Chapo Trap House - 937 - Killing Santa feat. Arjun Singh & David Sirota (5/27/25)

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Will & Felix catch up on Democrats’ commitment to burning millions of dollars in search of a crumb of clout from the pod-mano-sphere, and John Fetterman’s chronic senate absenteeism as he searches for good vibes. Then, we’re joined by Lever News’ David Sirota & Arjun Singh to discuss their new podcast series Tax Revolt & the “Big Beautiful Bill” working its way through congress. We look at the devastating consequences of GOP tax policies, the increasing unpopularity of such drastic cuts, and how they fit in with the 50 year conservative war against taxes. Find all things Lever News at: https://www.levernews.com/ And listen to Tax Revolt here or wherever you get pods: https://the.levernews.com/tax-revolt/

All I wanna do is hit the All I wanna do is hit the Happy Memorial Day everyone. It's Monday, May 26th and we've got some chopper for you. In just a little bit I'll be talking with David Sirota and Arjun Singh of Leather News. About 50 years of American tax policy. But before then, let's talk some news of the day. Felix, I want to begin here with there are two articles in the New York Times from this

week essentially about all of the money that the Democrats are throwing at the problem of clout and how can they manufacture some clout, a crumb of clout, please? And this is all sort of adjacent to the holy grail of the Democratic Party right now, which is the liberal Joe Rogan. And I guess I want to begin here because I find it fascinating that what four or five years ago Bernie Sanders ran a campaign that was overwhelmingly popular with young American men and I don't know like was there anything really in his campaign or

his like profile that gave you the impression that he was specifically trying besides like not being a Democrat I mean like this entire thing is so fucking stupid because it's people are just asking the same question in you know slightly different ways the past year now which is why are these explicitly like not Democrat forms of media like why isn't there a Democrat version? Like, if somebody asked, like, oh, why isn't there an event like a pro, like, Hillsong Church prestige TV show? People would go, well, you're fucking stupid. That's why. But for some reason, there's like, like people are still trying to crack this one.

Yeah. And I mean, I guess I bring this up because like, it didn't seem to me that like Bernie appeal the Bernie's campaign it ran as a Democrat and had overwhelming support from young people overall but young men specifically I don't think he was doing anything to like purposely be like I'm running a campaign for young white men and young white men only. No, that was the first time. Yeah, but in 2020 that fact that he appealed to young men and young white men was used as as like that was the evidence for why he was a dangerous demagogue and ideologue who must be kept away from power because anything that appeals to young men has to be inherently fascist. So I think it's funny that like four years later, they're getting ready to spend tens of millions of dollars to be like, how do we get some young men back in the game here? And I want to begin with this piece is from the New York Times.

The headline is six months later, Democrats are still searching for a path forward. And there was this line in it that I thought was amazing. It says the prospectus for one new $20 million effort obtained by The Times aims to revert $20 million. $20 million. Okay. Do you remember, God damn, do you remember like sort of after both us and Comtown kind of like took off, like post-election, I would say, in 2016 and after the first 18 months after that, we would hear

all these stories from just around all these places that have now either went under or consolidated to just running AI or other aggregated content. If would, they, if someone had like 50,000 followers on Twitter and was an article writer, they would give them like $70,000 to start a podcast. And we always felt like, how does that take $70,000? $70 is all you need. Yeah. Like what the fuck? Yeah. And they would never get made.

And it was always like, I don't begrudge the people for taking the money. I just, I always figured, um, because it was always, this is not a comment on the women themselves, but it was always women getting it. And I did always figure it was like, uh, you're so tiny. I could put it in my pocket, guy. Who has command of capital. But it's, you know, now 20 million? Well, I mean, 20 million to do a thing that can't be done? I mean, like, I just think I find it all so surreal because it was like, I feel like up until like a year ago, it was like, if you were popular among young men, that was a sign that you were evil. And now they're going to spend $20 million to be like, we need to appeal

to young men. Yeah. I do remember when Rebecca Traster wrote that article about us after the election in 2016, which was, it was basically like, we have that whole episode talking about like Hillary and Podesta and Robbie Moog and the Democratic Party. And we were like, they're freaks. They should, you know, they should die. And Rebecca Traister wrote this article that was like, I was shocked to hear them say that the black grandmothers that knock on doors and volunteered voting centers are freaks that should be killed.

Wasn't there a line there about like leaving Thanksgiving dinner to go to our jack-off goon cave or something like that? Or that was another article. I don't know. Yeah, there were a lot of articles at the time. But it is, yeah, no. I mean, Nick pointed this out on Comptown's post-election special in 2016. I'm doing a lot of relitigating 2016, which I always say people

shouldn't. But I'm not relitigating. I mean, they're spending $20 million to relitigate it again, but they're coming up with the opposite answer. Right. I don't think, you know, we don't think there is any way to reform this party. If they realize their hypocrisy, when they hear it, we just… If you remember this stuff at all, it's very funny. I remember Nick talking about all those… Pretty much the stated ethos of the party. Some people would come out and say it during the 2016 election was like, we realize we don't need white men anymore. Well, turns out they do. And to that end, it says here, the prospectus for one new $20 million effort obtained by

the Times aims to reverse the erosion of democratic support among young men, especially online. It is codenamed SAM, short for Speaking with American Men, a Strategic Plan, and promises investment to study the syntax, language, and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces. It recommends— this is 20 million dollars keep in mind, it recommends buying advertisements in video games among other things. Oh no. Oh my god. Because like, wait a second, like wouldn't that just annoy you if you're a young man and you're playing like...

I literally, I just retweeted someone, a computer guy, a good computer guy, believe me. I don't know him, but I can tell he's a good computer guy because he's talking, he's able to put into computer guy terms the exact stuff I complain about, which is how condescending and intrusive the average user experience is on Windows machines, but also, also like everything like your car and Apple product, whatever everything you shoved in your face. Have you ever pressed the start menu on your, your Windows PC? You will get this new, this thing called top news, which is just like, here's some news for dumb dumbs that you might, might like. And, and now you're like, there are a lot of now, there are ads and like, it's like

anything when I see an ad and something that didn't used to have an ad, I make a mental note that in a post-apocalyptic scenario, I will enslave anyone associated with that corporation. We need we need act blue microtransactions in all video games. Yeah like are they gonna I guess roblox? The people who play roblox are nine years old. Get them young. Get them young now. You have microtransactions you can use crypto to purchase new skin. You can purchase the big beautiful Bailey skin where you can be a big giant golden retriever in Fortnite or something like that. Will there be like a Democratic Legends pass in Fortnite? You could get like Al Smith. Oh, that's how they could do it. They could like, they could sort of like throw a bone to

racist guys and be like, do reverse Dinesh D'Souza. And be like, we were actually the guys who were trying to keep segregation going. And then once they're on board, like slowly introduce William Jennings Bryant. But it says, yeah, buying advertisements in video games. Now, when I saw that, I was like, God, what a stupid idea. But then I had a brilliant idea that I'm going to give out for free to the Democrats right now. I think they should just create their own video game.

And my idea for a video game is based on the abundance movement. I think the abundance guys need to fund and like a gaming studio to develop an abundance themed video game and the game would basically be like a cross between Sim City or Cities Skylines like it's like a city building game and like a grand theft auto open-world game and like basically it's like you have you have a city that you need to run and manage but in order to make neighborhoods safe for new development you need to like be in the streets stalking and killing elderly people who live in rent controlled apartments. That's a great oh my god. Do you know? Are you familiar with the game hatred? No, I don't

think so. So it's a really stupid game they made in 2015. And it was it you know, it was in the radioactive afterglow, like the nuclear winter of gamer games. And some guy was like, oh yeah, we'll check this out. And made this, I know some video game critic who I like has said that he thinks it's, he's British. So he said he thinks it's a piss take, which if it is a piss take, it's hilarious because it portrays a sort of like, if Danzig was fat, that's the hero of the game.

A fat Danzig wearing a floor length leather coat, and it starts with a monologue and he goes, my name is not important. I have always hated humanity. You know, like he's like a villain in... I've always hated scarcity. Yeah, he's like a villain in Cobra. That's how bad he is.

