The Dan Bongino Show - Ep. 617 The Truth About What Happened Yesterday
Episode Date: December 21, 2017The Democrats want you to believe that this a “tax cut for the rich.” That’s total nonsense, and this piece explains why. A Democrat in Virginia made a shocking announcement that even conservat...ives can applaud. The Clinton surplus is a myth. Read this piece and you’ll never be fooled again. Here is an easy-to-read chart showing federal tax revenue by year. Ask your liberal friends to show you where tax cuts “cost the govenment money.” Watch this liberal NBC host get completely destroyed in a debate on the tax bill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Growth is essential for every entrepreneur. At BDC, we get that. And the businesses we support grow at double the average rate, accelerating the pace. We're on it. BDC. Financing. Advising. Know-how.
Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show. Producer Joe, how are you today?
I am doing great, Dan. Glad to be here.
You're becoming quite the celebrity. I didn't tell you this before the show.
He's probably like, what? Where are we going with this?
What are you doing?
I was talking to someone, a rather prominent person behind the camera in the media industry,
who shall remain nameless this morning. And I swear,
I am not messing with you.
The first question was,
Hey,
how's Joe doing?
I'm not even kidding.
Listen to the podcast.
You know,
Elvis look itself.
So we'll be at CPAC this year.
If you want to see Joe,
you'll know him right away.
Because if you think Elvis was resurrected from the dead and is walking
around the building in the gay Lord in Prince George's County where they hold seat back, that is Producer Joe.
You won't miss him, I promise.
Remember that lady who recognized you right away?
She's like, you must be Producer Joe.
You look like Elvis.
I just grew the sideburns back, too.
Big, you know.
Yeah, you need to do that.
Although some dude saw your Twitter picture and tweeted me, like, you have an earring in the picture.
He was stunned by that.
He was shocked by the earring thing.
He was like, I can't believe it. I didn't send you that i'm gonna have to uh to search for that
email uh i was gonna say hunt so i was gonna have to search and hunt for that email and i'll send
it to you i have a big one i wear occasionally and a hoop and a cross dude man i love it all
right listen i got a lot of crap i gotta to get through today. There's so much going on.
Number one, I got some feedback on the tax show. And we have a super smart audience,
really smart. And forgive me, because sometimes I bring things up that are wonky, and I don't think you understand them at some point, so I may over-explain them. So a couple of questions.
Here's what I did. Here was the gist of it. I have been trying to make the point for the course of a couple of days now,
and I did a Facebook video on this yesterday, which is up to almost 400,000 views, which is
insane, by the way, maybe over that by now, where I explain the tax bill. You're free to watch it.
I did a couple of shows explaining the tax bill, so we're not going to redo any of that.
But one of the points I've been trying to hammer home, which I think is critical for any
conservative listening to this or libertarian or someone who believes in economic liberty, that it's your money.
It's not the government's money.
And you owe them no explanation whatsoever for asking to keep the money you worked for.
You get up in the morning and you work for it to put it in your wallet to benefit yourself and your family.
You pay enough money as is.
We can pay for our military.
We can pay for our court system.
You don't owe them another dime.
We can pay for our military.
We can pay for our court system.
You don't owe them another dime.
And one of the arguments I've been using to rebut this entire stupid Democrat talking point about how deficits, tax cuts are going to cause deficits is show me where it's happened.
Now, we've said this multiple times.
I produced a tax table from a tax policy center or whatever, which is, by the way, I think it's a product of Brookings.
So it's a little bit of a left-leaning outlet.
But the numbers are accurate, though.
And I produced a tax table, and I said, go to the tax cuts, the significant tax cuts in U.S. history, 1964, 1986, 2003, and show me afterwards where the government lost money.
You can't do it.
Now, one of the other years I pointed out, which our very smart listeners caught, was 2001, which was the initial Bush tax cut.
I assume, I don't want to say this sounds really pretentious and horrible.
I assumed a lot of people knew what I was talking about, but they didn't.
That's my fault.
And let me correct it.
If you look after 2001, yes, tax revenue did dip after 2001.
But the 2001 Bush tax cuts, folks, the rate cuts were set into the future in 2006.
The 2003 Bush tax cuts simply moved up those 2006 cuts into 2003.
The point of the whole thing I'm trying to tell you is the tax cut happened in 2003.
The 2001 thing was a refund, was simply a stimulus refund check, which is not going to impact the economy positively like a permanent tax cut.
Do you see what I'm saying, Joe?
Be the equivalent of Joe, you saying to me, you're king for a day, Joe.
You get to do whatever you want.
You say, I'm going to cut taxes, Dan, but I'm going to do
it in 2024. And
everybody goes, wow, look, the tax cuts
Joe implemented in 2017
didn't do anything. Well, of
course, because it didn't happen in 2024.
