Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. I'm your host, Will Walden, and if you're new here, this is a show all about Elon Musk and his groundbreaking work that he's doing with his various companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and of course, X. And before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to share a quick insight from our shows analytics. It turns out the 45% of you listening right now are subscribed to the show. And thank you for that.
But that means that 55% of you are not. So I'm offering you a deal. I promise to do everything in my power to keep bringing you the latest and most interesting news about Elon Musk every single day and about his companies. If you'll do me one favor and hit the subscribe or follow button on your podcast platform right now, that's it. Pretty simple and straightforward. It takes just a second for you, but it makes a huge difference for the show. David, Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Senator Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fochner, it's good to see you again. I got to pick up where my friend the Senator from Minnesota. You would agree that IRS has antiquated systems. Yes, Sir. Do you agree with independent assessments that you not adding a single new tax, but actual enforcement of existing laws could generate, you know, over a 10 year period excess of $500 billion? Some people have said a trillion.
Do you think those independent assessments are accurate? I'm skeptical of those numbers that we could, that there's that amount that we could actually incrementally collect. I think that it, again, as I mentioned to the previous set of questions, where I think we can best improve enforcement is by having better data so that we have tax enforcement people going where the pockets of tax evasion are most likely.
I agree on the data, but I just, I just, you know, and, and, and, and I know you we talked about this in the office, but the just the idea, OK, we're going to not deal with taxpayer services, but if it appears that it is open season and we're going to cut back 50,000 folks even with additional technology or a total of 50,000 folks, you know, we talked about this somewhere. Yeah, I was a business guy for a long time. And I think that would be a stupid business decision.
Many of us and I, we didn't come to agreement, but many of my Republican friends, including the chairman, we talked about this at times and recognized that there was, you know, additional dollars in the IRS could actually save taxpayer money because we would have better enforcement. And we, I echo completely, we need the new systems. But I just, I am hugely concerned and I'm not going to beat you up the way everybody else does.
I think they've already have on the Doge boys and what they're doing in national security. And it is it is beyond it is making our country less safe. But I'm just plain dollars and cents basis. I, I, I think the notion that you can the, the 12,000 people that have been fired, you are going to make no difference that that number goes up to 50,000 is
going to make no difference. Define defies the reality that all of us on both sides of the aisle had and we may have agreed had different numbers, we agreed about how much new investment, but that IRS was woefully under invested in. We needed to upgrade our systems. We need to bring back modern technology and I am I'm extraordinarily afraid that we are going to take a giant step back this way. Bringing in a thoughtful approach on any of these issues would make sense.
I don't believe that's taking place. But I, I do want to touch on one thing that we I think we agree on. And I want to make sure I can get the chairman nodding on this since he and I have been partners on this. Is this CDF is community development financial institutions. You know, under the first Trump administration, we made record investments, $12 billion, nine billion of which went for tier one capital. We've seen that field expand nine to 10 fold over the last decade.
It is a broadly bipartisan issue. We have 28 members, 14 Democrats, 14 Republicans on this caucus. You know, Senator Crapo and I have worked on things like can we get a secondary market started in CDFI debt, which could again further expand that opportunity. We've worked together as well as trying to get on the Economic Opportunity Coalition to try to get dollars deposits in. I ask Secretary Beson on this question, but would you continue to agree to work with me and us
on CF IS? And Senator Warner, you do have me nodding on this. I want. To make sure, I was hoping I was getting you nodding on the IRS conversation too, because I can remember some of those conversation. But like I said.
Senator Warner, I, I'm happy to hear reiterate what you and I discussed in your office, which is that for the last six months of the first Trump administration, CDF is reported into me. They are that they are, they exist because there are geographies in our in our country where there are unbanked and underbanked people, largely rural areas where the infrastructure costs do not merit the creation of standalone branches.
And so I commit to you that we will continue to I. Would argue that it is not simply rural but I but. Predominantly rural. We we can litigate that another time. I just have to tell you, and this is, you know, some who are talking about, you know, on the tax debate, current law versus current policy. I, I believe if any business entities said, well, we're going to presume that we didn't have to pay for the cost of production increases because that's our current policy.
Even though those policies were supposed to end at a certain point and you operated on those financial premises rather than the current law. I think you get, I think the Donald Trump, the TV host would say you're fired because the idea that you're going to somehow cover up four plus trillion dollars of tax cuts and not count it is the kind of accounting that I hope we were going to get away from at a debt that's now at 36 trillion. I think it is grossly fiscally
irresponsible. And I hope and pray that you and my colleagues on the other side that we can have a robust discussion on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sister Senator Warner and I will just say there's a big difference between saying you won't pay for something and saying you won't raise $4 trillion of taxes on people.
Mr. Mr. Chairman, as we all know, we went, we spent a lot of time on these subjects, and this is the kind of a Congressional, don't look here while we take your money there and just because a tax cut is put in place or spending program is put in place. Hey, thank you so much for listening today. I really do appreciate your
support. If you could take a second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show tremendously and you'll never miss an episode. And each episode is about 10 minutes or less to get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you tomorrow.