We're not really making it and we have more people homeless in the

state of Oregon. We know that already. So the spending does not correlate with the outcome right now. So... Well you could say that with a lot of things coming from the state, just like the spending on education doesn't correlate with the outcomes given the massive amount of money going into the school system, right? When Pam Marsh sends this canned letter out to all our constituents here, I'm to correlate with the outcomes given the massive amount of money going into the school system, right? Yeah. When Pam Marsh sends this canned letter out to all our constituents here, I'm like, they're getting irritated because when they can see the streets, it's not hard to walk down here.

And it's not hard to walk here and say to them to see homeless or stabbing with 12 people get stabbed here a week or so ago, or zombies everywhere. It's not hard to see that's not working or watch the video out of Portland where businesses are leaving they're just tone deaf to the outcome and say again it's all about how much money we can spend and we can find them a place to stick them in a house what they call it and now we can't see them but they're still doing the same thing. Yeah agreed now state representative Dwayne Y Younger with me this morning.

Duane, so you're going to try to pull forward again or pull your bill ahead then for another vote on repealing 3115 which would certainly be a more sensible way of dealing with homelessness. What about the wildfire map being held hostage because the Democrats want to be able to grab the kicker and shove it into wildfire spending so that way they can use the general funding for paying for more NGOs to help the homeless, I guess. But what say you? Yeah, I pulled that bill for the second time to the floor last Monday and of course it got voted down on party lines again. It shows you where...it shows where the Democrats care about again. They are still holding it hostage.

We have not received or given any what they want from us. I'm assuming these are backdoor things happening from the Speaker of the House and maybe some few other people. I'm on the side and I'm not going to spend any, I'm not going to tax our people. So you're not in favor then of getting the wildfire map repealed in exchange for half the kicker or whatever it was they were talking about. It's quite a bit of money. The damage is already done, obviously. They've already damaged our property, right? You know what I'm saying?

The insurance companies have already taken advantage of us. They've already done the damage. Now we just want to repeal because it's a bad policy. I'm not going to hold our people, you know, the constituents hostage from the taxes more. We have money. It comes down to a priority in the party. It's just like ODOT, and I know we haven't talked about ODOT,

it's the same thing. What are their priorities are about spending? Just like you, you're not gonna spend more than you make. That's where it comes, you know, that's what we gotta look at. You work within your budget and we have laws. And our budget for the state is like, I think doubled in 10 years.

So it's a spending problem. It's not a revenue problem. Is there anything, though, that the Democrats could do to the Republicans? Now, I know you're willing to walk if they, you know, if you get that caucus together, you'd be willing to deny quorum and put their, hold their feet to the fire fire but is there anything for the majority of Republicans that they won't take from the Democrats they'll just take it and just well I have to be here to do my job what is the general feeling there that you get among your caucus I know you're probably a lonely guy yeah I I'm trying to stay away from talking about the caucus, but I'm very frustrated, Bill, there's several, there is people in our caucus that they look at it as like, well, if we

make it not so bad, it's like getting a thousand cuts. Well, your job as a state rep or state senator is not to sit there and make horrible bills, maybe just a little less bad, all right? No, so it's the fight for your constituents, it's to hold the line. And we have, you know, some of these people that I don't... Well, it's not that bad. I'm like, well, they come back next year, it's not that bad. And then they come back the next year, it's not that bad. Well, in 10 in ten years it gets it's horrible. They got exactly everything they wanted And that's what we've been for the last 40 years or so, you know Not that bad has got us to where we're at today They keep chipping away. It's they're okay with

Chipping away and making it, you know small cuts and small cuts and small cuts and eventually they want everything they got. Yeah. All right. Let me go back then to the wildfire thing. The damage has already been done to people. You are right. The damage has already been done by the even creation of that wildfire map.

Democrats want lots of money from people in exchange for getting rid of the wildfire map. Would it be better to just block the wildfire map. Would it be better to just block the wildfire map repeal bill rather than give them their money at this point? What is your opinion on that politically? I would agree right there. The map is done. No matter what we do, they believe everything was going on is climate change. I mean, it's a street of climate change that we need to do this fire stuff because of climate. It's nothing to do with, you know, management of the forest.

