I haven't memorized the various trillion dollar plans the Biden administration is putting out because the names don't fit with what they are, So I haven't. They haven't stuck in my head like I'd be able to remember the I don't know, the give kids bicycles plans, if all the money was going to give kids bicycles. But we're we're calling things, you know, the make sure everyone has comfortable shoes plan, and then we're using it to build dams.
I mean, it's just it's everything is so confusing. By a thousand ahead of YAK, it has nothing to do with it, which is why I refuse to use the phony names, because they're they're propaganda. To me, they're they're evil pr But to discuss that in other topics, please welcome Lani Chen David and Diane Stephy, fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. The Director of
Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, Lonie. How are you, sir? Hey, I'm doing fine, great booth you guys again, thank you, thank you kindly. So we have been talking about this enormous kids that is allegedly something to do with infrastructure, but indeed reorders, American society and economics and the rest of it. And we've been reading from the Wall Street Journal. I don't know how many op eds they had this week about how, Hey America, Hello, I don't know if
you're payingny intention. We're about to change the country drastically, like really change the way we operate forever. Hello. So what's your thoughts? What are your thoughts on how much of this is likely to pass, how difficult it's going to be to get it through. Where do you think
we might end up? Well, I, first of all, I think Democrats will have the opportunity to pass essentially a good chunk of what they want to because they're going to use this process called budget reconciliation, which basically allows them to uh to pass things that are related to spending or to the collection of revenue with a simple
majority vote, which they have. And recall, they've already used this once to pass that massive spending package, which to you at this point was kind of masquerading as a COVID night relief bill. You know, I think the challenge with all of these things is that there is the germ of some kind of bipartisan consensus in all of these bills. Right, you talk about the COVID nineteen relief
as an example what they could have done. What Biden Todenta said, Look, we're gonna do a much smaller package, somewhere around a hundred and sixty billion instead of two trillion. We're gonna we're gonna focus it on getting vaccines out there, making sure schools have what they need to make changes so that they're ready for the fall, YadA, YadA, you know, all the things that people could have agreed on in
the same way. With infrastructure, instead of going for two trillion dollars, they could have said, let's do a you know, even six hundred billion dollar package, which is a ton of money already that's focused on things like roads and bridges and airports and physical infrastructure, even water infrastructure, which some say, I don't know if it falls in there. Look, I think a lot of Republicans would have been totally fine. Thing. Yet, let's improve the way that we get water to two
more of the American people. They would have been willing to spend six billion dollars to do it. So in each of these cases, there was the germ of something. But instead of trying to work together, what you see is just an effort to go big every single time. Uh. And at some point, you know, people grow immune to the fact that we are spending you know, six trillion dollars over the course of like eight months, and and and and people are just immune to it. They just
don't It doesn't register with them anymore. But that is an awful lot of money. Right. What I was driving at was, I've heard that they're a handful of moderate Democrats who are really uneasy with this a wild I mean, like coke binge spending. Well, they might be, they might be uneasy with it. And I take you know, Joe Mansion of West Virginia is a good example. He's a he's a very moderate Democrat, probably in a different life, could have been a Republican. And and he said, look,
I'm not comfortable spending all this money. I'm not necessarily comfortable doing this. But you know, Joe mantions a good example of somebody who at the end of the day is a pragmatist. And if he ends up with some significant boondoggle for the state of West Virginia, which he represents, he's gonna be perfectly fine voting for two trillion dollars and spending. The same goes for Senator Cinema from Arizona,
who's another one that people say, oh, well she's a moderate. Yeah, you know, look, they're moderates until it comes down to the question of what are you going to give me in return from my vote? And believe me, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, they're gonna get very creative. They're gonna make sure Arizona and West Virginia come out of this looking very very nice. And it's gonna give Cinema and Mansion permission to vote for these big packages. That is the reality.
They can cloak their language in in in this sort of notion of you know, hey, we really need by partisanship and what we actually need is fiscal responsibility that or you know, horse manure. At the end of the day, what they really care about is what am I going to get for my state? And well, if I'm cursed in Cinema, you know what I'm asking for. I'm asking for Lake Michigan. I'm gonna say Illinois, Wisconsin aren't doing much with it. Arizona needs water. I want Lake Michigan.
