The Ricochet Podcast - Texas, Taxes, and Scandals

Episode Date: May 17, 2013

Direct link to mp3 file It’s another action-packed edition of the Ricochet Podcast, as we’re joined by Texas governor Rick Perry and National Review columnist and author Kevin Williamson. The governor explains why he won’t accept federal heath care dollars, why the President has come to his state twice in the past month, and what the immigration issue looks like from the perspective of a border... Source

And this is, of course, THE Ricketts- sorry, sorry, again, coming down in 3, 2, 1. Activate program. With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? Uh, this is nonsense. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson.

I'm James Lilacs, and today's guest, America's Governor, Rick Perry. And from National Review, Kevin Williamson, whose new book is The End is Near and It's Going to Be Awesome. Well, the start of the podcast is near, and it's going to be awesome, too. There you go again. And this is, of course, The Ricochet Podcast. It's brought to you as ever by Audible.com, and you know who they are. There you go again. Ricochet and get a free audiobook and a 30-day trial. We'll have a little bit more about that later, but of course, we welcome as ever Peter Robinson and Rob Long, the founding

fathers, the twin pillars that brought you Ricochet in the first place. Gentlemen, how are you on this fine spring day? Well, James, I don't really want to I'm not as comfortable talking about this. You don't know? I don't know. I think I'm neutral.

Put it this way, I have I live in Hollywood. I've worked in know. I don't know. I think I'm neutral. Put it this way. I live in Hollywood. I work in Hollywood. I have a complicated tax situation. And I like to say that I'm going to be here on this podcast more as an observer than as a participant. Just want to say that out loud so everybody knows. It's really going well, isn't it? I'm not comfortable being a founder of Ricochet. I would like you

to stop calling me a founder. I'm not a founder. I was a neutral observer. I watched it happen. And Peter, you have, I believe, recused yourself from Rob's distancing himself from a founding. I have to say, Rob Long,

Rob is such a multifaceted genius. And I use the word strictly. You realize what he's just doing. He just did a Bob Newhart for us. We could say next week let's do a Jack Benny channeling. That's too hard. Actually, no, if it was a Bob Newhart thing, he would have been speaking to somebody who wasn't there and letting the audience infer from the silences and the questions exactly how the character or the other character was.

So if we want to do this, Peter, you be the Bob Newhart guy that he's talking to. Say nothing, and Bob will do that bit, and Bob will do that bit again. probably are looking at what's going on in Washington right now thinking, gosh, it's a little early perhaps in the second term for everything to fall apart. But what the president really needs to do to get out in front of this is to go Bulworth. Now, I'm trying to figure out where he said this exactly. But I think we all agree that the success of a president in his second term has got to be conforming to the attitudes of a character in a little-known movie that was seen by 17 people, including Warren Beatty, who made it. Right, right.

I don't quite, because I am one of the many people, the vast majority, who didn't see Bullworth, I don't quite know what he's talking about when he says that. He must mean something high-minded, like chart his own course, be above politics, something like that. But I truly don't know. Well, maybe it's a version of I want to be cool. I want to be like Warren Beatty. I don't know. But this is a man who – when you say you must be looking at the politics in Washington, I am with a great deal of glee because whatever the facts of the case, and when I say the case,

which case am I talking about? The IRS? The withholding records taking, it's unbelievable. Two months of records, phone records and email records from the Associated Press without their knowledge by the Justice Department, absolutely staggering. So the administration is on the defensive and how. Krauthammer, I think it was, who said that Barack Obama is losing his base. What did Krauthammer mean? Well, Barack Obama's base is the press. And when Barack Obama gets attacked by the New Yorker online. But it was a weasel worded attack, really.

I mean, it's less for them to turn. Yeah, they'll they'll they turn now. They'll come back. They'll come back. I mean, you know, the IRS thing, I have to say, just just for those for you to, you know, that is the chief benefit of being a rhino. They're never going after me. They'll say, let's leave Long. He's way down the list.

We've got to go after some red meat conservatives first. So there's a benefit here. But the rest of it, I do feel that there's a certain natural bloodletting temper tantrum from the adolescents in the cage here in the press that if if if obama is smart i'm not saying he is but if he's smart he'll let it run its course for a while and then they'll come purring back they really will you can already see it and i mean i mean sometime mid next week i think don't you oh really oh i think so well they're going to be holding hearings in the House. I don't know about the Senate. Probably eventually Harry Reid will have enough members who feel nervous in the Senate that the Democrats in the Senate will want to hold hearings to the IRS. That I don't know. I don't have inside information. I'm sitting here in California, but I know the way bureaucracies work. and it just strikes me as very unlikely that that problem stopped and started with a couple of people in Cincinnati and their one overseer in Washington.

It seems to me. They will – once those hearings start, more is likely to come out. Do you think it goes all the way to the top? The top of who? Of what? You mean did Barack Obama say – No, but way up there white house probably not a pause while everybody measures exactly how far out on the limb they want

to go balanced against what they really want to believe but you know but here's the thing is you don't have to go all the way and mickey kauf's pointed this out in daily call i think is absolutely right they're all partisan democrats anyway They don't need instructions from the queen bee. This is what these people do. They did it – the Social Security Administration released, frankly, completely fraudulent projections about the financial impact of immigration reform that only took the 10 years. And they released this thing about a couple weeks ago saying – Hold on. I've got to interrupt you right there because when you talk about immigration reform, of course,

your eyes go south to the border, you go to Texas. And luckily, we have with us right now, Governor Perry, the 47th governor of the Lone Star State, and we welcome him back to the Ricochet podcast. Good day, sir. How are you, Peter? Governor Peter Robinson. Yep. Hey, Governor, are you there? All three of us are on. And it's Peter talking right Yep. Hey, Governor. All three of us are on, and it's Peter talking right now. It's almost exactly a year ago that you were kind enough to give me a certificate making me an honorary Texan. And I did. I hope you have it prominently displayed in your office, Peter.

It is very nicely framed. Governor, I can tell you he has been a pain in the butt ever since. Well, that didn't have anything to do with being an honorary Texan. But what won't surprise you a bit is that what's been happening, especially over the last six months or so, is that when Californians come into my office and see that beautifully framed certificate talking about my being an honorary Texan, they say, oh, gee, I wish I could figure out how to move to Texas, too. Over and over and over again. As a matter of fact, those U-Haul trailers that are out there are available on almost any day.

All right. I may call. I may I may ask you to look out for about a quarter acre for me someplace not too far from Austin. Governor, why are you doubling down in your opposition to expanding Medicaid under President Obama's health care law? The press says it's going to cost the state of Texas nine. You're turning down 90 billion dollars in federal dollars. How come? Well, I don't trust the federal government to live up to their word because they've got a strong record of not doing that. And the second one is, you just have to ask the appropriate question, I think a thoughtful and correct question of, who are you going to get the money? Are're going to make it up out of thin air?

