February 24, 2025 • 17 mins
On the Friday February 21, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Extra Large Podcast...
- Joe talks to one of the most astute political minds in our country, Lanhee Chen, about the Trump administration's hot start.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Because four hours.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Simply enough, this is armstrong and getty extra large, cut.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Jobs, save the government money, signed Americans a check for
the difference. That's the Trump plan being floated at least,
But is it realistic? Is it feasible? And might it
hurt your wallet more than it would help?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Where he's gone too far? A slim majority using presidential power,
fifty two percent say he's gone too far there cutting
federal programs.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Fifty one percent of Americans say gone too far.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy, turns off chainsaw.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
A variety of opinions and thoughts there having to do
with domestic policy, budget cutting, bureaucracy, taming, et cetera, which
is one of the major initiatives going on in the
Trump administration right now. Who better to discuss this with
than Lanhi, Chen David and Diane Steffy, fellow in American
Public Policy studies at the Hoover Institution and the Director
of Domestic Policy he studies at Stanford University.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Lanhi, how are you great to be with you? How
are you just terrific?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thank you. Earlier in the show, we were comparing and
contrasting the democratic reaction to a lot of the cutting
and restructuring and examining the giant bureaucracy which has been
essentially any cuts are a horror in a constitutional crisis.
With Lincoln's statement that we absolutely have the right to
(01:27):
amend to reconstruct, and you know he didn't say this exposedly,
but cut or grow government in the way we the
people see fit.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's quite a contrast, it is, And I would just
say this, I mean, I think there is a fair
amount of hysteria over some of the activity that we're seeing,
and the effort I think that's underway by some of
the media is to try and define some of these
cuts as existential. We're deeply problematic. So let's just step
(01:57):
back and take a look at one of them that
they talk about for now, the IRS. This is one
of my favorite ones. The IRS has reached record levels
of staffing in the last couple of years, and they
have significantly expanded their workforce, so they went from about
seventy thousand employees to one hundred thousand employees over the
course of a couple of years. Now, the cuts that
(02:19):
Doze is talking about sixty eight hundred employees, we're talking
about sixty eight hundred probationary recent hires that they're looking
to essentially trim from the IRS bureaucracy. We're talking about
between six to seven percent of the workforce, and it
doesn't even account for this significant, as I said, increase
(02:40):
in the workforce we've seen recently. So people just need
to look at the facts and try to figure out
execuly what's going on here, because fundamentally, there is this
notion that, well, no, we can't cut anything, this is
going to cause a degradation of service. Look, the service
the IRS wasn't all that great before. So the notion
that we have this challenge that's being created because of
the things that government is doing and things that DOGE
(03:02):
is doing in particular, it's just not true.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, and the idea that to even aughtit something is
improper or threatening is just it's it's obscenely backward. One
of the things Kim Strassel's writing about is how the
Trump administration is taking a serious look at the agencies
(03:27):
that Congress created to perform executive functions, Like, well, they
administer laws, but they're free from the executive branches control.
It's like Congress created its own executive branch and any
thoughts on where we are as a country with that,
and what are the chances of doing something about it.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, that's another great question, because you've got a whole
host of agencies that are they're called independent agencies right there.
They're created usually they end in a B or a
C so commissioner board, and these are the organizations that
essentially are part of the executive branch, but they have
some independent authority. So they've got, for example, board members
or commission members who are appointed by a president for
(04:07):
a set amount of time, confirmed by the Senate, and
they're supposed to sit for that set amount of time.
