The Dumb Zone FREE - Texas State Representative: Brent Money | Business Wednesday 5-20-26

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Brent Money was a longtime Ticket P1 and diehard BaD Radio listener for many years. He has found himself smart enough to become a State Representative for SD2 (Greenville, Commerce, Canton). What is politics? What is government? How big of a threat is Sharia Law to the state of Texas? Brent and Jake discuss these topics as well as welfare, school funding, the role of a religious representative in a liberal democracy.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Hey there. This is an interview I did a couple weeks ago with a man named Brent Money. He is the state representative representing House District 2, Greenville, Canton, Commerce. He's a longtime ticket P1. He was a diehard bad radio guy for reasons that will probably become apparent in this talk. I had done some trolling online to get people who are right-leaning to come talk. ball with me. Ideally, I'm looking for rabble-rousers and tough talkers and assholes, but only Brent graciously fell through my trap. We have very different ideas. I think the contradictions

in his ideas will become very apparent. But for me, it was a fun chat. So now it's time for you to judge. Okay, we are here with Brent Money. I'm not going to say real name Brent Money. It'd be a hack. What is your role, Brent Money? I am a state representative for House District 2, which is Hunt Hopkins and Van Zant County here in the state of Texas. And so there's 150 state reps in Texas, and I'm one of them. Do you prefer to be referred to as representative money? No.

Because somehow the name is funnier as representative money. Call me however you, yeah, Brent. Mr. Money, also funnier. Yeah, it is. Brent Money might be. It's a great name for better for worse, people are going to remember. it. So yeah. Yeah, it's a wild one, obviously with, with your lane and the jokes of politics and money, et cetera. So how did you get into this? So I'm a freshman. I was sworn in at the beginning of

2025. And so I'm about to go into my second session next year. And I've loved politics my whole life. I've kind of always been in it and around it. But I served on city council in Greenville for six years. I was city attorney for seven years before that. So I've been in and around politics for a long time. I grew up in a political family and and just was opportunity came open and a bunch of people were like, hey, I think you ought to pursue this. Was city council the first time you'd ever run for anything? Since like high school. Since high school. Yeah. Had that feel. No, I mean, it was great. I'm from a kind of a small town, 30,000 people or so. And our district is pretty small.

Just knocked on a lot of doors and talked with a lot of folks and tried to convince them to come out and vote. And then doing the work was not that big of a deal. You sit on a panel, you read the information. Sure, that part I'm actually, yeah, I think that part is interesting to me. It's that decision to go and represent and put yourself out there that I find so interesting. because I think you you responded to a tweet

of mine to end up with us being here today which indicated you're a bad radio listener, you were and I'm like this a normal person but then this person also ran for office so those are not the same to me so that's the sitting on the committee doing the work the paperwork I love that sort of stuff

it's the I would like to flip to that other side that's such a fascinating decision to me well I'll give you just a short historical background so I when I out of law school, I worked in Dallas for a bit, but then had an opportunity at home to come home and practice law. And one of the jobs I took over was being the city attorney for the city agreement. It took about half of my time. It was a lot of work.

And I did that for seven years, left there kind of, you know, a political controversy that I was involved in. That wasn't my fault. But, you know, politics happens even in small towns. Maybe more. especially in Paul Town, small towns. And so for a couple years, I just was doing my own thing. And then the people that I used to work with were like, hey, would you please run against this person?

We need better representation. And so I thought, well, I mean, I know what to do. Sure, I'll do it. And of course, my dad was like, you're going to get paid nothing. And half the people will hate you no matter what you do. What are you doing? and but I just felt like it was a right thing to do. Okay, so a freshman representative in the state of Texas, how long is your term?

Two years. So that's the thing. You're constantly in campaigning mode. That's always been the, whether federal or it's the term is insane. It really is. You know, one of the things that appealed to me about the Texas state rep is that it's, it's a part-time legislature. We meet 140 days every other year.

And so unlike, Congress, you can live at home in your house, run your own business. Your kids can go to your school. I mean, like, you can have a normal life supposedly, but it's still very busy. Okay. Now, I would think like on the city council, I mean, I don't know. I live in Grapevine, Colleyville. The city council's pretty charged. I don't really know what it was like before I hear stories of it. It's like working in radio where people are like in the 80s, it was so much more money and cocaine. And people talk about the school. It used to be so chill. When you were involved in city council, was your faith like a public part of your identity as a representative? Because now, obviously, yeah, I would say yes,

but the issues were not not really conducive to that. So I didn't come in just throwing Jesus bombs at everybody. Everybody knew I was a Christian, but it's probably not something I would mention most of the time, like in my official duties. It was, it wasn't hidden, but we weren't talking about abortion or gay issues or we weren't talking about things that I think were, were hot button religious issues. It was mostly just tax rate and police and fire and streets and water and sewer. And so, you know, Jesus didn't talk a lot about water and sewer, you know, so we didn't, we didn't really deal with it in the way.

the same way. Yeah, and I think that's probably, that might be where, uh, if we were to have, I don't, I don't really know how much you know about me. So I don't know how much backstory to get into. But, um, that to me is the disconnect as I think I indicated to you beforehand is, so you're the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, what is the, Sharia free Texas caucus. I mean, that to me just sounds insane. And, and, and so I, if I'm going to say that, I would rather actually talk to the person who is involved in this and explain to me the reasoning, because that's obviously not going to come up in Greenville, or wherever you were city council before. Was it Greenville? Yes. Okay. So I'm just saying I would typically lump that more with

the potholes. Right. As like I just, or or more with, you know, things that just are not, I said that incorrectly, not with the potholes, but that that is a distraction from the potholes, I guess. Just to the to the degree that I don't, my life. doesn't feel that affected by Sharia presently and I would say presently that's probably true I would also say you know I can walk and chew gum at the same time so I'm I'm very interested in education policy criminal justice I'm interested in a lot of different things this this happens to be an issue that that has gotten a lot of national attention it became important in my district and did become a local issue because of Epic City the the

you know, Muslim only enclave community that was going to be partly in Collin County, partly in Hunt County. And that was, you basically had to be Muslim to live there. The part of the money goes to the mosque. Like it just became like a parallel society living in rural East Texas or was that's the way it was envisioned. It has not happened yet. And so then people start looking around and say, what is what is going on here? And I think if you look at the 14th, 1400 year history of Islam and what it does to societies that it that it invades in some way. It's it's it is a totalitarian

Ideology. It's not just a practicing religion or people that you know pray to a different God or read a different book Their their book actually tells them how to live their life and how to enforce that onto other people around them And so, and I know you might be thinking, well, you're a Christian guy. You're trying to enforce your beliefs on other people. But that's really not true. So in Christianity, we want to persuade people to the truth. We want, but we believe and understand that everybody has their own free will to decide as they wish. And in Islam, it comes to a point where when they have political power, you have an

opportunity to submit, be enslaved, or be killed. And so, you know, let's not wait until we're in that kind of a position to start to start sounding some warning signs. So the first thing I would say is, and I don't, everybody's different, but I do think they're walking and chewing gum, yes, but everyone does have a finite at some level amount of attention and energy that they can apply. I always tell people this. It's much easier for me now that I quit drinking alcohol, but I literally, I go through my day like I'm a video game character, and I'm like, I need power up.

