The Daily Signal - #510: Sen. Braun Describes How He's Trying to Bring 'Accountability' to Washington's Spending

Episode Date: July 21, 2019

Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., joins the podcast to explain the downsides of the new spending bill and how his MAP Act would boost the economy. The CEO turned senator, a newcomer to Washington, D.C., also shares why it seems so hard to get any kind of spending control to occur in Congress. We also cover these stories:•The Trump administration takes action to close a food stamps loophole. •Mark Esper was confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense in a 90-8 vote in the Senate •The NAACP is now joining the liberal chorus for impeachment. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, July 24th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Congress is getting ready to vote on a massive budget deal that doesn't even try to rein in the national debt. To the contrary, it would expand it. Our colleague, Rachel Del Judas, sat down to discuss the deal with Indiana Senator Mike Braun. And today, we'll play that exclusive interview. Plus, Rashida Tlaiiv thinks the $15 minimum wage is so 2018.

She wants it jacked up even higher. We'll discuss. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes, and please subscribe. Now on to our top news. President Donald Trump's administration is proposing a new rule that would get rid of a loophole that affects food stamps. Potentially, this rule would reduce the number of food stamp users by 3.1 million. Right now, in plenty of states, it's possible for someone who has assets but no income to get food stamps due to a current. method allowed. The Daily Signals, Fred Lucas, for instance, recently spoke to a Minnesota

millionaire who had gotten food stamps, despite being honest about his assets. Lucas reports for the daily signal, quote, under the existing system, a person can be eligible for food stamps simply by getting an informational brochure on temporary assistance for needy families program, often with no check of income or assets. Under the new proposed rule, a person must have a cash benefit of at least $50,000, per month from temporary assistance for needy families to qualify under a state's categorical eligibility program. While conservatives are revolting against President Trump's budget agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Mark Walker, who serves as vice chair of the House Republican Conference,

tweeted a gif of the Joker burning a pile of money under the words budget deal. He then said, quote, our credit card is maxed out. What this budget deal does is ask the credit card company for another $300,000. $120 billion in credit now for the chance to get paid back $75 billion in a decade. No bank would take that. American taxpayers shouldn't either, end quote. Well, Texas Congressman Chip Roy also came out against the bill, telling the president in a written letter that he was on board with energizing conservatives against it.

The budget deal, which the president endorsed on Monday, would suspend the current budget caps for two years and would raise spending by $320 billion. The committee for a responsible federal budget estimates it would cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion over a decade and add five percentage points to the debt by 2020. Mark Esper was confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense in a 90-8 vote in the Senate Tuesday. Esper served in the military for over two decades, both in active duty as well as reserve in the National Guard. Esper also worked for Raytheon and his chief of staff to former Heritage Foundation President Ed Fulner. Well, Great Britain has a new prime minister. Boris Johnson is set to succeed Theresa May on Wednesday after winning a final vote from his conservative party.

The former London mayor has been a strong backer of Brexit from the beginning and promises to lead Britain out of the European Union with or without a deal by the end of October. Here's a clip of his remarks after winning the key vote. Dude! We are going to energize the country. We're going to get Brexit done on October the 31st. We're going to take advantage of all the opportunities that it will bring in a new spirit of can-do.

And we are once again going to believe in ourselves and what we can achieve. And like some slumbering giant, we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity. With better education, better infrastructure, more police, fantastic full-fiber broadband, sprouting in every household. We are going to unite this amazing country

and we are going to take it forward. I thank you all very much for the incredible honor that you have just done me. I will work flat out from now on with my team that I will build, I hope, in the next few days, to repay your confidence. But in the meantime, the campaign is over and the work begins. I think that was the most boisterous I've ever heard with a British accent. He is going to be a very fun Prime Minister, I think. Well, 27% of Americans now think immigration is a top problem,

according to a new Gallup poll, which says that this is the highest. they've ever seen immigration poll as a top concern. Other top issues include the government and poor leadership, which 23% say is the top issue. Meanwhile, 7% say racism or race relations are the top problem, and another 7% say health care. Well, the NACP is now joining the liberal chorus for impeachment. Delegates from the Civil Rights Group voted unanimously on Tuesday at their annual gathering to call for President Trump to be impeached. In AACP's president, Derek Johnson, said, quote,