Like, it's like, why... The Axe Gang. Yeah, like why have you compiled all this weaponry? I love killing pigs, man. I love murder. I'm bad. I've always hated birthdays. And the more people you kill, like you streak together, the longer your mass... It starts as a mass shooting, and then eventually, if you don't die, if you keep your streak going,

you get to the town's nuclear reactor and blow up the town. Like you kill like millions of people. And it was, you know, the developer said, I was making a point, which I don't know what that was because the game apparently wasn't very good. I haven't played it, but it should be, yeah. SimCity, but also hatred. Yeah, across SimCity but also hatred. Yeah,

across the city and like manhunt or something like that. Yeah, you're stalking and killing like elderly pensioners who live in rent control departments. And then like you're you're you're like, you you find like a neighborhood of like a single unit, single story residential units. And you can like plant bombs, you can do like a demolition and just like level a whole city block and bring in the bulldozers, get the new construction going. Let's build things.

Oh my okay. How about this? Not important. He had sex before he killed all those people in hatred. Like they could, this would be a part of the hatred franchise. That's how you would get like people still care about Gamergate, which is 150 million Americans on board. And like GTA, with every house you demolish, with every new construction project that you start over the graves of poor people or the elderly, you have a NIMBY

rating goes up and roving gangs of NIMBY rating goes up and like roving gangs of NIMBY authorities like try to track you down with helicopters and tanks. Yeah, yeah, your NIMBY rating, that's like your star system, but your NIMBY power meter is like how many, how many Hector rings you can take before you stop. You can get resupplied with ammo drops from the zero G factories. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Like the longer the rampage goes on, the more like abundance things become real. So like, yeah, by by the end, they're like they're giving you like,

you know, nanotechnology that they developed in another galaxy with the a solar sail powered abundant starship, Astrolab. The hero of the game, Not Important Jr., because when did Hatred come out? 2015. That was 32 years ago. So Not Important Jr. is 32. He's old enough to be like an Iglesia sub stack subscriber. And like what happened to... He tried to get circumcised and they cut his dick off. And so, he's like, well, no point in my life. And so, he's like, well, I might as well... I'm not going to be like my awful dad, NotImported. I am going to be my own man. I'm going to cleanse the city of of NIMBYs and horrible rent seeking old people. Any car, boom, blam, boom-o. Student protesters, blam-o.

All of it. All regulation. I don't know what weapon that is. It's all getting paper shredder. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that would be very cool. Ah, shit. Here we go again. Worst place in the world. Yeah, NIMBY destroyer. That's that that's the video game. That's my pitch. And I don't know. I mean, I can like, it's all this thing like what they're saying, like, oh, we're studying the syntax of what creates virality in these communities. It's just like,

Joe Rogan was a comedian and an MMA commentator for like a decade, like decades before he started a podcast that caught on. Like, virality is not we've talked about this so many times, like, virality is not something that you can just like reverse engineer by studying what made other things go viral in the past. Or you can, but you make something like Mr. Beast. It's something that explicitly has no political valence or anything. It's content in its purest, most meaningless form.

If you want to make something that everyone will watch and like, okay, make a children's movie where also they're like in the 45 minutes in there's just a 10 minute sequence of homeless guys getting hit by cars. And then the children, the CGI children's movie resumes, no reference to the snuff films you just saw, and then it resumes and then credits and then hardcore pornography. And that's it. That's like the judging by, you know, economic trends and what everyone likes. That would be like 200 million people would pay for that. But what, you know, what candidate, what idea are you attaching to that? Well, I mean, in the other article from the New York Times,

Democrats throw money at problem countering GOP clout online. You know, like I said, it says here, and so far there are still more ideas than hard committed money. One democratic operative described compiling a spreadsheet of 26 active projects related to creators, over a dozen of which are new since November. But a few of the efforts have ties to major- Like they were just born? Well, I mean, like they just, they just came out of the content shoot, the content orifice.

Yeah. And it says the first out of the gate has been Chorus, a well-publicized liberal nonprofit group co-founded by the Democratic influencer Brian Tyler Cohen. Now, when I mentioned this, Felix, you said you were familiar with this guy. I am not. Who is Brian Tyler Cohen? Brian Tyler Cohen is like, he's sort of like a, like they, they brought the Krastensteins in front of a, like they tested them before a live studio audience. And they were like, okay, well, a lot of people like them, but some people think they're too weird. They don't get why they were spending all that time

running a Justin Bieber fan site. You know, all the things that make them fun, they were like, that stuff's too weird. Who can we get that's like taller, but has a less impressive body and he kind of sucks? And that's Brian Tyler Cohn. I had one interaction with him, sort of like Adam Gentleman. He posted a Bloomberg ad. You remember those Bloomberg ads that were like, Donald Trump says he's a billionaire,

but he only has $900 million. We're going to prove it. Whereas Mike has 30. Yeah. $30 billion. Yeah. He posted one of those and he was like, this is awesome. It was like January of 2020, February or something. He posted it.

I was like, this is fucking stupid. You're an idiot. I quoted him and he's like, oh yeah Well, I'm trying to stop Trump you asshole Something like that good job Well, I mean I sorry like there's just one more line from the other article where it says this is this is after it recommends Buying advertisements in video games. It says above all we must shift from a moralizing tone. Gee, how's that working out? Yeah. I can think of one area. I'm speaking. Is that the next one? It's not

moralizing. It's just like annoying and immoral. It's kind of the opposite. Last year, I like another one of the names of these companies are great. It says, hoping to move away from the current didactic hall monitor style of democratic politics that turns off younger audiences and media, which is the name of this company, and media will focus on directly funding influencers and co-producing their content, opening a creator talent agency and starting by inking deals with four flagship creators, according to a business plan shared with the Times. And then there's just one more of the name of one of these programs.

A program called Double Tap Democracy, meanwhile, is working with 2000- Is that funded by Eddie Gallagher? Yeah, right. What a name. What a name. What a name. It is working with 2000 mostly apolitical creators who generally have smaller followings.

Who do you think the funniest guy we could trick them into funneling money into? Because like obviously this is just any day. They announce something like this every two months where they're like, the Democratic Party is going to try to fix its problem with you know blah blah blah. And it's always something like this. Something where there's like six layers of like talent search and new partnerships and flagships and advertising and whatever the fuck. We always hear about stuff like this right? What you know let's pretend that it's not just a money laundering program to get money to WestExec. What guy would we like to get this bounty to? Ooh, that's a tough one.

Do you have anyone in mind? I was thinking about this and the guys that we joke about a lot, you know, like the Mikeys or the what? Oh, Mikey Miles would be so good. That's a problem. But if you gave him all that money, like something terrible would happen. You should be in the abundance movie. You should star in the abundance movie. Do you think he lives in a rent control department? I don't think he lives in a legal domicile. He lives underneath the stairs somewhere. It's really scary. Yeah. I think if he got $20 million, he would hire Blackwater to kidnap some woman who he saw on the subway eight years ago.

So I don't think that's responsible. That's what young men want though. That's what they're responsible for. Yeah. He solved his problems. The other guys, I don't know. It's a similar problem. It's the same reason why Br want like Branson's idea of whole island.

The island for guys like Brian Pumper where it's like they're too much of a danger to society but we like observing them. They have like, they're like holograms they can interact with. That's why we need that is because you cannot give these guys $20 million. We cracking eggs on all these regulations. Yeah. Yeah. Like I, again, like I, the idea of them going, Oh no, we spent all the money on Brian pumper.

Why didn't we Google him? It's very funny and almost worth it, but it's not, you know? I think it would be funny to get them to give it to like a down drought and fave star guy. Like someone who got run off the site, not for anything truly heinous, but something like ridiculous. You know, I think like that would be, that would be a shift away from the moralizing tone if we like bring back some of our canceled faves. Yeah. Fave star guys. I don't know like a reformed whole island type like demonious maybe good.

Yeah. Yeah. I think yeah. The problem that is a problem with all the crazy guys we like is if they weren't a danger to society they wouldn't have caught our eye you know that I think maybe those you know those guys who I've been posting who post like the the fucking like the PSA is for stupids right or stupids by stupids yeah I think those guys would be good well actually I did I just see a comment from someone earlier

today on Twitter that I thought was actually a great idea, then rather than trying to sort of reverse engineer a liberal Joe Rogan, they should invest money in you Felix to to create like a content mill of cute animal videos on Facebook to sort of ingratiate yourself to Facebook moms who could be open to you know, more liberal politics if they see like eight or nine videos of seals or built wrongs every day. Binturongs I believe they're called.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, the bearcats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, bearcats. Yeah, I mean, it would be pretty funny if they gave me $20 million. I won't we have to just start an LLC. By the way, I love Israel and I think it's the only democracy in the Middle East. Yeah, I think we have to I think we must support it. We must support Israel.