I'm like, now I need rest. Like, where am I at the end of the day? At some point, you know, you can be a person with a lot of energy. You can be like fired up, but you do have only so much your brain can handle it one time. That's just the way that I think. So any mental energy you have to expend on something like this is real mental energy. But if it's worth it to you, this is actually where I'm, would say similar to the comments that you were in the news for the last week or so,

regarding responsiveness in democracy to a higher power or your constituents, I don't think that's that controversial of a statement because I know what the Bible says, right? And so to me, you're actually just living the way that the book would indicate that an elected leader in a democratic society who is a devout Christian would. Like you're representing the people through God. Yeah.

So that's the same as to me, if you are a public Christian, I understand why you would have this view of Islam. It's sort of dictated by the book in some instances. But I guess what I would say is that it would seem to me that if we were focused on the society as we have it here, and by we, I guess I'll just mean Western, you know, before they got here or before whatever, that if everything worked well and that if everything functioned the way that you just build an attractive society so that these religions that are seven, eight hundred years older than yours, really no matter how in what manner they show up, it doesn't matter because you've built a great place to live

based on your values and your caring for your meek and poor. It seems misplaced to me And that is Completely aside from the fact that it's not my lived experience You know like the Muslim people that I know Like the Muslim people that I'm just not It's just not the lived experience that I had And I have to guard against that

Because my lived experience of Christianity has been terrible Right? Yeah, I'm sorry about that But it's not you have no Yeah Yours a response And I can't I have even less representation of For EFshire Muslims

So I can't apologize But I just think that that at the end of the day, you know, it's to me, as a voter, it comes off as weird that it's like, we have so many problems. And I just, I don't buy personally that this is, and I also like know, I guess, like a decent piece about this. Like my, my, my, uh, take on that would be as far as Islam and moving into countries is like, this is not exactly a religion that has grown up disaffect like on its own. It's typically, um,

in countries that get colonialized, right? And then it's like an adversarial force against. I think you've got to ask yourself that. Within, within 100 years of Muhammad's death. And certainly this is the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, they had completely conquered like 13 previously Christian countries.

But aside from, I mean, like, I want to say my lived experience is probably no different than yours when it comes to Muslims. That's why I don't like thinking too much about what has this faith been throughout the past 1400 years and saying,

well, how does it apply? I just go with well I play flag football with these guys they seem cool and you know that to me to use that as a barrier to because that's what in my head it's almost a barrier to social services because it becomes a barrier to funding it becomes a barrier this concern over this threat like gets in the way I'd almost concede if you would still just give me welfare but instead it's like well we use things like people that in my head we're afraid of and we use that to to in some ways like withhold social services and that's the part where I'm like so let me let me try to separate it because we could talk about like

welfare and social services separately is um you know my lived experience with Muslims has been has been positive i mean i've done business with them i'm you know my my office a nurse worked with doctors i've never had any experience with any Muslim that i know of um that was negative or bad and that's why It's not the Muslim Free Caucus. There's two Muslim members of the Texas House of Representatives. One, I don't know very well. The other one I know kind of well. Nice guy.

We talk. We talk about this kind of stuff. And so, try to, hey, what is your religion believe? What is my religion believe? What I don't want in why it says the Sharia Free Caucus, Sharia is in my mind and in the terminology that I understand and am using. is this parallel legal system that is incompatible with the Constitution that says that you have to follow these rules regardless of what the law of the land is on those particular things. And so I think that's where we say it's incompatible and why I'm focused on

yeah, this is not every person who would consider themselves a Muslim would believe in all of those things. Great, I want you on our team fighting against the radical folks that are. So do you ever, I mean, you're an actual policymaker, so I don't know if you ever think of the things just straight in terms of pros, cons, cost, benefit, but does it ever enter your mind that proposing something that even if you, it's, you're able to make this distinction between Sharia and Muslim, does it concern you at all that putting something out like that that has to be interpreted would make people who are the ones that you say you want on your side feel like you don't?

Very possibly. And I think that's why it's important that I continue to have those kind of conversations. And I think as we get over the next few months and we lead into the legislative session, there's going to be concrete policies that we're actually discussing in regard to this. And it's like as we get to those concrete policies, then I think people will say, oh, yeah, we do believe that women and men should have equal rights before. a judge and that, you know, women's testimony should not count for half as much as a man. No, listen, it's a very interesting situation because you're getting to woke out.

You are, you're getting to occupy the hippie. Like, you're getting to fight for women. You don't usually get to do that. Well, you're getting to stand up for, like, gay people. Well, hey, I don't want gays to be slaughtered because they're gay. Of course not, but you certainly have different views of like what their, you know, general life should be like I think. I think it would be better for them to not live in that lifestyle.

Right. That's what I mean when I say like that's, that's, but once again, in Christianity for me to sit down and say, hey, here's what God teaches about this kind of behavior or these kinds of things and why I think your life would be better if you did these things. But in the end, they get to walk away and decide to listen to me or say that guy is a bigot or he's hateful or whatever. I'm responsible for how and you know, the love with which I spread that message, but not, you know, not necessarily how it's received. But I don't want to live in a society, which, you know, which a lot of Islamic

societies are that, you know, punishes beats, enslave, you know, whatever people for being gay. I certainly don't want that. No, and see, that's the thing is it puts me, we're both, it puts both people in American political spectrums in an odd spot, right? Because I'm not typically defending religion for the most part, right? I mean, that's one of my issues with the voucher situation, which also creates some strange political bedfellows, right? On both sides or quadrants of it there. So, yeah, I think that that's, to me, the thing is that I know how Islam has been applied

in other countries. I know other countries where it's not. I know that at certain times in history it was a dominant force, at certain times it was a, you know, a reactionary for, I just don't even like, I don't, I just don't feel like it's that important to me. I just think, but I also don't have, I'm not a representative where Epic City was being built. That is, that's a big international story. And I would say also, that's why there's 150 people in the Texas house instead of just one. So if I show up and I say, this is the biggest, most important thing to me.

and at least 75 of the other reps don't agree and half the Senate and the governor, then it doesn't become law. And so, you know, I think that a lot of what happens is everybody talks about the pet projects and things that are the most important to them and some of them rise up and become a statewide conversation. Some of them turn into policy that becomes law,

and some of them fizzle and they don't. You know, that is what a representative democracy or a republic or whatever is, is you're going to have to get some consensus, consensus. Sure. And if you don't have consensus, you don't change the law. And that's why I would go back to, you know, the statement that you may, I would imagine that you have heard very little pushback from your constituency on the comments that you made regarding being responsive to. Yeah. And so for those who maybe don't follow me on X or whatever at bruntmoney.com,

I said in a different podcast interview thing that, um, the basic gist of it was that, that I, you know, I answer first to God for what I do, not necessarily first to my constituents. Now, that doesn't mean I don't listen to my constituents or ignore them. And I appreciate that you, you get what I'm trying to say there. But, you know, I've never been bashful about that when I was running. It's not like anybody, you know, people voted for me and they're like, oh my goodness, this, who is this guy that we voted for? He's, he said that he would do whatever we tell him to do. I think it's weird too. You know, I represent about 200,000 people. I can't ever know exactly what a majority of that 200,000 people really believe.