It's got nothing to do with, you know, less logging or our policies or having homeless live in the woods or any of those things. It's all about climate change. It's climate, climate, climate. And you can see that in through all their policies is climate change. So I don't think by repealing the map is going to change what they want to do to us. I mean, look in the water, they want to go after us after water. They want to put meters on water. Everything they do is harmful. So it's just one attack after another, after another, after another, and many of your Republican colleagues are just saying, well, it's not that bad. Okay.

Boy, I think you got a lot of battered, battered spouse syndrome people within the caucuses, both in the Senate and the state rep. Well, you know... I don't think they want to fight. I'm here to fight. I mean, they put me here... I know. That's what I admire about you. It's why you nickname me junkyard dog, right? Yeah. You can see my speeches. I call them out. I give speeches. But you know what? It also has to do with our kids. It has to do with the people too. The people have to stand up and rise up.

That's what has to happen. It can't be 24 Republicans here trying to yell or whatever. You can imagine we had 3,000 or 4,000 people here in this building saying hell no, things would change. But we have a citizens day and we get like 50 people here and I know Republicans work. I get it. But that's what has to happen. We have to get mad. I mean, well, you know, well, maybe the next thing you can do is that make it a mandatory day off to come and for everyone. Private sector too. Mandatory day off to go to the state legislature. There you go. Maybe that's the next thing.

I hate to be saying that, but I know people got to feed their family. But I mean, when there is people here, you have Democrat representatives a high from conservative people. They don't want to talk to them. Well, you know, I'd love to go up to something like that. But, I mean, you know, my work team, I got my job is here, unfortunately, in Salem, not in Salem. You got to get a bill, you got to help your mom. You got family things to do. We're trying to live our life. But at the end of the time, we're getting beat up by Democrats that are, you know, most of these Democrats are coming here, they're all from the unions.

Look at their backgrounds. They worked in the union sector somewhere, somewhere to do with some kind of union, whatever, or public employees unions, or something to do with that, and now they're here. So most Republicans that are here... And to give Lillian Morgan, I Morgan, she had to drive a school bus to come here. Stay on the side because you don't make very much money here. You have to either have money or have another side gig to make money.

It's not easy to send everybody here. Dwayne, it's a frustrating report. I'm sorry, I wish there was better news to say here, but it just sounds to me as if we still don't really have a sufficiently firm opposition stance taken from the Republicans. And I know people are saying, and then you'll write these, many of these Republicans, and they say, well, get in touch with your Democrats. Oh, no, the Democrats are doing exactly what their constituents want, for the most part.

We have to understand that. Yeah, the Democrats, Pam Marsh is doing exactly what her constituents want. I'm just saying, they want this stuff. So she's sticking to the line. Republicans are not sticking to the line. And that's the point. We need to say, hey,

these are our principles and we're going to do what we were. We say we were conservative people. We're conservative thinking. We're not going to vote on bad bills. We're not going to vote on tolling for bridges. We're not going to give cover for Democrats. Yeah. And don't sell out on, you know, the wildfire map in exchange for taking half the kicker. That's bullsh-time. Okay? Forget about it. Yes. Okay? All right.

Dwayne, I know you've got to get on the floor here a little bit, but I'm sorry it's a more frustrating talk than usual, but I want people to understand the dynamic, and that's why I appreciate you keep pulling these things out. If you can get 3115, get some movement on that, that would be great to see. I know it's a tough thing, but at least you're doing it. At least you're throwing what you can get 3115, get some movement on that, that would be great to see. I know it's a tough thing, but at least you're doing it. At least you're throwing what you can. Well, if we can bring it back next year's session, we're not going to stop. We want our cities back.

We want the local people we voted in to control and manage this situation in our cities, not someone from Salem to do that. Indeed. State Representative DeWayne Younger. With all that said, frustrating report, but thanks for checking in, okay? We appreciate it. All right. Thanks, Bill.