062124 Adam Michel

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I am the aforementioned Jimmy Lakey.Pleasure to have you here on the show.
And happy Friday everybody. If you'relistening to this show in real time,
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(00:22):
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(00:43):
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But if you miss any portion ofthe show, including this next interview,
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(01:07):
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It's about purpose. It's my latestpodcast that's out there, and we
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(01:30):
This last episode, the released lastweek was Nate the Big Easy Lofton.
You've seen him on The Amazing Racefor three or four seasons. He
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app and I always love to haveyou check out both of my podcasts,
the Laky Effect and the Critical Mission. All right, let me switch gears

(01:51):
here we do know that the debateis next week. President Joe Biden and
former President Donald Trump going to takethe debate stage. Donald Trump was out
campaigning in Nevada a couple of weeksago and says, hey, we got
to stop taxing all you service workerson your tips out there an interesting idea
to lower taxes. But let's talkabout the tax plans and the tax policy

(02:14):
that is ahead of us. AndI want to bring you to the program
the economic scholar Adam Michael. He'swith the Cato Institute. He's the director
of Budget Policy. He's on thehotline now. Out of Michael, welcome
to the program. How are youdoing well, Thanks for having me on.
Well, let's dive in here.You've written a piece at your substack
about the Cato plan to cut taxrates to near one hundred year low.

(02:38):
We do know that the what they'recalled the Trump tax cuts are going to
sunset in a few years if we'renot careful. Are we at risk of
those things going away? If theygo away, what happens and what do
we need to be doing to makesure they don't go away? Yeah,
that's exactly right. At the endof twenty twenty five, if Congress does
nothing, taxes increase on basically everyAmerican family by about ten percent at a

(03:02):
more than four hundred billion dollars ayear tax increase on the American economy.
And so Congress is inevitably going tohave to do something. Whoever is in
the White House. And there's twosort of very different visions being presented,
uh. One from the from fromBiden, which is, we want he

(03:22):
wants to sort of extend some ofthese tax cuts and let many of the
other ones expire, and and thensort of bring in even more revenue by
tacking on additional tax increases not juston the wealthy, but on on American
businesses, employers, uh and UHand sort of the economy at large.

(03:42):
Trump wants to extend the tax cuts, but he hasn't hasn't articulated a really
sound way of making the fiscal mathwork with how much either you're going to
cut spending or raise taxes elsewhere.And so I've put forward this plan that
would allow Congress to move all ofthe junk in the tax code. There's
about one and a half trillion dollarsof annual spending in the tax code.

(04:06):
It should be removed and that couldallow Congress to not just extend the Trump
tax cut, but go even further, lowering tax rates to some of the
lowest levels we've seen in one hundredyears. You listen the voice of Adam
Michael, who's the Cato Institute's Directorof a Budget and Policy. He's an
economic scholar. Adam, help usunderstand a lot of folks that you start

(04:27):
talking about people talking about taxes,tax cut, tax cut on the wealthy,
tax cut on the ridge, whatever. They throw those phrases around.
But then you talk about spending cuts, and all of a sudden, that's
where the stuff hits the fan.That's where we're going to starve Grandma's Social
Security. They start making accusations thatwe can't cut this, these are entitlements
or they were promised to us.What do you propose in your proposal that

(04:51):
needs to be cut of the annualspending? So my proposal is revenue neutral,
it's working within it's bringing in theamount of revenue we're bringing in now
and leaves the spending discussion separate,separate, But we one hundred percent need
to cut spending if we want tokeep taxes low in the United States.

(05:13):
Our two trillion dollar deficit is thedifference between the amount of money the government
brings in and the amount of themoney that goes out the door. And
if Congress doesn't cut spending across theboard in programs life, medicare, medicaid,
social Security, but also it's sortof the rest of the federal budget.
It's appropriated every year, then taxeshave to go up. There's no

(05:36):
other mathematical solution. And the waythat every other large developed country around the
world pays for their large social welfarestate is with high taxes on the poor
and the middle class. You lookto Europe, the sort of your typical
person that earns say forty thousand dollarsa year, they which remove from the

(05:57):
United States to Europe, their taxeswould go up by more than six thousand
dollars. And so that's the reality. Those are the two worlds we live
in. Is one we can cutspending, or two we can dramatically increase
taxes on Americans, which would havepretty disastrous impacts not just on personal well
being, but on long run economicgrowth as well. I don't think either

(06:20):
candidate really has laid out a realdetailed plan. I know neither are economists,
and maybe they they don't tell youa lot of details about what they're
going to do, but there's alot of talking points out there. I
did hear an interview I believe itwas Sean Hannity with President Trump, and
he was talking about the tax cutsand talking about how we've got to control
spending it. President Trump's argument was, we don't have to worry about too