It's the most important thing. I think that all old people. I'm so sick of the anti-Semitism on the left, by the way. It's got to stop. All the old people that live in rent-controlled apartments are like a cancer on this country. We need to chop the tall trees, and by that I mean anyone in a rent-controlled department.

When I think about an 80-year-old in a rent-controlled apartment, their body, I just close my eyes and I see like a rat or an octopus. An octopus gripping around the economy. We do gotta get to Sirota a second, but Felix, I got one more article for you and this one is really good. You ready for this one? I think I know which one this is.

Fetterman activated. I didn't think after like weeks of like huge big profiles documenting his mental breakdown could get any funnier, but they just keep coming up with articles on this guy. And there are so many fucking great quotes in this one. And he keeps talking to them. This article came out about what a buffoon you are. And it's so bad that your wife has to come out and be like, yes, he can tie his shoes. If that happened, like it's to the verge of you having to resign, you then talk to people for the follow up.

The headline this is in the New York Times from last week. Federman, often absent from Senate, says he has been shamed into returning. So like, like, first of all, imagine being a senator, and being like, being capable of being shamed into doing something or shamed into doing your job in this case. But it says here, when Senator, when Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania showed up at a hearing on May 8th with Sam Altman, the chief executive of Open AI, his colleagues were surprised to see him. Until then, his chair on the dais of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee had sat empty all year.

But under intense scrutiny about his mental health and ability to function in his job, Mr. Fedderman has been in damage control mode, attending hearings and votes that he had been routinely skipping over the last past year. His colleagues, some of whom privately described him as absent from the Senate and troubled when he is there, are trying to be supportive. Good thoughts Senator Federman. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, said encouragingly after Mr. Federman finished his questioning Mr. Altman. Good thoughts Senator Federman. Good thoughts Senator Federman. That's a very noticeable choice of words.

Love that thought, Mr. Fetterman. When I saw there was Klobuchar, I would just, I would give anything to hear her unfiltered thoughts on him. Yeah. Mr. Fetterman does not enjoy participating in these hearings that he has sat through in recent weeks as he seeks to prove that he is capable of performing the job he was elected to do until 2028. In fact, at a critical moment for the country, he appears to have little interest in the day-to-day work of serving in the United States Senate. In an interview, Mr. Fetterman, who represents 13 million people, said he felt he had been unfairly shamed into filling senatorial duties such as participating in committee work and casting procedural votes on the floor

Dismissing them as a performative waste of time Instead he said he was showing up because people in the media have weaponized his absenteeism on Capitol Hill to portray him as mentally unfit when in fact It is a product of a decision to spend more time at home and less on the mundane tasks of being a senator Okay, the more time at all like less on the mundane tasks of being a senator. Okay, the quote here. More time at home? Like, John, we read the article. Yeah, you did. Yeah.

I'd love to spend more time in my, I think his family is the one giving all, telling everyone in the Senate, you've gotta get him in this Sam Altman era. Yeah. He's been a fucking nightmare around the house. He's walking, he's doing figure eights for eight hours in the living room.

Oh my, that has to, you know how mad wives get about, you know, carpet trauma? Yeah. Think about the big eight in all the linoleum in their house. They've weaponized his apatentia. So here's the quote from Fetterman. My doctor warned years ago, efforts public that you're getting help for depression, people will weaponize that. That doesn't sound like something a doctor would say. Hey, just so you know.

Yeah, this is like a doctor, you go to a doctor for seeking help for clinical depression. He's like, all right, before we get started, I just want you to know by doing this, everyone's going to turn on you. Right. Yeah. Just so you know, I'm really proud of you for getting help. No one else is. In fact, they're all your enemies, including maybe your family. They might be recording you. He added, it shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.

Why? Your doctor warned you? I love this doctor. Okay, John, no one likes to hear this, but they're all going to laugh at you. Okay, Dr. Wicked. He was an outspoken supporter of Israel after the October 7th terrorist attack and started picking more fights at the left. His pro-Israel stance gave him a sense of purpose on Capitol Hill and a job he otherwise did not enjoy.

And then at some point in the middle of last year, he pulled even further back from participating in many aspects of the Senate, like attending committee meetings, casting votes, and holding town halls. This became the Belichick girlfriend story of politics. He quipped it. Yeah, it's another thing in the news, dummy. It just keeps going and going. After his discharge from Walter Reed in 2023, Mr. Fetterman embraced the role as a stigma busting spokesman for the power of treatment and used his challenges and opportunity to bridge partisan political divides. Red or blue. If you have depression, get help, please. You said it. Yeah. If you have depression, just stop doing your job. Just withdraw from

life entirely. Yeah. Just fuck off on all your responsibilities. I would call what he is stigma busting. I think it's the opposite. I think it's brought some much needed stigma back to all of this. Yeah. Mr. Fetterman, who has said that being away from his family is heartbreaking and the worst part of the job.

Really? Really, John? Says he missed votes to spend more time at home with his children. Just two weeks ago, we covered an article about how he fucked off on his kid's birthday party to visit the grave of someone he knew in 1993! What is it going to be next year, John? I missed all my votes so I could be there for my family. Also, I don't know why you're covering a story about me missing another birthday.

I had a once in a lifetime hot air balloon trip to take. The ambassador to St. Kitts. When I had my near-death experience, I realized that you have to do bucket list items every day. One of my bucket list items every day. One of my bucket list is a hot apple. I guess you want me to go on my grave regretting. He seethes over the idea that he must show up for Monday night votes, a staple of the Senate calendar

often known as bed checks, a term he finds paternalistic and demeaning, yeah, I'm sure from when he was at the laughing academy. Yeah, no, I got it. That's negative associations. He thinks showing up for a vote, they're gonna make him take pills or something. It's, it's demeaning. Now show me your tongue, Mr. Fetterman. Say, ah, did you swallow those?

It's demeaning if you don't need it. Which you clearly do, John. He says, uh, the votes I have missed are overwhelmingly procedural. They're even called bed check votes. I had to make a decision getting here and sticking my thumb in the door for three seconds for a procedural vote or spend a Monday night as a dad daughter date. Ew. I would go visit my dad instead of a throwaway vote. He said, is it dad daughter?

Are you the daughter? What the fuck are you talking about? Get your lies straight. My parents like to make me dress up as a girl. Earrings also seem to him like a waste of time. Senator. I mean, like, you know that, that I honestly can't really disagree with the senator, but you know what? Like, you're elected to be a senator, so I don't know what the fuck else you're doing with your life.

So, like, just like seeing you, like, shuffle around DC feeding ducks and stuff, like, in your giant basketball shorts, just like staring at the fucking ground, like, do some fucking work. Just like, even if it's a waste of time, just show up. You fucking loser. I repeat myself again. But John, were you drafted into this role? No one warned me. There's a bunch of stupid bullshit you have to do as a senator.

You know, those three months a year where we work, we have to look. Most of it is just looking busy. If only there was, there were multiple books written about this. It reminds me of Kenny Powers in season one of Eastbound and Down with like, he gets done with his first day of work being a substitute gym teacher. And he's like, being out there in the real world, you know, working a job takes it out of you. And he's got like six beers, like just littered about the living room of the house he's living in. One of my favorite, um, I love how the serenity sort of always do just like, they would use

something like a flashback or something like very, don't use it two or three times effort. And they only one time do they let you hear a character's internal monologue. And it's when Vito has to work in honesty. Oh yes. Oh my god. He's just like, don't check the clock. Don't check the clock. Five more minutes.

And he's like, should be an hour gone now. And it's like one minute is time. Oh my god. I was talking to Brendan the other night about how much I like the Vito subplot, like the Johnny Kicks subplot. It's really good. Because I love it because it shows that his one chance at happiness or being a normal person is undone by having to do a real job for five minutes.