I will know what the loudest of them believe. But that doesn't mean that that is that that is even consensus. And so I think what you have to do, or at least the way that I approach it, is I need to make extremely clear to my constituents what I believe, how I evaluate things, how I make decisions. And then I need to communicate them as I make those decisions. and every two years they get to decide whether they want something completely different or whatever. Yeah, no, see, that's the thing. And there's just no other way to say this. But that's just why I would, that's why I would never vote for you, right?

Like, that's the decision you made. Of course. At that point, right? Like, I think, you know, and it's interesting because I'm, I do think that there's a place in my life personally. And I'm basically talking to the listener, I guess, who knows me, like for spirituality. And I probably wouldn't even have said that a couple of years ago. So if you're an elected official, whatever your moral base is and whatever foundation you have is going to be a big part of how you govern or rule or respond. I would just not elect someone who has, I think you have like fanatical religious views, right?

So I would not, that would be where I would start with. That's my choice to not elect that person. If you elect somebody because, see, I think, and this is where this is where I think, and I heard you on another show, talking about this to the social services part of things. The thing that drives me and has always driven me insane. I touched on this a little bit when I said, like, I'm getting hit from both sides is I live in a state that has been ruled by Republicans. And increasingly, I would say, if you zoomed out further to the right now, you could debate, like, as the overall Overton window moved or whatever. But I would say that the conservative,

conservative index of the Republican Party as I have it today is a 40 year old is higher than the one that my parents were in in 1993. Yeah. It seems more conservative. And in 1993, I mean, we were still ruled by Democrats. You know, Texas didn't really become a Republican state until, I mean, I think they finally won the House in 2004. Republicans won the House in 2004 election or maybe it was the 2002 election. So we, but Texas has what if I said just the Republican Party in general, would you agree with that or no? Yeah, I think we've been ruled by the Republican Party for better or for worse. And we could probably agree on some of those things.

Right. You know, for about the past 30 years. So we have that situation. We have just record numbers of investment and, you know, population influx. And I remember hearing something some time ago. It was like a Terry Gross interview about, um, you know, basically tax abatements and how states compete for businesses. Right. And it had never really occurred to me that when a company moves to a state, they don't always necessarily pay the full freight of there's there's a perfumed thigh, excuse me, leading them there. And so that every time you see all these jobs coming. Is that offensive to you? I mean, I'm just asking like when for, you know, whether you call it, you know, the tax abatements,

the corporate welfare, those kinds of things. I'm just curious where you're coming from there. Yeah. So I think you see it on paper and you say, well, these companies are moving here. This is going to make the economy will be better in my state. It outstrips the tax base. At some point, it's obvious. Like you could debate per pupil spending and it's, you know, correlation to success.

I just don't think the state of Texas, tell I feel about the Texas Rangers. There's no cap in baseball. You're in a top five market as a fan. Don't let me ever see that you're not spending top five money. It's the state of Texas. you know let's hang our big financial balls out there and spend like the Yankees in every category that's the way that i mean i live in texas i live in a business state run by republicans how come i don't have all the nicest shit yeah and instead i have all of that but everything's always broken and

to me that is that doesn't work you i it doesn't i get hit on the cultural side that's just sort of where i my background comes from of being frustrated in the state but what makes matters worse to me is that the social service implementation in this state is, you know, hamstrung by morality. And I think that's an area where you and I would really come at odds is that there are, it's proven to me in any case that the most effective way to help people is straight cash. It works in case after case. I have a friend running a program very, very small. but it's a Christian program in Greensboro, South Carolina, where he just gives people cash

each month who are on the edge of being able to get back into society. There's a slight means test of like they ask some questions that these people get referred to them. But it's, I think we make it way too hard to get social services. And then I think when you introduce the paternalistic part of Christianity into it, we're adding another layer. And I just think the best way to help people is to give them money. And we make it way too hard. So let me say that you and I may agree more than you think to a sense. Number one, I do think that there's a problem with all of the corporate welfare that's there. And I think if you look at that Overton window that's moving, although it's on a lot of different issues,

I think as the state gets more conservative, there are more people who are very skeptical of giving big handouts to companies that were probably coming here anyway, but now they're coming here and not having to pay the same tax burden that you, and I have to pay. I think that is... That's shifting, you think? No, yeah. Now, I don't... Do I think it's gonna stop anytime soon?

No. But I think there are far more people in my wing of the Republican Party who look at that with quite a bit of skepticism and say, why are we doing this? If Toyota wants to move here, great, but how come they get advantageous tax benefits as compared to the business that I have built here for the past. you know, 20 years or whatever the case may be. So that's one piece of it.

What's the reason for doing that in the first place? I mean, you weren't there at the scene of the crime, but is it just, it feels, to me, it feels similar to the Muslim panic thing of like, you know,

just be confident in what we have. Yeah, it's everybody, everybody, politicians want to, want to do something. And I guess another one in another state might. That's a part.

And so you say, well, if we don't do it, then Missouri will or Louisiana will or whatever. And so, you know, they're getting, that deal over there, so we have to make sure we can make a competitive deal over here. And so that's part of it. And so very few people get into politics to not do stuff. And so,

you know, there are people who for some way on the things that matter to them, they want to make change happen. And so if economy is your biggest thing and you want to grow jobs and you want to build a Texas economy or whatever, you want to be able to say, I did that. Now, I think what I would say, and I think you would agree is, hey, then let's make sure that when they come here, the regulatory is low. It's easier for people to find jobs. It's easier hire people. Let's make sure our education system is great. To be clear, I would not say that. Okay. I would regulate. I may be regulated. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, see, to me, that is a, but I would agree with you that you don't need to, you know, give away the farm. I want an environment where people will come because it makes sense for them to come.

Yeah. Not, okay, well, let's tilt the scales in your favor as opposed to other people so that you will come. That almost would feel like some sort of an invasion. It could be, you know, and I think there's some of that too. Like, okay, well, if this company wants to come here because they like Texas and they want to be a part of Texas, great. If they want to come here because they can suck us dry from the resources that we have or have built or have provided, And that's not as exciting. So, yeah, but when it comes to the distribution of just because, you know, you're not,

and even if you were, you're not the governor, if you were like creating a social welfare type system, what do you think of my critique generally than we are bloat waste? Yeah, my social welfare system would be much more like your buddy in South Carolina, meeting with people, talking with them, and giving them cash. And that was our social welfare system until about 70 years ago. Communities, rotary clubs, Christian groups, churches were the benevolence for the community. And they were in relationship with the people in need and they helped the people in need. Our war on poverty has failed.

