Welcome to the party, pal. The Michael Duke Show. The greed and the entitlement. is astounding to me what more could you want from a low budget radio program this is a dumpster fire that was just bs it is time to get a new perspective We know just what you need, and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't fathom it.
The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. And we're here live around the world on the Internet at MichaelDukesShow.com and across the great state of Alaska. This is your favorite radio station and or FM translator. Hello, my friend. Friends, welcome to the program. It is just another beautiful day here in Paradise. The Michael Duke Show broadcasting live from on top of the world here in Homer, Alaska. And we are ready to go.
for our big show today. And we are full boat, full boat today. Joining us in just a hot second, Representative Kevin McCabe is going to be with us. And we're going to dive down into some of the details on his latest article in Must Read Alaska. that's going to be talking about the pros and cons of the Defined Benefits Program. That's the second...
Big notch in the belt for the pro-spending politicians down at the legislative session. Of course, education has sucked up most of the oxygen in the room this session and continues to do so. We'll probably. be talking about that as well. But there's a lot to be talking about here. So we're going to continue to dive down into this and continue our discussions here.
In our one with Kevin McCabe, and then in our two, we'll be joined by Senator Rob Yunt, who's going to come in and talk with us about. the proposed change to the corporate tax structure for oil producers. And we'll see what he has to say about that. That's raised some eyebrows and created some, created some issues.
Issues. Issues. So we're going to talk about that in hour two. And then tomorrow is Firearms Friday already. Man, it's weak. Just burning. Burning through the daylight. Burning through it. So we're getting ready to go on there. All right. So I guess without further ado, we're just going to dive right into it and get things ready to rock and roll. Again, Representative Kevin McCabe joins us here in our one to to talk about defined benefits and all the.
all the stuff with it and he joins us uh he joins us right now good morning sir how are you doing good morning michael how are you you know it's another beautiful day in paradise couldn't ask for a couldn't ask for a nicer day right now Perfect. So we're getting things ready to rock and roll here. Kevin, you wrote this piece over in Must Read, which I thought was probably one of the best.
kind of breakdowns of this proposed defined benefit plan. And it's, you know, in the pros and cons, the limits, the risks, the, you know, everything else. I thought it was balanced and I thought it was well done. And I want to say I appreciate that first and foremost because this is a – unless somebody is a participant in this program, the average person really doesn't understand.
how this works um and i thought maybe since you seem to be so familiar with it that you could also give us a little bit of a um history lesson just to begin with so that you this is this would be a return to the defined benefits program because we've had this before and there were some There were some issues here. There were some issues with it. And in fact, the state is still on the hook for about seven billion dollars in unfunded liability for our previous.
go around into the system. We're still paying that off. I mean, here we are, you know, 10 years later, we're still paying it off and we'll be paying it off for probably the next. 10 or 20 years. So can you give us a bit of a history lesson here before we dive into the pros and cons of returning to defined benefits versus defined contributions and things like that? Can you give us your take on the history of it?
Sure. And, you know, I wrote that article just because I had a lot of questions from folks. You know, I even had questions of what's a DB program, right? So. I decided that it would be important to sort of put them off against each other, define benefits, define contribution, and do a little bit explanation of what they actually were and the benefits. of of each one but alaska did have if you hear people talk about a tier one or tier two retirement um they are what they're talking about is a
is a retirement program that they used to have that we shut down years and years ago. And the... I think, I can't remember it was 2008, I believe, when they shut it down. But in any case, we shut it down because it was costing the state too much money. and constitutionally we're required once we put somebody on a retirement program like that we are required to continue to pay them so we
realized a long time ago that we just weren't going to be able to continue to do it without bankrupting the state. So we ended up shutting that down. and still had to pay it off. There was some discussion on how long to pay it off, and I can't remember the exact time, but it should have been paid off already.
The problem is, of course, is that people are continuing to live longer. Our investments in that program haven't done as well as they thought they were going to do, which is pretty much what's going to happen again with the new program. We've sort of overinflated our ability to invest. And so in any case, we shut it down and we've actually paid down on it. I think. five years ago or four years ago we put three billion dollars into paying it off
dropped it down to about $4 billion left to pay, and now we're back up to $7 billion. So it indicates the problems that we are facing with trying to pay it off and trying to get it down to zero. It's going to be a struggle for us. And they did just to clarify, they didn't eliminate a retirement program. They transferred. They went from they transitioned from a defined benefits to a defined contribution, which is.
Very much like a 401k or an IRA. The state contributes along with the employee and the employee manages it. The problem with defined benefits is that it defines a benefit that you will receive. And the driver... behind the first tranche of defined benefits, of course, was the health care because they guaranteed a certain level of health care for an employee.
20 years in the future and said you'll get this same level of health care you're getting today 20 years in the future and of course if you've tracked that if you've tracked that metric on the cost of health care it just keeps skyrocketing and so And then on top of that, there was some. malfeasance and some uh some some miscalculation by the actuarial and all of a sudden the state was you know 18 billion dollars upside down in its liability and that's what really triggered this whole thing um and
Now, of course, we have this hue and cry, and we've heard it over the last two or three years quietly. And then over the last year or so, last session and into this session, there's been a huge battle cry of returning to defined benefits. to fix the employment problem in the state of Alaska. Although there's been no discussion, no exit interviews, no reason, you know, they don't know exactly why employees won't are leaving or why they won't become hired.
But their answer is, of course, that they need these defined benefits. The problem is defined benefits have bankrupted. I mean, GM had to be bailed out. Delta had to be bailed out. Private companies had to be bailed out by the federal government. Municipalities and states across the country have moved away from defined benefits because, again, they were having similar problems to what Alaska had.
which was this unfunded liability that is, you know, again, busting the states, the budgets. They just they can't afford it. And so. And so here we sit in today's thing. And now we've got this breakdown from you on exactly. what it means, what are the risks, what are the limits, what's going on. So I kind of wanted to just have you walk us through this here and go through this article.
and talk about this, because I think this is an important thing. I mean, and the bottom line is, we haven't seen a real true costing. The fiscal note on this, I think, is a little deceptive. Do we have a true costing of what this is going to be? And part of this, again, part of the problem is we won't know for sure because whatever is defined as a benefit.
we're making predictions on what could happen 15 or 20 years in the future right right and that's exactly right so in a defined benefits program the employer
or the person that's managing the fund, in this case would be the state, assumes all the risk, right? And because they assume all the risk, they have to necessarily uh diversify their uh their investments so they have to be less risky and and uh which also means uh less money uh possibly uh coming in or less profit for the uh for the individual then um or you know for the entire plan then the uh individual investor would be in a 401k so um that
in and of self means that you are going to get less money in retirement than you would if you took on your own investments or had a professional investment manager do it. So as I said in the article. Typical defined benefits program 6 to 7% return on investment. In the US stock market right now, the index funds, even the worst index funds are over 10%. So you are losing money right now in a defined benefit program.
However, if there's a big downturn in the stock market and the average, you know, the index funds are down below 7%, which has happened. you will assume the risk as a retiree and you stand a chance that your plan is going to run out of money. So, you know, those are the basic two ideas behind this is the employer or...
A plan administrator assumes a risk on one end and the employee or the retiree assumes a risk on the other end. Right. And I think we should break those down here in just a minute and take a look at that because it really, when you look at it that way. And you understand what the risks are and what the ultimate costs are.
And if you look at the changing workforce, and that's something we'll get into in the next segment, but the changing workforce, the workers that are entering the market or have been in the market for the last five years to 10 years today are much different than... when I entered the workforce in the late 80s, early 90s, because that was, you know, it was a totally different mindset. The Gen X versus millennials coming out of the boomer generation, you know, I mean, it really.
Things changed and it seems like this does not address that at all. So we want to get into that as well. Kevin McCabe is our guest. We're up against the break. We'll take it just a bit early here so that we can get to. Into this without. Without interruption. And we will continue. The Michael Duke show. Common sense. Liberty based. Freethick and radio. We'll be back with more. Don't go anywhere.
We'll return in just a moment. Don't forget, you can always join us on Facebook, facebook.com slash Michael Duke show. If you want to be part of it today, you can come on out and. Join us on Facebook as well. We'll return in just a moment. Common Sense Radio, Kevin McCabe, our guest. If you missed the show, you can listen to it on your time with Duke's On Demand. Oh, and it's free. Like America used to be. Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com.
Okay, we're in the break right now. Kevin McCabe, our guest. Before I go to Kevin for questions or a change of thing here, I have a technical question. I mean, a question for the listeners who are listening right now. I've got a... I've got a red bar that's just, it looks like my microphone is just crushing everything. I just want to make sure.
that I'm not distorting or coming out crackly or loud or anything because I don't know what's going on. I only noticed it when we got started, and I didn't want to have to stop the feed and everything. So you guys let me know how my microphone is because like right now it's just a one red bar instead of the bouncing like it's supposed to. So you guys let me know.
You guys let me know how I sound. If it sounds good, then it's probably just a glitch in my thing. All right, loud and clear. No crackling, no overcompensating or anything like that. So, okay. Kevin McCabe. This... The thing that bugs me the most about this push is that it's so clearly architected that they tease all the pros of it. They diminish all the cons. They minimize any kind of downside. And then they have intentionally...
obfuscated the actual cost. We saw, in fact, when it came forward last session, Kathy Giesel had put forward the bill without a fiscal note. And then there was a call for the fiscal note. And then there was a partial fiscal note. And then there was, well, we'll get it. We'll get a deeper one. And then I don't I don't think I ever saw or the secondary note that came out.