Trump's misconduct is unmistakable and has proven time and time again that he is unfit to serve as president of this country, end quote. The Democratic-led House recently rejected a move to file impeachment proceedings, and as of yet, only 87 House members have expressed support for the effort. Next up, we'll feature Rachel Dull Judis' interview with Senator Braun, where they discuss spending in the budget deal. tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous.

Find out more at Heritage.org. We're joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Senator Mike Braun of Indiana. Senator, thank you so much for being with us today. Good to be on. Well, you are introducing legislation with Congress. Kevin Brady of Texas that pertains to spending in debt. Can you tell us a little bit about your legislation? Well, how could it be more applicable than right now? Very disappointed with the kumbaya moment that occurred between the president and leader Pelosi. I think that the whole

system basically is evolved to where that's what we do, being on the budget committee and knowing that we haven't done a budget that we've appropriated to in 20 years should tell everyone out there that can't live by those rules to where in business, in state governments, local governments, school boards. That's the reason you have through the marketplace in business. Imagine that running 20% losses on your P&L and just being able to throw it on a credit card. And credit card gets paid off by your kids and grandkids. Very disappointed, especially when the president, back when I was running, and I think it was in the spring of 2018, did have the high road on that because defense was emaciated to a

dangerous point. I think that got knocked down under Obama to about $590 billion a year. It was brought back close to $700 billion. And I think I remember that's the last time. going to do it again. I think it's part of being here. The system just drags you down into, even when you've made those kinds of statements, you end up doing otherwise. I can guarantee you that I won't do that ever because I've come from the world of full accountability. I've been on school boards, been in a functional state government like Indiana's government,

to where we not only had statutory guardrails, we passed a balanced budget amendment. And in places where there is accountability that you have to do it, this place lacks any accountability. And we are now just getting closer to the day of reckoning. Well, annual deficits are projected to hit one trillion by 2022, and the national debt is now over $22 trillion. What do you think is the solution to all of this? I've actually with Congressman Brady the Maximize America's Prosperity Act, which I think is probably going to be a little better. I've heard some bipartisan interest in a general guideline, but we did sequestration. We did budget caps.

And what I found my cohorts to be most resourceful at is how you breach anything that you put in place to get back to, business as usual. The reason we're able to do it in my MAP Act, which is basically targeting a percentage of potential GDP using potential so that in years where you don't hit it, you can spend up to potential GDP in terms of a guideline. In years like in any other business, any other government, when things are going well, you have a rainy day fund, which would then make you from not spending how we do it here. It's common sense. It targets it at the average of what revenues have been over the last 50 years, so you can't get the big spenders to say, hey, this is austere. This is just taking revenue that's been around there as an average of potential GDP for all those years.

So I still think that the things senators and congressmen and women are most good at would be breaching whatever they put in place to discipline themselves because when it's only a legislative guideline, you know what can happen with the next Congress. It can all be overturned. That's why we need a balanced budget amendment. That's true. You mentioned that your legislation would have the potential to grow the GDP. Can you drill down a little bit more into that, how you foresee that happening when it does hit those numbers? So potential GDP, you know, sometimes we'll hit it like we are now because we've got the Tax and Jobs Act of 17 that as a Main Street entrepreneur, for anyone wondering, is it working? It is working and working well. We haven't even really seen the cumulative effect

from it. Many of the forecasters think it'll be a sugar high that'll disappear. I don't agree with that. I think whenever you're letting enterprises keep more of their own money and invest it much smarter way than what the federal government does, it'll keep our potential GDP to where it can grow year after year from two and a half to three and a half percent. The Obama economy was clear. It was an economy of mediocrity. And when you come out of such a deep recession, the rule of numbers say you should have big percentage increases. We can never get that to where over that time span, it averaged, you know, above 2%. And that is sad. And that shows you why you've, something like my bill on the Map Act, at least enables an economy to do what it's doing now into what