Okay, yeah, thanks.
In 2003, Bush
came back to the table and said, you know those tax cuts
in 2001? I said we're going to
happen in 2006. They're going to happen now. And then what happened after 2003? Tax revenue went up.
That only buttresses the point and advances the point and builds on the point that what I'm
telling you is true. That tax cuts historically have not resulted in any way, shape, or form in
a decrease in revenue. So thanks to the listeners who pointed that out.
But that's – you see how that advances the ball, Joe?
Yeah.
Oh, they cut taxes in 2001, but they said it's going to happen in the future.
And then when they moved it up to 2003, tax revenue went up.
All right?
So good point.
Secondly, I got a couple of questions about the tax chart, and they said,
look, that tax chart you put out, which is accurate.
I put it out because it's by a left-leaning institution by the way so no lefty's gonna try to discredit it well they shouldn't if they know what they're talking about
they said look in the tax charts it shows a clinton surplus it's it shows more money coming
into the government as receipts than outlays yes Yes. Yes, but this is the point on this I've always tried to make.
That surplus for those receipts, folks,
was not from income tax revenue.
The surplus was from a surplus in Social Security.
Now, I'm going to post today.
This may be the second or third time I've posted this,
but it is a...
Please, please, please, I'm begging you to read this.
It is an excellent blog piece by a guy named Craig Steiner. It's called The Myth of the Clinton Surplus. I don't want to
say it's long. It's above average. Well, medium would be. It's above average in length, but it
is incredibly easy to read and incredibly detailed and provides actual United
States government website links showing conclusively that the Clinton surplus you're
seeing is not a real surplus. It's an accounting gimmick. Here's the gimmick, folks. The Clinton
years, and I want to put this out there, the Clinton years government spending was relatively
controlled. I'm not knocking Clinton and Newt Gingrich for not spending
a lot of money. Does this make sense, Joe?
I'm simply trying to tell you that the
myth that there was ever a government surplus
during those years is not true.
And Steiner
in the piece points it out, that it's an accounting
gimmick and it requires you to
not understand the
difference between public debt and
intra-governmental holdings.
What?
Now you're getting crazy.
Here's what happened.
We had some really good economic years during the Clinton presidency
that had a lot to do with welfare reform, control of government spending,
and Bill Clinton's own statement show at the State of the Union.
You remember this?
The era of big government is over.
Yep, I remember it.
Bill Clinton said it,
folks, because he's a Democrat, doesn't make that statement untrue, okay? I'm not applauding him,
I'm just saying that's what he said. And in many respects, government spending was constrained,
okay? We had some booming economic years. What happened in those booming economic years?
what happened in those booming economic years?
People pay payroll taxes, too.
These are not income taxes, folks.
You pay a FICA distribution.
You pay Social Security and Medicare on your tax bill now.
It is not an income tax.
It's supposed to be your Social Security money, which it's not.
It's already been spent. What happened in the mythical clinton surplus people because the economy was booming joe if
you're making a hundred thousand dollars and it's a percentage of your income up to a certain point
social security we're paying tons of social security money that did not have to be distributed
out to the population as a benefit.
I don't know if that made sense.
Okay, yeah. So let's say-
I'm with you.
You're with me.
Okay.
The United States had 100 people in it.
80 of them are working.
They're all paying Social Security.
In the Clinton years, before the baby boom population exploded, there weren't that many
people, well, there were, but there weren't that many people giving the amount of money
coming in that needed the money.
So what happened to the money if a billion was coming in and only 800 million was being paid out
i'm making the numbers up and i'm trying to make it easy that leaves a joke air quotes here
surplus of 200 million but it wasn't a surplus folks it was supposed to go into the Social Security Trust Fund. You remember the
lockbox, Joe? That's not what happened. That's not what happened. The Social Security surplus
was used to purchase government bonds, which were rapidly sold off, and the money was spent.
It was not a surplus. It was your money that was supposed to be put in a lockbox
that was spent to pay down public debt.
There was no surplus.
Joe, does this make sense?
Yeah.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
Because I get a ton of emails.
So what you're seeing in receipts on that tax chart I put out,
and I'll put it again in today's show notes, the tax chart.
What you're seeing in receipts
are not what the government
took in from income taxes
to finance its operations.
It's what it took from you
and your social security money
that you're supposed to be getting
in 10 and 20 years.
That's the joke of the whole thing.
Yeah.
I will put the Clinton surplus,
the myth of the Clinton surplus blog piece
in the show notes today
and up at Bongino.com.
If you subscribe to my email list at Bongino.com, as always, I will email it to your inbox.
Read it.
There is no way after reading this piece you will ever believe again that there was any such thing as a surplus in the Clinton years.
He did great on some aspects of the economy.