Are you going to print it? Are you going to borrow it from China? That's the real problem. I mean, Washington trying to blackmail these states into joining in in this expansion to Medicaid. And there's absolutely nothing to keep them two, three years down the road saying, oh, you know what? We have run out of money. We've run out of ink for our printing presses or whatever the excuse is. You all are going to have to pick up either or part of the cost of this. After you've expanded this program, you made these huge promises to the people in your state,

and guess what? Then the states would be on the hook at that particular point in time, and it would be incredibly damaging economically. I will suggest bankrupt most of the states out there, even including a very economically powerful state like Texas. So we're not going to participate. The Texas legislature overwhelmingly said we're not going to participate. The Texas legislature overwhelmingly said we're not interested in participating. If the federal government is indeed interested in how do you

allow for people to have access to health care so that we can get the most efficient and effective way, you block grant the dollars back to the states. It's this one size fits all concept that comes out of Washington. It's just it's horrendous. It's horrendous for health care, for education or for practically any other type of type of approach. So there you have it. Governor Peter Robinson here with I just want to follow that up with one question. I know Rob and James want to ask about other issues, including immigration, but Washington was making the Obama administration is perfectly explicit about this. are holding out, and of course you get named as Exhibit One, are going to come under such

intense political pressure in their home states that they will be bound to buckle, and buckle sooner rather than later. Now, you just said that the Texas legislature is overwhelmingly with you. A strange thing just happened over in Florida where Rick Scott, the Republican governor, decided he really reluctantly, he had to go along with the Obama administration, and his legislature is preventing him from doing so. His legislature is more opposed to Obamacare, the Medicaid expansion, than he is. What's going on here? How come your state is with you on this? How come the Obamacare folks back in Washington misread it so badly? And I think that's exactly, you touched on it. They want this so badly, they will do anything to try to make it happen. I mean, you know, they're begging us to engage in this. And the

fact of the matter is, we've looked, I mean, if it was in Texas' best interest, we would do it, but it's not. So the members of the legislature know this, the lieutenant governor, the speaker, and I think the people of the state of Texas are perfectly happy to not have Washington come down here and to tell them how to deliver health care. We would be substantially better served if they would block grantees. As a matter of fact, I told the speaker probably three years ago, Speaker Boehner, three years ago, that we would be willing to take 80% less Medicaid dollars back into the state of Texas than what we were getting then if they would walk around and we would say both entities,

both federal government and state government in Texas money, but being able to do that because we would put into place things like cup savings accounts, let there be co-pays, let people have personal responsibility for their healthcare choices. If we did that, it would be a model for America, and I will suggest to you that's the answer rather than this debacle. Listen, exchanges are not going to happen. I want to say there's 30-something states that aren't going to be engaged in the exchanges,

and the federal government does not have the money nor the expertise to run these exchanges. This is going to fail. It's going to fail on its face because it never was going to be successful. It was never going to be efficient. It was never going to be effective. It should fail. Bad public policy. Hey, Governor, it's Rob Long, California. I do.

I'm not an honorary Texan, but my brother and sister-in-law and their family just moved last year, late last year to Dallas. They love it. There's room for you. There's room. There's plenty of room in Texas. I've seen it. They're very happy there. But I actually, and interestingly, the, the, the movie film industry is really growing in Texas. People want to be here often is really growing in Texas. People want to be here often. It's really growing.

So we could probably find some shows for you to live in for days. All right. All right. All right. You don't have to twist my arm too hard. That's very persuasive. But I want to ask you, this is more of a kind of off-the-wall question. I know the president has been down there a couple times in Texas recently.

And just the last 30 days. Just the last 30 days. And when you – have you met him? Do you meet with him when he's there? Yes, both times actually. He was very gracious. He came to Waco for the memorial service for the wet explosion, and then he came back about 10 days ago for, interestingly, I thought this was such a beautiful thing, a juxtaposition of

his policies and Texas policies. He came here to bring attention to his jobs tour. What a great place to come to the state that's creating more jobs than the other state in the nation, the state that is putting policies into place, tax policy, regulatory policy, legal policies, skilled workforce. And it's working. I mean, and it's worked for a decade. This isn't just a, oh, let's just take a snapshot in time. This is 10 years' worth of those policies that are inarguable. Thirty – a little over 30 percent of all the jobs created in America in the last 10 years were in Texas. The president chose the right place to come. Now, the interesting thing is the policies that created those jobs are diametrically opposed to what this president is talking about. Now, are you just too polite to mention that?

Are you too polite, too much of a good Texas host to say, hey, why don't you try this? Or even to ask him, speaking of Obama. No, actually. Hey, how about block grants? How about just block grants? I'm always going to be polite to the president. I'm always going to be a gracious host to the president of the United States. I don't care who it is and for somebody to be otherwise.

Now, it may have offended him a little bit back three years ago. I handed him a letter that laid out very clearly how to deal with border security. And this administration has been a failure at border security. But I did it in a very polite and a very appropriate and gracious way. When he came, I will tell you, the president and the first lady were incredibly gracious to the people of West and to Texas when they came to honor those individuals who we had the memorial to. Now, the president and I did not get to visit much when he was here 10 days ago. I just met him at the airport, shook his hand, and welcomed him to the state. He went on about his business. But with that said, we put ads in

a number of newspapers here with an open letter to the president saying, here, Mr. President, if you're really, really interested in how to create jobs in America, let us show you how we've done it here in the state. So on the one hand, appropriate, good tech and hospitality. On the other hand, very pointed directions on if you're serious, Mr. President, about creating jobs, if you're serious about getting this country back on track, here's how to do it. Texas is not just a little blip. When it works in Texas, it can work almost anywhere in America because these are basic policies, tax, regulatory, legal policies, and continuing to have accountable schools so you've got a skilled workforce. And then government get out of the way and let the private sector do this. He thinks government

needs to create all of these jobs and pump more money into the economy. I will suggest to him that if he would first focus on the private sector, if he would first focus on how to free up these states to allow these policies to go into place, then the federal government would have more resources of which to deal with some issues that the federal government can and should deal with, which is securing the border, making sure our military is strong and secure. And frankly, we could have some infrastructure work at the federal level on interstate highways, on our ports that would create jobs and more importantly, drive economic development. Governor Peter here, you just mentioned securing the border. And of course, one of the remarkable aspects of your record, as I read your record, I think this is a fair reading,

is that you have been with as much as a governor can, it's primarily a federal responsibility, but as much as a governor can, you've been very forthright about enforcing the law at the border. At the same time, you have somehow or other been able to welcome Hispanics who are in Texas legally and to be helpful even to those. I think there's no hostility toward those who are there illegally. Where do you stand on the current immigration bill? Are you backing Marco Rubio and his effort, or are you closer to Ted Cruz's position, which is, wait a moment, let's get the border secure for a good long while first, and then we'll talk about a path to citizenship? And these issues that you just mentioned are not exclusive of each other. You can secure the border. And I think without

focusing first, you know, Americans have been told back through the years that if we would do these things on immigration and we'd also secure the border, Well, we did the latter, and the former didn't get taken care of. The border was never secured. The border can be secure. We know how to do that. And there's just a trust issue going on here with the federal government. Just like we're supposed to be trusting the federal government not to be using the IRS to intimidate groups. You would think the Associated Press would be a little bit pinched up, so to speak, about the Justice Department going in and taking secretively their phone records. You know that what's going on in Benghazi, there's something not right there. So how are we to trust an administration?