Yeah, that's it. And then he's just back to New Jersey, kills a guy along the way for no reason. Just because it ends up being tortured to death by Phil Leotardo because he had to stall wood for an hour. It's not even... it's not his kids. Exactly. This is just the idea of like working five days a week. There are so many funny things in the beat like the thing he says when he gets caught

for the first time. It's a joke. Guys, it's a joke. I was talking to someone about this where it's like, what if it was? What if there was an entire storyline that Vito is doing these awesome pranks? He's dressed in the cruising outfit with the leather policeman's hat and vest. Guys, it's a joke. What kind of joke would it be? Like on who? I mean, maybe he was right.

Maybe there were a bunch of awesome pranks. But also, I like when Phil's wife is just nagging him about killing Vito without saying it. And she's like, father said there's nothing gay about hell. And Phil goes, that's a good one. He didn't think of that himself, I guarantee you. So back to Federman here. It says, hearings also seem to him like a waste of time.

Senators question witnesses in order of seniority, leaving Mr. Federman, a first term lawmaker, feeling that by the time his turn comes around, there's nothing left to ask. He has told people- Oh yeah, none of his awesome questions. He said, listen to this, he has told people it feels like making a plate out of the dregs of a buffet bar. What a perfect analogy for that book though.

Being in the Senate is like eating a buffet when everyone's already taking all the bread rolls. He's taking all the other fried chicken. No one has used them. All that's left is a macaroni salad. Yeah. No one has used a more revealing metaphor since Bill Maher was talking about Israel and he's like, I was like, somebody's got to slap a bitch when she gets out of Palestine. Palestine is like when a hooker starts going through your wallet when she thinks you're asleep. First they want the West Bank, then they want your watch. Okay, it's good. Yeah, that's my favorite line of the whole piece. So it says, Mr.

Federman has also foregone events in his state. He has avoided hosting town halls with his constituents, because he does not want to get heckled by protesters. I just want to be in a room full of love, he has told people. I just want to be in a room full of love. That is literally from mom's basement. Dude, a room full of people who actually love you is fucking always going to be a better room full of sharks that are hungry as

For how slow cloud cloud sharks man this cloud shit is funny Says I just want to be in a room full of love a room full of people that actually love you is way Hunger than a house full of sharks that are hungry as fuck of sharks that are hungry as fuck. It's like, you say like, well, okay, we all would like to just be in a room full of people who love us and or to just be adored by people. But like, John, like in the in the article, it says, like, it's like at every possible turn, you've just been like, I think we should kill all balustrades. I think they're rats. I mean, they're like spoiled milk, just got to throw them in the garbage, go on to the buffet.

That's full of good food. If they didn't want their kids, maybe they shouldn't have started reading the Koran. Despite attempts from his friends in Congress to draw him out, Mr. Fetterman still does not attend weekly Democratic caucus lunch in the Capitol. He quit the caucus group chat, he said, because he couldn't figure out how to turn off the notifications and most of the conversation. You know how to do anything, John? Jesus fuck.

Wait, you'll love this. It says, it's not like they were on a chain planning to bomb Yemen, he said, referring jokingly to leaked signal chats among top Trump officials. It's mostly just happy birthdays Some days it's just emojis, you know Birthdays he hates he can't stand it What is his issue with them like most people in that chat don't even know it's their birthday I'm sure you could become the locus of attention. Like, you already are. Everyone is already like,

John, how can we get you to stop wandering into the duck pond? Come to the moderate caucus bowling night. And you're like. He's like, just don't point to it. Just throw a ball and pins go down. It's pointless. What the fuck? No one even cares if you win or you strike.

I just wish I could be in a total world full of my dad Wasn't everyone my fucking dad I could bowl a 300 and everyone would still hate me I just want to be in the teacups of my daughter. I want to be in the gravitron with my father I want to play whack-a-mole with my grandfather if he's fucking dead. Speaking of his friends in the Senate, really, really cool dude, Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, said of Mr. Federman, Chuck Schumer is a drooling moron compared to John Federman. Mr. Federman was offended at the suggestion that his Republican friends were exploiting him for political purposes.

That's insulting and patronizing to say there's no political upside for them to be nice to me. They realize what it is and it's a smear. Well, it's like there's no reason for anyone to be nice to you. Yeah, it certainly isn't my personality. That's it. So that's it on Federman activated. The best line for that Federman fake RxK song is I'm the worst member of the Democrat party. That's the real RxK syntax. Oh man, the Democratic party. How much does it cost for an RxK nephew beat placement? Like, wait, less than 20 million dollars.

Yeah, less than 20 million still. Yeah, like a few hundred now. They should just like get him to make the Fetterman Fetterman activated song for real. Oh my god, that'd be so good. Instead of doing that, like, instead of step, like, instead of all the references to doing Molly are replaced with how doll. Yeah, extremely, extremely strong tranquilizer that they give to like, fucking zoo animals or something. The lid of mine. Well, yeah, good luck. Good luck to the Senate friends on helping you man out during his depression

quest. If you are out there on the Hill, can you please try to get like do a Project Veritas style secret recording of Amy, just ask her what she thinks about Senator Dum Dum. She cannot be like in her private moments. Imagine if one of her like millennial staffers was like, Oh, I need to take the day off. My grandparent died or like my cat has to go to the vet. She would she would fucking destroy them. So to see this oaf shuffling around be like, I can't vote on this.

I got a daddy daughter day. It's so the daddy daughter date really just really grossed me out. Is that like signaling? Is he signaling to like evangelicals and he's like, maybe. Yeah, like some purity ball kind of thing. I don't know. That's it's always so like I would just say, like, I would rather just get dinner with my daughter Sorry mr. Budget vote I had to visit pet cemetery Hamster died 30 years ago still thinking about that I'm a staff with it. I have Netflix and dad with my daughter.

And then now, then after that, I want to visit the memorial site for the Hindu. Fucking bullshit tragedy that no one cares about. I won't try going up before I go on my blimp. I got to pay respect to all people who died in a blimp. Every day I'm thinking about thinking about blimps, thinking about dying in a hot air balloon, but it hasn't happened yet. I wish it would. I want to visit Arthur Morgan's grave.

Hero from history. And we don't learn a lot in schools because he's white. And I just, that's bullshit Oh the humanity Yeah, best of luck. Yeah, good luck John All right And one final note before we sign off for today a reminder that our summer t-shirt designs are available for purchase at ChapoTrapHouse.store. You want to be looking fresh and fit this summer on the beach, at the party, on the

block, in your car, in your bed, alone, in a blimp, in a hot air balloon with Mr. Fetterman. You're going to want to check out our new summer t-shirt designs at ChapoTrapHouse.store. All right, moving on. Let's finish up the show with an interview with David Sirota and Arjun Singh about taxes. Let me tell you. Folks we are back and it's time to talk those two certainties in life. Death and taxes. Though they await us all, over the last 50 years the wealthy have done their best to avoid both of them.

Joining us to speak now about this phenomenon from Lever News, it's our friend David Sirota and Arjun Singh. Fellas, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. So the new the new podcast series you guys have is tax revolt, which takes like a sort of the last 50 years or so of a sort of tax revolt against the idea of income tax against the pushing tax cuts for the wealthy. And up until very recently, this has been sort of the the spine that connects

like the GOP and the conservative movement of the last 50 years. Now, the show suggested that maybe that may be cracking up at the current moment under Trump, too. But I just like before we get into the history of like the anti-tax rebellion, the men behind it and the ideology it promotes, I'd like to start in the present with the budget bill currently working its way through Congress, Trump's big, beautiful bill. David and Arjun, how would you describe the content of this budget? And does this represent the culmination of

anti-tax, like anti-government efforts? Or is this represent the culmination of anti tax, like anti government efforts, or is this representing some way like a break with the orthodoxy of the anti tax religion? I mean, it completely represents the anti tax movement because this bill only makes sense if you either want to completely dismantle them, the government and ruin a lot of people's lives,

or you are ridiculously rich and you want to pay no taxes. Like if you take the idea that governing is about being responsible and utilizing the government to kind of take care of your country and whatnot, nothing about this bill actually makes sense. What this bill is, is a hodgepodge of all of the different swirling parts of the Republican Party, which as you were saying, well, is just defined by like all these people hating taxes, they might not like each other, they might not agree with each

other, but either they hate the government or they don't want to pay any more money. And so what is kind of hilarious about all of this now is that after Trump made this big play to do this, like Pat Buchanananan. I'm a I'm a secret populist. I'm a working class crusader. Now he's like, oh, shit, a lot of the people who voted for me actually lean on government services. Did you guys realize that all these people like having Medicaid, like having housing assistance?