potential GDP would be. But if you miss it, then you could start to do things like we do now every year is spend some money to gin up the economy or have a tax cut, however you would view to use government to get closer to potential GDP. But when you exceed potential GDP, meaning you're at full employment and everything's going well, you salt that away for the rainy day, which we do none of that here. We need to start doing it. So your legislation, another element of it, provides a pathway to save and then later pay for emergencies. How does that work? So currently, I have voted against some things that I really think need to be done. I voted against the Defense Reauthorization Act.

I think defense is the most important thing the federal government should do, along with maybe infrastructure and trying to keep our entitlement programs from completely running into the ditch, which they will sooner than later, not snuck up on us. We've known it a long time actuarially. I think that here we've got the benefit of when you plan for disasters, you create a rainy day fund, we at least are acknowledging that that's part of what we should do. Currently, we do all of that, and the word offset is like a bad word. It ought to be there to where we've got plenty of spending to offset. No one has the political will here to do it. Chris Van Hollen in a budget committee meeting

basically said that, and I'd agree with my Democratic friend that he is right. Nobody has the political will or backbone to do these kinds of things. You mentioned that you were disappointed in the spending agreement that Trump and Congress reached that increases spending by about true trillion of the next decade and provides only about 77 billion in offsets. Where do you think Republicans could have gone better, done better here? Everywhere. To me, it really begs the question, what's the difference between Democrats who believe in the

federal government? They're at least honest. You know, they don't, they've got other crazy ideas out there that would even take our government from an institution that doesn't pay for 20% of itself already, borrows from the kids and grandkids, and wants to double or maybe triple the size through the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college tuition. I mean, that is crazy, especially when there is no real credible argument. Remember what I did, I talked about a while ago. average revenue over 50 years through thick and thin, Democrat Republican administrations, 17.5%. You know, so there's no real credible way to do that. And it disappoints me that we only had 22 Republicans vote for the pennies plan, which is nothing more than a way to stake out where you're really coming from. So that means that there were 31 other Republicans that

didn't vote for that simple concept, freezing, cutting back a percent or 2 percent, it'd be a walk in the park, it'd be a chip shot for any CEO, any school board president or school board, any state government, other than a handful of them that choose to operate more like the federal government than they do most other sane states. So other than passing your legislation, which is the top priority for you, what are some other ways that you think Congress can help curb this runaway spending? I, to be honest, and I knew it before I got here, and I'm almost certain of it now six months into it, this will be resolved by, if we're lucky, a series of crises that are smaller in magnitude to where you don't get the full two by four across the head,

or it could be a calamity that would make 2008 pale in comparison, and sadly it would impact, retirees, elderly on health care that depend on the government, poor people that depend on Medicaid, pensioners, and all the other folks that benefit from the federal government, but don't speak out that, hey, it's going to go broke and it's going to run into the ditch. And that, sadly, looks how we solve things here in D.C. And why is it so important to keep this in the national conversation? And for people who might be distracted by other things, what are are the consequences if we don't address this? The consequences are going to come sooner rather than

later. I'll give you a couple particulars. The Medicare trust fund that we've been paying into since it's beginning that we've lent to the rest of government to actually pay for our large S where we don't balance our budgets each year, we are not only not going to be able to lend it to the rest of the government, we will deplete it in roughly six years. Automatic benefit cuts take place. So security is a little farther down the trail, probably around 20, 33, 4, 5. That's gone. That will even be a bigger abomination. None of this stuff is snucked up on us. It's been sad that we've been aware of it and we do nothing about it because that's the modus operandi here. And that's why I think it'll end up in a series of calamities that take us to the brink.