(06:43):
much of that because we're just goingto grow the economy so much it'll just
grow, grow, grow, andwe don't have to worry about making too
many sacrificial cuts in spending. Whatabout that strategy, If that's really his
strategy, Are you going to beable to grow the economy that much?
No? I think economic growth isincredibly important and helps make making our sort

(07:05):
of fiscal picture solvent easier. Ifwe're growing at three percent a year instead
of one and a half percent ayear, you do get additional tax revenue,
and it does make a lot ofthese conversations easier. But you can't
just grow your way out of it. You have to also make reforms on

(07:27):
the spending side. And as conservatives, as people that want sort of more
limited government, regardless of whether ornot we can grow our way out of
it. You should want to reducethe size and scope of government by constraining
spending. The way that the governmentinterferes in our personal lives is largely done
through the trillions of dollars of spendingthey do every year. You look at

(07:50):
all the things that sort of youngpeople are upset about, the cost of
higher education, cost of healthcare.These are sectors of the economy government dumps
tons of money bill hundreds of billionsof dollars a year. And so the
way that we get these sectors ofthe economy under control is one of the

(08:11):
steps to take is to reduce thegovernment's influence on them, and that has
to come through budgetary reforms. Thevoice of Adam Michael, who's the Cato
Institute and talking about tax policy inAmerica the end of twenty twenty five or
in twenty twenty five, the sadthing is that the Trump tax cuts will
go away. And you know,Adam in this campaign season, and I

(08:33):
kind of like the idea getting floatedby President Trump in Nevada. Hey,
let's stop taxing people on their tips. They're wages that are earned by tips
in the service industry. Which i'mofor. I think that's anytime you're going
to cut a tax to somebody's income, I think that's a brilliant thing.
But I'm afraid in this campaign seasonthat our discussion of taxes policy, in
the economic cliff that we're about todive over, if we don't get control

(08:56):
of some things here, will besimplified and kind of dumbed down to jah
we should cut taxes on the tips. I mean, it's much more complicated
than that, But sometimes in thecampaign cycle, nobody wants to get complicated.
They want a talking point about cuttingtaxes for service workers. Yes,
that's exactly right. I think I'mmaybe less excited about the tip proposal than

(09:20):
you are, precisely because it's moreof a campaign slogan than anything else.
I would rather cut taxes on allworkers rather than just those people who are
earning tips. The manufacturing worker ina plant in what in the heart of
the country isn't earning tips, butthey should also if we're going to cut
taxes, we should also be cuttingtaxes for them, not just people that

(09:43):
are compensated in a specific way.And so you're right, I think during
the campaign lots of things are said. The President has also suggested we could
eliminate the entire income tax system andreplace it with terrafs. The math on
that just doesn't work, let alonethe and so we're going to hear lots
of these sort of grandiose proposals.But at the end of the day,

(10:05):
after the campaign is over, whoeverultimately wins the White House is going to
have to make really hard decisions aboutsort of the broader budgetary effects of the
extending the twenty seventeen tax cuts andwhat all that tax revenue is going towards,
mainly the spending that happens every year, and that's ultimate. Those decisions

(10:26):
cannot just be campaign slogan. Atthat point, the rubber will meet the
road and they'll be really hard decisionsto be made. And that's part of
what this report that I've put outis trying to do is frame that discussion
and sort of put all of theoptions on the table for when those serious
conversations actually start happening. The voiceof Adam Michael. He's with the Cato

(10:48):
Institute, Director of Budget Policy.Adam, another quick question, you said
they're going to have to make thesetough decisions. What happens if they don't.
What happens if these Trump tax cutsexpire in twenty twenty five, they
get caught up political quagmire about therich and who's getting the tax cut,
et cetera, and it just goesaway. What's the consequence if we don't
deal with this seriously? The consequencessort of I put it in a two

(11:13):
buckets. One is individual Americans willhave less money in their pocket. Taxes
will go up by for a familyof for a couple thousand dollars. And
then taxes will also go up onthe type of investments and business expansion that
that drives sort of the long runsjob creation, wage games, innovation,

(11:37):
keeping US, keeping the United Statesat the forefront of the sort of global
competition for for investment and technological prowess, and letting these taxes expire undermined sort
of all of those things, notjust your pocketbooks, but these broader economic
variables that are so important to UHto sort of long run prosperity. And

(12:03):
and so that's the that's that's thefear is that is that Congress just throws
up their hands and does nothing.But if they if they just if they
just decide to extend the whole thing. That's also challenging because we have that
will give us two and a halftrillion dollar deficits, make the interest costs
continue to spiral and and that alsois really not sustainable in the long run.

