Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe, Katty.
Arm Strong and Jettie and he Armstrong and Yetty.
Well, we're very honored.
Oh well, it's crazy just because of him here. You're the only reason I'm here.
Are you free to talk a little bit?
I'm not speaking cameras.
That's seen Alexander. He was a hostage of Hamas for three years. How long has it been.
Four hundred and fifty days or something? I don't remember exactly, since October of twenty three.
Uh. He was on the phone with Trump yesterday saying, the only reason I'm here, You're the only reason I'm here. You saved my life, Trumpet negotiating with somebody in Hamas and bypassing Israel on that whole thing and getting the guy out. So Uh, that was a good story. Over the weekend, we mentioned on Friday how Bruce Springsteen had bad mouthed Trump in the United States while he was kicking off his world tour in Great Britain. We are
annoyed by that. It was after we got off the air on Friday that Trump truth to this out about Bruce Springsteen. I see that highly overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a foreign country to speak badly about the president of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music or his radical left politics, and importantly, he's not a talented guy.
I love stuff like low.
He's just a pushy of notxious jerk all caps who fervently supported crook and Joe Biden and mentally incompetent fool and our worst ever president who came close to destroying our country. If I wasn't elected, it would have been gone by now. Sleepy dough Joe didn't have a clue as to what he was doing. But Springsteen is quote dumb, is a rock unquote.
I like how he puts quotes.
I don't even know exactly what that means, and couldn't see what was going on, or could he which is even worse, This dried out prune of a rocker. Prune also in quotes his skin is all atrophied. Trump right, let me close with the sentence. I'll say it again because it's just too good. This dried out prune of a rocker, his skin is all atrophied. Ought to keep his mouth shut until he gets back into the country. That's just standard fair also in quotes. Then we'll see how it goes for him.
All right, I'm glad you find it so amusing. I just I find it very amusing. On what level? Help me understand? His skin is atrophied.
I think it's hilarious that the president of the United States is making fun of an old rock and roller for having saying his skin.
I just can't believe it's even happening, right, And we can't be held responsible for what we find amusing. That's fine. I just find it troubling. It's just weird.
It's weird.
Uh So anyway, although none of that's really of any consequence. And uh and and and Bruce is obnoxious and a blow hard and a limousine liberal and how to shut up and plays damn music. Anyway, Having said.
That, one of the own quotes, why do you think he puts word of random words in quotes That happens a lot online.
It's just a way to emphasize that word.
Oh, it's like a capitalizing it or okay, gotcha, okay, I didn't get you onto that.
There you go. Yeah, And you know, Hunter Thompson used to do this way back in the day, and people do it online too. They capitalize a word like all caps, but just capitalize it to emphasize I do that. I've never used a quote as an amateur linguist. I think it's interesting how you know, print language evolves to imitate speaking language. Anyway. Uh so, Yeah, and the other thing
Trump tweeted out. And for the record, I've got a couple of things that I've been wanting to talk about how Trump, the Trump administration has essentially put out the word disparate impact. The theory of disparate impact, meaning if a lower percentage of black people get accepted to be cops, that's proof that the test is racist. They've said that's wrong, it's racist, and it no longer will guide any federal policy. Huge victory for common sense, for meritocracy, the rest of it.
Nobody's talking about that move. It's incredibly important. I say, well done. So the Trump's Energy Department. So the Trump government said that that's the way they're going to look at it.
Yeah, the administration, because the Supreme Court unfortunately has said disparate impact of the thing.
Bring it up again. That was an obscene couple of rulings just idiotic, indefensible anyway, And another thing, I love this headline, free the gas stove. Trump's Energy Department has acted dozens of Biden appliances and regulations, like one hundred thousand pages of phony green new scam regulations are gone.
God I heard a good one the other day because I have this last two dishwashers, I've had your modern dishwasher because of all the dumb regulations they As has been pointed out by many people, you practically have to wash the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher because they don't do what they used to do because of all these different environmental regulations.
Yeah, so before I kicked Trump, I just wanted to mention that. I mean, for instance, let's dig into this a little bit. Gone are rules banning a wide swath of gas stoves. Gone are the strict water standards governing
dishwashers and shower and articular chick. Gone is the government wide effort to force electrification of the economy through appliance regulations, all part of a historic action the Trump administration nounced today reversing dozens of energy regulations, saving consumers more than eleven billion dollars and cutting more than one hundred and twenty five thousand words from the United States Code of Regulations. Great stuff, great, great, great, save you money. Hallelujah. Amen.