And then like everything, you do it, even though you know you should have done it a long time ago. Well, during the height of the Tea Party, there was a lot of energy, as you talked about on the right, about cutting spending, which seems to have really sputtered out. What do you think is it's going on here? Why is there kind of like a distraction from this issue? Because all other organizations, entities, pay the price for behaviorally. like this. And even though we may have moments of determination, like when we were talking about sequesters and budget caps or like the Map Act, that's got less of a chance to get through now than probably budget caps and sequestration did. And I think that we've been doing it so long

and that lack of accountability, who's really lost their job? We only sent three more business people to the Senate in 2018. And the sad thing is we only had three basically here before. I guess percentage-wise, we doubled it, but we still got the same board of directors, which is a bunch of folks that have nestled in, got comfortable with this, smart people that have never run anything, done a budget or a payroll that lead this biggest business through a bureaucracy that has no real skin in the game. And that's why we end up. up doing that here at this level. No other entity can get by with it. You'd get laughed out of your loan officer's office if you came in even with a 5% loss in a given year, let alone at 20 and expected

to get financed year after year, which you can do here. Speaking of having skin in the game, what use your thought on millennials in Generation X? Some are working. I'm a millennial. I have a job. I work. I pay bills. But I have friends who don't. They don't necessarily get it. Do you think we're losing millennials in Generation X on the importance of addressing our over $22 trillion in debt and deficits? And how can we do better? Definitely think we do. I have four millennials myself.

And, you know, thank goodness. And they were raised in a way that I think they appreciate that things aren't free. Don't look to the federal government, the most distant institution that has kind of beguiled, you know, many people over time, leading us to the brink here to where, It could all fall apart. Everybody is so dependent on it, pay the consequence. But millennials, I think, will learn all of this. I think in too many cases, you know, there's been just the insulation from or maybe the naivete that goes along with the fact that you have not, you don't remember things like the Depression, World War II,

and some of these other times when you had to have great sacrifice to get through it. or most deeply in debt coming out of World War II. It was over 100% of our GDP. We paid it off and then built the infrastructure system that we all love. That was not done through the ethic that many that are millennials, you know, adhere to. I think regrettably they're buying more into what we've got more of now when you look at the Green New Deal. And by the way, all the issues that the Democrats bring up, I believe there's validity to them. I think Republicans are foot draggers on most of the problems that beset us, including health care.

I'm the only Republican out there blaming the health care industry because most are apologists to the health care industry. And the industry ought to fix itself. Why should we be having to legislate them into doing what they should be doing anyway? So I believe millennials as they age, they're going to shoulder all of this. And it's going to be a mess that they never imagined because we, even though there are some of us, I think being truthful with the American public, are going to probably hand off to them something that will need a crisis to actually put us through the catharsis that will be necessary to fix it. Well, Senator Mike Braun, thank you so much for joining us today. where can our listeners follow your work when they, if they want to follow your legislation or other things that you're doing? I mean, just get on my website and you can find all this stuff.

We have an ability if you want to, we call it weekly updates, see this, listen to this and see all the other stuff I'm doing. As sad as it is, the biggest thing I've got is the microphone because you can see that nothing gets done here in the way it should work. and I'll keep speaking the truth and talking about these issues. And please get onto my website, sign up for my weekly updates. Well, thank you again for being with us. You're welcome. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court,

subscribe to Scotus 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Representative Rashida Tileve, Democrat of Michigan, is ready to raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour. Here's footage of recent remarks she made via GOP Group America Rising. Allow people to be living off of 10 wages. It's just not, or whatever they call it, it's income because it's just not enough to support our families. But I also want to always tell a story because big bites like this one, $15. By the way, when we started it, he should have been $15.

Now, I think it should be $20, make sure of America horizon here is that. It should be $20.0. It should be $20 an hour, like $18 to $20 an hour at this point. Everything all the cost. And so if they say all this is going to raise the cost. So Daniel, why do you think she stopped at $20 and didn't go to $100? I mean, it's interesting that the House just voted on a $15 minimum wage, federal minimum wage, and now she is saying that's not enough. It needs to be 20.