I mean, we're no better off on a poverty standpoint. point today than we were in the 1960s. We're worse. We're considerably worse. And how many billions and billions of dollars? And so what I would say is we should be exceedingly generous with people that need it. We absolutely should be exceedingly generous. The government can't be generous because the government has nothing that they haven't taken

from someone else through threat of force. And so it's not, now as a politician, I could say, you know what, a million dollars for this, $100 million for that and then I get all the backtaps, but I didn't pay that money. I didn't have to sacrifice what my family was going to do in order to do that. But if I have a guy, and I used to work in the benevolence ministry of my church, but if some guy comes in, hey, I can't make my light bill this month and I need help. Okay. Well, now I'm using like charitable gifts that people have given for this purpose to help this man out. There's lot more charity in that and a lot more love, a lot more connection in the giving and in the

receiving than there is when a government, you know, bureaucrat just mails them a check. Yeah, I think that we're probably, we're probably highlighting our fundamental differences of how we've used society in general because to me, you know, and I don't know how you exactly scale that situation I told you about in South Carolina, but there are, for the first thing I would say is that there is evidence that like for example in programs where you you you give people money they get a job if you keep giving them money they don't quit the job right like we've seen that there are the job return the child tax credit was a good example of this I do I think it's a bit of a conservative boogeyman one that people just don't want to work I think time and time

again you see that even when people because you know it's it'll be the deal where you're getting benefits, but you get to a certain level of earning and then you stop and you can't really totally get on your feet. I don't, I think that, I think, you know, you incentivize people to work, they'll keep working. The other cases, which I think is important because we, because of the way we means test everything, I mean, I have a family member, kind of connected to my family. I would say, not related directly to me, but related to a family member of mine. Husband dies tragically immediately. She's always been a stay-at-home mom. And so I try to get her a job. She's going to lose her social security benefits if she works. What the heck is that? Her husband died. We have a,

I mean, he paid into social security and she only gets the money if she doesn't work. Like, and so I'm not, I'm not using the boogeyman, hey, people want to be lazy. I think generally people are happier when they have, you know, they have some purpose in their life and they work hard. I agree. We need to stop incentivizing people not to work. And if they need help, give them help. That's great. I still think that that help is best delivered through charitable nonprofits, not through government.

Yeah. And I think so that's the part, right, is that taken by sword, you don't think that people, when they pay their taxes, are thinking I'm going to be helping somebody else out here? No, I think they have to pay. Now, and some people, some people maybe do. But I think, you know, when I drop my check in the plate at church on Sunday, I know I'm helping people. And I'm choosing to do that out of my own free will.

I could not do it. I can do it. I can add more. I can pull back less. It's my choice. When the government says, this is how much you're supposed to pay or else we'll take your house and we'll use it on things that you want and things you don't want. You have no choice over it. there's not there's not really cheerfulness in the giving and then on the other side it does build

some entitlement on the receiving end and not the kind of relational I think you know charity that happens when when people are understand that that person is sacrificially giving to them yeah so I think that's probably where the Christian framework comes in right because that to me is very foreign. Like I do, I don't care. It's not, I don't, I don't want to position this because it sounds like I, like, oh, morally I'm above. I just, I think that's part of living in a society. We're all driving on these roads. They're going to use the money on all the roads, even if it's the roads I don't drive on. Right. Right. Like, to me, I don't feel like it's being taken by force of sword. I wish I paid more taxes. Um, and you can't. Well, you, what do you mean? I'm saying,

I mean, you can tell them you want to give more. You just mean, like, straight on my return. Yeah. Or you can find things that allow you to give to those specific things that you want. Yeah, and that's a comment. What I mean by that is I wish that we, you know, like, for example, it occurred to me when I, I think I've heard you say, like, you know, we had prayer in school in the 50s. Can we go back? I would give you that if we could have the tax code back.

Me too. Let's do it. The 50s, and same social services, same. Like, I'll take that trade off. because obviously it used to be different. There was a time where social welfare in this country was distributed. I would make the case, although I have friends on the left who would say that, you know, this actually isn't true, but that the reason that this doesn't work is because it has to go to people

who don't share your values. They don't look like you. That's when people stop wanting to give. They stop wanting to give whenever it goes to people that they are like, ah, it's a welfare queen. I don't know. I haven't seen that in practice. But what I would say is, I mean, you're kind of doing it in practice right now. Like you're saying in practice right now that you would only really want to give the money.

If you know that the person that you're giving it to is like, thank you for giving it to me. You can kind of keep an eye on how I'm giving it. I didn't say I would only want to give it under those circumstances. What I did say is I said there's a lot more, there's a lot more love and charity and connection in humanity in doing it that way. And so, and will there be people who are racist and say, yes, I'm not going to give to black people? or I'm not going to give to Hispanic people, whatever. Okay, yeah. Are there going to be people who say, I'm going to give more to those people?

Because I think they need it. Yes, there are. It's also true. Yeah. And so I think, you know, the church that I went to, which was, to say predominantly white at that time would be an understatement. But most of our benevolence cases were people that don't look like us. And so it's people that came to the church because they knew that they could be helped.

and we would provide them, you know, whatever we could according to our, you know, what we had and our policies and those kinds of things. And we didn't make them jump through a bunch of hoops. But there was some, yeah, there's just more humanity in it that way. And I would say that a lot of these social programs, especially the ones run by the government, are so enormously wasteful. And when I say wasteful, I don't mean that's like they're just losing money places. They spend so much money on the red tape and the bureaucracy of doing the job. that the money doesn't actually get to the people who actually need it. But you know why I would say that that is the case.

It's because if we just were to give them the money, you guys would call it socialism. And so we have to put all this bullshit in place. There might be something to that. And it has to either be drug tested, people, or there's just so much money involved in getting money to people. And I swear that if we could cut that part out, I feel like we would stop arguing about so much other stuff. And so what I would say is if you can get to, to a point where people are freely giving the money, then the fiduciary responsibility is very different.

So if I give money to Hunt County Shared Ministries where I live that feeds poor people, and I give them a check, I give them a sponsorship at their gala, I do whatever like that is, I'm entrusting because I understand how they run their organization, how well they're going to care for the hungry people in our community.

When money is taken from my property taxes to the county, and then the county says, I want to feed people. Yeah, they better show me that they're not doing stuff that I wouldn't do. And what I wouldn't want to do is different than what you're going to want to do and you're a constituent as well. And so it creates this idea. I think Fort Worth just closed down one of their social welfare parents or maybe in Tarrant County

because they found out that 80-something percent of the money wasn't actually even going to the poor people. It was just going to run the organization. And so, and if our nonprofit and our community was doing that, we wouldn't give them the money. You know, they, they have to stand up at their annual gala and say, 84% of the money that comes in actually goes to feed hungry people in this community. And so I just think government can't be charitable. Yeah, I think that the problem is not the government. I think it's the middleman. I think it, and that's just, that's my view of it is that there, and there are other countries that do.

this, there are programs that do it. I would like to see us try to scale it. But I understand your apprehension there is that you view the government as like an adversary. So if it's taken by sword, I mean, I guess my thought also is just that there's a significant amount of my earnings that are made by, for lack of a better term, for being in this society, right? Because I'm due, I was kind of won the lottery here. Like I've never, I was not born poor, right? But, you keep going up that ladder. And just for me, philosophically, philosophically, if there's somebody making

$10, $20 million a year or whatever their taxable income is, it's just hard for me to look at that, live in the most wealthy country in the history of the world. Right. And be like, hey, I think this person should really quibble over how

this. Well, and I'd rather live here than anywhere else. And I certainly don't make, you know, in the millions. But when I look at the, I mean, And I bet you and I are probably near the same income bracket, I would guess. The percentage of money that we spend that goes to the government, of the amount of money that we earn, that at the end of the year you look and say, I earn this much. And then 30-something percent goes to the federal government. And then how much goes to property taxes.

