I'm tired of being the one defending Thomas Massey, and David Strom did it in today's column, especially about the so called big beautiful bill, and now David's joining me to have a chat about it.
Good morning or good afternoon, sir.
Well, hello Mandy. It's always fun to be on with.
You, and we're happy to have you as always. What inspired this column about Thomas Massey? Obviously, he's been getting crapped from Donald Trump, who says he doesn't understand how government works and he should be replaced, which he won't be. But you know, nonetheless, is that kind of what got you going in this direction?
It is, although.
I've also occasionally defended the Senator Rand Paul for much the same reason, because they are often the dissenters in their caucus and they get absolutely trashed by everyone else for not being realistic, and they get called rhinos. They get attack like that would laughable, most ridiculous.
The rhino thing is so hysterically laughable to me, because you've got two guys, I'm a huge fan of them, both that are actually trying to hold up the ideas of fiscal conservatism that the Republican Party used to be built on and what we have now, this, this big, beautiful bill, is anything but. And Thomas Massey is going to be a no vote. I mean that's just going to be. He's not going to vote yes for this. It's just not going to happen. And that is because we'll go ahead.
Well, two things can be true at the same time.
One is that the best option for Republicans right now is to vote for this bill, and that this bill is horrible.
It should never have been brought up.
And if everyone in Congress, or every Republican in Congress were like Thomas Massey, this country would be far better off. If I were in Congress right now, I could probably get persuaded to vote for this bill, but I would be wretching. I would probably go into the bathroom and toss my cookies several times, and only do it because, you know, the politics of the situation in Washington are so bad that every alternative is worse.
I mean, that's something right there, David. Because the reality about this bill is it not only codifies much of the Green Dream spending from the Biden administration, it uses the COVID spending as the new baseline.
So all of that alleged one time spending.
That drove deficits to two trillion dollars a year is now part of the regular budget. That in and of itself should be a non starter. But yet here we are having a discussion about not only those things, but including the salt deduction, which allows high earners in high tax states to shove more of their tax responsibilities onto other Americans who don't live in high tax states. I mean, there's so much to hate about this bill. And you know, there's a knock on Thomas Massey. It's like, Okay, how
effective is he? Well, he's effective enough that the people in his district in northern Kentucky keep re electing him. And it's not even close, it's not even remotely close when it comes to opponents. But the reality is there's something to that criticism because you know you've mentioned Rand Paul. His father, Ron Paul was very much the guy screaming about debt and deficits for years, but he never got
anything done ever, never got anything accomplished. And Ran Paul I had the opportunity to ask him one time, I said, how are you different than your father?
Right?
What's the difference here?
And Rand Paul said to me, I watched my father say the right things and mean the right things and be very ineffective. And my goal is to say the right things and do the right things, but also be effective. And I do think Rand Paul has done a better job of positioning himself as the small government debt guy without seeming quite as fringy as his father ended up seeming right, if you were a Ron Paul supporter, you were kind of fringy. But I think you can be
a normal person and be a Rand Paul supporter. So I mean, at what point do we show our gratitude to Thomas Massey but also go you know, I'm kind of worried about if your constituents are gonna get tired of feeling like they're not being represented.
Well, I don't know the answer to that question.
To be perfectly honest, I will say though, that you need to have people like me.
You know.
To say that he's not effective is just a reference to passing legislation and winning every battle. But actually having him there does move the ball, because you know, they have to, you know, pay attention to the Freedom Caucus. And I look at Thomas Massey and I see someone who's very different than.
Matt Yetz Gates.
Yeah, Matt, you could tell he was motivated by personal animus.
I think he was motivated by He's one of the people. I call them the Instagram Congress people, right, They're the ones that are building a brand instead of being statesmen or states women. And I don't have any I don't have any use for that. Matt Gates is there, AOC is there, but now apparently it's worked for her because
she's the leader of the Democratic Party. But I don't like feeling like people are using that position to further their own level of fame, and Matt Gates definitely fits in that category.
Yeah, I don't think Massy is like that at all. I think that he and some other members of the Freedom Caucus actually move the ball, not far, but they move it to the right.
You know. One of the things.
That's true of the speaker, whoever that speaker is, is that, you know, they have to assemble a coalition of everyone from the farthest right in their caucus to the people who are the farthest left in their caucus. And one of the frustrations that we often have is that it looks like they're always giving in to the farthest left of their caucus.
But and that's true, but they have to look.