How are we to trust the federal government when they say, listen, we're going to do these different things on immigration reform, and we're going to also secure the border. Americans are generally pretty trusting people, but when they picked up that potato a couple of times and it's burned their hands, they don't pick it up anymore. So I think that's what's going on. I'm substantially more closely aligned with Senator Cruz's position on this piece of legislation, is frankly, I don't trust the federal government to do their job. 1,200-mile border we have with Texas and Mexico. When the federal government shows me their commitment to send the resources to do their federal constitutionally mandated responsibility of securing that border with strategic fencing, with boots on the ground, with aviation assets in the air, then we can have a conversation about institutionally mandated responsibility of securing that border with strategic fencing,

with boots on the ground, with aviation assets in the air, then we can have a conversation about how to deal with immigration reform. Now, let me just wrap up by saying Texas has always been a state that recognized the importance of our immigrants. We are married to each other. We do. Mexico is our number one trading partner we understand the importance of the Hispanic population in the state of Texas we are a going to be a majority minority state in just the next few years and the powerful role that they play economically and otherwise in the state plus just the historical relationship. There's a reason that we get Republicans like me get better than 40 percent of the vote

in a statewide race, because Hispanics in Texas know that freedom is what's important. Freedom from overtaxation and freedom from overregulation, freedom from overlitigation. Their children are going to have a better opportunity to live the American dream because Texas has accountable public schools that allow their kids to flourish. That's why the state will never be a blue state because Hispanic and other minorities know that in Texas, they have a great opportunity to flourish economically, and that is the basis for freedom. Governor Peter Robinson here, you've got a great state to run. So, and we promised your staff we would keep it limited to 15 minutes. We're over 15 minutes already. But you know the question I have to ask. You have dominated Texas politics for a decade now, and your outing when you ran for

president didn't go too well. You've said it to me when I interviewed you down in Austin, and you've said since that part of the problem was you'd had major surgery on your back and you just were not quite yourself. But what's up for Rick Perry? We've got a man who's governed a state that has grown and grown and grown, who has advocated aggressive policies of tort reform and lower regulation, who actually has shown how a Republican can both enforce the law at the border and attract a large share of the Hispanic vote. Governor, what do you think? And you going to make another run for the big one? Are you going to run for governor again? What's up? Less than two weeks until we get to the end of our legislative session. We're on the cusp of an incredibly successful session of having major tax relief, upward of $1.5 billion of tax relief,

putting a water and surface infrastructure plan into place that will send the message to job creators that for the next two decades at least, that water and surface transportation, our ports are going to be ready for the big super tankers coming up through the canal, that Texas is not just the best state in the nation to do business, according to CEO Magazine for the ninth year in a row, but that this is the place you want to be. And that's my focus. And when I get that session, this session that we're in, I'm going to sit down with family and friends and decide what I'm going to do in 2014 from the standpoint of re-election

to government. Two things I learned powerfully during the presidential election. Number one is you really can't parachute in as late as we did and expect to do particularly well. I suppose we could have been successful, but we had to do everything perfect. And we didn't. That was a long shot. And the second one is you don't have major back surgery six weeks before you announce for the presidency of the United States.

It's just not going to work out well for you. 2016, I would suggest later in this year, I will, again, sit down, analyze where we are and make a decision about 2016. But I'm not going to ride off into the sunset. We're still making a huge difference nationally. We took trips into California, took trips into Illinois to talk about red state versus blue state policies and to recruit businesses to stay in Texas, and both of those trips were very successful.

Successful for you, not for us. Successful for you, not for us. Successful for you, not for us Californians. Actually, it is successful for you. And let me tell you why it is, because it caused your legislature to have to have a public conversation about taxes, regulations, and the system and how miserable they are dealing with those. So when the public sees these types of things, and this isn't about me, I happen to be the spokesperson for red in the 100-yard dash. But guess what? I'll never be faster. I'll never we have Barack Obama's five years into it, and you can tell from his face, he's not enjoying himself. You've been on the job for more than a decade. You sound like a man who still just loves his job. What keeps you going?

I do being successful. Most people don't stay around long enough to really see the fruits of their labor. I've been the governor of Texas now for over 12 years. We're seeing, well, nine years in a row that CEO Magazine has picked us as the best state in the nation to do business. CNBC poll, we're the number one. Forbes, I mean, I can go through the list. It's pretty stunning and powerful messages that come from people who look and analyze and take this data and feed it back to us. Here's how you measure success, and Texas is at the top of the heap. That's what drives me.

I thrive on challenges. I thrive on being able to fix problems. And we've been able to do that in the state of Texas. Unfortunately, President Obama has never run anything. President Obama has never been successful at dealing with problems before. You know his record, where he came from, what he did. He's never had a business to run, whether it was a private sector business or a government as the chief executive officer. And frankly, his five years as the CEO of America, you've got to say, have been unsuccessful if you look at our economic record. And then the last month, and this administration's clearly political agenda, whether it was Benghazi,

whether it was IRS, whether it was the AP records, these are truly troubling times for America and the citizens of this state, left and right, are losing any type of trust with this administration. Once you have lost the trust of the people, you're through. Well, Governor, I think the best news, the best words out of this morning for us have been that you are not going to ride out to the sunset because you had a lot to say. And I think the second best words were that you're when you come to california and i think you're absolutely right uh it's good for us that competition is good when you come here and you and you uh remind people what a great place texas is to start a business to move

a business um you're gonna you're you're schooling the the legislators and i think a lot of the voters in california illinois and places like that on what we have to do to change our states to make them more business friendly and get them to grow again. And so I got to thank you for that. Thank you for beating us to the 100-yard dash. And thank you, Governor, also for your time here. And, you know, I got to say I got an email from my brother last week saying, you know, there's a house down the street for sale. So who knows? I may I may I may become an actual citizen of the of the Republic of Texas and not just an honorary one like Peter. Thank you, Governor. Thank you very much. California is a beautiful state. You can live here and go in a house there in July and August.

Enjoy that beautiful weather and come back to Texas and enjoy your money. That's exactly right. Governor, thank you so much. That's me, guys. So long. It is amazing. Here's what I'll say. It's amazing what back surgery will do. Oh, yes. But also, it is incredible when you remember just what an example Texas is, that it's not an experiment that's working.

It's an actual model that's working. And who knows whether he decides to run for president and who knows what the field may be. But I have to say this. As I mentioned, I was down in Austin. I met him for the first time and interviewed him for Uncommon Knowledge in Austin just about a year ago now. And when I flew down to Austin, my question was, after watching the presidential debates, how did Rick Perry ever get to be governor of a big, important state? Because he was just such a halting politician in those debates. And of course, once you see him when he's as we just heard him, this is a man who is on top of his game, on top of his state, relaxed, confident.

It's a tough state, too. It's not that that is not an easy state. It's not an easy state. It's not an easy state. Politics in Texas is a blood sport. It's like South Carolina. Yeah, you bet it is. It always has been. So, you know, he this is an impressive guy. Texas is what's happened in Texas is no accident. No. And what a treat to be able to talk to him. What an incredible honor to talk to that guy. I mean, he's going to be a force in American politics, whether he runs or he doesn't. And we're lucky to have him on the podcast. And we were lucky. And he's going to make you the showbiz czar. Yeah. And we're lucky to have him on the podcast. We're lucky that the Ricochet members get to hear that.

I think that's kind of cool. And we are lucky that Audible is our sponsor. And Audible is the sponsor of the Ricochet flagship podcast. And what they're going to do for us, I know we say it all the time, but it's actually kind of cool right now because if you get a free audiobook of your choice and a free 30-day trial, there are over 100,000 titles in virtually every genre of audiobooks. Also, the incredible WhisperSync technology that syncs your Kindle to your audio device. Audible is actually part of Amazon now, Peter. That's kind of cool. Oh, really?

Yeah. I didn't realize. It's all integrated together, which is fantastic. All you have to do is go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet, and you can get your free book and your free 30-day trial, 100,000 titles. My recommendation is Rick Perry's Fed Up, Our Fight to Save America from Washington by Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich writes the foreword, and we had Newt on a couple weeks ago.

It is narrated by Rick Wright, not by Rick Perry, unfortunately, because I would love to have his voice because it's got a great, great, great honey voice. But what's your pick, Peter? My pick, I've been, as you know, I'm continuing to do this Cold War reading. My pick is Berlin, 1961, Kennedy, Khrushche, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth. This is by Frederick Kemp. It's one of the best Cold War books I've read. And at this stage, I've read dozens of them. And not only will it give you wonderful portraiture of both Kennedy and Khrushchev and a great deal of the underlying history of the period. But that confrontation between Kennedy and Khrushchev over Berlin in 1961 is also a tremendously dramatic story. So this is one that you could

pop in the car. It's getting to be vacation time. This is in my mind because the kids, we're going to be taking an East Coast vacation pretty soon. You can pop this one in and listen to it and the kids will be riveted by the sheer drama. It's one of those – I'm one of those parents who's always looking for ways of tricking my children into learning some history. And Berlin 1961 is a good way to do it. Wow, that's kind of cool. That's kind of cool. So I have to ask you, how is the book coming? I'm now down to the hard writing, which will probably take some months.