Okay, I like when Trump says things like in Bruce Brington he has no talent. What. I just find that so bizarre. It's like screaming that Kareem ab Duel Jabbar wasn't.
Even tall, right, That's just absurd anyway, So he was tweeting truthing out a bunch of stuff the other day, including and I'll just go ahead and shout the stuff that's in all caps. Walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs is the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made billions of dollars.
Last year, far more than expected between Walmart and China. They should eat the tariffs and not charge valued customers anything. I'll be why, and so will your customers. Well many exclamation points as usual. I agree with Bernie Sanders or disagree with Bernie Sanders. I don't like Bernie when he does this sort of thing. Oh that was Trump, you'd say, yes, this was also Trump. After causing catastrophic inflation. Comrade kamalaw
announced that she wants to institute socialist price controls. Her plan is very dangerous because it may sound good politically. This is communist, this is Marxist, this is fascist. Yes, both statements by Donald Trump.
Last year, he blasted Kamala Harris's proposal for price controls on groceries. Now he's attacking Walmart for warning that it will have to raise prices in the wake of the tariffs.
Well, and you know, in claiming that Walmart would only raise prices to make more profit made, you made enough money last year, basically is what he's saying. He made billions last year. Okay, when does this become a conservative thing? You tell companies you've made enough money.
Yeah, I'll be going to play your golf courts for free, sir, because you made enough money last year. So, and the other part of it is, you know, it's it's a rebuttal of what he's claimed himself for months. He said the foreign producers will pay the full cost to tariffs, But now he's admitting that Walmart and American retailer will have to eat some of the costs or pass them on to their customers. And Walmart's net profit margin is
less than three percent. Now, it's an enormous company, so if you have two point eight percent profit on you know, a company of that size, that's a hell of a number. But it doesn't have a bunch of room to absorb the higher costs caused by tariffs. Retail competition is incredibly intense, and Walmart's longtime comparative advantages advantage has been lower prices. And what bothers me is Number one Trump trying to tell Walmart how to run its business and number two
like that vague threat of retribution. Yeah, yeah, that's not cool. I'm I'm against that no matter who's the president. Sorry, if you're just a hardcore you know, Trump fan, or are you figure if admitting anything is wrong, that will weaken the case and Democrats will win and the rest of it. You know, I see your point, but I just can't.
Very very bernie aoc. You could imagine either one of them shouting that on the no Oligarchs tour, right.
Yeah, Walmart's plenty of money, they have too much profit.
Will hold the Walmart accountable if they raise prices.
That's a very Bernie Sanders thing to say. And as always, my real concern. And the reason I bring this up is the dumb stuff Trump does might derail the fabulous stuff he does, and that would kill me. Do you mean dumb politically or for the way conservatism out of work politically? I think the Republicans, you know, going for this big, beautiful bill that gives.
Perfectly healthy work age men free healthcare might be a good idea.
That's what bothers me, right right, I think, yeah, the saying what he said about Walmart and the rest of it, I don't think he's going to make much political difference at all. I think the whole tariff thing will though it'll mess up the economy either a little or a lot. I don't even know where we are.
In terms of politics and the parties and stuff. It's very difficult for me to figure out. There are probably, to the extent that they saw it, many many, many, many would consider themselves Republican voters who said, yeah, screw Walmart trying to raise prices on us. Yeah, yeah, these are weird times.
There are no political parties, as we were discussing earlier. So a quick word from our friends that simply save home security. The moment you arm your system, you know your family and everything you've worked for protected, step out for the day when most burglars occur, or settle in for the night, and that setting of the alarm means peace of mind.
Yeah, nighttime or daytime. I feel that same way driving away from my house every single day or after the sitter leaves with the kids, that I've got that sign in the yard that lets everybody know, Hey, I've got the active guard protection. I got the sensors, I got the cameras, I got all the stuff that simply safe has. It's about a dollar a day, sixty day satisfaction guarantee or your money back, So why not try it?
Yeah, the Active Guard outdoor protection is amazing. All those AI powered cameras are backed by live professional MONITORINGORA monitoring agents. They can detect suspicious activities, somebody's lurking around or whatever they see them, talk to them in real time, activate spotlights, call the cops all before they bust your windows and get inside. No long term contracts, and as Jack said, amazingly,
this starts around a buck a day. Visit simply safe dot com, slash armstrong and claim fifty percent off a new system with professional monitoring plan get your first month free as simplysafe dot com slash armstrong. There's no safe like simply save.