And the idea was, well, you've got some of these
institutions that are supposed to create some separation from the
rest of the executive branch. And this doesn't make a
whole lot of sense though at some level. And so
what this administration, with the Trump administration, is now trying
to do is to say, for example, hey, if you,
(04:28):
as a commission, a supposedly independent commission, issue a new
regulation something that you're saying people can or cannot do,
you need to take that regulation and you've got to
run it through the White House. We've got to know
what it is that you're doing, even as a quote
independent agency. I don't think that's unreasonable, right, because the
independent agency has elements of independence. We understand that because
(04:50):
they're regulating, let's say, for example, whether a merger can
go through or not. But a core what the White
House is saying is if you're going to regulate, we
have to know about it. And again, this is one
of those things where there's been a lot of writing
in the media, a lot of misunderstanding, this notion of
Trump's trying to take over the entire bureaucracy, when the
reality is there's certain things here that independent agencies, for example,
(05:14):
have been doing for a long time where we probably
do need a little more political oversight. And so, you know,
people again just got to understand what the real story
is versus what the media is reporting.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Sure, and we've been plenty harsh about the unchecked growth
of executive power and how the gigantic executive branches come
to be. In many ways, it mimics all three branches.
It writes rules and laws like Congress, then it enforces
them like the executive branch, I guess, and then decides
(05:45):
on your fines. And here's the appeals and everything like
the judicial branch, and so obviously it needs to be
looked at. And the other aspect of this that has
never talked about in the media is that the president
as for instance, there howling that Elon Musk is unelected.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know, like.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
President's virtually the only person in the executive branch who
is elected. But the idea that a huge trunk of
the executive branch wouldn't be answerable to the voters at all,
except like you know, three steps down the line. While
I fear unchecked executive power. If the executive is in charge,
(06:25):
they can do good things and be rewarded with reelection
or their party a reelection. But if they do bad things,
they can be voted out. Right now, if the giant,
sprawling executive branch does bad things, what the hell do
I do about it?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Well, this is the most important thing that people don't realize,
which is that there is actually a check on what
the executive branch can do. And that's Congress. Right, If
Congress actually did its job and was functional as opposed
to just being a bunch of people running around yelling
all the time. If Congress actually yeah, if Congress actually
(07:00):
function the way Congress is supposed to function. That's your
check on the executive branch, right, that's your check on
what the executive is doing. They have the oversight power.
They can have hearings, they can run legislation, they can
do all sorts of stuff to constrain if they're really
worried about if Chuck Schumer and Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries
and all the rest, if they're really worried about what
(07:22):
the executive branch is doing, If they're worried about what
those is doing, they have the ability in Congress to
try and work together with Republicans there to figure out
a way to conduct oversight. They can conduct oversite on
their own, by the way, they don't need Republicans to
do it necessarily. So the idea that there's no check
on the executive. First of all, you're right, the voters
(07:43):
can send a check. But more importantly, Congress needs to
do its job, and Congress has completely seated the playing
field in a lot of ways to the executive. This
is not a Trump problem. That's happened during the Biden administration.
Has happened during Obama. That the Congress has just gotten
less and less willing to do its job, and that's.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Probably is it just that if they're not on the
record having done anything, they can't be blamed for anything
going wrong. Where does this cowardice, laziness, whatever it is
come from.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, part of it's that the incentives for members of
Congress are really different now than they were before. You know.
Now it's all about how many likes can I get
on social media, how can I generate a following on
social media? How can I do all of that, as
opposed to you know, where I think there were members
of Congress that did the hard work of actually trying
to get things done. You know, I think it's been
(08:31):
a few decades since we've really seen a lot of
that activity. But I think part of it is the
incentive structure has changed, and then part of it is,
you know, unfortunately, I do think we're electing in a
lot of places, more extreme members of Congress who are
really more interested in advancing ideology than actually passing legislation
and getting things done. Now, some of that's reflection of
(08:51):
us as the American people, becoming more more polarized and
more ideological in some ways, But overall, I do think
that the composition of gods, the nature of Congress who
were sending to Congress. All of these things have impacted,
quite frankly, Congress's ability to do its job and congress
members of Congress's willingness to do their job.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Wow, that's a big and that's a big and we
don't really have time to talk about how to reform