I'm not like Rob Long. I'm a slow writer. And you know that the thing of history – It's your damn quality. That's the damn – it's just on quality. The thing about history is I was just writing about – I mean I'm just – I've got thousands of words of notes. I have some very rough drafts of some scenes and so forth. I've got the files all organized.

But I'm going back to the beginning to do the sort of the competent writing now. And the thing about history is it's no good to write about a scene as July 1945. You need to go find the file and say, oh yeah, July 16th, 1945. Writing history is kind of meticulous. Yeah. And then you got to find out what else was going on on July 16th. That's the problem because you need all that color. You need to have all that extra stuff happening. I remember thinking that that was one of the things that George Will used to do. You can always tell in the old days when he had a column to write, he would find a date and then find some absurd thing that happened on that date and then use that absurd thing as a way into – that was his lead. And once you sort of figure that out, you'd have a researcher constantly looking for strangely, ironically meaningful moments that happened in history.

I think one of them began with – on 18-something-something, the secretary of war, so-and-so, sat down to write a poem. And that was the beginning of the column, which was the way to do it I suppose, the way to do the thing. Now we've – I'm sure we should mention this. We've lost James for a bit. He might come back. He had to step away for a few moments. I think he had a little domestic emergency to take care of.

But he will return. In the meantime, we do have another guest, and we have a couple things to talk to him about. Kevin Williamson is joining us now. Kevin Williamson is a National Review's roving correspondent. do have another guest and we have a couple things to talk with to talk to him about kevin williamson is joining us now kevin williamson is a national reviews roving correspondent he writes the ex checker blog there on national review online covers debt deficits and finance and politics his new book is called the end is near and it's going to be awesome how going broke will leave america richer happier and more secure uh which is going to be fantastic. I know. Kevin is an incredibly great conversationalist, very smart guy, very funny guy. I love seeing him when I'm in the offices, which is rarely, but also on the cruise is

lots of fun. We're going to talk to him about the IRS scandal. We're going to talk to him about what's going on in money politics. But before we do, I want to talk to him about what happened last night at the theater. Kevin, are you there? I am here. I get the feeling I ended up talking about this all day.

No, no, just, just really quickly. Obviously other stuff's going on, but I just, I just, I just got to hear you beat up.

Yeah. So, uh, you beat up the theater. What happened was, you know, I'm, I'm a theater critic for the new Criterion,

so I see a lot of plays. And I was at a play last night, and there's a really badly behaved audience in general, you know, talking and using their cell phones and such. And it was a bench sort of seating, you know, banquette kind of things. So they're all kind of squeezed up together, and there's a lady right up next to me. She's using her cell phone the whole time.

So I asked her to turn it off, and she was really rude about not doing it. She told me to mind my own business, and if I didn't like it, don't look. After the second or third time I asked her, I took the cell phone out of her hand and threw it across the theater out the door. Then I was thrown out. I didn't get to see the last third of Natasha Pierre.

What kind of cell phone was it? That's a wrong question. I think it might have been the last third of Natasha Pierre. What kind of cell phone was it? That's a wrong question. I think it might have been an iPhone. Oh, okay. All right. Which I like iPhones. Yeah. So wait.

Okay. So it wasn't making any noise. She had it on vibrate, right? It was just the light that bothered you. Yeah. She wasn't even texting. She was looking something up on Wikipedia or Googling or something. I guess she couldn't follow the play.

But so, yeah, that was that. That was my vigilante justice. Wait, so you were – were you – I mean, you just – they just told you to leave. And where is – Yeah, they told me to leave, and the management says that she had called the police and was talking about filing charges and stuff. We'll see if that actually happens. But I was ejected from the play.

Now, okay, did you feel – did the people around you – I mean, what I'm trying to do is construct a scene. Was there, like, people around you saying, yeah, finally? Not really. You know, we were in the very, very back with our backs up against the wall. So, in fact, there was a table of theater critics not too far away, and I heard from one of them this morning. They didn't even notice, apparently, me doing it, although they noticed her stomping out of the theater down the middle aisle afterward. So, you know, it was disruptive, maybe, but not as dramatically disruptive, I suppose, as it could have been. But she did slap me pretty well on her way out.

Oh, she did? She hit you? Yeah, she did. She stood up and slapped me and that sort of thing. Oh, well, that's probably good. That's a counter charge, I think, when it comes to assault. Yeah, I think so. That's my get-out-of-the-eagle-free card, I guess.

Now, okay, so I know we've got to get to politics, but it's very important. Sure, yeah. Before we get to it, so, I I know we got to get to politics. Well, it's very important. Sure. Yeah. Before we get to it. So, I mean, are you aren't you isn't part of you thinking to yourself? I this this is kind of a New York Post kind of local hero moment where that you can start the, you know, the Williamson rule. If you don't turn it off, you get it thrown out. I mean, not you get to get the phone thrown out. Well, I wouldn don't turn it off, you get it thrown out? I mean, you get the phone thrown out?

Well, I wouldn't mind if it caught on. I think that would be an all right thing. People should just be a little more assertive about this. And of course, theater management are not very good about this either, especially the big Broadway houses. They've got 50 ushers in there. You can see from all over the theater when people are doing this. But I've never actually seen an usher, at least at the Broadway house, come in and say, stop that.

Although the audience members often do. And people from the stage do. I mean there's always stories, but it happens in the West End and London all the time. An actor will suddenly stop and say, could you – and actually point somebody out. I think it was Brian Dennehy I was reading about who flipped out from the stage one night. Yeah, I saw him coming at you. I definitely encouraged that. Gilbert, what is the conductor?

Gilbert's first name is John Gilbert, perhaps? In any event, New York Philharmonic stopped a performance because somebody had an iPhone was going off. This was in the New York Times for three or four days in a row. But, of course, that would be at Lincoln Center. So that's was in the New York Times for three or four days in a row. But of course that would be at Lincoln Center, so that's what makes the New York Times. You're at the gritty out, out, out, out, off, off, off Broadway.

You've got to go to New York. Yours is a post story. That's for sure. I haven't heard from the post yet. I confess when I read your piece and it said bench seating I kind of thought, well, I'm never seeing that. I haven't heard from the post yet. I confess, when I read your piece and it said bench seating, I kind of thought, well, I'm never seeing that. You know, it's pretty good, though. It's pretty good.

The play is pretty good? Yeah, the play is pretty good. You didn't see the second act. That's your problem. Well, I didn't see the last third. I got about half of the second act, maybe. But I did not see the climax. Oh, okay.

All right, so speaking of the climax. What a transition. Yeah, exactly. How bad is this IRS thing going to get? You know, okay, let's embrace the sort of Democratic apologist view of this thing. Okay. You know, the White House didn't have anything to do with it, and no one in Obama's circle had anything to do with it,

and the president didn't have anything to do with it, which, by the way, I think is probably true. I doubt very much the president or any of his inner circle had a hand in anything like this. Even if it's just the way it looks right now, what we know, it's a really, really, really bad situation. The IRS is one of the most powerful entities in the federal government. It has just fearsome investigatory powers, access to sensitive information on every person and institution in this country. And, you know, this isn't their only item of abuse. You know, they were leaking sensitive documents about Karl Rove's group during the campaign. They sent all that stuff to ProPublica about a number of the conservative groups.