We got downgraded on our on our credit and US stocks. New York Post headline is US stocks fall on US downgrade. That news came out Friday, I think after the markets closed or over the weekend. So this is new news to the markets. But we got downgraded because of the debt we've built up over many administrations. This is not just a Trump thing, obviously, or a Democrat thing, but.
Sure, but the credit raging agencies were looking at the negotiations for the big giant budget bill and trying to see, all, right, are they going to try to get their fiscal house in order?
The answer is no. Let the party roll on. You know, Trump would probably make the argument, So Biden wasn't going to take the hit. George Bush didn't want to. Nobody, nobody, Republican or Democrat, wants to take that. You want me to take the political hit for finally like cutting services or raising taxes?
Right?
Why?
I mean, all the Congress people say what he said, right, I don't know how you get out of this. I suppose by monarchy.
By finally collapsing.
Or a wise and benevolent philosopher king. Who's who's picking that person? I'll go ahead if you'd like. Is that you've got a few names in mind? Okay, okay, we got a lot on the way. Stay here, Eddie.
Multiple cameras rolling as a ship strikes the Brooklyn Bridge.
Why is the Mexican navy attacking our bridges? And why have we not fired back?
They're not very good at it, Great Scott. Anybody who's seen the video? Man, I just saw one from a different angle. Ooh, grizzly. There are a bunch of guys Mexican sailors up in the riggings. They got knocked down when they hit the Brooklyn Bridge. Oh they so it was.
A really tall ship. So as they were heading toward it, weren't there people weren't there. Weren't the people up there saying, well, that looks like that's about eye level. I'm getting held down. I don't care if I got ordered to or not. Have we thought this through because that looks like we're not going to fit under there. Yeah, I think they lost power or something like that. Just her sketchy reports.
It's a lot like when that cargo ship bashed into the bridge in Baltimore.
Speaking of boats, are you familiar with the premise of the television show Gilligan's Island from the sixties, because some of you might not be, as a bunch of helpfully laid out.
In the theme song every week if you needed a reminder.
Back in the old days, they would tell you what I don't remember, why these people were on there, what circumstances caused them to be so stranded. Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. Back in the old days, they would lay out the premise of the show every week in the song for you.
That was very, very handy.
You take the take, you good, you take the bad, the facts of life, whatever the show was, they would tell you. But anyway, here's the story of a man named Brady exactly. But so you got this boat that ran into an island and they got stuck there, and the whole show is about they're stuck on this island and dealing with each other, and you got cannibals and.
They're just concertingly ineffective efforts to leave. Anyway.
I thought this was really good from James Lindsay, who were big intellectual fans of on Twitter, he said, I think we often overestimate how much worse some things are now than they were in the past, and he linked this story about Gilligan's Island which says at the height of Gilligan's Island popularity, which was nineteen sixty six, the US Coast Guard received twenty five hundred letters a week
asking why the castaways hadn't been rescued yet. Oh wow, with James'sa's point being, see, we've always been a bunch of morons, or I had a lot of morons.
What I've got to take a moment to absorb that. And I assume they mean sincere letters, not like trolling by mail. I don't think trolling was a thing back then. Certainly you wouldn't take the time by mail.
Twenty five hundred a week a week asking the Coastguard why they hadn't rescued Gilligan the Skipper and oh, in particular, if I'm a Coastguard mail a young twenty two year old in the Coastguard, I'm rescuing Marianne and Ginger right off the bat.
Sure women and children first, Florius, that.
Guy from that seventies, what's that that Twitter feed. Everybody likes the seventies. Something wrong?
Oh oh super seventy sports.
He said, as you get older, you look at missus how and realize there's a third viable option on that alley.
She was an attractive woman. Yeah, absolutely, ages, yeah, exactly. Well, so many questions, how was the skipper still a peace after being stranded at an island for years?
Going on?
There metabolism problem?
But so he did some wagovi the ultimate point being, and I think James makes a good point, we do overestimate the the percentage of people that are dumb or don't pay attention or whatever. It's not like everybody in the sixties or the eighteen fifties or whenever. We're learning Latin and studying the constitution, like Thomas Jefferson.
Yeah right right, yeah, yeah, so true. Deer Coast Guard, why haven't you rescued?
Gilligan signed for people are desperate and desperately incompetent.
They can't even build a raft. What is my tax money going?
So you thought every TV show you were watching was a reality show in the sixties.