So that's what I see this bill as well, is that it's just like a hodgepodge of all of the kind of the worst traits of the GOP. It's taking people off of vital services. It's irresponsible spending. It's kicking up the military spending. It's raising money for the stupid border wall. And it just doesn't make sense. There's nobody who says that it makes sense, except either if you're in the cult of Trump or you just yeah, you want to you hate the entire government, you

know, like get rid of all the good things about it and maintain the military and the border wall. I mean, obviously, like it's become sort of a cliche in American culture that taxes are the worst thing ever. Everybody hates paying taxes tax season. It's like everybody gets nailed to that cross. And everyone feels like they're getting ripped off. Yeah. And I mean, obviously, like there's a lot of ideology and like sort of a movement behind that idea. But like, as far as, you know, the world goes or comparable nations, Americans really do.

It doesn't seem like we get a lot in return for our taxes. So like, we're like, there's this antipathy to taxes, like, how does that translate from being like, basically the sole province of robber barons and billionaires? Like, how does that filter down to like regular people who just like, see a huge chunk taken out of their income by the federal government? And they're like, well, gee, I don't have a nuclear missile. What am I like, what is this going for?

I think it has to do with the fact that the entire concept of government has come to represent in people's minds the things that they don't like about government. And a lot of the things that people do like about government are part of what I think has been called the so-called submerged state. So the submerged state are all the ways the government benefits us that are kind of invisible. In fact, you could argue that the best parts of government should be kind of invisible. You're not noticing that they are government. I mean, the classic example is like the roads or the subway system just being good. Like when you call the DMV getting your car or whatever government document you need to do

business in your community, having that be a smooth process, you're not necessarily noticing that as government. The more invisible it is, the better. So you don't necessarily think that this is what I'm actually paying for at the end of the year when I have to sit down and deal with paying my taxes. Now, I do think that is coming up against, hey, as Arjun just said, hey, the government does provide lots of people Medicaid, lots of people in Republican states, lots of Trump voters Medicaid. This is why I think you see Trump himself saying, reportedly, essentially, don't touch Medicaid at all.

Now Trump is, there's clearly some bizarre situation where Trump is saying that even as the bill moving forward through Congress would substantially cut Medicaid, would essentially fund massive tax cuts for the wealthy through cutting this program that the Trump voters and really lots and lots of voters, whether you're for Trump or you're the Democratic voters or whatever, that lots of voters really, really like. So I do think this process is not over. It got through the House. Even Trump is saying,

hey, I think the bill might change a lot in the Senate. I think what he's saying is that this is not the final product because we haven't seen what the politics and maybe the political backlash to this is going to be. But for it to be a different outcome, I think would mean having to have the fundamental anti-tax paradigm of the Republican coalition be broken apart. I mean, we wrote an op-ed about our tax revolt series where we started with this quote from Barry Weiss, which really she was kind of joking about how tax cuts really are the glue that holds that party together.

She said, quote, here's the quote, it was at a Federalist Society meeting. She said, quote, I am a gay woman who is moderately pro-choice. I know that there are some people in this room who don't believe that my marriage should have been legal. And then she said, and that's okay, because we're all Americans who want lower taxes and the room kind of laughed, ha ha ha. But actually what she was saying was a truism, that what holds the Republican coalition together are tax cuts. And if you need Medicaid cuts to finance those tax cuts, that's what you're going to get

out of Congress. And in order for that formula to change, if it does change, you're going to have to deal with not doing those tax cuts, which is a fundamental threat against the glue that holds that whole coalition together. I think, David, something that I want to return to what you said, Will, because I think that's a really important point at the heart of our tax revolt series, though, is that a lot of people who pay taxes feel like they're getting screwed over because they don't see, if you want to call it, to use the corporate term,

your return on investment. When you're living in a country and you're struggling to pay for everything and you see a government that either does not speak to those things or you fundamentally ask yourself, why do I hand over all of this money and I don't see anything? That was what the conservative movement was trying to play on, which was that the tax code is unaffair

and what they wouldn't focus on is it's unfair because people are actively rigging the system. But they saw that all of the people saw that. They would say, you know, our wealthy friends have fancy accountants and they don't have to pay as much taxes as me who just has to work a regular job. And they managed to take control of kind of the discourse and use that in a way

that you see similar to like Elon Musk and Doge, which is like, taxes fund all of the terrible things that the government does. So shouldn't you just get rid of them? And the Democrats, rather than offering kind of a cogent theory as to saying there could be a lot of waste and there is a lot of waste. Things are not managed well. You're right. The tax code sucks and we're just going to cut your taxes too. And so I think that's a very important thing that the public rightfully identifies that they do pay taxes and it's not

being managed well. But the conservative argument is to kind of get rid of all of these things. And that's kind of the heart of what this debate is about. But I think that's an important point you brought up. Yeah, I mean, because like, you talk about the like, submerged state and like, just like, you know, taxes are a toll you pay essentially to like exist in the civilization. But then you may not notice the roads when everything's are when the when

the roads aren't pockmarked with totally, you know, craters, or when the subway is working properly. But like all those things are breaking down. And we still have to pay premiums every month to a health insurance company. So it's just sort of like, what's the return here when it's all going to, I don't know, the Pentagon and border security? I mean, if you look at the like the most recent budget, everything, all basic services that government provides are being cut.

And then all that money is going to a trillion dollar Pentagon budget and border security. I mean I think it speaks to the negative bias about, not negative bias, but as you allude to, you notice government when it's not working, right? But like you know when the subway breaks down or when as you said like the road has lots of potholes, you notice that the government is not working and you say why am I paying my taxes for this if it's not working? I think part of the problem is that what does work in government, what we do inherently

value if we don't necessarily notice it, isn't really sold regularly to us. We're not really reminded of it. And I think of, as in a good example, like the Biden administration. I mean, it passes the Inflation Reduction Act. Certainly not a perfect bill. Certainly lots of problems in it. But there were some really good things in that, that the Biden administration really didn't spend a lot of time kind of selling, reminding people what it would mean. Now there's also an argument that listen, investments take a long time to pay off, right? You're making five, ten

year investments on a six month to one year political election cycle window and those two things are out of sync. But I think over decades the paradigm has been you only notice government when it does bad things, when it's not achieving, and yet you do certainly notice every time in your paycheck that you are paying taxes. And it does go back to a story we tell in Tax Revolt, which is about this sort of Santa Claus theory. Jude Wienyski, the journalist, the conservative journalist, wrote this essay back in the 70s about the idea that essentially

the New Deal Democrats always got to play Santa Claus by coming up with and offering spending programs that ended up being very popular and branding the Democrats to those Santa Claus gifts. And he essentially argued that the Republicans should be the Santa Claus of tax cuts. That tax cuts could be the gifts that the Republicans sold. And I think that worked for him. Yeah, and he said, like, a truism in politics was that you don't shoot Santa Claus. You never shoot Santa. Exactly. And, like, acknowledging that the government spending on programs like social security and like, you know,

the New Deal era of government was very popular and couldn't be attacked directly. But like, it's interesting, like that they created that the tax cuts would be their version of Santa Claus. Like you're giving something to the people. But in doing so, you're also actually attacking in an even more effective way those New Deal social programs programs by removing the you know, the funding for them. Well, and also with this bill, you're actually not giving most people a tax cut. The specific big beautiful bill, which I kind of love that that's the name of it in actual law, is that it gives a massive tax break to the wealthiest people, it cuts all the services, and there is an analysis, I think by the University of Pennsylvania

Everybody else specifically everyone who makes less than a hundred thousand dollars is actually going to see More of their tax burden go because they're going to have to make up for some of the services that they're not doing So in the Santa Claus theory, it's like now the Republican Party is playing Santa Claus But everyone's just getting coal except for the richest Americans. So that's another reason this bill just doesn't even make sense in that theory. They're not actually giving most of us a tax cut. They're making most of us pay more money. And like, but you think that like for people who make under $100,000 a year, do you think it's like they just hear the $1.7 trillion tax cut and they assume that they're getting some money back?

