Real Time with Bill Maher - Overtime – Episode #609: B.J. Novak, Catherine Rampell, Noah Rothman

Episode Date: August 20, 2022

Bill Maher and his guests answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 08/19/22) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late-night series, Real Time with Bill Maugh. Thank you. Such a great crowd we get now. Okay, here we are with our questions. This is for you, Catherine. You recently went on a tour

of an IRS office in Texas. Is that true? Yes. All right, next question. No. What was the most surprising? Oh, Texas, look, what a connection. You just did a movie about Texas.

You went on a tour. What was the most surprising thing you saw? Do you think the Inflation Reduction Act's investments in the IRS will remedy? First of all, why did you go on a tour of the IRS? Because I had heard for years. Fun day. It was wild. I am telling you, it was wild.

It was like going on the weirdest Willy Wonka tour. Because, like, this place is usually locked down. Everybody knows about the IRS, obviously, but they don't let people in there. And they don't like them in Texas. No, they don't. There was a lot of security. So I had heard all these stories about how old their software is, and I had been hearing these anecdotes about how crazy it was,

like, you know, that they don't scan in your tax return. They have someone manually type in number by number into their computers, the numbers from your tax return if you file by paper, into the system, which is like a mind-blowingly stupid. and then they have people who have to renumber with a red pen every line on your tax return if you filed last year's instead of this year's because the computer system is, again, it's literally from the 1970s. It's so old it can't process more than one return at a time.

So this is why there are 10 million tax returns that are in a backlog. People can't get their refunds. This bill that Biden signed this week has $80 billion. Yeah, that's why. Right. That's what that's for, right? It's $80 billion to the IRS. Of course, the Republicans are saying,

you're going to use this money to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To audit middle class tax. Well, some of it will. Well, it's being used to replenish their enforcement capacity, yes, which has been completely depleted over the past 10 years. And who is benefiting from that? It is mega corporations and very rich. Will it be buying new computers for the kids?

Okay. Well, not for the kids, but for the people who were like manually stamping stuff and typing things in. Some of it, yeah. But $80 billion doesn't isn't covering the software alone. It's mostly child labor at the IRS. No, it's like a typical person is like a 60-year-old woman. Okay. B.J., do you think Hollywood is partially responsible for promoting rural stereotypes

and the conception of a disparate America? rural stereotypes. Your thoughts. Look, Hollywood perpetuates every good and bad thing and exaggerates it and makes it also more subtle and beautiful. Hollywood does everything.

Well, good and better. I would say this. When I was a kid, there was these shows called the Green Gene shows. Some of them were taped right in this building because this is CBS. I'm talking about the Beverly Hillbillies. Applaud, if you remember

these shows. Green Acres, Hetty Goat Junction, the Andy Griffith show, and then spin-offs from that. Remember Mr. Drucker? My point... I don't know what my point is, except CBS

lived on shows about rural America in the 60s and 70s. That was like their bread and butter. And that's where I, as a kid in New Jersey, got all my knowledge of the Southern part of the country was

the Beverly Hillbillies and Mr. Drucker. A documentary, clearly. Yeah, I mean, that was it. So, I mean... I live in Western New Jersey now. It's pretty rural. It still feels a lot like the Beverly Hillbillies by Pennsylvania. Western New Jersey? Not by Pennsylvania? Really? Yeah, you get really

in touch with your roots. There is a, yeah, people, yeah, I know. I mean, wasn't it James Carver who said Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in the middle? Yeah. A lot of America is like it. Sure.

In the Northeast. Noah, as an anti-Trump conservative, could you get yourself to vote for a Democrat if it meant keeping Trump out of office? I can't imagine that New Jersey would ever be that competitive. But if that's the hypothetical scenario, that it's a razor-tight race and you have to vote for the Democrat,

that's not Trump. I really don't know what I do. I might, but it would be the first Democrat I've ever voted for. Democrats don't represent my value. They don't advance policies I support, so I don't support them. I also don't have to vote for the Republican if I don't support the Republican. So the thing is just writing in Mitt Romney, which I've done several cycles now. And we'll probably continue to do.

But isn't that just a cowardly dodge? Maybe. Maybe. Because Trump is a special category of someone who doesn't believe in our system. So matter what the Democrats, you really think Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or any of them, I know they don't, your values, blah, blah, blah. Hillary Clinton, no, I don't think she was especially... But isn't there number one value America and what it is?

That Democrats, democracy and America are inextricably linked. That's what the Democrats still believe, but the Republicans don't believe that anymore. I share the assumption on your part that I think is the root of this question, that the foundations of democracy would be under threat in the event that Trump somehow managed to win a second election. If that was... My gun pointed to my head if that was the situation, then yeah, I would vote against that. that. That situation is highly unlikely to unfold. Trump running

again? No, the notion here that it'll come down to my vote. But if it did, I most certainly would vote against Donald Trump. All right, I've prosecuted you as much as I can. I feel I will leave it to the jury at this point.

Our final question, Japanese officials worried about shifting demographics in a decline in tax revenue are now encouraging young people to drink more. Should we be doing something similar, given your belief, oh, this is you again, but I guess we can all... That young people aren't having any fun anymore.

Well, trust me, they're still having fun. I mean, when you're young, it's hard to avoid it. But I read that, too. Japanese officials are encouraging drinking. Well, I don't know. Yeah, and the overconsumption of alcohol can sometimes be fun, but not always, and I don't necessarily think that the two are directly... Well, they didn't say overconsumption.

It is... It's a social lubricant. Precisely. Sometimes a lubricant, lubricant. No, I don't know. PJ, you are on the office. What do you feel? I think it's sort of like your dad coming down to the basement with a six-pack.

It's suspicious. You don't want the government telling you... He's just so right. Encursing you to train. Right. It takes all the fun out of it. I don't know why it's the government's job to decide the optimal amount of it. of drinking, you know?

It's just like a weird... I think what it is is the Japanese government is worried about population. I talked about this a few weeks ago. I don't understand this world that's worried about less population. We need less population.

They're all worried about population is declining. I'm throwing a party. Population is declining. Japan has like... Japan has serious demographic challenges. The world has the biggest... No, they're all really old. There's like no one...

They're not all old. They have a very... high share of old people in Japan. I understand. They need working-age people to pay the taxes to support the old people. The population bomb theory is kind of bunk. It's really never been supported and it's

justified just about every eugenicist abuse of the human species since 1968. Okay, so you're saying we can just continue to have more people on Earth which has limited resources. But this was the theory in 1968 and we've subsequently invented ourselves out of the problems associated

with overpopulation. We've created They also have a crisis out. They've created new methods of feeding and transmitting goods across the planet. And every person as an economic unit has contributed to that. But like our river here that supplies the water to the west, the Colorado River, it's got 28% left in the reservoirs. All the states around here are going to have to stop using water. It's going to be mandated.

I'm okay with that. I don't need a lawn. But water. people. I mean, these are just basic facts. I don't know. I don't get this argument that we just keep having more people because

it's a economic problem? It's a water problem. It's more basic than economic. It's a resource problem. Israel faced a very similar problem. And desalination was the answer. And that's an engineering problem. And that is not necessarily

a problem of too many people, the more people who contribute to that solution, the better. So you're talking it from the ocean? Precisely, yeah. Good, because those waters are rising and we will need to be doing something with it. Let's drink it. Once again, we solve everything here on RealTide. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Pat. Catch all new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night at 10 or watch them anytime on HBO on demand. For more information, log on to HBO.com.