Government spending did fine thanks to Gingrich and him.
But saying it is just simply not true. But I applaud the listeners of the show for pointing
that out. Really great job. One more thing to debunk. A couple more things since I did the tax
show. A couple of people have emailed me and said, well, their liberal friends said, yeah,
Reagan cut income taxes to 70 to 28 percent and income tax revenue
to the government went up and general tax revenue went up and almost doubled. But Reagan raised taxes
too, man. You know, after they smoked a few doobies or something. Yeah. You got the dude. Play the
dude. We need the dude. Yeah. Well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man. That was the
dude after a few doobies smoking a roach there or something like
that folks do not do try never did drugs in my life okay don't do drugs because one lady emailed
me once at her kids list kids dude trust me dude it will ruin your entire life don't do drugs i
know i know having some really horrible experiences with family members i don't thought a very serious
yeah but i know i shouldn't joke about that stuff but i can't get enough of this because it's like liberals whatever you say um you know they're
immunized to facts and data they've clearly taken the fax vaccine when their kids they always have
a comeback and the comeback's never true and and that's the that's the advantage of being a liberal
and debating no matter what you say and what evidence you produce, they will produce a counterpoint not based in fact.
Now, Joe, you and I are fairly limited in our responses
because we're based on the data set we're responding on.
You see where I'm going with this?
We rely on facts, yes.
Yeah, but that's a limitation for us.
It is.
Because I can only say what the data allows me to say.
If you ask me something like,
well, Reagan did a Martian landing program in 1984, and I can't argue back because I don't
know anything about that, and there's no facts and data about it. But if you ask me about the
data set on taxes after Reagan cut taxes, I can show you conclusively the tax revenue went up.
But that's all I can say. Making a causal inference is difficult. I can show you conclusively the tax revenue went up, but that's all I can say.
Making a causal inference is difficult.
I can certainly make a correlational one, but not a causal one, as I described yesterday in the show.
The problem I have is when you lie and you make things up, you can come back with anything.
Well, Reagan raised tax.
Reagan did.
They are actually factually correct about that.
There were taxes Reagan raised to make the tax code more clean and fair.
Joe, he wanted the distribution on capital gains, the capital gains tax, to marry up with the income tax. So just to walk through what happened in the Reagan years, because liberals are either
confused or lying, most of them are the latter Reagan cut the top rate
from 70 to 28%
in order to prevent people
from taking then
their income as capital gains
the capital gains tax rate Joe
was 20% at the time
Reagan said to be fair
we should marry those two rates up Joe
so we're going to cut the top income tax rate
dramatically from 70 to 28%. But to make sure people don't kind of arbitrage the situation
and then change their income to capital gains, which was taxable at 20%, he said, let's, I don't
agree with the decision at the time, but he said, let's raise the capital gains tax to 28%.
Yeah. I remember that.
Your point. And this is what liberals do, Joe. They take one point and they extrapolate one true fact that Reagan raised tax.
That's what did it.
That's what led to the increased tax revenue.
And they extrapolate false information, hoping you're too stupid to look it up.
What are you going to do?
I don't know, Donnie.
What are you going to do?
Here we go.
Here's the data.
Because again, we do data here.
You want to do nonsense?
Go listen to some kooky liberal on.
Go listen to Pod Save America or whatever.
Whatever that kooky show is.
They do well.
Congratulations on their success.
I'm a capitalist.
But I'm sure the show is full of nonsense.
Reagan's capital gains tax.
He raises it for a hike.
He raises it from 20 to 28 percent.
So liberals, just to be clear, your assertion here is that the reagan tax
hike led to the increase in government revenue you're telling us the tax cut had nothing to do
with joe reagan hate rises the capital gains tax from 20 to 28 capital gains tax revenue goes from
52 billion to anxiously awaiting this higher number that's supposed to account for the doubling of tax
revenue yes yes uh yeah you ready yeah yeah yeah 39 billion 39 billion so it was 52 billion and it
goes to 39 billion ladies and gentlemen please explain to me how a capital gains tax hike that
dropped the capital gains tax revenue from $52 billion to $39 billion
accounts for an increase in tax revenue to the government after a income tax cut from $500 billion to $900 billion when Reagan left office.
Please explain to me how that happened.
Joe, I'm serious.
Can you please mathematically explain to me how hiking a tax, which cut revenue,
you hiked the capital gains tax and you lost money from it, how that leads to an increase in tax revenue to the federal government.
Can you give me any reasonable, plausible explanation that our liberal friends would understand?
No, Dan, I don't think I can.
No, of course you can't because it's ridiculous.
It's absurd.
And it's another example of again what liberals do this is why folks you have to
be super savvy debating these cats because they're manipulative liars or they're dopey
i'm sorry they just don't know what they're talking about or they do and they take one fact
and they extrapolate information that's untrue hoping you won't notice where the where the break
between truth and fiction starts yes reagan disney raid tax, is that true? And he lost money.