I'll settle for Lake Erie, but I want Michigan. You're you're on a bunch of these shows with other Pundit's some of the punditry. Punditry that's coming from the conservative pundits is driving me freaking nuts because I'm so tired of hearing about Well, I'll tell you what, a lot of voters are gonna like this, and it really ups the chances for the Republicans to take back the House because they're stepping on sometimes. And that's sort of a view of back and forth. Every two years, Hey, we
won the House back. Who cares if Joe Biden is able to transform the nation in one two year period in a way that you know, none of these entitlements will go away. If you could give me the reverse, if if the Republicans could have a two year win where Okay, we shrink the size of government, we reform entitlements, we secure the border, you know, whatever my wish list is. And you say, but you'll lose the House after you
do this, I'd say, freaking where do I sign? Well, you may recall we we You know, Republicans had that opportunity back in seventeen. They had control of basically the House, the Senate, and the White House, and they had an opportunity to effectuate some of these changes. And you know, they did tax reform, which which I thought was good, but they didn't really move ahead with anything else, right, And they had an opportunity to shrink the size of government.
They had an opportunity to uh to to look carefully at what they were doing, and unfortunately that wasn't what came out of it. And I think that's why voters now are so skeptical. They just sort of say, a pox on both their houses, because you know, what's pretty clear is when each side, you know, has what they have, they try and do various things. Sometimes they get there,
sometimes they don't. But the reality is we are in the cycle of politics now where we are destined, I think, to swerve from one policy prescription or set of prescriptions to another, and those changes can be quite violent. Not not in terms of like you know, people people picking up pitchforks, I just mean the change going from one side of the other can be so dramatic and so violent because that's just what we that's the period of time we're in right now, and to me, that's not
a great way to make policy. No, it's not. But I need to point out that generally speaking, Republican policies, a violent swing to the right can be undone very quickly and easily by the left, whereas the left will institute you know, programs and and handouts and yeah that that they are almost impossible to undo without incurring the rage of the voter. Lani Chan of the Hoover Institution Stanford University is on the line, Um, what the heck had just flitted right out of my mind? I had
something very important. Oh, just long and short of it is the United States just plunging toward becoming France with two oceans. Journal has been saying, oh wait, well, it is the case that if you build a an entitlement state, if you build a sort of state of support that is large enough. I mean, you guys write a good point, which is that you know, folks get used to it, and and people's sort of vision of it changes fundamentally,
and things that were not acceptable before become acceptable. And particularly when you're talking about creating a broader and broader social safety that I mean, I keep coming back to the concept of extended unemployment insurance during the pandemic or during the period of the pandemic when the economy was down, you totally understood why it was important. We've seen the economy coming back very very strong. Growth rates are very very good right now, their jobs being created, things are
coming back in most parts of the country. And we hear over and over again that what some of these programs have created, frankly is they disincentive to return to work.
And that is a good example of a situation where American society becomes closer and closer to a kind of society and state they have in Europe in many parts of Europe where there are frankly disincentives to work, and then culturally you get a situation where, you know, like if you look at Europe, a lot of countries they're frankly or less productive because you know, they take three hours off in the middle of the day and they
take three months off in the summer. And you know, some would say, hey, that's that's how It's kind of nice, but that's not how you create a society where, uh, you know, you have productivity and growth and innovation. All the amazing things we've seen in America come because we have an industrious society that values work fundamentally, and I fear that we're moving away from that A little bit and a question. I was going to ask about the whole Liz Cheney Trump thing, but I lost interest, lost
interest in my own head. She's gonna get booted out any chance. Trump injects himself into the mid terms in such a way that, you know what happened in Georgia. Happens you turn off enough people that you lose something you should have won. Yeah, I you know, I don't know what his plans are, what his role will be. I do know this that the midterm elections are actually right around the corner, believe it or not, and it
is extremely important for Republicans. I've always argued this. I think Republicans have to focus on putting forth a vision of what are the two or three things you're going to do if you take back the House. It is enough to sort of argue. It is not enough to argue, you know, hey, what the Democrats are doing is bad. They're expanding government. We don't like that. You know, as as true as that argument might be, if you're unable to come forward with, hey, here are the things we're
going to do to make things better. It's hard. I think people want an alternative vision to vote for, so so I hope that that's what the folks. But you can't. You can't run on unspending seven trillion dollars. Unfortunately, once it's spent, it's spent. And if they say we're going to repeal and replace Obamacare, I'm moving to Paraguay or Uruguay, I can never remember which one. Lanah Chen of the Hooever Institution, Stanford University, Lana, he thanks so much for
the insight. Great to talk to you and have a great weekend. Thanks you, guys. I just I just don't feel like people are grasping what's happening here. You Okay, Yeah, we won, we won the House. Who we're gonna do this? Things are changed forever. They're never coming back. Yeah, they'll never go back to the way they were. Seven trillion dollars. Once it's committed to being spent, will be spent. It will be out the door. We'll have to reckon with that no matter what. Are