So they've got an obvious cultural problem throughout the institution. And it's not the sort of thing you solve just by firing the guy in top when he's got three weeks left in his term or firing the woman in charge of this division. You're going to have to go in there and not only fire, but pursue criminal cases against every person in the IRS who had a hand in this, from the line workers on up to the senior management. This is – it's clearly criminal activity. I'm glad the FBI is open to probe into it. It's a misuse and misappropriation of government resources.

It's criminal on a lot of levels having to do with records. So it's an enormous, enormous problem. And do you think – what do you think – I mean if we're going to play this strategically, say, you don't want a scandal to go to waste. And we're good conservatives. We're good free market conservatives. We hate the IRS. How do we use this as an opportunity to hobble the IRS a little bit? Do we create a more powerful oversight board over them?

Do we strip them of certain powers now? They've been bad boys. What do we do? Yeah, well, and again, I think that's the more important issue. I mean, for me, this is not about do we have a chance to throw a little egg on the face of the Obama administration because they're going to be gone in a couple of years. But the IRS is going to be here forever. And it's much more important to reform the IRS than it is to put the Obama administration at political disadvantage.

I think a couple of things probably need to happen here. Some of the statutory stuff having to do with them needs to be put some more teeth in. It needs to be, you know, explicit criminal felony for them to do these things that they've done. There should be a specific statute written for that. A lot of people have to lose their jobs. Some people need to go to jail. I think that Congress would be justified in opening up the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and taking the IRS's implementation powers, having to do with that, away and giving them either to Health and Human Services or a different agency. I think there are a number of things that could be done.

But, of course, when you've got a tax code like we have that is just Byzantine in its complexity and full of all sorts of political favoritism, you invite this sort of thing. If we didn't have dumb campaign finance laws and the rest of it and the tax code stuff that goes with it, we wouldn't have a reason for these groups in the first place. You wouldn't have an IRS with incentives to game the system. You know, I mean, I wish that a flat tax or something was what was coming out of this, and the IRS could be reduced to 12 people who just do arithmetic and make sure that everything gets filed. That's not going to happen.

But the tax code is part of the underlying problem, but part of it is just the underlying culture of Washington, where people use public institutions for private political ends all the time as a normal thing. And we have to hop on that in this case, especially because it is so dramatic, it is so obviously illegal, and it's far beyond even where the sort of loose morals of Washington account for. Hey, Kevin, James Lylex here. I'm sorry I missed everything. I had something to run to, so I missed everything that you said. Could you tell me, though, how Washington, D.C. is like a criminal enterprise? From the book, yeah. Well, you know, think about it. People always give me

this, well, how can you hate taxes so much? You know, you dislike the government so much. When you drive on the roads, you get protected by the fire department and this and that? Well, a lot of these are services I didn't ask for. And so when someone provides you with a service you don't necessarily want, charges you a fee that you don't get to negotiate for that service, and then sends a guy to your house with a gun to collect it if you don't pay, well, that's a protection racket. I mean, when anyone else does that, it's criminal racketeering.

But that's basically how government operates. Now, that's not to say the government and government force is illegitimate in every episode and every use. I mean, I'm not, you know, making a case for anarchism here, but that's the reason why you want to have a very, very limited government with narrowly defined powers, because you are giving it essentially the same sort of power that, you know, your local mafia boss has over you. They can come to your house and use violence. I mean, that's what government is. Right, but without the colorful subculture, though. That's the problem.

I mean, if we're all— Well, I mean, yeah, they don't even have the mafia's great sense of fashion. No, or nomenclature. I mean, if your senator was known as Bob Gaspipe, you know, Anderson or something like that, we'd have a lot more fun writing about these people. But no, it's a tedious bunch of woks who are exerting their power over us without any of the bad fashion. So what would Barack Obama's mob name be?

Oh, let's see. What would Barack Obama's mob name be? Like that. Barry something, yeah. Barry. Barry, um... Barry Knuckles. It'd be Barry the Kenyan.

No, it'd have to be something, it would have to be something. It would have to be some telling little detail of his life that they used to needle him when he was coming up. So it'd be dog snack. It'd be Barry dog snack. Barry big ears. Barry big ears. Barry big ears.

Oh, Rob, Rob. Sorry to derail everything. Rob, now you will be audited. Right, right, yeah. But if I understand. Now that we've elevated the conversation. Yeah, that's right. Doing my best. Now we're all about to get audited. Thank you. Doing my best.

So, again, I'm sorry if I missed everything. I'm sure this came up. But if I get the pith of the gist of the thrust of your book right, is that we've got societal devolution coming along and it's going to be awesome and good and positive in the long run. Did anybody ask what the short term is going to look like? And if so, I'll just shut up and listen to the show later. No, no one asked that yet. And that's, of course, the real question. That's the real challenge for politics where we are. I mean, everybody knows from the CBO, Democrats, Republicans, everyone who looks at the numbers knows that our current trajectory is not sustainable and that something serious is going to have to change. And if you really look at the numbers very closely, you realize the tax increases aren't really going to be a possible solution for it

because the fiscal overhang is such that you could raise taxes to 100%. You could raise it to 150%. You're not paying off those unfunded liabilities. It's just not going to happen. So what we really have to do is admit the fact that we put ourselves into a position where we made promises that we can't keep. We've created a system that can't be sustained. We're going to have to get from where we are to the place where things are stable and sustainable. And there are good ways to go about that or better ways to go about that. And there are really bad ones. You know, you can have a slow and steady process of reform, which we've seen in places like Canada and even Sweden, for God's sake, has done a lot of really responsible things in the last 10, 15 years. Or you can have Greece,

you know, you can have Cyprus, you can have Argentina, you can have one of those situations. And it's really up to us which one we want. Kevin, do you, Peter here, do you find yourself becoming more libertarian? You're fairly libertarian, as I understand your fundamental temperament and outlook. Do you find yourself becoming more libertarian as time goes on. The usual progression, I think, is that teenage boys fall in love with Ayn Rand and then they become less libertarian and more conservative as they move on in life. I guess what I'm asking is, how is it that you've been able to remain such an ardent, insistent, slightly angry libertarian? Well, you know, my first contact with real organized political ideas wasn't

Ayn Rand, and I'm grateful for that. It was Milton Friedman, which in my high school in Lubbock, Texas was required reading. We had to take economics to get out of high school, and you had to read Milton Friedman and economics. Really? That explains everything. All the good things about Texas you just explained. We just spoke to

Governor Rick Perry. I wish we could call him back and tell him I'm on my way. Yeah, America's governor. He's a great guy. So my politics have always been libertarian, and they still are. My social outlook, I think, is very conservative and has been getting more conservative as time goes on. Now, I have some questions about how much of that you can use politics to achieve. I mean, there are cases where you really can. I'm pro-life. I think abortion should be illegal. as time goes on. Now, I have some questions about how much of that you can use politics to achieve. I mean, there are cases where you really can. You know, I'm pro-life. I think abortion should be illegal. I think it should be, you know, outlawed across the board. You have something like gay

marriage, which seems to me like a moral question that isn't really a political question so much. So while I, you know, I believe in a traditional model of marriage and family and all that, I just don't see any legitimate reason to have a federal law saying it's going to be this, that, or the other. So you can use persuasion. You can use example. And you can also use the test of markets on that. If social conservatives are really right and our model of doing things really is better, it makes happier and more prosperous people and communities, then that should show up when we put it to the test and let people make their own decisions. So here's the next question.

You're optimistic over the long run because – I am, yes. You want government to crack up and you think we'll all be better for it and your book isn't available until May 7th, darn it. I was just trying to download it onto Kindle while we were talking because I love everything you write and they won't do it for me until May 7th. In any event, consider two models. I'm sure I'm about to be somewhat unfair.