our entire primary processing and the rest of it. And
so for folks just tuning in especially, we've been talking
about and a lot of this has gone on unnoticed
or untalked about by many people in the media in
the midst of Trump cutting you know, transgender polo matches
(09:32):
for Dubai or whatever the heck, a lot of the
serious looking at and rejiggering the administrative state, all these
commissions and boards and making everybody go through all the
rules and see if any of the rules violate the Constitution,
exceed legislative power, go beyond the clear words of the
(09:52):
Congressional Statute, harm the national interest, a stripping down of
the gigantic administrative state, and those of us who've been
praying for that sort of thing are super excited. But
as I said before the break lawn, he can we
help understand, help people understand rather how that helps their lives,
you know, in the everywhere America.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, look, we want an effective and efficient government, right
and obviously everyone wants government to do the things that's
supposed to do. But when you have I think there's
a couple of issues. One is when you have government
that's grown so big and particularly has so many people
that it becomes kind of a constituency in and of itself, right,
(10:37):
that it becomes about defending the institution, which really means
making sure that nothing ever changes. What you end up with, unfortunately,
is the situation where government doesn't have to improve. I mean,
let's just compare that to a minute to let's just
think about a business. Right. If you think about a business,
the reason why businesses improved, really, the only reason why
they improve is because of competition. And you've got a
(10:59):
marketplace where we've got different businesses competing for people's support
and for people's business, and that ends up forcing them
to improve and to change and to evolve. Think about
government for a minute. What forces government to change and
evolve and get better. The answer is nothing on a
regular basis unless you apply some sort of pressure, There
(11:20):
is no competition. There's no other government out there that's
going to do national security, that's going to do processing
to make sure that we have clean air and clean water.
That you don't have that unless you apply some political
pressure on government to do better. And that is fundamentally
why we need to think about some of these changes
(11:41):
that are going on. You are some of them unorthodox,
are some of them going to raise eyebrows, Sure, but fundamentally,
the only way government gets better is if you apply
some pressure on it to be more efficient and more effective.
And by the way, here's another thing, Joe, that really
drives me nuts is transparency. If you look at, for example,
in California where I'm sitting, the lack of transparency we
have into what government is doing and spending money on
(12:03):
is remarkable. And at the federal level we've got some
similar issues. It's not as bad as it is in California,
but why can't we, as the people who fund government,
have a better idea of what government's spending our money on.
This is something that's always drove me. That's is why
I ran for Controller several years ago. It's why I
continue to believe we've got to push this transparency message
(12:25):
because if we don't know what government is doing, it
can ever get better. We can't ever make it do
the things that's supposed to do, and instead it ends
up doing things that after the fact we read about it,
we're like, what our money's been going to? What? Because
no one was able to see along the way where
all that money was going. So anyway, I'll get off
my soapbox now, but I really think transparency is hugely important.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well so, and how that lands on main Street though
is number one. We're not being stolen from and our
tax money merely distributed to cronies. That is what I
would like very much. But secondly, wouldn't we see less
regulation therefore more efficient economic growth and change and that
sort of thing and rising wages? I just think I
(13:09):
think scaling back the administrative state would have a specific
material benefit to average Americans wherever they are.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Well, yeah, I mean, look aside from people getting better
service and having a government that's more responsive. You're right,
I mean not to get too wonky about this, but
there is always this worry about government crowding out the
private sector, and what that means is that the government
becomes so big that it starts to make it difficult
for you know, private entrepreneurs and small business owners to
(13:38):
do what they're doing. And the more debt we take on,
the more people are going to have to pay in
taxes to pay off that debt. And why we why
do we carry debt? We carry debt to have a
bigger government. And so yeah, there is a real impact
for people on main street, and that is that if
government gets bigger, taxes go up and people pay more
because we have to, We have to pay more to
(13:59):
support the mechanism of government that's been created. So there
is a direct effect on our pocketbooks and something that
the people need to be aware of.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And just you know, a personal example. I've been very fortunate,
Jack and I have done well in this business. I'm
reasonably financially comfortable. But my taxes are breathtaking. And if
I were not paying those taxes like that, It's not
like I would go out and buy a yacht. I
would love to invest in smart people with great ideas.
(14:30):
That's what I would do if I was not spending
X amount of money on taxes and help them grow
their businesses and hire a bunch of people and to
get start an insurance plan and the rest of it.