We don't even know how much sales tax we pay, how much gas tax we pay. And you start to think over half of what I'm making, I don't even get to have a say. in where it goes or what is done. And then on top of that, I'm trying to be charitable in my community and in my church and things like that. So when it gets down to the money that I have to spend to provide for my family,

the government is taking a bigger chunk than I have. Like the government. I know it's multiple different governments, but the government is spending more of my earned money than I am. And that has to be out of the government. of whack. Like, and I'm grateful.

I'd rather be here than anywhere else. I'm not saying like, but, but we, we have to be able to do better. Yeah, and I think obviously, again, this is part of just me living in this state. I don't agree with that for like personally at all, right? Like for my personal, I view paying my taxes as part of spending my money. I'm paying to be part of a society. I'm paying to be part of. And the more taxes, just like buying anything else, if I pay higher tax,

I mean, to live in a better society. You know, I pay higher tax, maybe it'll be better for my kids even, right? Yeah. That to me, so that I just don't view it from, but again, I'm, it's a matter of degree. I'm a very small percentage. You don't know. No, I agree with you. I mean, I don't think we should.

It is a matter of degree for sure. I don't think we should pay no taxes. I don't think we should pay no taxes. Right. I just think the amount of taxes we pay is too much and I'd like to pay less. And mine is that I think the amount that I pay is just, I think it gets mixed up being distributed and I think that just my view I think that your philosophy of bringing religion into the office I do think can make it harder ironically to get the money to people because I just

think that you may not be like this but there are people in your same philosophical bent that when it comes to voting if the language of a bill is a little too light we have to add more like hoops a lot of times and I just so you know if you have a law career maybe you know maybe the end result here is I'll vote for like a Christian nationalist like take over of the state of Texas if you'll just do like socialism I'm I'm almost serious like you can just be in charge we'll do all religion yeah but you just cut out all the middlemen and just give people money we have the money to give to people now the the issue that we're running into now is that we're we're trying to

sort of privatize publicly the state education. Do you not think that there's going to be a considerable amount of possibly fraud involved and turning that into a vendor run type thing? Other states have had some success. Other states have not. I try to act like everybody's freaked out about this, right? I came to this sort of late, so I'm almost trying to give it a chance, but it seems like it's going to track with other bloated programs.

I'll tell you kind of where I come from. And I get the vast majority of the people, I mean, this was a very hot issue in my campaign. I talked about it a lot, so people knew what they were getting. But I get criticism from the left and right about the system. You know, from the left saying, hey, you're going to, you know, erode the public schools and create problems there. And from the right saying we don't want the government involved in,

you know, in more stuff. And so I get that. What I would say is for me, as a policy, policy maker within the realm of what I can control. My goal and my interest is how can we best educate Texas kids. My interest is not primarily what is best for public schools, although I will acknowledge that 80 to 85 percent of our Texas kids are educated in public schools. So we need a very good public school system. But I don't think. we just focus on a one-size-fits-all solution and try to make it work for everybody.

And since we've already made a decision in 1876 that we're going to educate every kid, I think saying, okay, well, it's okay for us to allocate the money differently for the people who don't choose to live in this system that we've built. So what, okay, addressing though the potential issues with it though, because we just went through all the things that suck about like middlemen and all that sort of thing. So how do you imagine it? How do I imagine that it will work out? And I guess just like the accountability element of it is one thing that people seem to be pretty concerned about. So I mean, again, you're relatively new to this. You may be doing it for a long time. You may be in some

ways responsible for shepherding this thing to whatever final form it takes. Yeah. I think first it's just good to have some awareness. The average public's, well, Texas, spends on average almost $20,000 per student on public school. It's 19,000 in change in per pupil spending in public schools. This program will pay about for a private school student without disabilities between 10 and 11,000. Private and the reason they picked that number is because the average private school tuition in Texas is less than $10,000 a year. So it it costs. on average half to educate a kid in private school than public school now everybody knows a private school kid who goes to a school that's 35,000 a year or whatever

but on average it's below 10,000 per kid and so I think when you when you look at if the state is going to educate kids should we try to cram more kids that aren't doing well into a system that costs more or should we let those kids that say this isn't working for me for whatever reason, academically, socially, you know, behaviorally, whatever the case may be, ideologically even, allow them to go somewhere else, give them a fraction of the money that it would cost to educate them in the system, and let them be in a place where they and their parents think that they'll thrive. And so that's the, that's kind of the case for it.

Are there concerns that, hey, we've now taken a big, bureaucratic socialist system and expanded it yeah those are concerns but I think it also diversifies it and and gives an opportunity for competition to work better for the consumer so it's interesting because I haven't seen the data right like I don't know the the numbers for public school costs or excuse me private school cost but it feels like whoever came up with that ten thousand dollars might have dropped out before mean and median in school like that number feels very heavy affected by polar opposites, right?

And I think that's probably... You don't hear of one that's $10,000. You do now. You get a lot of them that are $10,000. But that's because you live in Collieville grapevine. So I live in Greenville, Texas. Some of them are super cheap, right? Yeah.

But some of them are also... I just feel like there's not a whole lot that are in that middle, it seems like... Yeah, maybe so. Greenville Christian School, where I graduated from, it's about a 50-year-old school. They meet in metal buildings. And, you know, the... I went there. kindergarten through 12th my kids went there a little bit um when they were younger and i think it's

still less than 10 000 a year okay interesting and so um and it's a it's an accredited well done school most of the people there are middle class lower middle class um and and i think there are a lot of schools out there like that even i've talked with people in my district these kids go to schools that are 6 000 7000 a year interesting um yeah um and it not like it would matter but do you like do you make money on that school? No. Okay. Well, you laugh at that because there's several people in this district that, you know, I mean,

they get money from people who do make money on private schools. No. It's a nonprofit school. I've never earned a dime for anything. But you know, so that was another thing that I, they got me interested in this in the local race was like, come on. Like even if you're going to try to tell me that you're not influenced by this, how is it possible that you are on a school board taking money from, or going to,

organizations whose stated goal is to push vouchers. Like I just, you're in a different spot. You're a state rep, but in a public official, a public school trustee. I don't know, and I don't know your specifics, but, you know, I bet you there are trustees that have taken, you know, taking political donations from, you know, school architects or school construction people, tech companies. You know, it's one of these things. And I, you know, I don't know how to fix it.

but people tend to donate money to the people that they think will help promote their interests. And sometimes that's economic interest, sometimes it's ideological interests. But I do think it's rare when people give money and change someone's mind with that money. I think it's more like, okay, that person is in favor of this thing that I like. And so I'm going to give them money so they have a chance to get elected. I tend to agree with that. I mean, and it's not that dissimilar from your view of distributing social funds, right? Is that you're giving it to somebody that you think will do the right thing with it, right?