Wasn't May 7th like a week ago? Wait a minute. What's today? Oh, my Lord. What happened to the last nine days? Oh, this is great. Okay, good. But why does it say – I'm getting a glitch on Amazon then because I'm saying not available.

Something's wrong. Okay, sorry. That's between me and my computer. Two models. Right on. Broadly. Broadly, And I'm probably going to be unfair to both these guys. Congressman Paul Ryan, who's fundamentally, we can fix this thing. We still have time. If you just enact my budget, we can fix this thing. And Rand Paul, who is not standing up on the floor of the Senate and saying – and trying to do a Samson act of ripping the whole edifice down. But you know, you sense when you listen to Rand Paul talk that he'd really like to, that there's a much more libertarian edge there. So over the next 18 months to two years, who's got more juice in the Republican Party?

Well, I think Paul Ryan does because he's more of an institutional kind of figure. And his ideas are much more close to where the mainstream of the party's thinking is. In the long term, I don't think either one of their political agendas is going to matter all that much. I think that the political incentives are to keep spending the money and keep doing what you're doing until you can't. So at some point you hit what I call the real debt ceiling, the part at which the market says we're not investing in treasuries anymore, at least not until you pay a 6% or 7% on them,

in which case the whole game changes overnight, or hopefully it's not overnight, but over a period of time. So I don't really expect the change to come out of the political process so much. I expect it to come mainly out of the marketplace, although we do have a chance to do some things to make it easier. And Paul Ryan's budget would certainly go a long way toward that. Simply reforming Social Security and Medicare would go a long way toward making us more stable for the next 15 or 20 years, and that would be an enormous help to the country. But my optimism comes from the fact that I don't think Americans are fools.

I don't think we want to be poor. We don't want to be miserable. We don't want to be vulnerable. And when the money really does run out and Congress starts having to say, okay, do we fund the Border Patrol and the Marines and the FBI, or do we fund Harry Reid's Cowboy Poetry Festival out in Nevada? Which one of these are we actually going to do? And if it's cut military spending to zero or reform Social Security and Medicare,

I think we're going to do the right thing over time. And as we do, that will give us some room for real market-oriented voluntary alternatives to emerge. Hey, Kevin. It's Rob here. I got a question. So I think that calculation is exactly what the other side is saying too, right? You're saying that when faced with this disastrous cliff, Americans will make the right choice and they will choose – they'll make the hard choices. They'll get rid of all that other crap, and they'll focus on what really matters.

The other side is saying when faced with that big cliff, everybody agrees the cliff is coming. Americans will make the right choice, and they'll raise taxes and become socialists. Yeah, and I would think that would be a danger if I thought you could actually take care of it by raising taxes. But the unfunded liabilities and the debts of the federal, state, and local governments add up to about $140 trillion, which is two times the GDP of the planet. And it's close to the value of all the financial assets in the world. And of course, other governments have unfunded liabilities too, and they're going to the same markets looking to borrow. So I just simply don't think that raising taxes or continuing deficits is just mathematically possible to pay off the liabilities that we have. I just downloaded your book, Kevin.

Thank you for that. Thank you. I hear Rob ask a question, and I think, what can I be doing in the meantime here? It worked. It worked. It worked. Wait. So can we just for a minute just talk about the book, just the practicalities?

It's out. We can download it on Amazon today. I just did. Buy it at your local Barnes & Noble. Is it available as an audio book? There is an audio book coming out, I believe, but I don't believe that's available yet. It's not me reading it, so I'm sure it's someone who's got a better voice. It's Gilbert Gottfried.

That's the strange thing about it. That's sad. That would be terrific. I'd listen to that, actually. Well, you know, somebody who could communicate the urgency and the clarity and the brilliance of your prose. This is what I don't get, and this is a stunning indictment against the mainstream media, the New York Times, that they put Paul Krugman out there on a regular basis to parade his economic analysis. And yet you, Kevin, who I've been reading for years, and I read you in

the corner, and I love when your name pops up, are not only one of the clearest thinkers and not only one of the clearest writers, but one of the most effervescent, fiery, funny, and just damn pleasurable to read. You're so good. Man crush. Man crush. If the book is like the posts at the corner, then yes, everybody ought to read it because it'll be one of those things. Like Stein, that people remember not just for the points, but for the prose and the style. I agree.

I second that. I got to I agree. I second that. I got to second that. I third it. You know, I have to say – Stein is a very big shadow for me. Well, but I really feel like that's always been – I mean, just talk about out of school for a minute. That's always been the challenge for NR and for –

well, NR especially is that you can't just have Stein out there hitting home runs. You've got to have a bench. And, you know, you've got to have a reason to read the magazine every week and go to the website. And I really have to say like NR right now, and I recuse myself because I've been there too long, but NR

right now is sort of really, really firing on all jets. And I think you are, I will add to the man crush. You are one of the big reasons for that. You're writing really great stuff and also unexpected stuff too, which I think is – that was important for NR to keep it from getting stale. You've got to open that magazine and be surprised by what's inside. And I think that's – you're a big part of that. Kevin, Peter.

Thank you. I was an NR fan long before I ever worked here. You know, I started reading the magazine back when I was in junior high and high school. And I was sort of an N.R.ologist, you know, and a Buckley fan and all the rest of it for a long time. So it's tremendously fun to work here. But, you know, there are some wonderful, wonderful people writing here. And we've got some, you know, a lot of very young and new and interesting folks. If you look at the Washington office, everyone's, you everyone's 21 years old, it seems like, down there.

That's right. And, you know, Costa and Betsy and Trinco and all those people, they're all really, really very good. More to find here, Hugh, Hugh had talked yesterday, I think it was Garrity and Costa and the rest of them, and he's going over the 73 parallels with Watergate

and saying, you weren't alive then, and they're all saying, no, no, I was but a night goat. Yeah, they weren't alive. Charlie Cook is, what, 18, 16, something like that. Yeah, I think he's about to get his driver's license or something. Yeah, you can't actually buy him a drink. alive then and they're all saying no no i was but yeah they weren't alive charlie cook is what 18 16 something like that yeah i think he's about to get his driver's license or something you can't actually buy him a drink you know you know cook is actually 28 he just seemed a lot more useful english that's the thing kevin kevin peter here this is my last question for you i'm quoting from the end is near and it's going to be awesome how going broke will leave America richer, happier and more secure from the introduction.

Quote, I hope that this book still is being read a few years from now because my admiration for Apple's iPhone will by then seem faintly ridiculous. Close quote. Explain that sentence from your introduction. You know, one of the reasons I got started with this, this you know I've been fighting for me being in trouble for throwing a phone last night the iPhone is kind of my new symbol I used throughout the book I give this talk to students sometimes and I usually use a video or visual aid and that's a picture of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko from that you know 1980s movie Wall Street and I put that picture up and the kids always laughed I can't help themselves you know no matter their, no matter their politics, no matter their beliefs, they

always laugh. It's because of that ridiculous cell phone, because it's 13 inches long and it weighs two pounds. And then I explained to them that in current dollars, that thing costs 10,000 bucks nearly. And it costs like $1,000 a month to operate. And it had 45 minutes of talk time or something. So I asked them, you look at your phones and you're not rich people. You're not Wall Street millionaires. You're not Gordon Gekko. You're college kids and high school kids. It gets better and cheaper every year. Everything gets better and cheaper every year. Groceries get better and cheaper every year. If you look at the average family's household budget, what it has to spend on food in 1955 versus now. Cars, you know, the worst car you can buy right now, the cheapest car

you can buy right now is so much better and so much less expensive than its counterparts from the 1950s or around there. Why do all these things get better? But three really important things, which are health care, education and retirement, don't. And the problem there is that you've got politics at the middle of those rather than voluntary actions. One of the things I always try to do in this book is it's not the old free market versus government welfare state stuff. I mean that's a big part of it, but it's not the only thing. What happens is you've got these distributed systems in which you've got really low transaction costs. So things like Wikipedia, which is not a for-profit enterprise. It's a nonprofit that creates real value, and Wikipedia gets better every every day and it's free. It couldn't possibly get any cheaper. Things like Kickstarter that

create real value and have people self-organize themselves into financial units to address certain kinds of things they're interested in. It's really useful, I think, and really interesting. And of course, things that happen in the marketplace, computers and clothes and all the rest of it get better and cheaper. But we've got politics at the center of these three really important markets. And if we can do something at the center of these three really important markets. And if we can do something about that, then we can really radically improve people's lives. You know, people like me, you know, middle-class people in the suburbs with educated parents and things like that.