So yeah, the idea that government crowds out free enterprise
and private enterprises is absolutely true. So Alanihi, we appreciate
the time and thoughts anything else on what the Trump
(14:52):
administration is doing domestically that's got you excited or you're
feeling really good about Joe.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I mean, look, I think the some of the stuff
that the doge is doing in terms of right sizing government,
I think that's long overdue, quite frankly. But what I
would also say is we've got a president. I mean,
whether you like what he's doing or not, he's doing
something okay, and I think that that is fundamentally what
in many ways in our country, we feel like we've
(15:20):
been lacking this. We've been lacking this kind of leadership
and direction. And we can have a real debate about
whether all of these things are right or wrong, whether
we like everything that's happening, whether we think the direction
that's that the US is taking around the world is
the right one. But fundamentally, we have an action oriented
executive branch and an action oriented government, and maybe we
can kind of wake everyone up and sort of say, listen,
(15:42):
there's some things that have to get done here, and
there's some ways in which we need to push forward
to improve our country. And I just think that we
can have a real debate over these things and this
level of activity and action that is truly exciting to me.
And you know, let's see where it goes.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Lonhe Chen of the Hoover and Institution, Stanford University, Lone,
He's always a pleasure. Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yep, great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Likewise, thanks and to Chuck Schumer and those who have
been denigrating the Supreme Court and talking about how it's
illegitimate and the rest of it. The plan is all
the stuff we've been talking about to really look at
the foundations of the giant, obese Washington Colossus and dragged
(16:27):
to the Supreme Court. Questions like these commissions and boards
and departments of since they're no longer doing what Congress
told them to do and they're not accountable to the
executive agent, the executive branch, can we end them or
how can we trim them and restructure them? And if
(16:48):
it runs a foul of any constitutional principles we have,
thank God and Trump Frankly, we have a lot of
constitutionalist judges who are very, very protective of the bones
of the Constitution, the original intents of the Constitution. So
I think it's the perfect circumstance. We've got an agent
(17:09):
of change and agents of stability that are going to
work together to make the government better for all of us.
Hey la, hey la.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I love it extra large
Because four hours.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Simply enough, this is armstrong and getty extra large, cut.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Jobs, save the government money, signed Americans a check for
the difference. That's the Trump plan being floated at least,
But is it realistic? Is it feasible? And might it
hurt your wallet more than it would help?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Where he's gone too far? A slim majority using presidential power,
fifty two percent say he's gone too far there cutting
federal programs.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Fifty one percent of Americans say gone too far.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy, turns off chainsaw.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
A variety of opinions and thoughts there having to do
with domestic policy, budget cutting, bureaucracy, taming, et cetera, which
is one of the major initiatives going on in the
Trump administration right now. Who better to discuss this with
than Lanhi, Chen David and Diane Steffy, fellow in American
Public Policy studies at the Hoover Institution and the Director
of Domestic Policy he studies at Stanford University.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Lanhi, how are you great to be with you? How
are you just terrific?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Thank you. Earlier in the show, we were comparing and
contrasting the democratic reaction to a lot of the cutting
and restructuring and examining the giant bureaucracy which has been
essentially any cuts are a horror in a constitutional crisis.
With Lincoln's statement that we absolutely have the right to
(01:27):
amend to reconstruct, and you know he didn't say this exposedly,
but cut or grow government in the way we the
people see fit.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's quite a contrast, it is, And I would just
say this, I mean, I think there is a fair
amount of hysteria over some of the activity that we're seeing,
and the effort I think that's underway by some of
the media is to try and define some of these
cuts as existential. We're deeply problematic. So let's just step
(01:57):
back and take a look at one of them that
they talk about for now, the IRS. This is one
of my favorite ones. The IRS has reached record levels
of staffing in the last couple of years, and they
have significantly expanded their workforce, so they went from about
seventy thousand employees to one hundred thousand employees over the
course of a couple of years. Now, the cuts that
(02:19):
Doze is talking about sixty eight hundred employees, we're talking
about sixty eight hundred probationary recent hires that they're looking
to essentially trim from the IRS bureaucracy. We're talking about
between six to seven percent of the workforce, and it
doesn't even account for this significant, as I said, increase
(02:40):
in the workforce we've seen recently. So people just need
to look at the facts and try to figure out
execuly what's going on here, because fundamentally, there is this
notion that, well, no, we can't cut anything, this is
going to cause a degradation of service. Look, the service
the IRS wasn't all that great before. So the notion
that we have this challenge that's being created because of
the things that government is doing and things that DOGE
(03:02):
is doing in particular, it's just not true.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, and the idea that to even aughtit something is
improper or threatening is just it's it's obscenely backward. One
of the things Kim Strassel's writing about is how the
Trump administration is taking a serious look at the agencies
(03:27):
that Congress created to perform executive functions, Like, well, they
administer laws, but they're free from the executive branches control.