The Reason Foundation came out and testified in front of the legislature, and they said by their estimates, this could cost upwards of $10 billion over the period of years. It's it's it's it's it's intention. It's like they're intentionally hiding the bad news of the actual cost, which is what stopped it in the first place. Am I wrong or am I missing something here?
no you're exactly right that fiscal note was uh was a big point of contention for all of us the very first one that after we finally got one it was uh put out by a staffer and then some time period later we had one put out that we couldn't believe was actually true. And, you know, they're still leaning on that saying, oh, it's going to save us $10 million a year, which is just not true. The reason the latest numbers for the Reason Foundation say as much as $11.4 billion.
um over i think they said over 30 years so they're what they're doing is parsing the plan over the average retirement if we hired somebody right now after this plan is in place and they stayed 30 years um the you know we would be 11.4 billion dollars upside down but i i gotta tell you you know one of the things that i say all the time is i cannot imagine a entity on the planet worse
than the alaska legislature to hold on to my retirement plan i mean if you think about it we're we always get upset about the valdez grain silos the cannery in anchorage the mat made milk all the failures of the Alaska Legislature, Point McKinsey Rail Extension, which we haven't completed. There's Kobe Road up there near Fairbanks, the whole agricultural deal, everything the state has done.
um for the most part um has not been has not worked out so well and yet we're gonna say oh well okay you just managed my retirement now I don't know. That doesn't square with me. So to me, I'm on a 401k retirement from the airline, and I'd much rather manage my own retirement than I would allow the state. to hire somebody who I don't know to manage it without much input from myself. So that's one of the biggest things that I see that we are just not.
not considering or the union and the union membership that's being sold this bill of good unions are not considering either No, I mean, I think that's the real thing. And this appears to be, and this again is just my one man's opinion on it. This appears to be a play by the unions to try and again gather more control of this situation.
Because that's really what they've wanted this whole time is they want that defined benefits program because it gives them a lot more money to their members in the long run. And we're talking about a sector that is... Well, I guess we'll get into this here in just a second because we're about to rejoin.
Again, I don't think it solves the problem that they're looking for. Let's go back. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Kevin McCabe is our guest. Like and share. The Michael Duke Show. Not your daddy. Wait, sorry. Not your daddy? Ooh, not your daddy's talk radio. Whew. I was scared for a second. Thought we were going down. Here's Michael Dukes and the show.
All right, we're continuing with Kevin McCabe here on the program for today. We're talking about defined benefits. And I guess before we get into the details on this article, I do want to, I guess I'll reiterate a little bit. I usually try not to reiterate what we went over in the commercial break, but...
The one of the biggest things, one of the biggest standouts for me, Kevin, when this was brought forward last session was the fact that the sponsors of the bill and the proponents of the bill literally tried. I think literally tried to hide the costs, the actual costs of what the bill was, because when it first came out, there was no fiscal note attached to it. And of course, the reason we stopped to find benefits before was because of the fiscal.
penalties the fiscal costs of it and so there was no fiscal note to begin with and then they came up with a half-assed fiscal note that said oh this is you know and it was but it wasn't a true fiscal note And then I don't think we ever really got a true, so we don't know the true cost. We keep hearing, I mean, Cliff Groh is on this program and he was running saying this would save us millions of dollars a year. This would pay for itself.
And we know that that's not really true. That's not going to happen just based on historical evidence around the country on defined benefits, let alone this. And so, I mean, this is it seems like they were trying to intentionally. prevent from having to actually tell us what the actual costs were. Am I wrong? No, you're exactly right. And in fact, that's what some of the proponents of the defined benefits are leaning on right now as they continually.
bang that drum that we're going to save $10 million a year based on a fiscal note that's proven wrong. You know, one of the things that perhaps we should do, in my opinion, is we should maybe get a outside unbiased accounting firm or somebody, Wood Mackenzie or somebody that does. you know, investigates these sorts of financial instruments and things to give us their unbiased opinion. Apparently, the other side, the defined benefits Democrats do not
believe the Reason Foundation and they have sort of lined up against the foundation itself instead of the data. So maybe we should get somebody different. Maybe we should hire. somebody that can actually look at this and say, well, yes, it's going to cost this much. I doubt that the Democrats would want to do that because I think they're afraid of what's actually going to what's actually going to be said and what would come out of such.
report so that would be my recommendation you know obviously that would extend things out and that's you can tell how bad this is by how hard they are pushing it um trying to get it through you ram it through essentially kind of like they did education yesterday i'm trying to ram it through without uh full vetting which is frankly is our job as a legislature is to vet these things
fully to make sure that they're not going to screw our children and grandchildren in the in the coming decades i mean that's why we do this work right for our kids yeah no exactly we are going to take a couple minutes at the end of the show to talk about yesterday's debacle inside
the house with the education bill. But let's go over to your article here, because like I said, you do a good job of breaking this down. So first of all, let's just kind of go through the bullet points here. How is the risk distributed? in a defined benefit plan. So let's talk about the risks to the employer. And let's talk about the risk to the employees in this game right now. So start off with the risks to the state and us as the employer.
Yeah, so, you know, the risk to the employer are the same as the risk would be to an individual investor in a 401k, and they recognize that. So what they have to do is de-risk it. So they have to invest in more safe bonds and that sort of thing that don't have the greatest return in the world. And the problem with, you know, so they have to do it over a broad spectrum of people that are retiring and how long they're going to live and that sort of thing.
they have to de-risk it which also means de-profit it or make or make less money for the retirees um so so that's uh you know that's the biggest risk I think to the employer is they're assuming a risk for a whole bunch of people instead of just assuming a risk for one person like you or I would do.
And that means that they have to do things very, very differently than we would do. Right. And the big thing that got us was that one of the things is the employer is responsible for ensuring that the pension fund has enough assets. To pay for those future benefits, like I said, that the prediction of the future benefits and if it falls short, the employer has to make up the difference, which is why we got out of the business in the first place. And that includes if the employee.
lives longer than expected um you know longer than the life expectation which is happening more and more these days um and you know again some of them have got cost of living adjustments meaning the employer bears the burden of The rising cost of any inflation or anything that may happen as well. I mean, these are all big problems for the employer at that point. But the employer is not the only one that has to share that risk. The employee as well.
uh share some of that risk so what are some of the employee risks on a defined benefit program right well let's let's go back just a second when you say the employer you're talking about the fund manager or the state and keep in mind that constitutionally we're required to pay our retirees once they get on a retirement plan. That's in the constitution. So the problem when you say that the employer has to assume the risk, you and I are the employer.
I mean, we're the people that ultimately are going to have to pay taxes maybe to fund somebody else's retirement. So we're the employer and the risk.
is ours obviously um to continue to pay that or or we run you know legal legal into legal issues so um as far as the defined contribution the risk is the stock market risk essentially and the risk is that you're going to do something stupid with your money uh in an emotional oh i need this money for a down payment on my house and take money out of your retirement or something like that What I did with when I retired from or when I had a 401k with Atlas is I gave it to a professional manager.
who uses he can get into my fidelity account and manage the account the way I want so we meet every six months or so on the phone and he makes sure that I'm still interested in more risky at some point when I start taking money out of the plan, I'll probably want to shift to more reasonable and less risky investments.
the nice thing about the way i'm doing it is i can actually do that i can talk to my fund manager i can say hey or my plan manager and i can say hey let's shift things into more bonds and and less risky to protect the corpus of the money that i have invested you can't do that with a defined benefit plan you don't have that kind of input with whoever's managing your plan. So you can't move things around depending on your risk, you know.
and a lot of that depends on health if you're very healthy and you're 60 70 years old and you decide that you want to continue to stay in a risky plan to continue to make uh money for your for your plan or more risky investments you can do that and define benefits you can't you're you're kind of stuck with what they give you which is um frustrating to most people i would think
Yeah, no, I mean, I would agree that that is frustrating because you don't have the direct finite control that you would as a contributor to a 401k. And there was, look, there was talk about... Instead of going to a defined benefits plan.
How about we just bulk up the because that was something the Reason Foundation also said that your defined contributions plan is a little anemic and you could bolster that and make it better and make it more attractive, which I mean, I think is something it's not even really on the table.
to be discussed because they're so focused on this defined uh defined benefit plan right go ahead you know i was involved in union negotiations for years with my airline and I think that the negotiators for the various, whether it be Fairbanks Fire, APDEA, Anchorage Fire, the negotiators right now are missing a beautiful opportunity to go to their employers such as
municipality of anchorage and say hey instead of investing or sending money to the state to put into this defined benefits plan that we don't really like anyways how about you give that money to us, that same amount of money that you would invest and let us invest it or distribute it to a defined contribution plan for every worker. that needs to be in a retirement plan that wants to be in a retirement plan.
and we'll give them the money to put in their 401ks and oh we'll also hire a professional fund manager that they can talk to and you know that that to me would just be a great opportunity but they're so focused on defined benefits that their negotiators and their unions are frankly missing a great opportunity.
One of the things that's not really talked about in your article very much and really one of the things that hasn't even really, I don't think, has come up much in the discussions that I've seen, maybe some discussions that you've been part of. but is also the change in the workforce.
By the way, I'm posting Kevin's article up right now in the chat room for folks who want to go read this because it's a good primer on how this whole defined benefits, the pros and cons of both defined benefits and defined contributions. You should go check it out. But the big thing. is the change in the workforce. And I said this before we went to break last time.
There's been a huge change from when I entered the workforce in the late 80s, early 90s to, you know, any time in the last 10 years. Because the new generation, the millennial moving on to the newer generation. They value different things than we do. When I was getting started in the workforce, everybody was still talking about the golden parachute, right? The 20-year, you work for a company for 20 years, you come away with a retirement, you're happy.