Actually, it's not me. But, you know, people who are sort of upper middle class and well off, we're always going to do fine. You know, we're always going to do fine. But the failing schools really hurt people who are poor, who really need those resources. We're not giving them to them. You know, people like us are always going to have fine health care coverage, but there are people who don't.

And we need to do something about that. So, yeah, I remember when I first started writing this, there's a woman down the street in the coffee shop, a Bengali immigrant. And she has an iPhone. I have an iPhone. The president has an iPhone. I have an iPhone. The president has an iPhone. Everyone has an iPhone. Does she have the same access to health care as the president does?

Do her kids go to as good of schools as his do? Well, no, that's not the case, and that's something we really need to do something about. Well, in the future, the iPhone, of course, will be a cybernetic implant in the back of our head that will holographically project information two or three feet in front of us. I was thinking actually an implant under the jawbone because there's an auditory nerve there, so you can just get it right in there.

That'll work, too. That'll work, too. And it will cost $5.97, and we'll all look back upon the sleek iPhones that we have now with the same sort of risable reaction that the kids have to Gordon Gekko's shoebox phone. So it does. And I will be... You know. So it goes. Go on. Go ahead, please. No, I had nothing else to say,

and I was hoping that your brilliant pithy rejoinder would get me off the hook. Do go on. Oh, no. I was saying I was at a performance of Death of a Salesman, which is a terrific play, and it was Philip Seymour Hoffman. And, you know, the boss in the office has that wire recording device. And at the time, of course, this was like the high-tech thing. And now you look at it, and his fascination with it just seems just absurd

because it's so old-fashioned. It's so old school. But this was not written 200 years ago. You know, this is fairly recent stuff in our cultural history. So I suspect that as miraculous as all of our toys and gadgets right now look, in 20 years, you wouldn't be able to give an iPhone 5 away to a kid because there's so much stuff that works so much better.

You know, Alexander Graham Bell never could have imagined what a phone would look like 100 years from now. But we imagine we can design a health care system that's going to solve the problem of health care for the next 50 years or 60 years. It's absurdly hubristic to think that. And indeed, we now get technology where we can hear Alexander Graham Bell's voice by pointing ultrasonic rays at the

plaster in his studio, which absorbed the waveforms. I mean, we have no idea exactly what's coming. You're absolutely right, and it's going to be awesome, and it's going to be great, and we'll use your book as a blueprint in the future. I do disagree, however, that it's a choice between cowboy poetry and the Marines. I think, as we saw in Full Metal Jacket,

the Marines are perfectly capable of poetry on their own. I don't know, but I've been told Eskimo... whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, you need to go and read Kevin at the corner and of course you need to read his book. The end is near and it's going to be awesome! How Going Broke Will Leave America Richer,

Happier, and More Secure. And as the IRS scandal deepens, as we learn more about what's going on, we hope to have you on for your analysis on that. Otherwise, we'll see you at the corner and in the pages of your new book. Kevin D. Williamson, thank you for being on the show today. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks, Kevin. See you soon. Thanks, guys. Take care.

Yeah, you couldn't, a few years now, you can't give a kid an iPhone 5, but if you did and told her to text you back as soon as she got to school, she probably wouldn't do it. Thereby requiring you to leave the podcast and drive to the school to make sure she wasn't hit by a car on the way there. So I apologize for my absence there. Oh, wow. No, I'm serious.

We can have an entire parenting podcast on these subjects if we wish, but there have to be consequences, right? Isn't that what Kevin's book is all about? Consequences. You set up these obligations and responsibilities. There have to be consequences. And we live, it seems, in an administration that is devoid of consequences, that nobody ever calls them out of class and reads them the right act. So end question then. Do you guys think that this welter, this panoply of the IRS, HHS, EPA, AP, all of these – this wonderful 1930s FDR type of blizzard of acronyms, do you think this is all going to result in what, Peter? Well, the key political question, I think,

thinking off the top of my head here, the key political question is whether over the summer and maybe through to September, by then it will have to be done if it is to happen at all, the Republican Party can recruit good Senate candidates. If the administration's being on the defensive encourages some folks to run for the Senate who until now have been saying, no, you know, I'd really rather not, then that could be a big deal.

It's very unlikely that the Democrats, very unlikely that the Democrats will recapture the House in 2014, even before all of these scandals developed. Now, it would strike me that there's a pretty good chance Republicans can make serious gains in the Senate and maybe recapture that institution in 2014 if they get good candidates. And if that happens, then Barack Obama's final two years will be just presiding as Republicans chisel away at the terrible things he did during his first six years. That would be – I think that would end the Obama administration two years early.

Because there's no way that this president can pivot. There's no way he can negotiate. There's no way he can compromise. He doesn't know how to do it. He's not Clinton. I mean with Clinton, Clinton made his biggest – some of his best achievements. Biggest achievements were when he faced an opposition because it played into his skill set, his ability to compromise, his ability to politic. He's good at it. This guy can't do that.

It wasn't just good at it. It would end two years early. I mean he might as well go home. He wasn't just good at it though. He enjoyed it. That's he might as well go home. He wasn't just good at it though. He enjoyed it. That's the difference. Yeah, yeah. He enjoyed contact with members of his fellow species.

I don't get the feeling with this guy. That actually strikes me as a critical point. You were – I wanted to ask the governor that. I didn't have the guts. I knew he would defer Demure anyway. I want to say like when you meet him, is he nice? Does he have a – I mean everybody I know who met Clinton has always done the same thing,

which is man, that guy is so great. You just really just – whatever you think you're going to say to him, he's so charming. I don't know. I mean it's hard to be president and not have that natural charm, but I just don't get it from this guy. I tried to get to it a little bit in my question with the governor, but I only got to it a little bit, which is that when a politician is enjoying himself. Yeah. It communicates that pleasure in the job, communicates itself to the legislators, to his base, to the press. And this is not a partisan matter.

This is a matter of animal spirits and a kind of tactile feel. Franklin Roosevelt had it. Ronald Reagan tactile feel. Franklin Roosevelt had it. Ronald Reagan had it. Bill Clinton had it. And Barack Obama seemed to be enjoying himself. And now he just looks as though he'd rather take his marbles and go home. And that, listen, there was one period of about, oh, I guess it may have been almost two months during Iran-Contra, just one period in all the eight years when Ronald Reagan really seemed low. It just got to him for a period. And I can tell you that if you're on the staff in the White House, you really feel it. Right. So this – just this evanescence of Barack Obama's animal spirits, this guy who's now gritting his teeth as he goes through the daily duties of the president, that in itself is a political – large political fact.

He ain't having any fun. I can't find it now. I've been looking around. I had this – I was trying to file a column last night for Abu Dhabi and I just was not focusing. And so I was surfing around and on BuzzFeed. BuzzFeed had a thing called the top ten YOLO moments for – in the Reagan administration. YOLO is the kids safer. You only live once.