It's like Congress created its own executive branch and any
thoughts on where we are as a country with that,
and what are the chances of doing something about it.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, that's another great question, because you've got a whole
host of agencies that are they're called independent agencies right there.
They're created usually they end in a B or a
C so commissioner board, and these are the organizations that
essentially are part of the executive branch, but they have
some independent authority. So they've got, for example, board members
or commission members who are appointed by a president for
(04:07):
a set amount of time, confirmed by the Senate, and
they're supposed to sit for that set amount of time.
And the idea was, well, you've got some of these
institutions that are supposed to create some separation from the
rest of the executive branch. And this doesn't make a
whole lot of sense though at some level. And so
what this administration, with the Trump administration, is now trying
to do is to say, for example, hey, if you,
(04:28):
as a commission, a supposedly independent commission, issue a new
regulation something that you're saying people can or cannot do,
you need to take that regulation and you've got to
run it through the White House. We've got to know
what it is that you're doing, even as a quote
independent agency. I don't think that's unreasonable, right, because the
independent agency has elements of independence. We understand that because
(04:50):
they're regulating, let's say, for example, whether a merger can
go through or not. But a core what the White
House is saying is if you're going to regulate, we
have to know about it. And again, this is one
of those things where there's been a lot of writing
in the media, a lot of misunderstanding, this notion of
Trump's trying to take over the entire bureaucracy, when the
reality is there's certain things here that independent agencies, for example,
(05:14):
have been doing for a long time where we probably
do need a little more political oversight. And so, you know,
people again just got to understand what the real story
is versus what the media is reporting.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Sure, and we've been plenty harsh about the unchecked growth
of executive power and how the gigantic executive branches come
to be. In many ways, it mimics all three branches.
It writes rules and laws like Congress, then it enforces
them like the executive branch, I guess, and then decides
(05:45):
on your fines. And here's the appeals and everything like
the judicial branch, and so obviously it needs to be
looked at. And the other aspect of this that has
never talked about in the media is that the president
as for instance, there howling that Elon Musk is unelected.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know, like.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
President's virtually the only person in the executive branch who
is elected. But the idea that a huge trunk of
the executive branch wouldn't be answerable to the voters at all,
except like you know, three steps down the line. While
I fear unchecked executive power. If the executive is in charge,
(06:25):
they can do good things and be rewarded with reelection
or their party a reelection. But if they do bad things,
they can be voted out. Right now, if the giant,
sprawling executive branch does bad things, what the hell do
I do about it?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Well, this is the most important thing that people don't realize,
which is that there is actually a check on what
the executive branch can do. And that's Congress. Right, If
Congress actually did its job and was functional as opposed
to just being a bunch of people running around yelling
all the time. If Congress actually yeah, if Congress actually
(07:00):
function the way Congress is supposed to function. That's your
check on the executive branch, right, that's your check on
what the executive is doing. They have the oversight power.
They can have hearings, they can run legislation, they can
do all sorts of stuff to constrain if they're really
worried about if Chuck Schumer and Democrats and Hakeem Jeffries
and all the rest, if they're really worried about what
(07:22):
the executive branch is doing, If they're worried about what
those is doing, they have the ability in Congress to
try and work together with Republicans there to figure out
a way to conduct oversight. They can conduct oversite on
their own, by the way, they don't need Republicans to
do it necessarily. So the idea that there's no check
on the executive. First of all, you're right, the voters
(07:43):
can send a check. But more importantly, Congress needs to
do its job, and Congress has completely seated the playing
field in a lot of ways to the executive. This
is not a Trump problem. That's happened during the Biden administration.
Has happened during Obama. That the Congress has just gotten
less and less willing to do its job, and that's.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Probably is it just that if they're not on the
record having done anything, they can't be blamed for anything
going wrong. Where does this cowardice, laziness, whatever it is
come from.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Well, part of it's that the incentives for members of
Congress are really different now than they were before. You know.
Now it's all about how many likes can I get
on social media, how can I generate a following on
social media? How can I do all of that, as
opposed to you know, where I think there were members
of Congress that did the hard work of actually trying
to get things done. You know, I think it's been
(08:31):
a few decades since we've really seen a lot of
that activity. But I think part of it is the
incentive structure has changed, and then part of it is,
you know, unfortunately, I do think we're electing in a
lot of places, more extreme members of Congress who are
really more interested in advancing ideology than actually passing legislation
and getting things done. Now, some of that's reflection of
(08:51):
us as the American people, becoming more more polarized and
more ideological in some ways, But overall, I do think
that the composition of gods, the nature of Congress who
were sending to Congress. All of these things have impacted,
quite frankly, Congress's ability to do its job and congress
members of Congress's willingness to do their job.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Wow, that's a big and that's a big and we
don't really have time to talk about how to reform
our entire primary processing and the rest of it. And
so for folks just tuning in especially, we've been talking
about and a lot of this has gone on unnoticed
or untalked about by many people in the media in
the midst of Trump cutting you know, transgender polo matches
(09:32):
for Dubai or whatever the heck, a lot of the
serious looking at and rejiggering the administrative state, all these
commissions and boards and making everybody go through all the
rules and see if any of the rules violate the Constitution,
exceed legislative power, go beyond the clear words of the
(09:52):
Congressional Statute, harm the national interest, a stripping down of
the gigantic administrative state, and those of us who've been
praying for that sort of thing are super excited. But
as I said before the break lawn, he can we
help understand, help people understand rather how that helps their lives,
you know, in the everywhere America.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, look, we want an effective and efficient government, right
and obviously everyone wants government to do the things that's
supposed to do. But when you have I think there's
a couple of issues. One is when you have government
that's grown so big and particularly has so many people
that it becomes kind of a constituency in and of itself, right,
(10:37):
that it becomes about defending the institution, which really means
making sure that nothing ever changes. What you end up with, unfortunately,
is the situation where government doesn't have to improve. I mean,
let's just compare that to a minute to let's just
think about a business. Right. If you think about a business,
the reason why businesses improved, really, the only reason why
they improve is because of competition. And you've got a
(10:59):
marketplace where we've got different businesses competing for people's support
and for people's business, and that ends up forcing them
to improve and to change and to evolve. Think about
government for a minute. What forces government to change and
evolve and get better. The answer is nothing on a
regular basis unless you apply some sort of pressure, There
(11:20):
is no competition. There's no other government out there that's
going to do national security, that's going to do processing
to make sure that we have clean air and clean water.
That you don't have that unless you apply some political
pressure on government to do better. And that is fundamentally
why we need to think about some of these changes
(11:41):
that are going on. You are some of them unorthodox,
are some of them going to raise eyebrows, Sure, but fundamentally,
the only way government gets better is if you apply
some pressure on it to be more efficient and more effective.
And by the way, here's another thing, Joe, that really
drives me nuts is transparency. If you look at, for example,
in California where I'm sitting, the lack of transparency we
have into what government is doing and spending money on
(12:03):
is remarkable. And at the federal level we've got some
similar issues. It's not as bad as it is in California,
but why can't we, as the people who fund government,
have a better idea of what government's spending our money on.