And they didn't like ask why don't the camera people rescue them? That didn't even occur to them. No, boy, that is really dumb.
Or the orchestra playing the music when you come back from commercials, they could have die helped goodly.
Armstrong and Blue.
Research shows that too much sitting could damage your brain, which explains why Stephen Hawking was such a dumb ass.
Wow. Wow, I know I feel about that A little uncomfortable with that one.
Too much sitting can damnage your brain. So the big story of the day is not exactly what I thought it was originally when I heard it. By the way, my son has whooping cough. Now, oh no, I was afraid of that.
Yeah. Uh.
Took him to Digery Carry yesterday though, got him on some medicine so waited out. Wasn't obvious to me right away when the news broke that Joe Biden has not just prostate cancer, which is the most curable all the cancers out there that we regularly talk about, but just that he's got a pretty bad version of it, and all the timing around this that hadn't occurred to me. But before we get to that, here is jd Vance. I guess he was asked a question about the breaking
story in Joe Biden's health today. Here's what he had to say.
We really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job.
And that's no.
You know that you can separate the desire for him to have the right health outcome with a recognition that whether it was doctors or whether there were staffers around the former president, I don't think he was able to do a good job for the American people. And that's not politics. That's not because I disagree with him on policy. That's because I don't think that he was in good enough health. In some ways, I blame him less than
I blame the people around him. And why didn't the American people have a better sense of his health picture? Why didn't the American people have more accurate information about what he was actually dealing with? This is serious stuff, But this is the guy who carries around the nuclear football for the world's largest nuclear arsenal. This is not child's play, and we can pray for good health but also recognize that if you're not in good enough health to do the job, you shouldn't be doing the job.
I don't know that seems a little You're not gonna run against Joe Biden again. So but I am interested. I am interested in this angle of Oh.
Well, I'll read what Mark Halpern wrote.
Among other people that are saying this today, including Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe, This Morning, Stelter on CNN, Mark Halperin writing, if the intention was to make it if the intention of this medical reveal was to make it less, it's likely that the Bidens would be accused of lying, engaging in a cover up built on falsehoods during the presidency. Well, the impact maybe one hundred and eighty degrees of that, he's suggesting.
It's completely a possibility.
That they let us know about the cancer now because of these books that are coming out, because of the Hurt report that came out on Friday, the actual audio. That's a heck of an accusation. And it's coming out of mainstream media.
Yeah, including even MSNBC, who are saying, essentially, wait a minute, given the quality of medical care that the president gets, only now at a very very late stage, he's become aware that he has prostate cancer.
He's probably had this for ten years, according to the doctor on Mourning Joe Today.
Right, Yeah, come on, it's just no, it's not so it hadn't even occurred to me either that this was some sort of bizarre misdirect. Look over here, look over here.
So people wouldn't be talking about how Biden and Jill Biden and everybody around them knew how Seniley was and still tried to trot him out for election twenty four.
They're just trying to distract. It's shameful.
Well, like I said, nobody's running against Joe Biden again. So I don't know, is there a point in showing how because I'm interested in the media. Thing that continues to be at media and everybody who's still in politics who is lying to us so agreed to Both of those things are worth it. They just like talking about it. I blame Joe Biden, Eh, how about all the people around him and knew his brain didn't work? How about
the media? All that that still matters. But if the bidens, and I think you mostly have to talk about Jill because he can't blame Joe his brain doesn't work. If the Biden's hung on to a cancer diagnosis until it was most opportune for them, they are a whole other level, even beyond what I thought of.
Just like I don't even know what you call that? Well, europeing too charitable apparently, because they're capable of everything you thought, and much more so.
On Friday, the day the HR tape finally comes out, and they've probably been dreading this for a long time. Jill and Hunter have been dreading this for a long time. We played some earlier. It's exactly as it was described years ago. A lost old man who would be very sympathetic to a jury because he clearly has no idea what he's talking about. They've probably been dreading this coming out forever. The day it comes out Friday, Oh my god, we got a cancer diagnosis for cancer that's been around
for ten years. We should all really remember cancer touches every family. Blah blah blah what Joe Biden is saying today and others, And it's time to stop talking about the past and help this poor fellow.
Heel right, Yeah, yeah, the timing's ridiculous.
Wow, that is some serious Macavelian stuff.
Yeah, but again, if you contemplate doctor Jill in her unhinged you know, power lust and inability to recognize reality, or unless she wants to come out and say, yeah, the plan was to get him to win the election, and then we'd replace him with Kamala Harris.
I agree that Mark Alpern is saying that it's going one hundred and eighty degrees. If within when did the story break last night? I think it was last night on my phone, I was getting the alert. Yeah, I think so. If within a dozen hours Joe Scarborough and that dude on CNN are both questioning the timing of this, you're in trouble.
Well it's Joe Scarborough joining in. I mean, talk about a rat fleeing a sinking ship. I mean he was sailing the ship at least in terms of the media covering up for the senility. So that's a little tough to take. But yeah, it does absolutely indicate the fact that everybody's saying the same thing.
Wow, this might be one of the ultimate backfires if it goes the direction it looks like it's going. We're in the early hours of this. Somebody gets some inside reporting on how long he's known about this cancer diagnosis, and it becomes completely evident that it was just you know, a look over here story. WHOA, that's rock well right, yeah, absolutely, but come on. The Brian Stelters of the world and
the Joe's Scarborough and the Jake's Tapper. There's got to be an extra hot place in hell for them now to be saying, look.
At this, I believe he.
Is seen Allen and this is just to cover it up, and doctor Jill is crazy and the no, no, no, no no, you are not welcome on our side.
Start your tape right now, because I'm about to tell you the truth, and that few if you can't handle the truth, this version of Biden, intellectually, analytically is the best Biden ever.
We don't want you in our team. You're not welcome here.
That was after the Wall Street Journal story came out. Who now Jake Tappercall's heroes, those reporters.
It's also hard to believe.
So your anger toward them, I perfectly get. But if Joe Biden and Joe Biden are playing upon people's sympathies cancer, oh my god, and all the death he's had in his family, you talk about a special hot place in hell, I mean that is not cool, shocking yet unsurprising.
They come on, come on, I sound like Joe Biden.
Come on, come on anyway anyway, Eh, this is this is the Biden crime family, the family of Hunter Biden with this Wang in his gun crack and his uncle Jim and the prophets and plausible deniability, My dear boy, plausible deniability is Wang in his gun and it's just the whole package and running a senile guy for president, shouting.
You did it, yow you at you.
I mean, this is not surprising, this is completely in character. You answered all the questions.
You did such a great job. You answered every question.
I realized there's an extra depth of depravity to trotting out a cancer diagnosis as.
A you know, a shield.
But it's like finding out that the Diddy was rude to a waitress. I mean, well, yes, sure, wow, And you got to remember the reporting that they're broke. That's what makes you desperate enough to do crazy stuff being broke.
Yes, yeah, yeah, what a cesspool? So being political cesspools, I Joe am completely embittered by the political process. I have abandoned the Republican Party. I'm going to try to start a third party. I was trying to decide whether to call them Angratarians us Angritarians, enough is enough ocrats or f Yolikans, which seems to be the crowd favorite shirt f yawlickans anyway, and I'll explain why and improve my point next segment, and then something I'm really excited
about for our four. And you might not get our four, that's fine, you can grab it later follow us wherever you get podcasts Armstrong and Getty on demand. But Jack, when we have through the years discussed becoming a cryptocurrency zillionaire, okay, And the only way you can get access to your account is with your fingerprint. And do you remember we predicted what would start happening if bad people really wanted your account. It's happening. Oh really, cryptocurrency.
The home run hitters are now running, hiding for their lives.
Keep your hands in your pockets. Yeah, i'd say, wow, holy Yeah. So anyway, that crazy story hour four.
Okay, and probably a Diddy trial update too, So stick around strong.
And the middle class is about the same as it was seventy years ago. The one segment of our economy that has grown is those making over one hundred thousand dollars a year, and that has tripled, so most of the middle class. If the middle class shrunk at all, actually went to an upper class. If you say upper class begins at one hundred thousand dollars.
So most of this is just fallacy.
We have gotten rich, rich, rich off of trade all Americans, and it is lifting all boats, and we are richer than we have ever been in any time in our history. But it's not easy to convince people of that because there are short term problems where you have inflation, like during the last four years, where the middle class actually did lose purchasing.
Power and did get poor.
Rand Paul yesterday talking about both about the Taraf war and the big beautiful Bill that's going through. He's, of course, as a Senator, not going to be a fan of anything that increases the.
Debt, right right, So, and before we get to that, just one final note on the Biden cancer thing. I was just reading a well known cancer doctor saying it is inconceivable that that diagnosis managed to go undetected for so long, given his medical care and the state of medicine.