There's a judgment being made in that part of it. But yeah, it just, it seems like people are not thrilled about this. And I guess part of the thing is that it feels like there's the, the, you're an out, you're a public Christian, it's a big part of your identity. And a lot of these schools are going to be religious schools. So I don't want to do the what do you say to people that say because it's just me saying it. But it's, you won't be the first one to say whatever you're saying. Right, right.

Like it's hard not to feel like, okay, well, there's, there's an idea that, you know, within certain parts of the Christian church of we want to be in control of media, culture, school, this. And that this is, this is just an extension. of trying to divert people to that. Ironically, it's kind of an indoctrination, a word that I hear people on the right use all the time regarding like, indoctrination, not education, librarians. And I tell people, every kid is being indoctrinated all the time everywhere.

And so it could just like not always, you guys, this is y'all's problem. No, no, no. I want you hear what I said. You just use the word taught. Like, not everybody's always indoctrinating. What I'm saying is when people, say this person, these kids are being indoctrinated, I'm like every kid, I know what you mean,

if you are home, I don't know what you're doing with your daughter or, yeah, or GCSD, yeah. But even if you were homeschooling them, you're indoctrinated. Sure. Even if you're seeing them to a prize. Bluey is indoctrinating. Absolutely. Like, Woody and Buzz Lightyear. They are, are just gathering in all of the information around them. So I don't, I don't tend to use that. I'm not saying I never have, but I don't tend to. And when people say, well, what do you, what do you say about why should my taxpayer money have to go to teach your kids about Jesus, you know, for example? And I would say, well, why does my taxpayer money have to go to teach your kid about evolution? We make choices in society.

And so the way I square that for me is I say, if we have a system where the parent can decide what that kid is being taught, everybody puts, their money into a pool and then the parents go, I would rather my portion of this money go to one that teach these things or that have this class size or this location or this extracurricular program or whatever the case may be. I think that is, that's how you fix that problem. Otherwise, you have everybody at the school board meetings screaming that you should be doing the things that I think are important and not do the things that the other person thinks is important. You know, we did it, though, for a long time without that. Yeah, we were a heavily Christian, mostly Protestant country,

where 70% of the people went to church three times a week, three times a month. And now we're a much more diverse state. And so, yeah, if you back up to the 50s, you know, it was a different world. And so people mostly tended to agree on the big things. Now there's disagreement on the big things. And you just have more people. I think how many, I don't know how many students are in your ISD, but I'm sure it's enormous where if you went back to the 50s,

you know, every principal knew every kid and every teacher, you know, knew the parents of all the kids in their class. It was just a different world. And so now we have a much bigger system that has to, I think, be, be managed differently. Yeah, no, it's definitely, and that's why I think, you know, Texas is a lot of times in so many different ways. It really is like a microcosm of the state, right?

This is what we're managing nationwide. A lot of the emotions and political opinions that people have nationwide, hell, globally almost seem to like come home to roost here. So, yeah, I think what we, I think the main thing is just we have a very fundamental different view of, not just of government, but of, I just, I don't have the same apprehension that you have that I think of people wasting government money. I don't think I have the same apprehension that they would, like you have concern, I would imagine that there's like immoral choices being made with, like, if you are giving money directly to somebody, because I'm trying to get to the disconnect between

why you would trust, other than the fact that you're obviously religious, you would, trust the church to implement something if we were to dream 20 years from now what does this look like and the government and church or how does that how would the government you for you because that money was collected via taxation it can never be dispensed in a way that is fully trusted that's part part of it and i'm not saying that's a bad thing i'm trying to lay out where we fundamentally could like i i enjoy this if we completely agreed this wouldn't be an interesting conversation. I would say part of it is relational, as I've talked about, just the humanity. That might just be like a scale. Like you literally need to be able to. It's hard to do it by

scale. Okay. And I will be clear, I do not think that the American church is equipped to take over what would have to be taken over as a social, the social welfare that needs to be done. Yeah. Right now. Now, I think that is because of, you know, 60 years of war on poverty. that I think has gone poorly. And I think that has eroded the church and created a bunch of other problems. But I think, yes, in one sense, I don't think, I think that the government

is a poor charitable or cannot be a charitable organization because it doesn't have anything of its own. It has no sacrifice to give. And so just that doesn't work. And I also do think, I think a church that has 300 people in it can do charity, relationally better than a church that has 30,000 people in it, because you have to have some

structure to do that kind of a scale. That doesn't mean that that church, you know, doesn't have more resources and ability to do that, but they're going to have to be a little, you know, they're going to have to be more wise and creative about how they, how they carry that out. And so that's like when we're talking about things like poverty benefits or, you know, a lot of times it's like direct aid in the community when it comes to you know because you said earlier you don't want to pay no taxes and I think one of the problems with my economic view is I have to use the word socialism but it's not everything is a mix right I mean if your house catches on fire you call the public fire department right they come out you pay the taxes they put the fire out

and you're not like thank you to the socialist fire department we have Medicaid you know we have emergency disaster relief like everything we have a mix of socialism and capitalism but so why is why does that not in your mind work the same way right like it's not like you have seniors go to a church and you're approved for Medicaid so we draw the line at places that don't make a lot of sense to me but you're in the business of drawing lines yeah let me let me talk about ideal and then say hey I understand the ideal doesn't exactly work but but in my ideal ideal world, it's not a matter of whether these things need to be done. It's who's it's whose responsibility is it primarily to do those things. And so first, it's the family's priority

to provide for the people in their family. So if my if my son is struggling, that's primarily my responsibility, right? If he's poor, if he's having a hard time finding a job, if he's hurt, you know, he's got to be fed, sheltered, clothed, put in the, you know, care, for health-wise. That's my job. The church's job in my perspective or community outreach, your social clubs, all of that, they kind of should take care of the ones that fall through the cracks. They don't have family. They're widows. They're orphans. They're estranged. Those kinds of things. But they're still caring for those people's needs within community, within- A lot of times that's a public school. Yeah, absolutely it is. I know. I mean, you have

you have the teacher that says, I notice that something's wrong here, we need to take care of. I don't think the government is very good at doing those things. And I think that when it does those things, that's one of the reasons our health care costs are so out of whack is because, you know, it has to be run through a government and an insurance system, which is a disaster. And I don't, so, and then I look and say, what is the government's job? The government's job, The government's job primarily should be to keep people safe, to run, you know, possibly public utilities, roads, things like that. But, you know, the justice system, you know, securing our borders, finding the criminals, giving them a just trial, punishing them, doing those kinds of things. But doing, I think when the church tries to do things to the government's job, that's a problem, when the government tries to do things that really would be better served by the church of the family, I think that,

that doesn't work very well. And so that's kind of how I try to look at things. Yeah, no, I mean, it's just a philosophical difference because I would say that, you know, poverty relief, especially in a country like this one, where we have money, is an emergency. It's an emergency like a tornado. And we wouldn't ask somebody to fill out a form. We actually probably do. We would ask for less forms if your house got here.

hit by a torrent you know so to me i don't think i and you didn't really ask but you drove all the way out here so now i'm just going to tell you my response is just that i don't i guess uh i i've i've always been drawn to charity and like we were that house right like we were the house in our neighborhood that you know our door was always open my mom my mom uh worked a business out of the garage like kind of a low-key sweatshop um but we were still the family that everybody stopped through so we were just always the charitable hub. And it was like lightly implied that it was religious because we were sort of religious, but nobody was being preached to. And it just felt, I never really thought of our charity as religious. It was just we were people. And when you're doing something

charitable at the school, that's sort of government. But it seems to me that by, you have no other, there's no way that you could view it other than this because you are very religious. is that you have to set up this dynamic where the church is like different than the state. And that you have to be saying the church is this job, the states is this job. Whereas as someone who's not religious, you would probably say, well, you're just looking at it as the government. I'm looking at it as society. Great. And so, and I mean, the example you use of your mom and the, like, you should continue to be charitable.

By, I mean, statistically, Republicans who believe in smaller government are. are more generous with their time and money, like 3x compared to people who are liberal. I'm going to stop you on that too and say that this is a, because there's something to what you're saying. A lot of it is that there's a church element to it and there's like people, you know, whether you want to give or not, you got the, it gets a little pressure. Yeah, sure. But there's also a lot of, and this gets into the health care and the not working debate, there are so many poor people who don't work because they're taking care. hair of a sick person. And those people are not, that's not going to get charted as charity. And that person is also now like being considered a, that person doesn't want to work.

So I think that's a problem too. Because there's a lot of people are more poor a lot of times on the left. That's not, you know, that's not what I mean to say. No, I get it. I just don't want to let my, my, my, my, my, you know, there are there are some people, we won't say right or left, but there are some people that feel like it is a personal obligation to help people. Sure. for whatever reason. And there are some people who think that's the government's job to help people, and we need to do more so the government will do more. And I'm more on the we need to do more side of things.

So you mentioned their health care and you said something like, oh, there's government, there's the insurance. It's all a disaster. You got to remove. I would just say, because you're not that old. and if you're going to be in government for a while, you keep talking about government and then introducing these other, like,

almost parasitic elements that come in between the government and the people. You've never, we've never really experimented with government without all that. So what I'm saying is that it's almost like if you look at, you know, a sports team and you're like, all right, well, they suck because this guy's there. You're like, yeah, but what if they traded that guy? My point is just that I think that imaginative government, whether it comes from a place of your Christian, you know, like charitable thrust, personally, I believe that the government could run better if it just went through less bullshit hoops to get to the people.

And you have a chance, I guess, to maybe to be a part of that. I would say the voucher thing is not necessarily that, but your logic of the tax dollar following the kid, like I do get it from a personal, you know, you want to have personal choice. Now, the introducing the Muslim school part of it certainly is an interesting like fly in the ointment. And I'm not a legal scholar.

I don't know how that stuff will sort out, but obviously people knew that was coming, right? Right. No, that seemed. Absolutely knew that that was coming. And that's like, Nobody was ready to have that legal and ideological fight. And it may be one in the future, it may not.

I still think that we're better off if parents, even parents that disagree with me and want to send their kid to a school that I would never send my kids to, allowing them to do that makes sense. We have decided that the government is going to fund education. Let's let the parents direct how that is spent and the better schools will work. rise to the top. I guess that's where it really kind of just drives home, like, the difference in our philosophies, too, is just because, and I acknowledge that there's a reason why I think conservatives, I think it's easier to win elections as a conservative personally, because

not just in America, just if you think about it, like, you're typically a progressive group is having to put together more groups of people, usually. So they're typically having to put together a coalition of sorts of like disaffected or like we're not in charge either so but those people a lot times don't like each other and so it's harder to build to me I run into this all the time I've been going through it for the last decade because you know I don't even know if you know this exists because but we don't all care about what people joke about right so like some of us are like man I really think that you should not die if you're poor if you're sick right but you know I don't, I'm not as concerned about the books and things of that nature.

And, and my frustration, just to tie all this together is that sometimes, again, I think that the, the block to progress on economic things is cultural or social things. Like, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with Lynn Davenport. She's an education analyst, and she's a self-described analyst that I think actually can deserve calling herself that. she has a theory that like the entire banned book thing was almost like a Trojan horse like that people didn't that librarians are just going to take books they're not checking them whatever but then playing on like the liberal free speech again like the librarian that if you

tell that person probably her we're taking that book out now there's a problem and now they're going to fight over it now there's somebody reading it at school board now everybody's you know in a pissing match over it when in reality i just don't know how many people really are that fired up about making sure that the book is there in the first place so i don't know yeah i mean and it's frustrating things become political for all kinds of different reasons uh and and that i mean that was a a real you know political moment i think coming out of covid had something to do with that um probably an underreported element of it yeah and and so for the first time maybe in a while, parents kind of looked around to see what was going on with their kids.

And then, you know, this shocking thing happens. So we start looking for something else and start looking for something else. And then all of a sudden, so now, you know, was that orchestrated or whatever? I mean, not that I know of. I just think it, I think you had a lot of, you had a lot of people with time on their hands and concern about what was going on with their, with their kids. And it certainly did help fuel the school choice movement. Yeah.

And so that's to wrap up, the school choice movement, I guess, The one thing I wanted to say about it that I haven't is it is emblematic of kind of society as a whole and that I realize for my worldview to work, you kind of have to force people into it. Yeah. Because it's collective, right? It's the idea that this would work better if everyone was on the same page. Like it would just, if we could at least pick one page, not every page in the book, but one, because, you know, that's sort of socializing risk and, you know, loss and problems.

And that's where I think when you give the choice, now people are removing from the strength of the herd. And now the herd is weaker. And now those who are left in the herd are weaker. And that's how I view society. What's interesting, though, and I haven't looked, but two years ago when I looked at this, there had been 29 kind of meta studies done on the states that had school choice. And in all of them except for one, or maybe it was two, the, this the public school performance, academic performance,

got better after school choice was implemented. And in the other two, they said they saw no change. And so it's not about leaving them behind. And I have had teachers and superintendents say, well, what happens when all the good kids leave? I was like, the kids that are top 10 in the class, they're, they're in the band, they're captain of the football team,

they're cheerleaders, they're whatever. They're not leaving. They're happy where they are. It's those disaffected kids usually they haven't found a good friend group. They feel like they're not getting what they need out of it. Those are the ones that are more likely to leave. And it really should, if people are where they want to be rather than where they're forced to be, they will generally perform better.

And I appreciate your heart toward collectivism. And if everybody would just do it this way, it would work. But historically, the people that don't choose to do it that way, you know get shot and so you know we don't like that yeah it's but like i just would use my own like high school you know experience of just it sucked you know uh but it i wanted to move but i was forced to be i was a disaffected youth i can't believe it i i know right i uh my level of come from a political family was my you know my mom was was fighting with the school yeah um but no i i i I get it, and I'm not trying to put people in camps.

It's just that I think that there are certain things that, you know, you'd like to see people maybe get on the same page about. But that being said, what do you know, think, or where are you on this, like, a rainy day fund situation? Have you been made aware of? What about it in particular? So I've been told that there's, right, so we have this fund in Texas that is essentially capped from gaining anymore, like on its principal. probably 32. And it can't be, so this money has not been spent much in the last, basically since its inception, it can't continue to grow.