I mean, that was the thing. But even at that time, that was slowly going away. Even when I joined the workforce, it was it was not it's not too often that you see people of my generation. who have gone for a full 20 or 30 years at a single company. And today, the new generation... They don't necessarily they're not interested in staying with a company for 20 years. It said the fact that they said that the average millennial will change jobs something like 12 times during their working career.
And that is part of the problem here is the portability. A 401k, you can jump from different employers, you know, an IRA or some other kind of self-directed investment. You can you can move away and change, change job. total career paths but if you are on a defined contract defined benefits plan you're locked in if you want it you got to stay there
And to me, that would make for unhappy employees, which I think is maybe one of the prime reasons why these people are leaving. It may not have to do with money. It may have to do with environment. It may have to do with leadership. It may have to do with the job itself not being as fulfilling as they thought it would be.
whatever it is, today's employee is not looking for a 20-year golden parachute retirement. They're looking for things that have flexibility. They value experiences over stuff. I mean, there's just a total change in the workforce.
Right. And we call that, so that's why we call the defined benefits program, the golden handcuffs, because it handcuffs you to your employer for a longer period than you may want to stay. The interesting thing is every committee hearing that we get in when there is a. when there's a state.
department in front of us. The Democrats are always asking, you know, about what's your vacancy rate? What's your vacancy rate? And they're trying to use all these committee hearings with all the presentations by the various departments.
to prove that there's some sort of a vacancy rate that's caused by not having a defined benefit retirement program and my question to counter that every single time is how do you know have you done exit surveys do you know that people are leaving because there's no defined benefits program or in your hiring
Do people say, well, what's your what's your retirement program look like? Why would I want to come work for you unless you have a defined benefits program? There is no solid data inside the legislature or inside the state of Alaska that says that people are leaving.
because of a lack of a defined benefit program. And there's no data that's saying that they're... that says that the most important reason they're coming to the state of alaska and applying for a job because of a retirement program it's just simply not true and they're they're leaning on that like this is the cure-all and the fix-all for a vacancy rate that's pretty much in the middle of the rest of the united states across every department
in the in the state of alaska our vacancy rates are no different than anybody else even private employers and so the the hue and cry that there we needed to find benefits program to hire and retain workers is just simply not true. No, I mean, look, I just spent a 10 year or five years running radio stations in Anchorage that didn't have a lot of employees. I mean, we're a handful of employees that even over those five years, anytime somebody left voluntarily.
I, we always, there was always an exit interview. There was always a form that they filled out and it always, why did you, you know, it, it, it was, that's a simple thing. And yet even the state of Alaska is not doing when somebody says, I'm leaving your sweet lips. They don't go. Why? They're just like, OK, bye, pat him on the butt on the way out the door. They have no idea. So this is all supposition. And really, in the long run.
It seems like it's a money and a power grab. And here's the thing that most people don't understand. This program could cost us, as the Reason Foundation was talking about, upwards of $11 billion over 30 years. So we're talking about a significant amount of money. It's at least $100 to $200 million a year. every year moving forward, okay? Let's just say it's $100 million, flat $100 million every year. The problem with this whole thing is that they have no idea what it's going to cost.
They have no idea what the ultimate value is going to cost. They don't know how many. And it's affecting such a small component. They're like, this will solve all our problems. Well, it only fixes. the 25,000 or 30,000 employees in the state who would be a direct recipient of it, right? But out of a workforce of 300,000 people.
Yeah, it's much worse than that, actually. The Reason Foundation, in their data, they said that an employee that is hired today, only 18% of the employees, say we hired 100 employees today. only 18 of them would stay for 30 years so out of that 100 employees 18 are staying for 30 years so really we're having this big huge discussion over 18 percent
of the employees. So you said 20 or 30,000 state employees. It's more than that when you include all the boroughs. And I think there's 149 entities that would be. uh able to use this state retirement program so it's i think we've said before on this program 60 ish thousand maybe uh 18 of those is what we're arguing about so um This is and that 18% is what's going to cost us 11.
billion dollars over 30 years. So the argument and the whole idea to me is nonsensical. There's a much better way to do this. And nobody's saying that our state employees aren't valuable. Nobody's saying that they don't deserve it.
a good retirement what i'm saying is defined benefits is not a good retirement and you know you talked a little bit about the portability which is the ability to take it with you if you decide to leave after five years um at some point we should talk about the transferability as well and what happens when a defined benefits program
after you die and what happens to your 401k after you die which to me is a very big part of it right we can pick that up on the other side and get your final thoughts on this and then we'll talk a bit about education one final segment dead ahead kevin mccabe is our guest The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty-based, Freethinkin' Radio.
We're broadcasting live through a series of tubes. Allowing all of these entities to provide streaming stuff going on the internet. Well, it's kind of hard to explain. Sorry. Streaming live every weekday morning on Facebook Live and MichaelDukesShow.com. Kevin McCabe is our guest here on the program. We're talking about defined benefits. uh donna said i just retired from the kpbsd no exit interview she said but it's on the it's on the deed website
Teacher retention survey, salary, work environment, studies and families, defined benefits, health care. I'm assuming she means that's the process. And she goes on to say, the playbook says one of the steps is to conduct exit interviews. And that's the problem. Again, I've had a half a dozen over the last five years, I had a half a dozen exit interviews on people who voluntarily left the state.
And I and it was a it was a little form, a five sheet form and that we talked about and then they filled out. And one of the reasons why, why are you leaving? What is the main reason? Was the was your boss OK? Was the thing OK? What was it? And it's just. You know, it's madness that you've got tens of thousands of employees and you don't have a process to ask them if they decide to leave. Why are they leaving? Right.
yeah it's it's frustrating and and i think it's because they don't want to know you know that there is there was one interview or one set of data generated by the state troopers dps i think probably five or six years old and i'm not sure when uh he actually did it but commissioner cockerel was very upfront with it and uh this was probably the first or second year i was in the legislature and he gave us a presentation and
You know, only 9% of the people responded that defined benefits or retirement was important to them or was one of the reasons they were leaving. Fully 29% were because of the leadership and because of the job and because, you know, as he said back then. They couldn't even afford to buy new uniforms because of the cuts that Walker had made to DPS and that sort of thing. So it's more about the job. You hear it all the time, all the time. People don't leave.
employers they leave managers and they leave the the management of the job that's not fulfilling to them and especially the new workers like you said the gen z and the and the uh you know the newish workforce younger than me obviously is that's important to them their job needs to be fulfilling they need to be able to accomplish it they need to have the tools to do their job
And they need to get the pay up front to do their job. So that's the other thing we didn't really talk about with the defined benefits is in the contract negotiations for the union to get defined benefits, they are going to have to give up dollars per hour on the front end. Right. Well, that's the governor tried to fix that. Right. The governor offered a proposed bonus to the teachers. Donna just clarified that that list I read.
was actually the deed report showing that the reasons they left. So the reasons that they left were one, salary, two, Work environment, which includes leadership, et cetera, et cetera. Three, students and families. People are frustrated, probably because of the disciplinary problems. Four, defined benefits. It was down the list. It wasn't, you know, I mean, it wasn't even in the top three at that point.
So, I mean, again, this is not the magic bullet that they purport it's going to be. I think that's the big thing. But once we start it, we're on the hook. Once you start it, you're on the hook for every, you started on day one, every employee that enrolls, you've now started a new tranche and a new unfunded liability for the next 20 years. Right. It's a commitment.
it you know and it's uh one of the things that shower talks about all the time on your program frankly is the um you know the commitments that the state has made the programmed increases if you will to the various programs that are sucking up fully half of our budget before we even really get into debating what we can do to limit expenses or what we can do to limit spending.
we've already right now we're in a spot where we should be limiting spending with this defined benefits program and and we're just going to let it go through for whatever reason they're trying to manufacture some of the reasons and let it go through and and then there's no possible way to limit there's no way to put a limit on it um 10 15 years from now and say oh well we can't do that anymore we've already proven that we've already proven that we can't even manage putting a limit on it
and and get ourselves out from that hole so why would we want to go back down that path yeah no i mean exactly uh but they're they're they're hellbent for leather I mean, these are two of the things that were the biggest issues in the election was the education funding and defined benefits. They made it a battle cry. And again.
We're the ones that have to pick up the pieces down the road. We being the state of Alaska, the people. And as you mentioned, we're one of the few states where the Constitution guarantees those contractual obligations. So it's a constitutional mandate.
And if it ever went to court, some judge would say, well, look, state of Alaska, you've got this 70 billion dollar fund sitting there. So you're just going to have to draw money out of that to pay to make all these people whole to the tune of, you know. $5, $10, $15 billion. You're just going to have to draw it right out of there. That's what the judge would have to be. I mean, we would be on the hook for it. It's insane. Right. Or income taxes or some sort of taxes that we would have to pay.
And the thing is, is that many of these people will be leaving the state once they retire. So this money is not even staying in the state. It's going outside because of the cost of living. I mean, it's madness. It's total, total madness. All right. One final segment. We're ready. We're ready to jump into this. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense, Liberty-based, free-thinking radio. Like, share, subscribe. Ring the bell on YouTube. Let's do it.