So how the heck a tax hike on capital gains that lost money
could in any way contribute to the explosion in government revenue
after the income tax cuts is just nonsense.
But Joe, I promise you this,
it will do nothing to stop
these maniacs on the left from continuing
to use that silly talking point.
Alright. Here's one more
that I got. People email
me this stuff all the time. They say, well,
you know, my friends are saying now
this is kind of
semi-related to this. This is off the tax
topic for a minute, but someone said in an email
that my friends are saying that,
you know, look, the Obama stock market,
this is their new talking point now.
The Obama stock market went up a lot.
It went up dramatically.
And this is indicative of the fact
that Obama laid the groundwork for economic success
and that Trump had nothing to do with it.
Folks, yeah, it's insane.
Point number one,
we do not measure economic success for the United States collectively as a country by the stock market.
Joe, why would you think that is?
Now, let me ask you a question.
I'll ask you a simple question.
I'm going to set you up.
This is a ground ball here.
WCBM, where you work, right?
Are they listed on the NASDAQ? No. That's not a trick.
Are they listed on the S&P? No. No. Are they listed at all? No. Okay. They're not because
it's not a publicly traded company. Exactly. Yeah. Folks, the reason we don't measure economic
success, if you're smart, by the stock market is the stock
market, the Dow Jones, the S&P, the NASDAQ, whatever measure you want, the FTSE, whatever
measure you want to use, okay, is a sliver, and I mean a sliver, an infinitesimally small measure
of a few relatively wealthy companies that their success based on their
future net present values being measured and i will caution anyone i i i've been a little guilty
of this and i'm starting to retract them because i want to be fair i would caution anyone as well
to trump's economic success by the way at this point is unquestionable in my opinion,
but get away from the stock market stuff. You see where I'm going with this show?
Yeah. It's a dumb measure. It is a sliver of what's going on in the economy. Number one.
And number two, the companies that done does measure, which are a sliver of American business,
the overwhelming majority of American businesses, small businesses, mid-sized businesses, even large businesses are not on a stock exchange.
The stock exchange and the stock exchange measure going up to Dow has nothing to do with them.
Don't do it.
Don't attribute it to Trump.
Don't attribute it to Obama.
And I'm not just saying that because it went up under Obama and this is like, now I'm just giving you ammo for an attack.
I mean it.
Stock markets go up and stock markets go down, sometimes regardless of the overall economic
success going on.
Most of the time, they do go up when the economy is succeeding for obvious reasons.
So that's point number one.
The stock market is a sliver of the American economy.
Point number two, Joe, the stock market is nothing more
than a present-day measure of future optimism.
Yeah.
That's all it is.
When you buy stock in a company,
an ownership stake,
you buy 1,000 shares of Joe's mousepad factory,
whatever it may be,
and he goes public.
You own a portion of that company.
That's right.
They're equities. You a portion of that company. That's right. There are equities.
You own equity in the company.
Now, that may be 0.001%, but regardless, you own it.
That's what stock is.
When you're buying that stock at that value, you're buying it oftentimes at a multiple
of what you think the future revenues are going to be.
You're not buying it on what the profits are today.
Most people, I'm going to say buy on the rumor,
you know, sell them when it comes true,
right, when it happens, right?
Most people are buying on the future profits.
How can I, I mean, it's relatively easy to prove.
Just watch the Dow Jones.
You know, a rumor comes out that, you know,
Apple's working on the iPhone 72, and it's got space transmission technology.
It can send you to Mars in a pod tomorrow.
It'd be, ah, I can go to Mars.
All of a sudden, Apple's stock goes through the roof.
Why?
They haven't sold one product that has space transmission technology.
That's why insider trading, by the way, is such a big deal.
Insider trading is such a big deal and a crime, because that insider trading is, if you know something, a secret that's going to increase the future value of a company, you buy the stock now. You don't wait till tomorrow.
year, 5,000 points, in my opinion, because all of the pent-up goodwill under the Obama years, people were holding money, I mean, with the companies, not with Obama.
Companies that were holding money now see a positive expansionary business environment
and are pouring it in there, are pouring it into these companies, and that's why the market's
going up.
Now, a fair retort would be, and I know, Joe, you're probably thinking this now, it's probably,
well, okay, well, wasn't there optimism in the Obama years, too?
No.
How do I know that?
Just look at the surveys.
Don't ask me.
Don't take Dan Bongino's opinion.
Look at the National Federation of Independent Business.
Look at the Manufacturers Association.
All of these people who put out surveys.
Look at the surveys under the Obama years of these people who put out surveys.
Look at the surveys under the Obama years for business optimism.
They were in the can.
They're now at record highs.
So, Joe, your fair follow-up should be,
okay, you still haven't explained why the stock market went up under Obama.
Yeah, that's what it was.
Folks, optimism was down under Obama. The reason the stock market went up is because of loose Federal Reserve policies.
And I get it.
A lot of you liberals, oh, you're just looking for an excuse.
It was Obama.
It was not Obama.
Companies themselves were afraid of what was going on.
Look at the surveys.
Look at what the company said.
Folks, they had nowhere else to put the money.
he said. Folks, they had nowhere else to put the money. Our central bank, the Federal Reserve,
had driven interest rates into the ground. When they drive interest rates into the ground, Joe,
how are you going to get a return on your money? Let me ask you something, Joe. If the interest rate is close to zero and you put $100 in the bank and you're getting zero or 0.1 interest, whatever it may be,
some nonsensically low interest rate because of our central bank, the Federal Reserve,
driving interest rates down to keep loose money. Are you making any money at the end of the year
on your investment? No, that would suck, Dan. That would suck. That is a professional economic
analysis of the highest order. That would suck. You're right. It requires no additional analysis.
If interest rates are low and you can't,
it's called chasing yield.
Yeah.
Seeking alpha for you geniuses out there, right?
Yeah, it's chasing yield.
Companies that had money on the books,
which they did under Obama,
that now they're spending under Trump,
had to do something with it.
What are you going to do, burn it?
They didn't want to keep it in the bank,
so they had to chase yield.
Because the interest rates were so low,
there was nowhere else to put it.
So what did they do?
They went and bought other companies,
or bought stock in other companies.
Oh, you think I'm making that up?
Look at the level of investment
in non-residential products. In other words, forget about housing for a minute. Look at the level of investment in non-residential products in other words forget
about housing for a minute look at the manufacturing look at the levels of investment under the obama
years in the can folks the can historically low levels of investment yet in other words what
companies should have been doing with the money right joe investing in their companies and their
workers that's what happens in a growing economy.
The Obama years, historically
low numbers of investment.
But look at what was
really high.
Mergers and acquisitions.
So companies that refuse
to invest in their company
and growing their product lines and selling more
products because the economy was a dud
just said, all right, what are we going to do here?
All right, we got a bunch of regulations we have to comply with.
I got an idea.
Joe's Mousepad Factory, let's buy Bobby's Mousepad Factory too.
We can combine lawyers.
We can combine accountants.
We'll save some money.
Are you going to be producing anything new?
No, no, mousepads, just more of them because we have two companies.
There was no productivity enhancement out of it whatsoever,
except for getting rid of the regulations and red tape
across two companies instead of one.
Look at the numbers.
The stock market went up
because they had nothing else to do with their money.
So they either bought stock,
inflating the price of other companies,
or they just bought the companies
to get rid of the regulatory load.
Does this make sense, Joe?
Yeah, yeah.
All you got to do is look at the numbers, folks.
That's it.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Anything liberals tell you otherwise, disputing the numbers are nonsense.
I remember shows about this almost a year and a half ago.
You do, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, we did a, exactly.
If you've listened to our library, we did an entire show almost on mergers and acquisitions
going through the roof under the Obama years and investment in the can.
Right.
Because it was nothing else to do with the money.
Now the stock market's going up based purely on the numbers.
Based on business investment, which has spiked just under Trump.
Based on economic optimism, based on surveys.
It's not my opinion.
Look at the surveys.
I just put the CNBC article in yesterday's show notes about economic optimism through
the roof, where it wasn't under the Obama years.
You see what's so frustrating about arguing with libs about this stuff?
Yeah.
They just make it up.
I promise you, you tell this to your liberal friends,
they'll have some other nonsense story.
I guarantee it.
Because they live in a fantasy land.
They live in a fantasy land where they just fabricate things left and right
because they don't want to face the reality that their entire,
everything they've believed in, everything they've been told,
everything that they have passionately fought for for so long is categorically false.
I sympathize with you.
I do.
I know it hurts.
I get it. and data and how the real world works and how everything you believed in so passionately in
this messianic figure in Barack Obama has been utterly refuted now by history in the presidency
of Donald Trump. I know that's got to be a tough pill to swallow. You're only human. You're not
robots. I get it. You have emotions. You believed in this guy. You heard his speeches. You want to
believe liberalism is for the little guy.
And you're helping people out.
And government is saving grace.
And this benevolent philanthropic force in people's lives.
But everything you believe has been false.
It is not true.
We tried this under eight years of Barack Obama.
And crushed our economy.
We crushed dreams.
We crushed lives.
We destroyed jobs. We destroyed investment.
This happened. This is not an X-Files story. This is not a Teddy Ruxpin tale, an Aesop's fable.
This happened. This really happened. The data shows it if you just open your eyes. You do not
have to be a Trump worshiper. You don't have to even be a Republican to know what I'm telling you is true.
You want to stay a Democrat?
Work to change your own party.
But I'm telling you right now, and I'm going to leave it at this.
Everything, and I mean everything you believed in, is wrong.
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All right.
Here's a story I've only been holding onto now
for four days because it's so good,
but there's just been a lot of pressing news.
We had the tax bill pass. There's just been a lot of breaking news. So it's tough. There was a governor's race in Virginia and New Jersey. They always have these off-cycle elections in odd years. So 2017 was their governor's race. Most of you know, we had the New York Socialists in New Jersey win, Phil Murphy. And we had Northam win in the Democrat in Virginia.
Now, I saw this article.
I think it was up in Hot Air.
I will put it in the show notes today, please.
Ed Morrissey.
It is Hot Air because Ed Morrissey wrote it.
Please read it.
It is so good.
It's short, sweet, easy to read to the point.
I try not to post too much wonky stuff because if I have wonky stuff, I'll make it like a
secondary piece piece not the
primary piece that way you can set up the premise first so this the democratic governor uh down
there the governor-elect northam is shockingly joe made him you know listen hats off to the guy
would never vote for a democrat frankly i mean unless the republican was absolutely horrible but
he made a shockingly bipartisan, non-ideological decision recently
about the path forward in Virginia. And if you're a Virginia resident, listen extra close. But if
you're a resident anywhere around the world, listen extra close too, because I think that
some Democrats are finally waking up to the destructive eight years of Obama and how awful
Obamacare was. Here's the story. He has decided, the Democratic governor-elect here,
to not expand Medicaid in Virginia,
which was part of the Obamacare.
Remember, folks, under Obamacare,
one of the things they did with Medicaid,
which is a government-sponsored health insurance program
for poor people that they don't pay for.
You do, but they don't pay for it.
The Obamacare legislation expanded it to people in some cases
and families up to 400% of the poverty line.
In some cases, it depends on assets versus income.
It was income dependent.
I explained this in an earlier show.
If you had a lot of assets, you were in some ways eligible to get
a program designed strictly for the poor. Bottom line is this, Joe. It expanded Medicaid into
people who were questionably poor by income standards, okay? Now, a lot of Republican states,
including Florida where I live, said we can't do that because even though the federal government
is going to provide up to 90% of the funding,
which is irrelevant, folks.
Why do I say it's irrelevant?
Because who pays the federal government?
Oh, you do.
It's your money.
Whether it comes from the state or federal government, frankly, it's largely irrelevant.
It's coming from your pocket, right?
So they said, well, the federal government is going to provide up to 90% of the funding.
So the states were like, well, we should take that.
What a gravy train.
Yeah, bring it on, babe. Well, a lot of Republican
states said no, because even at that 10% of the funding, it phases out in the future and Medicaid's
growing so rapidly, the budgets, it used to be 10% of the Florida budget. Now it's 30, that even
that a little bit of extra amount they were paying in contrast to the federal government is too much.
So here's the problem with this and
this goes to show you again how i'm going to open up that file george oh and i frequently have to
have to go into of stories about liberals that indicate that not only are they not helping the
poor or helping you that they're actively kicking you in the teeth as you try to get up off the
ground this story is a perfect indicator as
to why. I was not aware of some of the data that Ed Morrissey puts in this hot air piece that'll
be in the show notes. Here it is. There's been research coming out, and this is one of the
reasons, to be clear, why the Democratic governor-elect is saying no can do on the expansion,
Joe. The expansion of Medicaid from poor people into basically lower middle class folks who
could probably afford insurance on their own, Joe, is crowding out poor people.
Now, crowding out is an economic term.
What does that mean?
Well, the best analogy is a visual.
If you're in a room packed full of people and that room of people has no room, it's
hit the fire code, Joe.
200 people in the room, no more.
And you say we're going to help the 200 people in this room, and you pick them, and they're all people who are
very poor. And then all of a sudden, you start saying, oh, you open the door, and you go, hey,
guy, what do you earn? I earn 60, 70,000 a year. You're not really poor. Get in the room. We'll
help you, too. Well, what happens in the room, Joe? It can only fit 200 people. So there's a
door on the other side. What happens? Someone's got to leave. So one poor person leaves. So now you have 199 poor people, one middle-class guy. All of a sudden,
you let 10 more middle-class folks in. 10 more poor people have to leave. It can only fit 200
people in a room. Now you're down to it. You're down to about 180, 170, 160. You get the point.
You go down and down and down. All of a sudden, you're down to 100 poor people and 100 middle class folks.
That's what's happening with the expansion.
Now, why?
This is critical.
I love stories like this because it always shows the futility of liberal politics.
What's happening, Joe,
is the expansion costs were 60% higher
than the projections,
meaning they had projected,
they said, oh oh you know what these
middle-class folks were allowing into the room joe they're not going to use these taxpayer-funded
health insurance services as much as the poor people because poor people may be sicker they
may not have had access before um that you know what they'll be a little cheaper so they they
factored in that the expansion people joe, were going to cost $4,875 per person in 2013.
What are the actual costs for the middle class people being let in the room for what should have been a poor person's program?
The actual costs are $7,436 per person.
Almost double.
Not real.
Almost double.
Folks, that's dramatic.
Joe, so we have these middle class people
being let in the room, right?
Yeah.
They are now costing twice as much
as was anticipated to pay
to give them, quote, free healthcare.
So the money has to come from somewhere, Joe.
Joe, if they're letting
the middle class people into the room and giving them the benefits of room yeah who do you think
is being exited out of the room and where do you think the money's coming from the pockets of go
i think that would be the poor people damn you would be right joe the poor people it is coming
from the poor people bingo ding ding ding ding ding so when i say it's crowding out poor people. It is coming from the poor people. Bingo. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
So when I say it's crowding out poor people, this is the joke, the sad, tragic, disturbing,
disgusting joke of liberal politics.
Again, they pretend to help you.
Look at what we're doing.
Look at what we're doing.
We are expanding free health care, which is nonsense, to people
making 400%
in some cases of the poverty line.
Sometimes middle class, sometimes even more than middle
class people. Look at the
help we gave them.
What about the poor people who are kicked out
of the room who are now losing benefits and being
crowded out of emergency rooms
because usage of emergency rooms in other places
is up by
middle class people who could have played for health care on their own let's not pay any
attention to that folks no attention there pay and now now let me give you the liberal comeback
because as i've said to you over and over it's a scam liberalism is a scam they have a comeback
for everything and by the, it's never true.
By the way, I'm in for Levin tomorrow.
I'm going to cover more of this, so please listen. I'm filling
for Mark, so I know you'll listen.
The liberal scam now is, Joe,
here's what happened.
The middle class people we gave the
Medicaid expansion to, there was
just, quote, pent up demand.
Meaning they were all getting ready to die
all at once.
And so we gave them health insurance,
and they all rushed to the emergency room.
And that's where the extra money came from.
Wrong again.
Of course, always.
The projections now into 2022
of the cost of these middle-class folks
who were given Medicaid,
that should have been going to poor
people because remember Joe the pen dump to ban theory yeah it's just garbage assumes this is a
one-time cost right Joe they all rushed to the emergency room they had the flu now they're all
good and don't worry folks costs are going to come down and we're really going to start giving that
money back to the poor people wrong again the projections are now through 2022 that the cost will be 10 higher than they are now
and they were almost double what they were before oh man every day every day i get up
where's someone in the media please cover this story please because it just, it never ends. It never, every time a liberal tries to help you
put on a bullet resistant vest,
go put on a football helmet
and get your elbows and knee pads
because you are about to get,
you're about to get cracked.
You're about to get slammed over the head
with a policy baseball bat
that I promise you is going to hurt.
It never ends.
Now you wonder why a former Secret Service guy
would leave his job to run for office.
This is it.
Because I feel like I've got this gift of gab thanks to you that you allow me to talk
on this platform.
But I feel like I have to explain this stuff this way because I have to explain it to myself
this way to try and find some ounce of logic in progressivism.
Man alive. Gosh, these people get suckered all the time. It's just amazing. Program to help the poor. Yeah, but the poor are getting
kicked out of emergency rooms because middle class people are running into the emergency room and now
they can't get doctor's appointments. Yeah, it was pent up demand. Yeah, but it's not. Demand's
getting even worse and even more people are getting kicked out.
You're a racist.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, thank you.
There you go.
You're a racist.
That's what our buddy Tom Maher used to say.
We haven't said that in a while.
I wonder if Tom's family would let us get a clip of that.
I'm going to ask Hannah.
That would be so great.
That's like an ode to Tom Maher.
He was the radio host that Joe used to know.
He was a cranky old guy, but he was the radio host that joe used to know he was a cranky
old guy but he was the best man he just he's filling for levin he would tear it up and he had
a way of saying it dude oh he's i can't i do it no justice that's why i really wonder if they would
let us do that i mean i get it you know he died he passed um and uh but he used to hear and he'd
go on it would go on forever.
It was the greatest thing ever, man.
He used to take those calls from like Melvin and remember those guys on the radio?
Yes, I do.
That was funny stuff, man.