This is something that's always drove me. That's is why
I ran for Controller several years ago. It's why I
continue to believe we've got to push this transparency message
(12:25):
because if we don't know what government is doing, it
can ever get better. We can't ever make it do
the things that's supposed to do, and instead it ends
up doing things that after the fact we read about it,
we're like, what our money's been going to? What? Because
no one was able to see along the way where
all that money was going. So anyway, I'll get off
my soapbox now, but I really think transparency is hugely important.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well so, and how that lands on main Street though
is number one. We're not being stolen from and our
tax money merely distributed to cronies. That is what I
would like very much. But secondly, wouldn't we see less
regulation therefore more efficient economic growth and change and that
sort of thing and rising wages? I just think I
(13:09):
think scaling back the administrative state would have a specific
material benefit to average Americans wherever they are.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Well, yeah, I mean, look aside from people getting better
service and having a government that's more responsive. You're right,
I mean not to get too wonky about this, but
there is always this worry about government crowding out the
private sector, and what that means is that the government
becomes so big that it starts to make it difficult
for you know, private entrepreneurs and small business owners to
(13:38):
do what they're doing. And the more debt we take on,
the more people are going to have to pay in
taxes to pay off that debt. And why we why
do we carry debt? We carry debt to have a
bigger government. And so yeah, there is a real impact
for people on main street, and that is that if
government gets bigger, taxes go up and people pay more
because we have to, We have to pay more to
(13:59):
support the mechanism of government that's been created. So there
is a direct effect on our pocketbooks and something that
the people need to be aware of.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And just you know, a personal example. I've been very fortunate,
Jack and I have done well in this business. I'm
reasonably financially comfortable. But my taxes are breathtaking. And if
I were not paying those taxes like that, It's not
like I would go out and buy a yacht. I
would love to invest in smart people with great ideas.
(14:30):
That's what I would do if I was not spending
X amount of money on taxes and help them grow
their businesses and hire a bunch of people and to
get start an insurance plan and the rest of it.
So yeah, the idea that government crowds out free enterprise
and private enterprises is absolutely true. So Alanihi, we appreciate
the time and thoughts anything else on what the Trump
(14:52):
administration is doing domestically that's got you excited or you're
feeling really good about Joe.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I mean, look, I think the some of the stuff
that the doge is doing in terms of right sizing government,
I think that's long overdue, quite frankly. But what I
would also say is we've got a president. I mean,
whether you like what he's doing or not, he's doing
something okay, and I think that that is fundamentally what
in many ways in our country, we feel like we've
(15:20):
been lacking this. We've been lacking this kind of leadership
and direction. And we can have a real debate about
whether all of these things are right or wrong, whether
we like everything that's happening, whether we think the direction
that's that the US is taking around the world is
the right one. But fundamentally, we have an action oriented
executive branch and an action oriented government, and maybe we
can kind of wake everyone up and sort of say, listen,
(15:42):
there's some things that have to get done here, and
there's some ways in which we need to push forward
to improve our country. And I just think that we
can have a real debate over these things and this
level of activity and action that is truly exciting to me.
And you know, let's see where it goes.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Lonhe Chen of the Hoover and Institution, Stanford University, Lone,
He's always a pleasure. Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yep, great to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Likewise, thanks and to Chuck Schumer and those who have
been denigrating the Supreme Court and talking about how it's
illegitimate and the rest of it. The plan is all
the stuff we've been talking about to really look at
the foundations of the giant, obese Washington Colossus and dragged
(16:27):
to the Supreme Court. Questions like these commissions and boards
and departments of since they're no longer doing what Congress
told them to do and they're not accountable to the
executive agent, the executive branch, can we end them or
how can we trim them and restructure them? And if
(16:48):
it runs a foul of any constitutional principles we have,
thank God and Trump Frankly, we have a lot of
constitutionalist judges who are very, very protective of the bones
of the Constitution, the original intents of the Constitution. So
I think it's the perfect circumstance. We've got an agent
(17:09):
of change and agents of stability that are going to
work together to make the government better for all of us.
Hey la, hey la.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I love it extra large
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Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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