The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous.
here's michael dukes all right we're back uh kevin mccabe our guest we were talking right before we went to break kevin wanted to bring up one final point on the defined benefits plan and that's not the portability but the transferability what happens when you die and your spouse is still dependent on that retirement uh whether it's a defined benefits or a 401k there's some massive differences here kevin right so in a defined benefit program you can have it you can set it up to be
transferable to your wife, but you give up a little bit of money in the retirement pay typically. There's other ways to do it. I think the military calls it survivor benefit program. But what you do is you say, OK, instead of making.
three thousand dollars a month i'm i'm only gonna make twenty five hundred dollars a month and then if i die my wife will be able to take over my retirement or a percentage maybe even of my retirement until she passes way or or my spouse depending on male female but um you know that is uh doesn't go any further than that typically unless it's a in rare cases unless it's a dependent child right in your 401k
that's how we establish generational wealth so i have a 401k and if i pass away you know belongs to my wife but if we both are gone and there's money left over it goes with my estate and its property it can go along to my children so people don't understand a 401k for somebody that's worked 20 or 30 years and has put money into it and it has successfully managed it could be worth millions
millions of dollars in a 401k that you're then taking money out of the 5% POMV or however you take money out of it. And that's what you're living on in retirement. And if you pass away, there could still be millions left that goes to your to your children or your heirs. And that's what we're calling the transferability. And so.
In a defined benefits program, you get nothing. Your children get nothing. And you have paid into it by giving up dollars per hour or giving up salary on the front end so that you have been able to get this. defined benefits program and participate in it and so there is a sort of investment that you have in defined benefits that doesn't go anywhere after you die so to me that would be
almost the main reason for not having a defined benefits program. In addition to all the other reasons I talked about, the low return on investment and frankly, the inability to manipulate it. uh inside the fund itself so um so many reasons and and you never hear the other side talk about those you never hear the pros and cons all you hear is this sort of well it'll keep people from leaving Yeah. Prove it.
Prove it, yeah. All right, Kevin, final thoughts on the – again, I recommend everybody go out and read your article on must-read because it's got a great breakdown on it. But your final thoughts on defined benefits before we move over to the final – part here on education yeah well my final thoughts would be you know mostly talking to the union folks if you are in a union asea or ask me or
any of the unions that are part of this you should be talking to your union leadership and and asking them about portability transferability asking them hey if i pass away what about my children what about my wife i mean you know there's there's so much problems so many problems with this so many issues surrounding it that you need to be talking to your union leadership and asking them the hard questions because frankly they're the ones that are pushing this
They're the ones that have decided, you know, they're organizing all the rallies in front of the Capitol. And, you know, you pay union dues for them to work for you. And if they're not doing what you want them to, then you need to be talking to them. Yeah.
you know, as well as your legislature and legislators, of course, and telling them that defined benefits is not anything that you're interested in, regardless of what your union membership or leadership says. Yeah, well, regardless of the cost, I mean, I would be for portability.
I would be for bolstering the defined contributions plan if I was an employee, because, again, I would want to pass that on to future generations. And if I could get them to bolster that instead of the defined benefits program. that would make more sense to me in the long run. 100%. All right. Well, let's move on to what happened yesterday quickly because you were part of it. Yesterday, the House majority... rolled the HB 69 out of committee.
Over the objections of the minority. And apparently there was an accidental vote by Mike Prox or something because they didn't have the votes to get it out. And all of a sudden they got it out. And they're just stuffing this down the throat, which doesn't make any sense to me because the governor has already said if he doesn't get the accountability along with the monies. it's going to get vetoed. So I'm trying to figure out exactly what the end game is here on this. Give us your take on this.
Right. I think the end game at the end of the day was to send a message that the Democrats are concerned with the thousand dollar BSA increase and they just wanted to get it out. So one of our members has been sick. And she is on the education committee, but not one of the Democrats members, and she's on the education committee. So they didn't have enough votes to get HB 69 out of education.
um it was a it would have been an even split and they don't they didn't want to bring it up for a vote because as soon as it gets voted down then it's dead right there in committee right so they wanted to find a way to get it out of committee so this was their idea there's a the uniform rule called Rule 48, where they can call a bill from the floor, they can call a bill out of committee and send it to the next committee of referral without the committee voting on it.
And that takes a majority of the members of the members present. So even with their member gone, they have 20 and we have 19. and so they were able they were able to do that even without proxies vote um and and they managed to do it in And it passed and, you know, there's all the legal talking to our alleged legal and talking to the clerks and finding out if what they're trying to do is legal. The biggest thing about it is they did it without talking to us up front.
And they kind of surprised us. And, you know, it's unfortunate. They picked a fight, essentially. They started a war 30 days into the session that's going to resonate for the rest of the session, probably. And it's... uh emblematic of the way they've treated us we tried in the education committee we tried to introduce a few amendments and try to get some of the policy stuff that the governor wanted into that bill and in our members
were patted on the head. Bill Elam and Becky Schwanke and Jubilee were just patted on the head and told to go stand in the corner that the majority would take it from here and that they would solve it. So they didn't want to hear any of our amendments. They wouldn't even allow Becky to talk about her amendment that she put in. And, you know, frankly, it's kind of frustrating that we have now half or 49% of Alaskans that are not being represented in that committee.
uh simply because they have a member gone they're going to just bypass the entire policy committee and send it to to house finance which was the next committee of referrals so um well now we now we have a battle now we have a war instead of a way to cooperatively figure out a path forward where they get some of what they want and we get some of what we want so very frustrating to have them put us in that situation
And, you know, we're just going to have to deal with it. Well, it'll be interesting how this is handled on finance because this bill is going to cost half a billion dollars. Half a billion dollars. And in finance, somebody should be asking the question, how do we pay for this? Because we're already... in the hole we're already in deficit we're already out of you know and we're out of time for this but it'll be uh it'll be interesting to uh to see where it goes from here kevin mccabe
Thank you so much for coming on board. Thank you for writing this article. And I hope more people get involved in this and start paying attention to it. It's a difficult and complex issue, but hopefully we can get some answers. Kevin, thank you for being part of it today.
You bet. Thanks, Michael. All right. Hold the line for just a second, folks. We've got more coming up. Our two dead ahead. Senator Rob Yunt is going to be joining us. The Michael Duke show. Common sense, liberty based, free thinking radio. If you have to go to work or whatever. Back to sleep. Be kind. Love one another. Live well. All right, Kevin, final thoughts on this. I mean, I was really shocked.
The Democrats have always been so strident about, well, if it's got to be in committee, it's got to be in committee. Committee's got to have their say. And then when they couldn't get it done their way, then they go to Rule 48, which has been used to. great effect in the past by republicans have used it as well but at this point it's obvious that they are again this is just a shut up and give me my money and don't say anything else kind of moment
And so get your final thoughts on this and anything else you might have before we let you go. Right. Well, you know, the real frustrating thing is the Democrats don't really care about. education outcomes or care about our children they just care about throwing money at the problem right i think what they're saying is well we care about teachers and we care about the school administration and the business of running a school district
And we don't really care about the kids. If they cared about the kids, we would be looking at some outcomes and looking at some ways to increase the ability of a teacher to actually teach instead of all the DEI programs and all that sort of thing. um so you know to them they're just going to throw money at it and call it good and you know dust off their hands and walk away and and that's not what
Republicans are standing for. We're standing for our children. We're focused on our children. We're focused on the outcomes. And frankly, it's frustrating that you know they say the first step in in solving any problem is actually defining the problem right
They're unwilling to define the problem of poor outcomes for our kids. It raises a question. It raises the question because this is this is all for nothing if the governor vetoes it. So it raises the question. Do they feel like they have enough support in the. minority to override the governor's veto? Is that why they're so bold? Are there members who may blink on the minority side? I mean, that's the question that first came to my mind when I read this, and I'm like, what happened?
Wait, do they do they think they have enough support to override the governor's veto? Because he's blatantly said he will he will veto it if it doesn't have the accountability measures baked into it. He will veto it. And so that raises the question there. What are your thoughts on that real quick? Yeah, I don't think they have the numbers and I don't think they care. This is an emotional idea instead of a data-driven idea.
um and they're just they're just reacting and doing what the nea wants them to do and frankly all the association of school boards and everybody except for the mat su nobody wants to talk about the mat su because they are doing so fabulous on so little money they spend less per kid than anyone in the state and our outcomes are through the roof because
they're letting teachers be teachers they're establishing programs and they're doing just a fabulous job for our kids but nobody wants to talk about them nobody wants to use the matzu as an example because oh well the matzu is increasing so they don't really have a problem well why are they increasing
Oh, because we have such a great school system. Right, right. That's a chicken and egg problem right there. You know, it's just one of the many reasons why things are going well in the Mat-Su. All right. Well, Kevin McCabe, again, thank you for writing this. Thank you for coming forward, folks.
Go back to must read. I'll post the link again in the chat room real quick. For those of you who want to go out and read it, it is an amazing piece and it kind of breaks it down, the pros and cons of the defined benefits. and we'll be watching all right kevin thank you so much for coming on board as always it's good to talk with you
All right. Thanks, Michael. Everybody have a great day. Appreciate it. Appreciate you coming on board. All right. Well, that leads us going up into hour two. Rob Yunt is on the program. Right now, I believe he's ready to go. Let's check in with him real quick. Good morning, Rob. Are you with us? Good morning, Michael. How are you today? I'm doing good. You all ready to tackle this big discussion?
I'd much rather prefer talking to or listen to Kevin talk about our kids' outcomes all day. I think to me that's a million times more important. It's the most important thing we do.
is create a good future for our children but uh yeah i could talk about that subject all day yeah no i mean it's a future for our kids it makes sense i mean you know if this was truly about the kids there would be a hue and cry about the outcomes that we're getting right now um and there would be there'd be a lot of soul searching as to why are we not i mean we're delivering top shelf monies to this program yet we're receiving bottom shelf results and there would be questions as to why
Yeah, just look at the data. I mean, I don't know. Take all the emotion out of... How do you figure out a way to take all the emotion out of everything that lawmakers do? Well, that's just look, just look at facts, facts over emotion, look at data and say, this is the best direction for. All of us go that way. Right, right. Well, that's part of the problem is that we are creatures who are driven by emotion in a lot of ways.