No, I don't think that because I think if you look at polls, this bill is not that popular. It's not popular at all. And actually, when you look at tax bills in the initial months of Republican presidents from Reagan all the way through Trump's first term and now Trump's second term, that tax cuts from Republican presidents as they start out their term have become successively more initially unpopular. Reagan starts with the Santa Claus theory, a very, very popular set of tax cut proposals, and also, of course, bringing down the rates from much higher rates to lower rates.

But then you look at where Reagan started with his tax bill in his second term. Less popular inherently, a smaller foundation of popularity. Then you get to George W. Bush, his first tax cut that started out not very popular at all. Trump's first term in his first tax cut was unpopular and remained unpopular. So I think, and the same thing for this, the big beautiful bill. So I guess there is this, there's what happens in Congress and in the political system, and then there's like what's popular among people.

I mean, there was a poll that showed 70% of Republican voters say they think taxes should be higher on the rich. So you have the Republican party, the actual party in Congress and in the White House, essentially at odds with the Republican voting base. Now how salient that is among the Republican voting base. Will the Republican voting base punish at the polls Republican politicians who support tax cuts or these kinds of tax cuts? That's hard to say But I'm just bringing it up to say that I'm not sure the average voter who makes you know, 80 grand a hundred grand I'm not sure they they think the beautiful the big beautiful bill is so beautiful

I do I will say that one thing on that is that I and this is a Nuance we're trying to pick apart in the the tax revolt series is that on a broad basis this bill is very unpopular and cutting tax for the rich is unpopular but when you get down on some of the more specific things and these are policies that I Don't think really do actually add up or make sense and will be beneficial But you take something like no taxes on tips The there is a poll that came out from Gallup that said about 80% of people were comfortable with something like that or with no taxes on overtime.

70% of people in 2023 were showing that. And that's, I think, part of the way that the conservatives try and message this is saying, we're trying to help you out too, is look at these things that we're doing, they're specific to you. But the total totality of what this bill is, is a massive tax cut for

the wealthy. And when it's positioned that way and framed that way, people understand it. They understand what this thing really is. But I think what the conservatives try and do is they try and hit the lower income people by offering no taxes on tips, no tax on overtime. I did see one interesting kind of take on the no taxes on tips, which said, if everyone hasn't been reporting cash tips, I used to be a bartender and so I know this world well for their entire time and all of a sudden everyone's starting to report $25,000, which I think is the exemption you get. Is that not like a big giveaway to the IRS who's been defunded to not go after Trump's allies and rich

people to start showing up and start looking for all the fraud and the tax code and whatever hit these people because this is what the administration likes to do make a big show do a lot of nothing but then have the headline IRS finds fraud and whatnot and it once again contributes to the idea that everything is broken and bad and who's won at the end of the day, all of the tax cheats at the top of the code. By the way, just because we're talking about the tip thing, one thing that we reported that's very interesting, I think it's the same now, the early version of the bill essentially gave the treasury department almost full power to decide what a tip is.

Think about, think through that. Here's a question. Is the carried interest that a private equity mogul makes off of investing your money into a private equity scheme, is that now going to be a tip that faces no tax? Right? I mean, I know that sounds like insane, but like giving the Trump administration just complete and total control to decide what constitutes a tax free tip. I mean, you know, the imagination can can can run wild. You should be able to tip your landlord.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, OK, I want to return. I want to I want to go into the past now because your series begins and like the the man who started this movement came it came out of like all great things. It came out of Southern California in the late 60s, early 70s. And what I found interesting about this is that like this anti tax movement really sort of took off like in and took purchase in a post Watergate GOP that was looking for a new direction and like looking for a way to

rebrand itself as sort of a more sunnier optimistic party to get away from like the you know dour chip on his shoulder Ronald Reagan but it began with a very very interesting character who I in spite of myself I found myself liking quite a bit a man named Howard Jarvis who is one of my favorite personality types, a Mormon who drinks. So yeah, could you could begin? Who is Howard Jarvis and like, where did he come from? And like, how did he start this movement to this revolt against taxation? Yeah, he's a he's a very bizarre, weird guy. So one of the first things we did was we read his biography, who knows

how much is actually in there, but he claims to have sparred with like famous boxers like Jack Dempsey, flying in planes and whatnot. And his story starts that he's this business guy in Southern California, he owned like a latex factory. And he's just like your quintessential, uh, mean spirited, angry conservative. He owns a factory. He owns homes. He's having a great life.

And he's like the rotten government won't let me live a happy life. And so he has a fervent hatred of taxation. And he says that it starts because the latex in his factory was confiscated to help fight world war two. Uh, nevermind the fact that he says that it starts because the latex in his factory was confiscated to help fight World War II. Never mind the fact that, yeah, no, no, no, no. He says that he's all angry and his big latex factory is confiscated. And one day he went back and all the latex was sitting there turned into mush because

the government didn't even bother to use the latex. So he wants to destroy and take down the government. But he figures out that people are really angry about the tax code because Watergate era is happening. People are already uncomfortable with the government. It's like the new Hollywood era in the country. You've got all of this kind of changing cultural values. And he goes out on a campaign to all of these mostly white people.

And he says, look, the government's becoming too liberal. The country's getting too radical. And you've got Democrats in power trying to do that. So stop paying your taxes. They're already trying to screw you over. And there was a very real problem happening in California, which was that property taxes were rising because they were trying to modernize

and centralize their tax code, which meant that it revealed that a lot of county assessors were super corrupt and taking bribes to like lowball people's taxes. So modernizing it ends up in essence raising everyone's taxes. And Jarvis goes out there and he says, look at how high your taxes are, you're already paying too much, which was a very real thing people were feeling. And he swirls it in with your hodgepodge of conservative values. Oh, and also should your taxes pay for the integrating school system? Should your taxes be paying to teach kids all of these horrible liberal values

like about the civil rights movement, which was ongoing at the time. So I guess just about racial equality and whatnot. And he works. I mean, he kind of has this joyful spirit to him and he goes out on TV and he tries to, you know, echo the Boston Tea Party and these populist movements. And everyone buys in onto it because in the moment,

everyone is feeling really screwed over by the tax code. And I think the really big lesson to learn from this is that it's all about what you tell people and how you tell people about that. And when someone comes in with a persuasive argument, and they're not met with a counter argument, this is what can happen. So the California voters vote to knock down their property tax code, which now has resulted in a completely lopsided, underfunded states struggling with

education. Yeah. Is that is it was that Proposition 13? Proposition 13. Yeah. Yeah. Because you talk about the efforts to get that on the ballot. And it's an interesting because the business elites of California were opposed to proposition 13. But like, how did Jarvis like get momentum for this? And how did he eventually get like the wealthy business elites on his side? And like, why were they

opposed to this? Getting rid of a property tax? So a lot of the business owners actually inside California were taking advantage of the kind of gamed tax code, but they, they were fundamentally like they relied on the government too for their services and to kind of prop up their businesses. And I think that a lot of the business elite just felt a general discomfort because they work hand in hand with the government. I mean, property taxes fund the construction industry that is very

powerful in California, but Jarvis saw that there's power in making this a populist message. And so to his credit, he actually did hit the ground and he would stand outside malls and all these places. And he got a big group of volunteers, but he went through things like homeowners associations and home, you know, homeowners groups and whatnot. And in that you actually do have a well-funded apparatus of a lot of wealthy people.

And so what you start seeing is that the business community as an organized force might be a little uncomfortable, but wealthy people in California who see an advantage to their own property taxes getting cut, start to kind of work with Jarvis's movement and push that towards the top. Like, David, you mentioned like, Proposition 13, like the effects of it are still felt to this day in California, like what situation has been created by this like no new property tax

regime in California? Well, I mean, look, it's everything from them having, the state having trouble funding its schools to the state having trouble funding its fire infrastructure. I mean, look, California complained, there's this narrative about California is overtaxed. But the fact is, that, in a sense, the infrastructure for a very large population hasn't necessarily kept up.