At their right flank, and they're able to use the fact that there are the Thomas Massey's out there to tell people on the left flank. Look, I mean, just like I can't let you go, I can't let him go all the time. And so I would actually push back on the idea that he's ineffective.
He doesn't get.
What he wants and what we but he does prevent you know, he's kind of like a goalie at times. He prevents the left from scoring some goals, not enough, but he does help. And so I'm very glad that he you know, Massey, Ran Paul and people with whom I often would not vote, But I'm glad that they're there, and I'd rather be in their.
Coalition than the coalition on the left.
The thing about both Thomas Massey and ran Paul that I like, like this is the number one thing that I like about both of them, when they vote in a way that I find confusing that I'm like, what the heck was that, Like, Thomas Massey just voted against the take it down at so I said Thomas and text, I go, okay, I know why you're not voting for the big beautiful bill. Why did you vote this down?
And he sent me back along text message that said, you know, this bill is so overly broad that it is going to sweep up people that it should not swep up. And pornography has always been legislated by the states. This has never been a federal issue. And we're creating a law that is so murky in some areas that it could end up shutting down certain AI programs before
it even gets started. So he always has really good freedom based reasons for voting against something, and that's what it comes down to, you like, And he told me a long time ago. He goes, I look at a bill, and I say, does it make me more free or less free? That's the starting position for him on whether
or not to vote for these things. And it's not like he wants to be free to put pornography on the internet, but he wants to make sure that some American is not going to be caught up doing something. And you know, because of the way the law is written, they're going to end up in federal prison for something that wasn't necessarily.
Intended to happen on that issue.
I'm want to shift gears just a little bit on this with you, because I know you write about this stuff all the.
Time at hot air dot com.
And have you been surprised at all with the speed with which former deficit hawk Republicans have just been swept into the big beautiful bill.
Uh surprised? No, very disappointed? Yes, Uh, you know. I you know, I've watched, say, the transformation of Tom Emmer, who I actually did research for and wrote speeches for him when he ran.
For governor here in Minnesota. Uh. And he was one of the.
Most conservative legislators that we had. And you know I watched his evolution and I don't know that in principle, uh that his principles have changed, but Washington changes people, and you know, the whole calculous shifts. And so Donald Trump is there, he can push people around.
Uh That's part of it.
And then uh, I think some of it is just uh, you know, Congress all legislatures are kind of like high school campuses.
Uh. Uh you know, you want to be the cool with the cool.
Kids, and uh you wind up uh you know, say, with you know, if you're in the Emo group, you conform to the Emo group.
If you're in the mean girls, you're with the mean girls, uh and do things that you never would do outside that group. And I think that's part of it as well.
And you know, again, one of the great things about the masses of the world is they don't care about being the cool kid, correct.
Uh. They keep their eye on the ball.
And I'll tell you, I mean, uh, I have seen so many people get dragged into the group thing that happens not just in Washington, but every state legislature and to a certain extent, in every institution. Once you get ten people uh in an institution, uh, you know, a culture develops. And it's very disappointing because that's how we have gotten to this place where uh, you know, lots of us have been screaming about how you know you this can't go on forever, because what can't go on
forever doesn't uh. And uh usually if if you push and push and push, you could go a lot farther than you ever thought, say with spending, but eventually, uh, you know, you got you got to pay the piper.
And we're really close to that.
Well, I don't know if you saw this today, that they just had a bond auction and we're not able to sell sell all the treasury bonds, the United States Treasury bonds.
That is a direct result.
Of these choices, these deficits that were running with no seriousness about getting rid of the deficits. My frustration with rank and file Republicans, not the politicians, is that they all say, we voted for Trump, we voted for Doge, we voted for all these cuts. They got all excited when we started hearing about it. There's a really good chance that the Republican Caucus is going to strip all of Doge's findings out of this bill.
There is a genuine chance.
So if you were cheering Doge and now you're saying we need to pass this bill, you obviously don't know what you're asking for.
Oh yeah, I mean all the things that we cheered for in the first several mods are at risk yep. And I think that's actually one of the reasons why Elon Musk, I mean, he hasn't attacked Congress or anything like that, but he said he's not opening his wallet for the next elections, and he's clearly going to be pulling back out of politics because you know, he's devoted the last six eight months towards trying to save the United States of America. I think he actually sees the peril,
and you know, we really are on the cusp. I can't tell you whether it's months or years away, but within my lifetime and probably within the next few years, if we don't change the path, the United States is going to go effectively.
Bankrupt and bring the rest of the world down with us.
Yeah. Yeah.
In fact, the only reason why we have not hit that point, well, they're two. One is we've been in the world's reserve currency and so everyone's economy has been tied to the dollar. And the other the other reason is everyone else's finances are even worse than ours.
You know, if you think, oh, well, you know, maybe the euro, it's like, no, those countries are total disaster.
Well to your point, David, when when the UK, when Britain, when the empire really fell for all intents and purposes in the seventies, they ran out of money, they didn't have enough money. We bailed them out like we were the ones that wrote the check. There's no one to write the check for us. Nobody has thirty six trillion dollars that they can just float us, right. I mean,
we're perilously close to a disastrous situation. And it used to I mean, I've been talking about this since I got my show in two thousand and five, I mean NonStop.
I've been talking about debt and deficit.
And it used to really upset me because I really believed that we should all pay attention to this, and we should all be concerned about it, and we should all, you know, be demanding real action. But I've realized over the years that a vast majority of Americans just want to make sure they still get their stuff. They want to make sure that whatever they're owed in their mind from the government still flows their way. They're not willing to give up any single thing in order to save
the country. So now I just feel like it's inevitable, and I'll plan the best I can. My daughter wants to go to school in Europe for college, and I'm like, go right ahead, because then you'll feel free to move to another country if it really gets bad. And I feel terrible saying and thinking that, but I have seen absolutely nothing from anyone else other than Thomas Massey and Ran Paul and Elon Musk.
And Chip Roy.
That is leading me to believe that we can avert that disaster. I hate saying that, but now I'm just in the acceptance phase.
Well, I mean, that's not irrational, and there are things that individuals can do to buffer themselves, depending upon their financial situation. And you know, on a practical level, it's going to happen with the bankruptcy of the United States, is the value of our currency is just going to drop through the floor. It's not like they're going to quit writing checks. I mean, they are a sovereign power.
They do have guns, and if you look at every bill, it says this is legal tender, you must accept it. And so they're going to keep writing checks. There's still going to be dollar bills and one hundred dollars bills out there.
They're just going to buy less.
And less and less over time, and so we're all going to get much poorer. So, yeah, you'll get your Social Security it just won't be worth what they say it's worth.
Correct.
You know that three thousand dollars check will buy half as much, and so you know it's it's frustrating, but I don't see what's going to change it either.
I mean, we're going to wind up, you know, with two trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.
And at some point, yeah, people are going to quit buying US bonds and then what.
And then we're done.
I mean, then they start printing more currency, which hygh pranslates our currency. And this is how all the empires before us have fallen.
I've been watching this.
Series, this Old History Channel series called Barbarians Rising. It's actually very very interesting because it essentially sort of tells the fall of the Roman Empire from the other side, from the Barbarians and the Goths and the and the Huns kind of perspective, and it's interesting to see the
parallels between ancient Rome and where we are here. And you just think, well, hopefully we're not going to be invaded by Huns because they were not nice at all, and hopefully the Barbarians will be kept at the gate. But we're doing it all to ourselves because the people of the United States, as everyone in every democracy before us is done, have figured out they can vote themselves the treasury and that's what they're doing.
Well, in fact, you know, The invasion of Rome started with Rome opening its borders and by the time it was done, and you look at the battles for the Roman Empire, it was Huns versus Hunts, or Goths versus Huns. You know, they were fighting on both sides because the
Romans imported all these foreigners to do the labor. They were the soldiers, they were the you know, if you go when you look at what the arguments, then they mirror very much what the you know, the pro immigration people are saying now yep, and it really is kind of shocking. I mean, in fact, the six or seven years ago I spent and I continue to do this. I started looking at how did the Roman Empire evolve and fall? And we're very I think we're in the late republic stage, Yes we are.
And you know the thing about.
The late republic stage is the republic fell, but the empire didn't correct.
But all the good fell, all the good things, yeah, all the good fell, and then the evil rose. I mean, it really did happen like that. Then it became totalitarian. Then it became we're going to murder everybody. Then it became scorched earth. Then it became we're going to rape and pillage and steal our things. So yes, I believe we are in the late Republic as well. And why don't we leave it on that happy note, David, Why don't we just We'll just leave that until we talk again,
David Strom. You should read his work at hotair dot com. One of the few subscriptions that I still have that is not a substack is hot air dot com. I have the VIP package. They don't pay me to say that. They should, by the way, it's an outstanding set of platforms.
But David, we'll talk again soon, my friend.
Thanks Mandy,