But it doesn't always work out when we're making long-term and especially fiscal decisions to live by those emotions. But that's where we're at right now. It's very frustrating. We're going to dive into your discussion on the potential for corporate oil tax change, which I know has earned you some ire from those on the right. Although I don't know...
I personally don't know why they would be shocked because this is where we're at. The state is broke. I hate to tell people that, but the state is broke. I mean, look at where we're at. And so we've got to start looking at this. In all fairness, I'd like to define a few things. I don't want to restructure oil taxes. Okay. Not even in an iota. If you look at the way it's been set up, well, honestly, going back before I was even born.
I think it's been blended into a very good structure where there's a combination of royalties, there's a combination of production, and then there's a combination of income tax, which is actually much smaller. That's a much smaller portion than production and royalties. And then you even have some money out there for property taxes, right? And bonus and rents and interest and other things. And so the structure was created in a way that...
If prices were to drop, which can happen well before we get into let's not get too deep into this rob because we're about to rejoin the radio so i want to get started fresh so let's uh hold the line we've been on the radio no no no no we're still in the commercial we're about to get started here so hold the line oh yeah be right back to you we'll get things kicking here in just a second rob yunt our guest the michael duke show common sense radio here we go
Buddy, put that thing back in its holster. We haven't gone anywhere. I don't understand. Check out themichaeldukesshow.com for information on how to get access to the podcast. Welcome to the party, pal. The Michael Duke Show. The greed and the entitlement. is astounding to me what more could you want from a low budget radio program this is a dumpster fire that was just bs it is time to get a new perspective
We know just what you need, and we've got just the cure. Open wide and prepare for a steaming hot cup of freedom. I just don't fathom it. The Michael Dukes Show, streaming live across the world. Live around the world on the internet at michaeldukeshow.com, where you'll find the audio-only live stream and more, plus live around the state of Alaska on this, your favorite radio station.
and or fm translator good morning my friends and welcome back to the program it is the michael duke show where we focus on state issues and talking about things we just finished up with kevin mccabe who was here talking about defined benefits if you missed that you can go back and catch it on the podcast But joining us in our two is Senator Rob.
Yount from the Matsu, who is here to talk with us today about oil taxation. And during the top of the hour break there with the chat room, I was greeting Rob and I said, we're here to talk about. oil tax reform uh corporate tax uh reform for oil companies and uh he corrected me he said that's not that's not exactly what that's not exactly what he sees it as so we're going to talk with uh rob
state senator right now. He joins us here to discuss it. Let's bring him on the program and let him explain why he doesn't see this as an oil tax restructure or a corporate tax restructure for oil companies. To be more specific, Rob Yunt joins us right now. Good morning, Rob. How are you?
Good morning, Michael. How are you today? You know, beautiful day in paradise, my friend. Beautiful day in paradise. Yeah, it's always a beautiful day when you get to listen to Mr. McCabe talk about producing good results for our children. I wish... I wish that was something we could get done immediately. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you on that. All right. Well, Rob, tell me why. I mean, I said that early on. I mean, it's technically correct, but you don't view it that way?
a change to the corporate tax structure for oil producers um what also go ahead there's there's you know really six different ways that revenue can come into the state of alaska and bear in mind this is this structure's been in place for a long time, right? It's been massaged over the years and adjustments made, of course, like anything, but it's really been in place longer than I've been alive. So going back to the late 70s, early 80s. You have petroleum tax, right?
You got property taxes, you've got corporate income tax, you've got production taxes. You can have oil and gas hazardous hazardous release taxes, which ideally the state never connects. collects anything in that right because it doesn't happen and then you got royalties and then you got bonuses rents and interest and so there's a lot of different ways um that alaskan residents are in the oil business
Right? I mean, we don't have a state income tax or statewide sales tax. We're one of only two states in the country that don't have one. And I think we would all say we're grateful that we don't, nor do we ever want to have one, nor would I ever even consider supporting one, right? It's because we're in the oil business. And our Constitution clearly states that we must, not we shall, but we must get as much as we can for them.
right and so it's in today's terms it would be called fair market value okay so when they created the structure long ago um they set it up in a way that royalties would lead to the largest amount of revenue um production would be the second and then somewhere behind it would be you know property taxes income taxes things like that the nice thing about the way it's set up which i believe we should continue with and leave it to be the same is if
oil prices drop substantially which can happen in the in the global market and it could lead you know lots of things that lead to that and it can happen as the income goes down for the producers So would their income tax because you can't tax something that they're not making. And so that's the safety net in the system for the developers. And I think it's a great safety net.
When they created the structure, it was decades before S corporations were even taken into consideration. S corporations did not become a model, an entity model. until in a popular one and so i'd say somewhere around the mid 90s right so this was just a simple accident and because of it if an s-corp operator
is in the state of Alaska producing oil or transporting it by pipeline, they don't have to pay that portion. They still pay all the other ones, which we're all very grateful for, right? But they don't pay that portion. And I'm... I'm a capitalist through and through. I'm a businessman. I'm a carpenter by trade. I believe every one of my subcontractors should play on an even playing field. And if I realized there was a simple glitch.
in my procurement or my bidding system that was giving one of my concrete guys or one of my plumbers an advantage over the others i would bring them to lunch sit down with them talk to them in 10 minutes we'd be done talking about that we'd spend the next two hours looking at hunting pictures i'd go back to the office fix it and we'd move on in life it would be done in an hour or two right in the private sector you would go
out of business if you treated one of your contractors differently than the rest because you would get a reputation for it, right? You would also, if you're losing money or leaving money on the table as a contractor. Right. That could lead. So we're in the oil business. Let's not forget that. And when I say we, I'm talking all 734,000 residents of this state. We own the natural resource. And I think.
Most, I think all, should and most would agree we want an even playing field. That's all this is. I'm not out to attack S-corporations in general. I'm grateful they're here. I hope more come to Alaska in the future after we fix this. Alaska is open for business, and that's a good thing. But the problem's getting bigger, especially as...
They're purchasing, you know, S-Corps or purchasing C-Corps, right? So that issue is becoming larger and larger. And it's real money. The Department of Revenue's estimate. The next fiscal year is $133 million. That's over $700 for every family of four. Yeah, this affects this affects Alaska in a unique situation, because like you said, we don't have an income tax. And the main difference between the C corps and the S corps is that S corp, the profits.
can then pass through directly to the owners of the corp, and they are then supposedly taxed on their own as a personal income. But since we don't have an income tax in Alaska, that's where the difference is, right? Yeah, and so that's a whole other thing to take into consideration, right? There's not double taxation. So if you pay a tax per se to the state of Alaska, then you're not going to be taxed on that at the federal level.
So if $133 million is to pass through to the owners or the corporation, because it could be done either way, right, then there's going to be a substantial taxable event at the federal level. Alaska is giving our money to Washington, D.C. That's what we're doing. This is basic business. That's all this is. I came here, I campaigned heavily on fixing our budget, addressing issues, and we got...
You know, a whole bunch more bills coming out in the near future for the other sides of it. It's debits and credits at the same time. You've got to look at both sides of it simultaneously. But I campaigned on fixing the PFD, and I campaigned on protecting Alaskans. And that's all I'm doing. I'm not attacking anybody. Right. This is a very simple, simple, honest mistake. That's all it was. And nobody did it on purpose. Right. Right. It was the S corps. S corps were not a model.
Right. And you're not ascribing, you're not ascribing any blame to Hillcorp either. They're just a business who decided to, yeah, they just chose the most, they just chose the most equitable path for them as a business to be able to. Yeah, and I'm not naming... any businesses it to me it doesn't matter there could be 10 more in the future right i'm this is not attack on anybody everybody doing business in the state of alaska is a phenomenal company i'm grateful for every one of them
This to me, I mean, I'm telling you, in private sector, this would be dealt with at a lunch, right? You'd be done. You know, things get more complicated, obviously, when you have 61 decision makers, you know? But this is a very, very simple thing. And it's not meant to attack anybody. This is just, it's business. That's what it is. The state of Alaska is in business and we have 734,000 partners.
And every single one of them needs to... that's right in our constitution right now i i want to clarify something because some of the some of the fervor that came up over this when you when you when you introduced this And some of the caterwauling that I heard immediately from some of those on the right that they were shocked that you had done this. And yet and there was a lot of I think there was some misinformation that was thrown around, too, because.
People were talking about other types of S-Corps and things like that. But this is this is very specifically. Only that portion of the law that deals with oil producers, right, or oil companies. It has nothing to do with a radio station S-Corp or an Etsy store S-Corp. This has nothing to do with any of that. This is only oil producers, right?
Remember your previous guest so passionately discussing outcomes for children? Right. I think some of the kids that slipped through the system are now adults, and I think they forgot to read the bill. Maybe they don't like to read, but it clearly states, clearly states, S corporations who produce or transport oil by pipeline and make more than $5 million a year.
I would never, ever in a million years support taxing your local Uber drivers, right? Or your local hairstylists or massage therapists, or you can name a million other small businesses of people. who are doing business in and amongst themselves with other Alaskans. That is not what this is. It is not what it will become. It will not become that, right?
if we sat down here you know what it is it's fear-mongering for clickbait that's what it is right there's two types of journalism there's clickbait journalism and there's you know investigative journalism You cannot call it investigative if you don't read the bill and you don't call the sponsor. So for any articles out there, right, who are fear mongering, I suggest picking up the phone and calling me or at the very least.