It goes back to the, what do you consider an emergency type thing? You know, I know that you guys hate spending money. I know it. But if you don't have to raise anybody's taxes and you can release fun, like at that point, it starts to me to honestly feel like there's going to be some people who just don't want to give people money because it's giving people money in constitutionally small C, like that just is bad. No, we don't have to tax.

No, no, no. I am, this is where we're going to, I think, totally agree. One of the biggest back and forth kind of on the floor fights that I had last session was over a bill that was going to take some of that rainy day fund money and move it over into another place and let the state invest it in all these things to try to, and I was like, if we have all this extra money that we don't need. need for a rainy day, we can put it in long-term investment. That money should go right back to the people. Like, what are we doing? We shouldn't be, I understand storing up money for an emergency. That's great.

But once we pass that emergency fund, this isn't our money. We collected it from the people. They expect us to spend it or give it back to them. And so, no, I think it'd be great. We should take the money and give it back. Yeah. And I think they have like a, there's a structure. of it where, you know, I don't know if you're aware of like, and I'm out of my depths on this one, but like Alaska has like a public investment fund basically, right? Right. You get a dividend, boy, you hate that. You would freak out.

No, no. But it is their money. Yeah, exactly. And so that's kind of the thing is that I think they want to invest some of this money, you know, and that it would continue to fund itself over time. So I don't know, that's a couple years down the line, but I'm grasping it. Right. Like how are we?

Because, you know, you can take, even if we take a rosy view of the voucher thing, it's going to at least create some pressure on public schools to kind of like fill some gaps, I would say. And if the state came through and said, here's, hey, it looks like it's raining. Yeah. Well, I mean, we did add $8.5 billion to the public schools last year. It's up over $100 billion now, even at a time when the number of public school students before the ESA program was on a downward trend. And I think some of the, that is, you know,

is birth rate related. Some of it is immigration related and some of it is, you know, homeschool, private school choice related. But I think we have, you know, we have 150,000 fewer public school students today than two years ago.

And, you know, so, and yet we're putting more money than we ever have before. So I think that surely we can continue to look for better ways to fund and all that, but I don't know that we need more funding. Yeah.

So that's interesting. I've, you know, you, because you can find something that says, uh, one way or the other, depending on what institute you look at.

Like, what is your general take on the cost per pupil? Like it. Yeah. Well, here's where, here's where it comes from. And I'll,

let's use 20,000 because it's easier than 19. If you have 20 students in a class, that's $400,000 in that classroom. Classroom where a teacher's making 5560. Where's the rest going? I mean, we know where it's, it's going. It's going to administration. It's going to facilities, um, transportation,

things like that. It's, it's not enough of it is going into actual instruction of the kids. That seems undeniable. But so there's two things. One that you, you're using the 19 or 20,000 number, which is the actual number of, uh, the dollar amount going per kid. But when you see that chart and it's compared to the rest of the United States and it's at what, 8,000? What's the number everybody says? you have to then say, well, actually 19 or 20. Oh, you're talking about the basic allotment. The basic allotment has stayed the same for a while. Right.

And so whenever you see the number that you sort it for all 50 states, a lot of times that's the number you see. Right. Which is unfair. It's unfair, but I don't know to what degree it's unfair because I don't know those other 49 numbers may have something baked in. I would also say that when we, when we, I don't know the numbers. I wish I knew.

but out of that $20,000, $1,000 per student, I bet you, between a third and 40% of it is on these bonds for these projects. Huge projects that are gorgeous and they're great, you know, they look great in the community and they tell people that you're investing in your community and all that. How is it making kids smarter? How is it helping kids to read? Half of Texas kids between third and eighth grade, I'm sorry, less than half. of kids between third and eighth grade can read on on grade level.

But, but yeah, let's go spend another, you know, billions of dollars on, on buildings with marble and this and that and whatever. And, and it's great. And I'm not against public funding of, of, you know, making things beautiful. Like, I think it's great when you have a nice big city hall or courthouse or whatever. I'm not against all of those things. But we do have to question at some point, if we have finite resources and we all know that it's teachers and parents that make the most difference, then that's where we should be

investing more so than in the construction. Yeah, so I think, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up. Do you have anything else you want to get off your chest? Do you have anything you want to ask me? No, just, you know, it came on your show to help you out. Yeah, you did. And, uh, you did. No, this is fun. I, uh, look, I think, I didn't actually know that much about you. There was, uh, I generally think that, and I don't. It's interesting if you agree with this or not. I think people, I think it's because of the president. Actually, you know what?

I don't even know if I believe that, because I think this existed beforehand. I think people who are right-leaning tend to be a lot more aggressive in their political communication. And I grew up that way possibly. Like I just, I had family members that were, it's now all coming home for me because now I'm realizing they were like the founders of the Tea Party. I didn't know this was going to, but I get frustrated because I'll see people talk a certain way or a certain, like, you know, it's just calling people junkies or crackheads or just, I just feel like, can we just be fucking nice? They just be nice, chill a little bit occasionally.

And it just doesn't, it seems like in the Texas, it's, you know. And so then my response to that is like a lefty is I'm like, well, you know, I would like to also be mean. I was like, that's my natural mode. But so what do you think of just the way people talk? I think that's why conversations like this are good. And why I look forward to having as many long form kind of conversations as I can with people that are in good faith disagreeing. And are we going to walk away in agreement at the end? No.

But if I understand where you're coming from. because like I sat there and listen to you talk to these other three guys to get ready for this. Those three guys were, it's just crazy. Like that's why I wanted to have you on. Which three guys? It's just another podcast. And you don't think I didn't do my homework here. You're a homework guy.

Yeah. Oh, big time. Big time. And it's just I, then I'm like, well, Prince seems like a relatively normal guy. And these three guys are podcastsers. They're doing a bit. Maybe I got to realize they're doing a bit. But just people will just say stuff that I just take it.

Like if somebody just said the liberal, media, the liberal run media. Is that something you believe? I think that there are a lot of liberal voices in media. I think there's, I think that media as a whole has gotten very polarized in my lifetime where before you kind of had the news. Right. And then you had, you know, maybe the Bill Buckley firing line kind of stuff where people would argue things out. And that's great. And I think now the news has become that. So, no, I mean, I do think that the, you know, New York Times and, Washington Post and most of the ABC, NBC, CBS, they're more left-leaning. But there's enough

at this point, I think everybody goes and finds the news that they want. See, my point would always have been is that, yeah, all of the report, but it's owned by conservative corporations. And it doesn't seem like anybody ever brings that part up. No, no, I'll tell you, conservatives bring it up all the time. Like, why are we not doing something about this? And so I think, but, yeah, Now we're at a point where nobody owns the news anymore. I mean, the consumer does. And that's not always good either because you can get in your own little echo chamber and never hear anything from anybody other than people that agree with you.

Well, we do not. And you still made the effort to drive over here. So, Brent, I appreciate it. Mr. Money. Yes. Representative Money. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it, Jake.