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slash dan check it out okay uh quick final story for you folks uh democrat governors um are freaking
out this tax bill now that it passed yesterday hasn't been signed yet by trump and it will be
barring some catastrophe this will this is now the law they're freaking out and i want to bring
this story up because
joe lives in maryland and joe is my official uh dan bongino show representative in maryland also
the executive producer and the republican governor in maryland is uh also freaking out but in a good
way right um i'll there let me give you some uh some quotes from a wall street journal article
today about about what's going on with the democrat governors these are real quotes by the way
they say you can figure out who needs the most tax reform by the decibels of
protest amid other apocalyptic warnings new york governor uh andrew cuomo last weekend declared
that the gop bill's limit on the state and local tax deduction will trigger
an economic civil war between high and low tax states. Yeah, it gets better. California Governor Jerry Brown is liking Republicans to mafia thugs while Mr. Cuomo calls the bill a dagger at the economic heart of New York.
By heart, he apparently means the state's top earners who pay for Albany's ever higher spending.
Folks, these people are losing their minds.
Now, what's happening right here? What's happening is the Democrats in deep blue states are finally waking
up to the fact that their incredibly punitive high taxes they impose on specifically their
high earners, their most successful people, are now going to hurt and hurt bad because the, and let me be crystal clear on
this, folks, regarding the tax bill. And if you want a full explanation, watch the Facebook video
I have yesterday, top of my Facebook page, off the brackets and how it'll impact you.
But maybe it'll do that show again next week or so after everything passes. But New York and
California have unbelievably progressive tax codes they rely almost
exclusively on their most successful citizens now here's another quote why is this killing them joe
from the wall street journal piece the problem talking about the problem of high state taxes
by the way they are in this piece the problem is more acute when you consider that the top
one percent of earners joe pay nearly 50 of state income taxes in California and New York and 37% in New Jersey.
States may experience significant budget carnage if high earners defect.
Folks, think about what I just told you.
One out of every 100 residents, the most successful ones of New York and California,
pay 50 cents of every dollar of state taxes.
Wait, what?
Where's Spidey?
What?
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
What is right?
One out of every hundred people pays 50 cents of every dollar in state taxes.
What does that mean?
That means that now those state taxes
they used to be able to deduct from their federal tax bill
will now be limited to $10,000.
If you're paying $100,000 or $1 million to California in taxes, Joe,
you're now not going to be able to deduct that from your federal tax bill.
Why are they freaking out?
They're freaking out because they know
that the exodus from these high-tax states,
which has been dramatic already, Joe,
is only going to get worse
now that these people see no financial advantage
whatsoever in staying in these blue states.
They are going to get hosed.
I am not, listen to my friend
who emails me from New Jersey,
I am not celebrating the fact that some people are going to pay more taxes at the federal level.
I'm not. I'm just telling you the truth that this was a benefit for blue tax states that hurt people like me in Florida.
I don't want you to pay more taxes, but I don't pay state taxes because we don't have one down here in Florida.
But I don't pay state taxes because we don't have one down here in Florida.
So why someone in New York gets a benefit on their federal tax bill that I don't have access to is candidly unfair.
I would have rather them cut the income taxes enough that it wiped out, Joe, what's happening to rich people in blue states. Because I don't want you to pay more.
Are we clear on that?
But that's not what happened because the Democrats would not get
on board. The Democrats insisted on going through reconciliation and making the tax cuts expire.
Folks, I'm telling you right now, do not let the Democrats turn the tide on this. It's the
Democrats' high tax policies and blue tax states. That's the reason you are paying the tax wallop
you're paying now. It has nothing to
do with the federal government. It is them. You want Andrew Cuomo, Jerry Brown, you want to fix
it? Phil Murphy, the new governor, soon to be governor of New Jersey, the socialist,
you want to fix it? There's an easy way to do this. And Governor Larry Hogan, the Republican
in Maryland, has already pitched it. Joe, get ready for this. This is a crazy plan.
You ready?
Yeah.
This is dramatic.
I don't know if you're going to be able to handle this.
This might be intellectual overlord for you and the audience.
Larry Hogan has proposed crazy idea of Joe cutting state taxes to make up the difference.
What?
Play Spidey again.
What?
What? Oh Oh my gosh. You mean now your state taxes were too high,
so you're not going to get a deduction you got before that other states didn't get.
So Governor Larry Hogan, I'm very serious round of applause, I'm not being sarcastic,
has decided this crazy idea that maybe we should look at cutting the state tax load.
He's coming for you, Elizabeth.
He's coming for you.
He's actually racing ahead of Red Fox in this one.
He's coming for you.
Folks, to Governor Cuomo, Governor Brown, Moonbeam,
go call Larry Hogan, get on the bat phone today,
and try this revolutionary idea of cutting your state taxes.
It'll help.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it. Please go to Bongino.com, subscribe to my email list here. It helps us get
this information out to you. Thanks. See you all tomorrow. You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
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