He said, it's impossible. So anyway, the other line, back to the Big Beautiful Bill.
I have announced my departure not only from the Republican Party but all politics. I've given up, thrown up my hands. I will be moving to Uruguay or Paraguay. I can never remember which one, y right, because I have forgotten. Yeah, well, because I've given up. But I found this very very interesting. Part of my despair is that the Republican Party has abandoned any pretense at taming the budget, reducing the deficit, reducing the debt in wildly out of control entitlement programs.
And so you know, I've got no home. I'm a homeless man. I have no port in which to pull my little boat to safety. But I found this really, really interesting, and this is the reason why you know you ought to be on my side. The Trump administration recently promised that it will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. Now I'm going to quote Phil.
Graham, the great philgram Well I was quoting last week, fiscal conservative slash sane guy of the past. Anyway, the determination not to reform retirement benefit entitlements is politically understandable third rail blah blah blah. But there is no reason to include Medicaid, the nation's most abused welfare program, in that pledge means tested welfare or welfare tied to a person's income level. Or means is the main driver of
the budget deficit. It is not Social Security, which is almost ninety percent self funded by its dedicated payroll taxes ninety percent self funded, or Medicare, which is fifty percent funded by premiums and payroll taxes. Spending on Medicaid IRS, cash welfare payments, and supplemental the SNAP program food stamps has grown in inflation adjusted dollars. Those three things.
Spending un Medicaid, cash welfare payments that are fundable tax credits, and SNAP have grown inflation adjusted by six hundred and seventy one percent, fourteen hundred and sixty three percent, and two hundred and ninety percent, respectively since nineteen ninety. By contrast, total real Medicare, social Security, and Defense expenditures have grown by three hundred and eighty, three hundred and eighty six
percent and thirty eight percent respectively. Medicaid numbers, yeah, they are actually meta dead absorbs seven times as much general revenue as Social Security, more than Social Security and Medicare combined.
I did not know that.
I know nobody's talking about this.
Medicaid is this gigantic monstran's like Frankenstein If it was the side of Godzilla, you know, just stomping across the countryside, crushing entire villages.
So when we talk.
About people, you know, able bodied people leeching off us taxpayers, this is the program where they're doing a lot of it.
Correct, yeah, correct, And it has to do and you know, part of me wishes we had time. Part of me is glad that we don't to explain the bizarre states intentionally tax hospitals and doctors so then they can spend more. Then they can build the federal government more for Medicaid. Then the federal government gives them more money for Medicaid, which they didn't give back to the doctors and hospitals.
And that stupid, stupid federal taxpayer pays for all of it. It's just this giant scam slash scheme. We actually have the great Craig gottwals On tomorrow to probably explain some of this.
Oh yeah he did. Yeah, he's a perfect guy to ask about this. But it all has to do with Obamacare and the Medicaid expansion. Do you remember that?
And a lot of red states said no, we don't want this money, and they were.
Criticized, how dare you deny medical care to pay, and the Blue States accepted it well. Now, as has been discussed at least somewhat lately, federal taxpayers pay for ninety percent of the bills of healthy, working age men who get medicaid, poor pregnant ladies get I think it's a third. It's so perverse and upside down. One final point, and this is actually the main point of Phil Graham's article, which I found really interesting. The title is the Census
defines the poverty rate up and fact. This is something you have hit many times through the years. But during the War on Poverty, the government adopted a common sense definition of poverty having resources that are not enough to meet basic needs. The problem is they didn't scale a lot of this to inflation. Some of it they did, but they've begun not counting government transfers. Eighty eight percent of government transfers that poor quote unquote poor people get
are not counted. When you ask, all, right, is this person poor? Do they need more stuff, more aid? That sort of thing, they pretend that all the rest of the government aid hadn't happened.
Right, So, if you're living on using my finger quotes living on twenty eight thousand dollars a year. Somehow they only count that for political purposes. When they're making arguments, they don't count They maybe another eighty thousand dollars you might be getting in all kinds of transfer payments, all kinds of different stuff, housing subsidies, food help, medical help, all kinds of stuff doesn't count and.
Adjusted for inflation.
Now those classified as poor have almost twenty times the purchasing power they had when the War on Poverty began, yet they're still called poor people for the purposes of growing these programs. Yeah, we have talked about this perio is that needs to be straightened out. That would be a huge change in our politics. We could let more people know that. If you missed a segment in the podcast Armstrong and Getty