Now, the conservative movement would argue that it's all a product of democratic mismanagement of the money that comes in. But over the course of decades and decades, when you essentially limit essentially a resource stream, then the resources can't keep up with population growth. And California for decades, population growth was a big factor here. By the way, we face this in Colorado. I mean Colorado, and I should mention like Proposition 13 was replicated all across the country. There was an anti-tax ballot situation in Massachusetts. There was the most successful one here in Colorado

called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which essentially only allows a certain amount of tax money to be collected. And if it goes beyond any sort of arbitrary limit, you can't collect it and use it to fund the social services and infrastructure to keep pace with your population growth. And then what ends up happening, of course, the Republicans will say the failures of government are proof that the Democrats are mismanaging government, not that we don't have enough resources to fund what we need.

And in California, and again, here in Colorado, it's baked into the statutes and into the Constitution here in Colorado, where it's hard even for the legislature now to get around it. I mean, Will, think about this. In California, you need two-thirds of the legislature to pass any kind of serious real tax reform or tax increase. Another structural barrier to better resourcing government. And again, the conservatives would say, well, that's just the Democrats have to live within

their means. But at a certain point, at a certain point, the resource needs meet reality. I mean, just just a few details about Howard Jarvis, the character that I found fascinating. First off, he has a cameo in the movie Airplane. Yeah, yes. I mean, I knew the Zucker brothers were conservative, but not wow. That's a real deep cut to put Howard Jarvis. If anyone's seen the movie Airplane, he is the guy in the cab who gets left when the meter's running and the guy leaves to do the whole movie.

Another really fascinating detail about him is that his affinity for wearing cheap suits bought at a discount store that he would often set on fire by leaving a lit corn cob pipe in his suit pocket jacket. Yeah, he really I mean, he had the he had the populist spiel down pad, just get on stage with a shitty suit that's on fire because your corn cob. The Winston Churchill like to be great is to be gross and disgusting. And so he would eat like creamed corn while like drinking straight vodka in Utah, except, you know, pissing off

all the all the Mormons over there. Even Grover Norquist said to me when I interviewed him that the first time he met Jarvis, he just wanted to see if he would drink because that was all he had heard about him. I mean, you mentioned the gross detail about the food, that his favorite food was one can of Del Monte creamed corn mixed into a cup of whole milk and simmered just below boiling and before being dumped in a bowl. Now, David Arjun, I don't know if you've seen the film Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me. Oh, yeah. His daily meal is quite literally good. The Garmon Bozia that the man from another place. All your pain and sorrow. That's what

he consumes. And I can't think of a better representation of pain and sorrow than cream corn boiled in milk. I mean, knowing that this guy's an LA fixture, you kind of understand that David Lynch is coming of age in this era. And I'm like, of course all of his movies feature weirdos like this, if this is what Los Angeles was like back then.

I mean, that part of the text, I have to say, like I just thought of what would happen to my stomach if I even ate one serving of that. It would not go well. You would be radicalized against the government. You'd be so angry and sick all the time. You'd be like, I hate everything. And then the last detail about Howard Jarvis' life is that in 1979, he nearly won Times Man of the Year, but lost it at the

very end to Ayatollah Khomeini. Once again, the Ayatollah has to just come for everyone. So like moving into the like into the 1980s, like Jarvis gets the ball rolling. You talk a little bit about like you mentioned, the conservative journalists who came up with the Santa Claus theory, but he came up with that theory at a lunch meeting with the economist Arthur Laffer, who sketched out for him the infamous Laffer curve on a napkin.

David, could you talk about who Art Laffer is? One of the most absolutely Dickensian names I've ever come across. It's like Pierre Dickens naming this Hocum economist Laffer is one of the most absolutely Dickensian names I've ever come across. It's like pure Dickens naming this Hocum economist Laffer. But what was his Laffer curve and like, how did he how did how did they provide a kind of like an intellectual justification for the idea that cutting government revenues will cause will give everyone will cause actually more money coming into the government? So it's it's it's right after Watergate.

Jerry Ford is president. Gerald Ford is considering momentarily a bill that includes some tax increases to deal with the budget, to essentially balance the budget. And Jude Wineski is at this meeting. I think it was at the Olde Abbot Grill, I think, which is a sort of this old timey restaurant right near the White House. And Wynyski is at this meeting with Arthur Laffer and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Rumsfeld was there, right Arjun? Right? Was Rumsfeld? So there's two meetings. There's Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney meet when Laffer sketches out the curve and then there's one where Wienitzky meets with the Congressman Jack Kemp a little before that. is there, I guess to write it up or for whatever reason, he's there and he witnesses art laughters sketch this curve on a graph on a napkin, which by the way, Wineski ends up keeping the napkin. And I think the napkin is in the, it's in the Smithsonian, I think. Yes, it's in the Smithsonian. Although later Dick Cheney questioned if that was the real

napkin. I think trying to evade his own role in all of this. He's like a laffer napkin truther. But anyway, the... False napkin. Yeah. There's no bullet holes in there. Mine must have not been there. So the curve essentially argues that the more you cut taxes, the more government revenue will come in because the tax cuts

in theory will spur more economic activity which will generate more tax revenue. Essentially, the argument is there's a sweet spot where if you cut taxes enough, the economic activity will generate so much economic benefit and activity and resources that it will actually be a net benefit, a net positive revenue intake for the government. Now obviously that has never been borne out by what's actually happened. There's been a series of huge tax cuts which have drained revenue, which have not resulted in surplus revenues coming back to the government. Although the argument from Laffer and his acolytes is, well, that's just because we haven't cut taxes enough. But the point is, it's this argument that tax cuts and deficits are not in tension with

each other, that tax cuts can actually essentially help reduce deficits because they will spur so much economic activity, which will generate essentially a return a return of public revenues to the government. It's a completely made up theory. whole supply side economics, voodoo economics, you get into is like, do the proponents of it actually believe this? Or do they did? Or like, did they or did they understand that like, their ideological mission is to bankrupt the government? And there's like, it is a moral principle that the wealthy should be able to keep as much of the profits that they make as possible. There are definitely two strains of this. So when we talked to a lot of the economists who had helped inspire

Reagan and all of that, one of the economists we talked to, Richard Ron, he was the head of the chamber of commerce. Um, you know, he, he said, and he admitted to us that we were quote, flying blind, that the data wasn't there, that this was a model and that it hasn't really borne out, but when you ask them, why is it not bearing out? They'll blame everyone and their mother. It's Clinton's fault. It's Obama's fault.

It's, you know, sometimes George Bush's fault. So they will acknowledge that inequality isn't good right now, but they'll say it's because the implementation is wrong. But I think that the other side are people like a Grover Norquist. Do we interview on our fourth episode? He's this anti-tax activist.

He runs Americans for Tax Reform. He was just blunt about it. He's like, I want to defund the government. And when I asked him afterwards, you know, what about prosperity? He's like, I don't know if everyone's going to be better off. Most people are probably going to be worse off. I just want this world. So I think that more people are kind of in line with the Norquist side of this issue, which is very Darwinian

Just get out of my life and I don't care about others and you still have Some I would say misguided individuals who think that we haven't found the sweet spot on the laffer curve And we if we kick taxes down even more we'll have so much productivity. We're gonna have like an excess surplus well, I mean David you mentioned earlier that like the the purchase of this idea that like tax cuts pay for themselves or the tax cuts make everyone prosperous or tax cuts, you know, fund the government has been waning over the decades. Like it's becoming less and less believable, even the people

promoting it, I seem to have a hard time believing it. But like that gets us to like a current moment where there does seem to be like, look, with Trump, too, like there seems to be him and the people around him like will occasionally and, you know, quite sort of forcefully appear to break ranks with Republican orthodoxy on some, especially on something like taxing the wealthy. There is this like, you know, pseudo populist Steve Bannon side that says that, yes, we should raise taxes on the wealthy. We may need a new tax bracket.

And I think it's like it's sort of because like, I mean, they've I don't know, I guess they've just realized that so many wealthy people in this country are just liberal Democrats. So it's okay to take to take Steve their money away from them but what like what is the current state of this is this a real schism or is this just for show like so many things else in the trump administration like like jd vance is another example of someone who's like be like i'd be fine raising taxes on the wealthy people is this just like something they're doing because they understand that the national the national mood is in favor of populism and is against wealthy elites? But like, is there any indication that they're going to like legislate or govern?