Read the damn bill. Okay? So, yeah, you're right. There are people who are quite possibly upset or confused, and that's because there's misinformation in the market. Senator Rob Yost, Rob Yunt is our guest, rather, state senator from the Matsu, talking about his proposal to change the taxation structure to make it, in his words, more equitable.
for all involved we're going to continue this discussion uh with him here in just a moment we've got to come up against the uh come up against the break and so we'll return in just a moment the michael duke show Common sense, liberty-based, free-thinking radio. We continue with Rob Yunt right after this. Running on 100% pure beard power. Oh, also some coffee. We dip our beard in coffee. Ha, nice beard. The Michael Duke Show.
Okay, we're in the commercial break right now. Rob Yunt is our guest. And we are... We're continuing this discussion on this. I want to get on the other side, Rob, of the commercial break here. I do want to talk a little bit about, I know you said you've not targeted this.
at any specific company per se but what brought this to your attention was the fact that hill corp was an s corp that bought a c corp that that that's how it changed right so although it's not targeting them directly just purchased yeah it brought it just purchased another c corp Yeah. And so the problem just got bigger 90 days ago. Right. Right. So, I mean, while you're not necessarily. I mean, there is a there is a catalyst in here.
um that caused this it's not necessarily targeted but it did bring to light the problem it did and what i'm doing is i'm just i'm uh addressing not a company per se but a tax structure vehicle and then also to help prevent this from happening more what happens when everybody figures out let's go to alaska and just file as an escort you think other people aren't looking at that model you know so that's my job is to just right the wrong and make sure it doesn't happen more in the future that's it
But yeah, I won't name them by name because, you know, I don't want them to think I'm attacking them. It takes away their narrative. Right now, I don't think it's a winning argument for them to say we don't want to be treated fairly. I don't know. Right. So I'm not. Well, yeah, no, but I mean, it is going to it is going to lead to further. It could lead to further complications. And we'll we'll talk a little bit about that on the other side here.
Your reaction to folks, though, I guess, were you surprised at the outcry from your fellow folks on your side of the aisle? I'll be quite frank with you. I mean, this is just me and you visiting right now. If there aren't articles of misinformation written on sites that even myself follows and a lot of other people, you know, pick up the damn phone.
Read the bill, actually. Just read the first four sentences, and you got the whole thing. You know what I mean? It's clickbait, man. It's clickbait. You do investigative journalism. You're doing it right now by giving me my First Amendment right. You know what I mean? This is called investigative journalism. This is why people love your show, right? Yeah. So there's a big difference, man.
I commend you for that. Well, I mean, I think it's unfair to ascribe things to people, to their actions or things they do that are not necessarily true. But like you said, all you had to do was look at it and read it and see what the actual truth was.
Yeah, and what she's really doing is saying, well, it could get hijacked. Yeah, it could. But if Republicans, which I'm the proudest in the world, I'm a true fiscal conservative, which is why I don't want crony capitalism, which is the world we exist in right now, or this tax structure.
If we sit down here in Juneau and we live in fear that our bills are going to be hijacked, we will never do a damn thing, right? If they touch my bill, I'm killing it, right? There's not the votes to pass it. It's that simple. If we sit here as Republicans and live in fear, they will run us around this town for the rest of our life. I fear nobody. I'm here to lead. So I'm not here to follow and I'm not here to live in fear.
Right. Well, and again, this is part of our this is part of our culture today where people go off half cock. We were talking about living by emotion earlier. And a lot of times that's what people they they they it's almost like they love to be outraged at some point. They've always got to be outraged about something. Yes, sir. It doesn't help us in any way, shape, or form. We need to get more information before we start popping off about stuff like that, for sure.
I agree. Rob Yonte is our guest. We're going to talk more about this change here in the next segment. And then on the final segment, we'll talk with Rob about some of the other things that have been happening in the legislature. into the Senate specifically, and what he sees is some of the wins.
that we could be receiving from the Senate. So we're going to be talking with him about that in the third segment as well. Please don't forget that if you are watching this program on any of the platforms, Rumble or YouTube or Facebook. that you could share it. And I would ask that you would share it. Only 27 people out of the 60 something people that are currently watching have liked the program, liked it or loved it or shared it or hated it.
you can even hate it you can do the angry face if you want on facebook but if you would reach over there and click that that would sure go a long way to increasing the engagement which we need on this program we need more people involved So 29 now out of 65 or something. Hit that like button. Here we go. No, we were early. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Seriously humorous with a pinch of intellect. Pinch of intellect. Sorry. That is humorous. Here's Michael Dukes.
All right, welcome back to the program. It is The Michael Duke Show. We are continuing with State Senator Rob Yunt. Now, Rob, I just said during the break to set this up that I know you're not doing this to name names or to point out any specific company or anything else, but there was a catalyst to this. The catalyst was, of course, Hillcorp purchasing the asset.
That's a BP. And then recently they purchased another company, Harvest Alaska. And so it's an S-corp purchasing two C-corps, and that's going to change the income to the state of Alaska. So this is what brought it to your attention. Now, the question that I have is, how do you think this is going to play? Because when Kathy Giesel proposed this change last session.
There was kind of an undertone and an undercurrent from the companies involved where they said, hey, that's a really nice oil field out there. It'd be a shame if we stopped exploring in it. And it'd be a shame if we stopped developing it. And so it kind of highlights part of the problem here, especially when you've only got one or two players or a quasi-monopoly on an area.
That they can retain a lot of power and this equitability that you're talking about seems like it might be further out of reach and it might be a harder sell. What is your take on what happened last go around? And do you have a plan to try and overcome some of that in this, in this proposed area here? And they, yeah, they did bought, they bought ENI as well. So do they, you know, what is your, what's your plan to try and fight back against that?
It'd be a shame if we just stopped developing and just pumped what we got kind of thing. I don't buy that for two seconds. Everybody in business wants to do as good as they can as fast as they can. That's how it works. Businesses have debt service. including businesses up here operating as we speak, right? You don't pay debt service on hopes and dreams. You pay it on production. You pay it on work.
So, I don't buy that argument for a minute, especially when this is 1 of the smallest portions of how you tax oil, right? There are people who have said before, well, we should just get rid of the income tax portion altogether. And just focus on the royalties and production tax. I don't agree with that. I like the way the structure is right now, because if oil prices drop substantially, then then then.
we're not punishing our partners to be here and i want to make that very clear all of these amazing companies c corp and s corp are our partners they're an outstanding group of companies And what I believe is the greatest industry in the world. We would not be where we are as a society if it were not for oil. So I'm simply just creating, attempting to create a fair playing field. That's all it is. It's anything other than a fair playing field.
it's called crony capitalism that is not fiscally conservative right so right it uh um So let's go back to what I started off the program with when you said we needed to define a few things. Because one of the things that I said was part of our problem here in the state of Alaska is we're broke. The state literally was going into this year with a deficit. It's got projected deficits for the next 10 years, hundreds of millions of dollars of deficit spending based on our current spending model.
and this will help close the gap a little bit, but not overall. So, I mean, how does this factor into the whole play? I mean, is there more? coming i mean brad keithley who's an oil and gas guy retired even he says that there's still some money left on the table is this is this the first part of it or is there more to come what what are your what's your what's your thoughts on this moving forward
I can't speak to that. I'm so focused on closing this unintentionally made loophole that I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking on the rest of this. I will say I definitely think Alaska has a spending problem. We've got multiple bills coming out in the near future that will start to address those things, create conversation. You know, what is a bill? A bill is a conversation starter. That's all it is, right? I'm going to start some serious, tough conversations around.
spending right issues and so um you know it's you can't fix a budget if you don't focus on debits and credits you're going to focus on both sides of the profit and loss You know, so, yeah, we have a spending problem for sure. And what we really have is what leads to the spending problem is a lack of efficiency.
We have an efficiency problem if you want to know the truth. Well, we have an ambition problem. I think it's not just an efficiency problem. I think that there's a lot of money that could be saved in efficiency. I agree with that.
But the main problem here is we have an ambition problem. We want to be all things to all people. We want to provide all these things. We're doing things that aren't necessarily even within the state purview or state mandate programs that are nice to haves instead of must haves mandate. by the Constitution. When we go above and beyond what's constitutionally mandated, we've got a problem. Go ahead. Yes, I refer to those as needs and wants. Needs and wants. What do we want and what do we need?
Look at the Constitution, right? Look at our Constitution. It mandates certain things. Yeah, we could pick a million programs, a million special interests, a million you name it. I would love to cut all of them, in my opinion, right? So I believe presidents spend their money better than the government, fundamentally. I believe we could. easily fix the pft problem if there was the willpower and i can guarantee you i have the willpower um i'm going to focus on all things on the on the
Profit and loss side of this was, you know, or budget as others would call it to me, it's just a profit and loss statement and. See where the cards fall, we're going to definitely start some good conversations this year based around the budget.
our office will my team and i well i mean somebody has to look somebody has to be the adult in the room and there's a handful of legislators out there who've been on this program who agree that we have this problem and that it has to be addressed we can't keep pretending that everything is just going to be okay, that it's all going to work out, that we can keep spending more money than we take in and expect that it's going to be okay in the long run. Eventually, that bill will come due.
the pipe you know there's there's no more can no more road to kick the can down and we don't have enough money in savings we don't have another and pretty soon and then there'll be no pfd Because based on the current projections, even from Ledge Finance, their last presentation at the beginning of the session said to pay for what you're talking about right now would consume 98 percent of the POMV draw. So that means.
No PFD at all. So once that money's gone, then what are we going to do? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to address. That's exactly what I'm working on right now. That's unfortunate. Yeah, we got 734,000 amazing residents, right? You live in a different part of this state than I do. They're both amazing, right? The whole damn state is, but we got to address both sides of it, debits and credits.
uh become more efficient and and that's where my office will be focused it's the same thing i just did at the mat subaro for four years right i went in there and and grabbed a hold of the budget and pretended it was you know Me trying to take my wife and children to the grocery store. That's how I treated the money in the Matsuburo. That's how I'm going to treat it here. So what's the status of the bill now? Where does it sit? What's the reaction been?
Do you have any support outside of yourself and you pushing on it? Where does the bill sit now? Walk me through the timeline of where this bill goes. Yeah, there's I think it's got another hearing coming up in a week or two and there'll be there'll be testimony and stuff then. And, you know, to me, it's funny because I actually.
don't think this bill is a big deal at all you know as i mentioned earlier today if if this was me running my company and there was an accident made in our in our bidding system i'd go to lunch with uh said contractor and and we'd hash it out in a matter of an hour and we'd be done right so to me this bill is not that big a deal but it it uh it's got more hearings coming up in in
resources and then it'll go to finance and and uh their team will get to take a look at it and and uh that's it and we'll vote on it sometime this year next year i'm not really sure um you know that's uh beyond my capabilities to control does that make sense right right and do do you seem like you you said you seem like you feel like you have some support i mean i know that there are some in the
what I call the business as usual crowd, probably Bert Stedman, who is more fiscally conservative than a lot of them. who have talked about this. Obviously, Kathy Giesel proposed something earlier that was very similar. So, I mean, this looks like something that may have some bipartisan support. Do you expect some of that?
I hope so. I hope we all look at this as a bipartisan thing. I tell you, what I hope is 60 people take an honest look at this and say, if I was in the real world, this is the real world. If I was in private sector. If I was in private sector, how would I handle this? And then go back and establish certain things. Was this done intentionally? No. Does this create an unfair playing advantage for one tax vehicle over another? Yes.
Has this been being discussed here by as high as the Commissioner of Revenue four years ago on record stating this was a problem? Why do I even have to talk about this? Why am I taking this on right now? This should have been handled years ago. So just go through it. Take the emotion out of it. There's a lot of emotion.
When I lay my wife and kids down at nine, I tell them I love them. That's it. For me, that's it. Game over. Emotion out the window, right? Or when I'm coaching kids and helping them in wrestling. I do not look at any of this, and I did not look at... government at the Matsuburo with a motion. I looked at it as what was best for all the residents of the Matsuburo, right? And how do you do the right thing, right? That's all I'm doing here.
So just take the emotion out of it. Look at the facts. And I think you'll find that it's a simple little fix. And we move on. That's it. We're talking with Senator Rob Yunt, a state senator from the Matsu, and we've been talking about his proposal to change the... corporate tax structure for oil companies so that S-Corps are included in what heretofore has been just the C-Corp discussion. And as you pointed out, these tax codes were written long before.
before S-Corps became kind of the soup du jour for everybody. That's a fairly recent thing in the tax code. You said this is the only thing you're focusing on. We're running out of time for this segment, but I want to get a quick hit. What else are you focused on outside of this bill?
um in this coming session rob is this your your is this your one and done or what other things are you focusing on outside of this when i when i went to legal we dropped 10 bills on their desk give or take right you'll see a common theme amongst all of them
there's there's they're all going to be related financially related because that's just that's my area of expertise and that's my passion so there's there's two sides to this one we're going to be focused on debits and credits and how we grow the pfd
that's what i'm here to do i'm here to grow the pfd right and then on the other side we'll have insurance bills we got a couple different insurance bills that we're working on right now that will help lower people's cost of living in their everyday life does that make sense things like that and then i do i got an investment bill i'm working on i'm trying to create a big reit in a sense a reach which is for those that don't know is a real estate investment trust
which would allow Alaskan residents, if they chose to, invest in the hopefully coming natural gas pipeline. I would like to see Alaskan residents have the opportunity to invest in that.
I'm an investor. It's what I do for a living. And the closest, the easiest way to explain what I'm trying to do is one big real estate investment trust with and given 700. 30 something thousand people the option to invest in it if they chose to so right well and everything coming out of office our office will be in regard to finances and how we make people's lives better in alaska
Well, I mean, again, kudos for focusing on the PFD because it seems to be the one thing that many legislators have either given up the ghost on or just say that there's no political will to fix, which is disappointing to say the least. The gas pipeline idea.
I mean, I've wanted a gas. I've been a fan of a gas pipeline for years, but I've also been realistic enough to understand that the metrics and the economics of it don't work right now. Do you see something changing here in the next, you know? Five years where that may become economical or is it I mean, what what what are your thoughts on an overall gas line?
versus some other option of getting stranded gas down to a tidewater. What I see changing is we got the greatest commander in chief in my lifetime right now, and he wants national security, right? And he wants security for our allies. notably Japan and a few others, right? So I don't think we want to see ourselves or our allies be dependent on Russian.
Gas. Does that make sense? And so in the future, we know that can be a problem. And so or anybody else's gas. So we have a commander in chief that our president that absolutely wants Alaskan gas to hit the market for us and our allies. Okay, so that's our best opportunity right there. Congressman Begich is doing a phenomenal job of working on that stuff with the president, right? And so...
I do think there's a very, very good chance we could see that. And all I'm going to do in the background here, in this position that I'm in, is create a structure. where Alaskans have an opportunity to be a part of that. That's a willable thing, right? If you invest in the pipeline and you pass away, that's something you can leave to your kids.
right and so or whoever you may have non-profit it doesn't matter to me but that's what i'm focused on is if the president is able to make this happen for us because make no mistake about it that's the guy that can do it It's Donald Trump. That's the person that can make that pipeline happen. Right. And Nick Baggage. Those are the two. OK, I believe there's a good chance that's going to happen. And I'm just laying the foundation in the background here to give Alaskans an opportunity.
to be a part of it do you think that the because there's been a lot of talk about whether the president will deem something like this a strategic asset and get the federal government to pony up the money to uh actually put this through is that is that what you are you expecting something like that I know they're talking about it, so I hope it happens. That would be just outstanding for Alaskan. It'd be outstanding for our allies. Okay.
All right. Well, we're going to continue on here. One final segment dead ahead. Senator Rob Yunt is our guest, and we're going to continue with him here. One final segment, we'll talk about some of the other things that he's been working on, what's been going on in the Senate. some of the wins and some of the things that have been going well since the session started here this year.
We'll continue The Michael Duke Show, Common Sense, Liberty Based, Free Thinking Radio. We return to more and Rob Yunt right after this. Listened to by more staffers in Juno than any other show. Because their bosses told them to. And after what they just heard, oh man, they're gonna be best. You're a bad, bad man. The Michael Duke Show. Okay, we're in the break right now. Rob Yunt is our guest. I'll be honest with you, Rob. I'm a little torn.
on the idea of a pipeline becoming a strategic asset. I want a gas line. I think it would be amazing. But I'm not sure that the right way is to foist it off on the federal government, who is also broke. for a multi, you know, for a pipeline that probably going to cost 70 to $80 billion by the time it's all said and done.
um i want to say this i agree it's not going to be 44. yeah no it's not yeah there's no way you never see engineers get this you know like it's yeah it's i would i would think it's definitely going to have cost overruns that's uh
you know yeah well i mean again the 44 million 44 billion dollar price tag that they keep throwing around i mean that's from the walker era right i mean we're almost 10 years out from that name me one thing that hasn't gone up in 30 years I thought they increased it for inflation.
But it could be wrong. Yeah, no, I mean, I would just say it's definitely going to be higher. I mean, my again, I would say between 60 and 70 billion dollars for sure. But the fact that, you know, again, I want a gas line. And again, this goes back to the emotion versus the fact.
I want a gas line. I would love to burn Alaskan gas. It infuriates me that we're sitting on 17 trillion cubic feet of gas on the North Slope, and we here in Alaska are experiencing a gas shortage. That just blows my mind. But I also understand the mechanics. of it. I also understand the economics of if it's not economical, but we're not looking at other options either. You know, I mean, we talked about why not fight to get a Jones Act exemption.
Bob Myers has some really good ideas for that. Yeah, and get it tanked down from the North Slope. I mean, you'd have to do some work on the ports up there. to get the tankers in, to get it filled and to build a facility. But I mean, there's just, there's so many different options here and we're just, I feel like we're just spinning our wheels. We've expended millions of dollars in the AGDC and other entities throughout the state over.
the years and we're still where we were 45 years ago yeah yeah yeah i agree it uh yeah and Unfortunately, I mean, I would much rather Alaska build the whole damn thing, own the whole thing. You know what I mean? I know that's not going to happen. That would just be a dream, right? But I don't know that it does happen if... if trump doesn't well help i i let me question that do you really want the state of alaska with their stellar track record do you really want them owning
something else like that shouldn't it be a private market thing i mean shouldn't the well i mean in an ideal world shouldn't the private market be running i want to restate what i was saying i'm i'm working on a structure that's going to allow me and you and our
Family, you know, the residents, I would love to see the residents on a good piece of it. Right. So, yeah. And of course the economics got to be there, but, uh, no, you're right. You don't want a government owning. You don't want a government owning anything. no at least not in a majority position if they're in a minority position and they got to say but what you really want is multiple right
people who are going to flow gas down it to own it together so that they're all invested in the idea of maintaining it. Yeah. No, I mean, look, I mean, that's the ideal. But again, the one stumbling block has always been the economics of it. Because it's just not I mean, even the latest Wood Mackenzie report, which took into effect, it took into account an 80 percent subsidy.
The Wood McKenzie report said, oh, yes, we could build it. We could deliver gas at 30 percent over market value. And that's with an 80 percent subsidy. The economics just don't work. The money doesn't work. And that's been the problem from the get go. Right. So what it's going to come down to is who our allies want to buy gas from. And, you know, we'll see where it goes. There's a lot of moving parts and pieces there.
Yeah, and of course, we here on the South Central and you and the Matsu and us on the Southern Peninsula and you and the Matsu and the whole rest of the peninsula are really... on tender hooks right now because we're waiting to see what's going to happen with this um with this uh lack of gas this this downturn in gas production and of course it's going to affect the rest of the rail belt as well fairbanks etc but
We're the ones that are really worried about it because, you know, if heating costs, if electricity generation costs go up 20, 30, 40 percent, that'll have a devastating effect on the economy as well. Yeah. Yeah.
yeah yep yeah way devastating yeah pretty pretty tough stuff um all right rob uh i know you what what else we want to talk about you want to talk about the wins in the in the senate things that are going well yeah uh and i don't want to bash others because then we won't get nothing done right but i would like to throw some kudos on it
team and i really do believe you know i'm obviously biased but i think we got the best leader in the whole house i'm running our caucus um and uh yeah no no i mean we got mike mike cronk educate you know uh over there working on education for us yeah
He's fiscally conservative, and he actually taught for 25 years, so he knows. Yeah, he's got some background in it for sure. All right, we'll hold the line, Rob. We'll be jumping right back into it. Rob Yunt is our guest, state senator from the Matsu. We're going to continue here in just a moment. Please like and share, follow, ring the bell, subscribe, do all the things that you're supposed to do. 34 of you have liked it.
I shamed another six of you into doing what you should have done to begin with, which is like the show. Like and subscribe. Like and follow. Do all those kind of things. Here we go. The Michael Duke Show. Common Sense. Liberty-based. Free thinking radio. Let's do this thing. Public enema number one. Oh, wait, sorry. Enemy. Public enemy number one, which makes more sense. On the other hand, he's a little bit of a pain in the Michael Duke show.
Yeah, that's me, your royal pain in your Michael Duke show. Good morning, my friends. Welcome back. One final segment here as we continue on. Senator Rob Yunt, our guest. From the Matsu, we've been talking about the proposed changes to the corporate structure for oil companies in the state. But we're going to move on from that now. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the wins, some of the positives, some of the good.
Good things that are happening in the legislature. We're going to kind of let Rob freeform it here in this last segment and bring up anything else that he wants to talk about. Rob, you said that you're pretty proud of the team that's in there right now. The majority has doubled up or the minority rather has doubled up in this last session. And so maybe there's some change in the air. Give me your thoughts here. Yeah, we do. We have a phenomenal team, in my opinion. There's six of us.
Obviously, you know, it'd be easy to say I'm biased, but I'm trying not to be biased here. I really do believe we have the best leader in the house running our caucus. Mike Schauer is an amazing guy. It's been a pleasure to watch his leadership skills and how he's, you know, just generaling our team. It's been an honor to work with them. Education has been the talk of the town, but. I don't think you could have any better person at the table than Mike Kronk.
you know mike is fiscally conservative he's got a ton of common sense he does not overthink things or get emotional he just looks at data and he was a teacher for 25 years and so that's that's the kind of person you want at the table when you're looking at all this right so I'm grateful for our team. We're in a great place.
Yeah. No, I mean, I think that we've got a great opportunity here. I agree with you. I think Mike Schauer is a solid guy, dedicated and committed to... putting the state back on the correct fiscal track now being in the minority makes it hard sometimes right uh yeah that's the first statement it uh it it definitely it definitely makes it difficult sometimes to get things done uh unless you can't do in the minority though is live in fear right like there's there's there's a lot of
false narrative what i would call fake news out there in regard to my bill right people say oh your your bill's gonna get hijacked your bill's gonna get this it's gonna get that right your bill may do this no it doesn't do that read the bill It doesn't do any of the things people are saying it does. And then ask yourself, are we going to live in a state of fear or are we going to move forward? I can tell you, I'm surrounded by a team of people that want to move forward.
Right? And so that's what I'm doing. All my bills, you know, everything down here can get hijacked and taken over. Well, okay, then you're not going to have the votes to get a pass, right? Or you won't have the votes to override a veto. This could be in regards to a million subjects, right? Do not live in fear. I don't. I'm here to start conversations and get stuff done. And I'm grateful to be surrounded by the team that I have. There's a lot of...
Mentorship and knowledge there, you know, when you when you got questions or about the process or anything, you know, there's. There's good people there to be able to help me and I'm super grateful for that. So, Rob, we've got about seven and a half minutes here. Give us your predictions, your outlay. What are you working on next? What are the things that you're going to be focusing on specifically? 734,000 people's checkbook is where our office's common theme will be.
I want to make life better for Alaskans. I know what brought my family here from Pennsylvania in the 90s, and that was opportunity. It wasn't red tape. It wasn't government control. It was opportunity. And so I am a... very proud staunch fiscal conservative and and i'll be offering a lot of conversations up in the form of a bill or various bills on how we we make the pfd bigger right um how we
lower cost of living for people in alaska there's a lot of things we can do on the insurance side of things people don't realize how much money they spend on insurance actually in different forms of it right um you know there's the investment strategy that i talked about giving alaskans an opportunity to be a part of the gas line if they'd like um you know that's that's what we'll be focused on is how we make 734 000 alaskans lives better financially
that's my offices that'll be the common theme so and you're doing that again through looking at the checkbook and and uh trying to figure out you mentioned earlier that we we seem to have a that we seem to have a spending problem in the state and without i'm not looking for you to besmirch anybody in the legislature but it what i hear a lot of times is i'd love to cut but there's just no political will
There's just no there's just no will to do that. I mean, as a legislator, especially one who's dedicated to trying to fix a spending problem. How do you make that happen? How do you make that right? How do you how do you pull all that together? Good leadership. Honestly, right? Like we there's it's against the law. to borrow for operations you cannot bond in the in the in the government world we call borrowing bonding right it's against the law to bond for operations so um
You know, we're at the we're at the cliff. We're going to have tough conversations and everybody needs to work together as a team. to solve those issues. And that takes true leaders. And good ideas and big ideas. So I'm going to focus on being a good leader and I'm going to focus on offering good ideas and big ideas. Well, I hope that you are able to gather some support in that because it's something that we've needed. I mean, I...
Don't like to be doom and gloom, but I want to be a realist. And when I look at it and I see that the 10-year projected forecast for the state is nothing but red. between now and 10 years from now just getting worse as we go through especially based on some of the new things are happening i mean we just we saw it happen in the house yesterday the education bill got rolled out of the uh out of the education committee and it's going on to finance so they're talking about a 500 million dollar bill
Over the next couple of years, going out from there, they're talking about defined benefits, which could add, you know, $100 million a year. I mean, these are significant increases in a budget that's already shaky. um i mean this is this is this is a challenge there's there's no two ways about it this is going to be a huge challenge yeah yep we got good leaders in this building there's there's we have the willpower to get it done
We have the expertise to get it done. My question is, will there be the willpower to get it done? So thank goodness you can't borrow for operations. I'm glad that's against the law. I don't want, you know, they do it all day down in. in dc but we're not allowed to do it here and that's thank goodness right could you imagine if we were allowed to borrow for operations yeah we would have a real problem on our hands so that is our backstop um is is you've got to balance the budget and so
How we do that is you have to be determined. There's 61 people that have a role in that. I'm going to offer up solutions that balance the budget and increase the size of the PFD. That's what I'll be focused on. All right. Well, Rob Young has been our guest talking about taxation and the spending and the PFD and more. Rob, we wish you the best on this. We hope I guess we'll be watching this bill. It sits right now.
in resources, is that correct? The bill for the tax change is sitting in resources? Yes, sir. Okay. And then it goes over to finance. And is there a timeframe for when are people going to be able to testify on this? Or is there a way to get the public motivated to help you out on this? I think that begins next week. But I'll keep you informed as things go. Yeah, let us know if there's a change or, you know, what you need to do.
Always happy to get the word out there and to talk about it. Rob Yunt, our guest, again, The Michael Duke Show. Rob, thank you for being part of the program today. We appreciate you being on board with us and talking with us about it.
Yeah, and I really appreciate the opportunity to come on a visit. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. We'll talk to you again soon. All right. Take care. Senator Rob Yunt, our guest here on the program for today, which pretty much means... that we have uh wrapped it up for today tomorrow is firearms friday
Firearms Friday, where we get a chance to delve into issues of a Second Amendment nature. And we'll be back for that tomorrow. And then, of course, on Monday, we'll be back to the full week. after taking President's Day off this week, which was nice. I do like a four-day work week. There's no doubt about it. But we will be jumping into that.
uh jumping back in on monday with some other guests as well we're working on nick baggage as well uh as potentially sarah montalbano uh to come on board for mondays because oh there's some good good stuff there so Tune in with us, Nen, and we will all be together and hanging out and doing our thing. Don't forget, you can always check out our Facebook page at facebook.com slash MichaelDukeShow.
If you want to see where we're going or get notifications every morning when we go live, that's the best way to do it there. And of course, you can always support us by joining the Common Sense Corps. Just go to michaeldukeshow.com and click on join the core if you want to help support the show. Community funded, I guess you could say. It helps me buy new equipment and get coffee in the morning for myself.
So however you want to help out the show, go to michaeldukeshow.com. Be kind, love one another, live well. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Okay, my friends. Well, we're out of gas for today. We've got more coming up tomorrow. bright and early 6 a.m. be here or be square be there or be you know what I meant thanks so much for joining us we will see you guys tomorrow have a great day And now we are slimy lizard internet people.