I mean, this falls into the mental trap that the government actually can't achieve this. It's not even a question of whether it should. She thinks it should. It's a question of whether the government can actually achieve that outcome. I mean, mainstream economists, like not even just conservative economists, will say that raising the minimum wage, especially that high, is going to have, is going to backfire on lots of workers. Some workers will be kept on. They might have reduced hours, though. A bunch of other workers are going to lose their jobs because, you know, that's less.

money that the employer has to pay to other employees. So it just doesn't add up. It creates unintended consequences. Right. And in a way it fosters inequality. I mean, the recent report from the Congressional Budget Office looking at the $15 per minimum wage found, I believe that while some people and several million were going to make more, there would also disappear several million jobs. So it would exacerbate inequality in that sense. And the other thing that I just feel the left isn't taking it all seriously is, you know, our colleague, Rachel Gressler, the Heritage Foundation, talked about this in her recent interview with us, automation. Right.

You know, I mean, I've, you know, been to McDonald's, and they now, you can order in the United States, and I've seen this in France as well, which makes me sound really snobby, but whatever. You can order via machine. You don't have to order to a person. I mean, as someone who literally worked as the person who took your order in Burger King, I have mixed feelings about that. Yeah. I mean, why, if you're an employer, why, you know, pay your people $15 an hour or $20 an hour when you can just buy, you know, a machine to take people's order at a fixed price?

Right. But like at the same time, again, to talk about myself, I mean, I learned a lot as a cashier at Burger King. Right. That was actually genuinely helpful. I learned how to get along with people. I learned how to try to beat the drive-thru clock. And you didn't need it to be a quote-unquote living wage, right? No, I was living with my parents. I was 15 and 17. See, that's the key. I mean, I worked at Chick-fil-A. also when I was living with my parents. And it was the same kind of thing. It was, by the way, chick flay is better than Burger King. It was the same. It was the same kind of thing. It was,

you know, earning, it was supplemental money for me that helped me to work and get experience. And that's really what I needed at that point. So, you know, it's just not. Right. And I bet you learned about working with other people and, you know, just basic skills, like, show up for a job in time. And like, I think that's the thing. When you look at who does minimum wage jobs, There are some people who are trying to support a family off of that. But that's not all, or I'm even sure, the majority of them. And, you know, you don't want to make it that every teenager is doing like a stupid free internship at some posh firm before they get a, you know, a real job or something. Like, I think it's good to have to do work like this.

And it would be a shame if it wasn't available. I mean, the evidence is so clear on this that it just backfires everywhere that it's tried that I struggle to believe. that people like Tel Aviv and other politicians who want this are really serious about it. It just comes across as virtue signaling because the evidence is so clear that this does not help most workers, that it's almost a willful assertion of their wishes, you know? It's like wishful thinking. I don't, I don't, I think they are serious, but I think like what you talk about. I mean, either they just don't look at evidence.

Well, right, and I think that's sort of the thing you talk about that I find so frustrating about many proposals. from the far left lately, you know, such as the Green New Deal, which is just insane. There doesn't appear to be any seriousness of like, how do we balance reality with, it just seems to be, as you say, like wish fulfillment. Like, this is what I wish it could be. I wish everyone could be paid $20 an hour, which I don't disagree with that wish. If a genie could do it great. You know, politics is not the art of wishes.

It's the art of how do we make things better when we deal with real. you know, pros and cons. What's interesting is that in this economy right now, the lower wage bracket has actually been growing a lot faster than the higher wage earners. And so there's actually been a real growth, and you don't want to hurt that. And the perfect recipe to hurt that kind of wage growth is a minimum wage law like this, which would raise it for a few people who are lucky enough to keep their jobs, but then knock a bunch of other people out of their jobs.

Right. And also, I mean, we have a booming economy right now. Like, I mean, this is not a great time for employers, frankly. It's, you know, a time where they're having to settle for people who are less qualified or pay people more than they want. I guess what I'm saying is if you think right now you have skills that are worth, you know, $15 an hour or more. I mean, it's a booming job place. Go for it. You should be able to find something. Well, that is a good place for us to leave it. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce. Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please do us a review or rating on iTunes to give us feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow.

The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.