I mean, the big beautiful bill would suggest that they are not serious about this. Well, there's two... it's one of two explanations or maybe a mix. One explanation is they realize they're out of step with even their own base. As I mentioned, that poll, 70% of Republican voters say they think the rich should pay higher taxes. So Republican leaders may be increasingly uncomfortable being at odds with that sentiment among Republican voters. And also, obviously, when you look at the CBO last week

reported showed that this would essentially raise costs for the bottom income earners and give a massive tax cut, this bill in totality, give a massive tax cut to the wealthiest. That's out of sync with a party that is rhetorically trying to present itself as populist. And so they're looking for a way to say, hey, look, we are being populist. I mean, Arjun mentioned, you know, tax cuts on tips as an example of trying to argue

that they are even within this bill, this monstrosity, that there are some Santa Claus benefits of so-called populism to their base. But I also think the floating of tax cuts on millionaires, I mean, even Trump's, at one point for like a minute, tweeted out or put on Truth Social, hey, maybe the Republicans should consider tax increases on millionaires.

Maybe that is something we should consider. So it suggests to me that they feel perhaps a little bit of shame. But then the cynic in me also says, what they floated is actually not really where the super-rich's money actually is. That there was this proposal floated out there, okay, let's preserve all the Trump tax cuts,

but let's say, let the top income tax bracket rate revert back to Obama tax rates, which yes, I guess technically would be some kind of marginal tax increase on income above that marginal rate limit. But the issue is that the economy has so radically reshaped over the last 20, 30, 40 years, that most of the really super rich,

like the people who really call the shots in the Republican party, we're not talking about the petit bourgeois or the small business class, we're talking about the billionaires. Their money isn't, they're not getting a W-2, right? Their money is in assets, right? It's like that Wall Street line from Gordon Gekko, you know, I don't make anything, I don't develop anything, I just own, right?

Like that's where the actual money is. And so changing the upper income tax rate, the highest income tax rate, well, yeah, that's a fine proposal. That's like a, like a fine idea. It probably should happen. If you're not messing with capital gains taxes, if you're not messing with wealth taxes, if you're not messing with closing the private equity tax loophole, the carried interest tax loophole, if you're not messing with the pass-through income tax, you know, S-corps,

LLCs and the like, then you're really not actually doing anything populist. And so the takeaway might be they're pretending to float out these ideas that sound, hey, we're serious about real tax reform that hits millionaires, but they're not really serious enough to actually go where the like Republican Party power brokers and financiers were not really willing to go after what they care about. Well, I guess that brings me to like, like another question of the present moment, like the current Democratic Party, which seems like, you know, they can't wait to abandon

anything associated with the New Deal or the Great Society. Abundance is the new jive that they're on right now. But like what is like what is the current Democratic Party's attitude towards raising taxes? And like conversely, what would a like a sane government be like a liberal progressive left wing, whatever you want to call it? What would tax policy look like if, you know, David Sirota were in charge of it? I would say this. I mean, first of all, I actually do think, for the most part, that when it comes to taxes, this is one area where most of the Democratic Party, obviously you're going to have, you know, you had people like Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema,

on the, on various specifics oppose, but raising taxes on the wealthy, I actually do think most Democrats in Congress are generally supportive of, at least to the point of revert back to Obama-era tax rates. I think it gets somewhat dicier in sort of the consensus of the Democratic Party about, are they willing to actually close the carried interest tax loophole? The Democrats have a lot of hedge fund private equity guys who fund their party as well. That's why that tax loophole, you know, has existed and that loophole has never been closed, the one that allows Warren Buffett to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary, as Buffett famously said.

If I had to wave a wand, I mean look, the first and foremost thing that should be on the table, it was on the table 20, 30 years ago when I was one of the first employees at the Center for American Progress, like a lifetime ago when I was in DC was, let's just make all income income. Why are we creating an artificially lower tax rate

for income you earn on passive investments? creating an artificially lower tax rate for income you earn on passive investments? Why is that a lower tax rate than the income you earn at work? Seems like it should be a higher tax rate because you didn't work to achieve any of it. Exactly. You're making money in your sleep, there should be a higher tax rate than that. And that had been floated as sort of a Democratic Party position. Like all income is income, whether you made it in your sleep or whether, but I agree with you, I mean, it should be higher than that.

We should actually preference the earnings that you make in the workplace, if you will. But that's not on the table at all. That's like nowhere to be found. And I do think, look, that's a commentary on where our politics is. Our politics, you look, that's a commentary on where our politics is. We did a previous series called Master Plan, which is about how campaign finance laws were deregulated to essentially create a political system where the wealthy get whatever they

want. Part of what the wealthy gets is a tax debate where the farthest so-called left of the tax debate is, let's go back to Obama era income tax rates, instead of the sort of left edge of the tax debate being like, let's make all income taxed at the same rate or let's tax passive income at a higher rate than income you earn in the workplace. That's just nowhere to be found in the debate

and that's what's bought and purchased by a campaign finance system that empowers the voices of the wealthy over everyone else. Arjun, I want to close with this question. Like, if one regards like how a society taxes its citizens, like who gets taxed, where, why, and like, for what reason, like, would you say that's a fairly good reflection of what the leadership of that society values? And just sort of the overall moral calculus of like, how we determine what is

valuable and what is not? If like, if you believe that's the case, like, how would you describe like, what are the current US government values and how it sees, I don't know, its own citizens? I think the current US government seems to want a society that looks quite a bit like the film RoboCop, where we have like androids and robot police just pushing down on citizens and like a completely dystopian, defunded society. I mean, the idea that of this bill is it's almost maddening in a way because the premise is that the government's

too wasteful and we have to cut all this spending, and yet they don't even want to cut what are some of the more wasteful parts, which is like adding drones and Palantir technology to monitor the border wall. It's like that's what we're trying to say as a society right now. We're more interested in creating- That's a priority. That's a priority. It's the priority. Whereas like Medicaid, like can people see the doctor or not die is not really a priority.

Hey, grandma, I don't care that the insulin that Joe Manchin's daughter makes is too expensive. You're going to pay $35 for that, but we need to send another drone to Yemen to kill someone or we need to send another drone to Israel to help Netanyahu wage his campaign there. It really is an overt, I mean, it's a slap in the face to so much of society to say that we can't spend on college and education and healthcare because it's too much money. Hillary Clinton once told Howard Stern that the idea that we can pay for education is like handing out free chocolate milk to anyone. And yet magically, whenever we need the money

to do all these things that lots of people in society seem to not want, you know, sending bombs to places that hurt children and murder children, we have all the money in the world. The deficit doesn't matter at that point. And that's the overt message that we're sending. And yes, I actually think our tax system is a perfect reflection of our society, which is if you're rich and you are able to take advantage of the government and all the advantages

that they gave you, and you were born into that status, you have the world as your oyster. And if you're just trying to like live your life and live your job and do what you need to do to survive Well screw you. I think that's a is gonna place a put a fine point on it It really does seem that things that kill people are prioritized over anything that might Help people live it does seem we are What's the old saying the purpose of a system is what it is what it does what it does Yeah, it seems like we're sort of a society of death. I actually got a I got a question for you, though.

Well, Liam Neeson is going to do Naked Gun. He's going to play Leslie Nielsen's character. Let's get Grover Norquist in it. I was going to say, who's got to be the Howard Jarvis in the, of course, airplane remake starring Liam Neeson? Is it Grover Norquist or is it Steve Bannon? I think I think it's got to be Norquist or is it Steve Bannon? I think it's gotta be Norquist. Yeah, nice deep cut like that. Maybe we could have a, you know, Elon Musk, get Elon Musk in the

movie. Maybe. Oh, yeah, they already had him in Iron Man. Maybe as Nordberg. All right. Thanks so much once again to David Sirota and Arjun Singh of Lever News. The series is Tax Revolt. Gentlemen, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you. Thanks for having us. I'm in the Lotus, I'm feeling like Davis Sarota I'm puffing on Yoda, I'm feeling like Davis Sarota Don't look up, it was legit, I might run up with a stick Well it depends, I'm in the Benz, mask off

Taylor Lorenz I might chase a check, I might pour a cup Like Sarota, when he Koro don't look up