(12:28):
The voice of Adam Michael, hehas his entire plan drawn out.
It's he's with the Cato Institute.He's your director of budget policy out if
somebody wants to read and maybe evenpass off to their elected representative and say,
hey, you ought to read thisplan. We got to go with
this or some variation thereof where dothey find it? Okay, So folks
can sign up or follow my substack it's called Liberty Taxed and you can

(12:54):
sort of google my name, AdamMichelle, Cato Institute. It should,
it should come up. Otherwise.The Cato Institute website is a wonderful resource
on all things, all topics,including tax and budget. Just kto dot
org should get you there. Adam, appreciate your time. Kto dot org
is and let's just look up hisname and it's an interesting read. You

(13:15):
got to read it. And againwe were going to get to the season
here real soon. It's all goingto be campaign slogans and just a little
trinket of ideas. But there's gotto be a real discussion happening real soon.
And Adam leads that at the CatoInstitute and you can find it.
His substack is if you want tofind it, this way is Adammichelle dot
substack dot com. You can findit there. Go to Cato dot org.
You'll find it there. But appreciatehim hopping on the program today.

(13:39):
How's the weather out there? Foryou've been hot? Yesterday was hot,
brutal and summertime is here. Listen, is your AC ready for this?
As your AC keeping up? I'mtelling you you got to keep the number
and remember the number. Better.Fact, call him today, Corey Clinton
and his team at One Hour Heatingand air Conditioning. They, my friends,
do just such a fantastic job ofmaking sure that I stay cool all

(14:01):
winter at the House of Laki.And they do the same thing. It's
cool all summer and warm all winterin the House of Laky. They do
that because I do twice a yearmaintenance check. Have you done a maintenance
check? Do you know how yourair conditioner is really performing? Maybe you
think it's working good maybe you notsure, maybe it's struggling really to keep
up. Maybe it's going to breakdown. If it's in the worst day

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of the year. You don't wantthat. Have the maintenance check done.
They come out, they look deepinside the air conditioning unit, they make
sure it's all cleaned up. Theyget everything in line, so it's going
to run one hundred percent of thebest visibility. And if by chance,
you know that your air conditioning's notgoing to make it through this summer months
and it's already struggling. When Ihad my h VAC systems replaced at the
House of Laky, I was acustomer. I used one hour heating and

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(15:30):
serving Colorado for thirty five plus yearsand they'll take care. If you could
hear my voice right now, they'reready to help you. That was a
at the end of the day.It's driving up by the airport. I
think that's catching a flight in theback of an Uber. I was heading
out there several days ago and sawone of the bright yellow vans one hour
and I said, I recognize thattech. He's been to my house up
waving out the window. I'm surehe thought it was just a crazy guy

(15:50):
on the in the back of anUber car on the way to the airport.
I was waving though it was fun. I enjoyed the enjoy the wave.
I think he was like I shouldtake this exit. Guy's crazy in
that car. But yeah, whenhour heating and air conditioning, they'll take
care of you, they take careof me. They just do a great
job, you know. I doan interview like that, and the publicists
are always supposed to kind of let, you know, pronunciation, and I

(16:11):
do the entire interview, and hispublicist never told me that what looks like
Michael is Adam Michelle. And Ifeel bad the whole time I called Adam
Adam Michelle Adam Michell. I calledhim Adam Michael. That's just publicists fault.
That's Scott and Scott, I'll callyou later. You got to put
a spelling guid out there. There'sjust there's times that I will message somebody,

(16:33):
say how do I pronounce his nameon the interview? But yeah,
they didn't tell me that. Theydidn't say it was Adam Michelle. They
said it was Adam Michael. Itspelled like Michael to me. Maybe I
just don't spell good. I don'tknow. All right, if you want
to jump in throughout the course ofthe morning, feel free to do so.
Eight six six triple eight fifty fourto forty nine. I've got the
audio. I want to get tohere in just a bit. It's it's
Robert F. Kennedy Junior saying,why am I not being allowed on the

(16:55):
debate stage? Why did Donald Trump'scampaign and Joe Biden's campaign, according to
RFK, calls CNN and say,don't you let a chance in hell that
you let Kennedy Junior on that stage. Let me ask you, what are
Trump and Biden afraid of of hearingfrom Robert F. Kennedy Junior. I'd
like to hear him. Yeah,that both campaigns so evidently told CNN not

(17:18):
a chance in hell, don't evenlet him in the building. I'll be
back News Talk six hundred k col