Kind of like go to hell moments for the Reagan administration. And they had is the kids safer. You only live once, you know, kind of kind of go to hell moments for the Reagan administration. And they had photographs and it was late. I can't write. I'm looking for I can't find it. And it was fantastic pictures of Reagan just doing. And it was great. It was so much fun to look at. And I'll look for it if I find it. But if you if you if you I guess if you Google YOLO moments,Feed Reagan, you'll find it. And it kind of reminded you like he enjoyed being president and he was good at it and Clinton did too and he was good at it too. So I mean – or just the politics of the job. If you want to stop the Obama administration two years early, the thing to do is to get a Republican majority in the Senate, caucused – a Republican majority. And if some of them are going to be rhinos, that's got bad news for you. But if they caucus as Republicans and all those committees, every single committee is run by Republicans and a Republican majority leader setting the agenda.

It's over. He can go home. Obama can go home. Nothing's going to happen. Except, of course, to blame an obstructionist Congress for blocking every bit of goodness that he would do. And the goodness is now defined. You know, if we go back to what we said at the beginning of the podcast where he spoke of going Bulworth. Right.

It's a time story, which – and to put this again and explain it, It means that it was a movie about a guy who ran as a centrist. But then once he was elected, of course, became brutally honest about his his confiscatory leftism. And apparently that is the image of the idea of the dream that the president harbors in the back of his mind that he could drop the mask and just actually go full Obama, as though what we've had before is insufficiently socialistic. It can't be fun. It can't be. I have the feeling that the guy is probably thinking about, you know, giving the Secret Service the slip, putting on a hoodie and going down to the local convenience store and saying pack of Newports.

Because if there's any time, really, that you think I'm the most powerful man on earth and my wife won't let me smoke a cigarette, it's probably not. Hey, Rob, Rob, I have my one last question thing. I have one last question for you. Yes. Again, James, you missed this. It was a beautiful thing to hear. The governor of Texas extended a personal invitation. Oh, no, I heard that. I heard that. Oh, you were on for that part. I was on for the whole Perry thing up to the point where we got to the last question. Then you asked him, where's Rick? Cause I was going to ask him about north dakota because i live in the anti-texas i live here in minnesota which is becoming in all possible forms the anti-texas but

next door is is is the texas of the north right down to the border and the and the boom culture and i i want to know exactly what pitfalls can be avoided and what lessons can be taken because if you could if you go back to the old cartoons you see that the the caricature of the swaggeringing Texan with the big hat and the long Cadillac and lots of steer and lots of money. I mean that was a great American archetype that's sort of been lost and I'm wondering if North Dakota can become the latest version to supplant that idea of glee and wealth and nouveau riche. I don't want you to worry about North Dakota. Here's my question for Rob. As a professional matter, is it possible you could move to Austin? Oh, yeah.

There's enough activity there? No, no. I mean for what I do, no. Right now, for what I do, no. But I would say to the governor, I mean the kind of television I do, multi-cam comedy, those crews are pretty skilled. They're a little bit more skilled than single-camera comedy or single-camera television, which is basically just film crews. But the multicam thing is harder – I mean it's not as prevalent right now. It used to be every comedy on television was shot with a multiccamera crew, so you would never leave town.

I'm not sure that's the case now. I'm not sure that you couldn't do it. I'm not sure that you wouldn't – you couldn't get – you couldn't make it worth your while. Look, I – every time – every year that passes and technology gets better, we get closer and closer to the idea of completely decentralized production. The reason production is centralized here is for supervision because the network executives like to take a look at things. And the studio executives like to come to the set. And everybody likes to give notes. But what if they could do that by looking at a Cisco telepresence screen?

They would never have to leave their offices, which they really don't want to do. And if you could arrange that, they'd be perfectly happy. So it's not crazy. It really isn't crazy. So what you're saying is the technology is moving Texas' way. More and more activities can be done anywhere. Well, Texas' way. Therefore, tend to drift toward a low-tax environment. Yeah, Texas is way, New Orleans is way for tax credits,

Vancouver is way for just the cost of doing business in general. Yeah, I mean that's what's happening now. And that will happen in the future. That will absolutely happen. What we call sort of bundling production, there are all these things down there called the 10-90 deal where you make 10 of them and then at the 10 episodes of television, you get a certain

number when they're aired. It automatically triggers a 90-episode order. There's more and more shows done like that. And then you do the shoot that's 90 in Vancouver or somewhere for over two incredibly short-tempered years but you do it. Yeah, well, I can see Texas having

some advantages compared to California. But, I mean, you think California, what do you think? You think warm water and beaches. What does Texas have to – oh, right. Yeah, right. I know. People forget. It's a beautiful coastline.

Yeah. And Florida too. Florida's got a whole lot of stuff. You know, Florida, they used to shoot multicam in Florida and Orlando. Disney did. But they don't do that anymore. But you could probably – I mean, multicam is hard because of the skilled crews, but it's only a matter of time before you get them. Just get them. Well, if we go to Kevin's book, then we'll

realize that once the crackup comes, the nation may indeed fracture into several different distinct political entities. You'll have to have a passport to go between California and Texas. But, you know, I don't know. I'm in favor of the union sticking together and us figuring these things out without California having to detach. On the other hand, there was a story that – who brought it up? Somebody in – was it Troy? I don't know. California no longer is going to be able to expel students for willful disobedience, for mouthing off essentially, for refusing to turn off their iphone that in the high school uh since there was a disparate impact can't have that um that kids will be allowed to mouth off to the teacher and not turn off their iphone and generally just uh you know behave as they wish and from this they believe

they will get the educated workforce exactly right there was also um a piece there i believe fred cole was talking fred always brings up something that gets people piqued. He was talking about Rand Paul being fun while he lasted, which is an interesting conversation about libertarian impurity. We advise people to go back and read that. And, of course, there's another thread about whether taxpayer money was wasted by having the first version of Major Tom sung in space. And you know me, I'm a big space guy, and I'd best not get into this

lest Peter and I get into one of those bitter fights with fist fights and the rest of it. So we will tell you that we were happy with Perry, and we will tell you that we were thrilled that Kevin was on. We will tell you that I got a book out there which Rob is going to tell you about. But before you buy that, of course, go and get Kevin's book, which is linked all over the podcast. And Rob, let me read this copy in a false advertising voice, all right? Oh, I think Rob's gone. Oh, he's gone. All right, anyway, this podcast.

No, no, I'm sorry. I was on mute. I'm sorry. Oh, that's okay. I thought you were going to say this podcast brought to you by Audible.com. Sign up for Audible. I was going to say that. Audiblepodcast.com slash Ricochet Today.

And by Tiny Lies by James.com. Sign up for audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet today. And by Tiny Lies by James Lilacs. Tiny Lies, a buck and a quarter, 150 plus small ads on the back of old magazines and newspapers. You remember those? Promising all sorts of cures and solutions to ailments and maladies. Annotated and commented upon by our own James Lilacs. It's a wonderful book. You can download it PDF style, read it on any own James Lilacs. It's a wonderful book. You can download it PDF style, read it on any of your various devices. That's less than a penny per page. Go to lilacs.com, L-I-L-E-K-S.com.

Buy it today. Disrupt the publishing business and get a bunch of really wonderful deep belly laughs from our own James Lilacs. We're all about disruption. I'm going to go have a burrito for lunch right now, and I know the two of you have got to run, so we'll flee and say goodbye to everybody. We'll see you in the comments.

Thank you for listening to the Ricochet Podcast, and we'll see you at Ricochet.com. See you soon. Next week. I used to rule the world Seas would rise when I gave the word Now in the morning I sleep alone Sweep the streets I used to roll the dice

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Just a puppet on a lonely string. Oh, who would ever want to be king? This is pretty straightforward. If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous.