WEBVTT NOTE Like Saving Ten Cents on a Trip to the Moon 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Our next guest is author Thomas Woods, and you have to feel for this guy, his given name at baptism, Tiger Woods, and in the events of the last year, kind of, well, I don't know, he's had to go over to Tommy once. 2 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:23.000 His new book is Rollback, Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse, Tommy Reed Tiger Woods. Tom, what's up? 3 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:24.000 How you doing, Dennis? 4 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:38.520 Thomas, break down the President's new budget before we talk about the book, which is rollback, 5 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:42.520 repealing big government before the coming fiscal collapse. They have mastered the art 6 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 of making the figures so big a layman like me cannot follow it. What do you make of the 7 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:47.240 new budget rollout? 8 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:58.240 Well, it's completely unserious. I mean, when the president talks about cutting or saving money, he means like saving ten cents off a trip to the moon. 9 00:00:58.240 --> 00:01:05.240 I mean, there's nothing of substance at all. It's just continuing as if we're not headed over a cliff. 10 00:01:05.240 --> 00:01:13.240 And the problem is, I know people get impatient when you say we're headed over a cliff. They think, well, we've had a high debt for a long time. 11 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:22.180 The key thing is, and what this budget doesn't address at all, is that even if we have a 12 00:01:22.180 --> 00:01:27.160 robust recovery from our situation now, and even if interest rates stay low, the government 13 00:01:27.160 --> 00:01:32.720 itself is telling us that by 2020 we're going to be paying about a trillion dollars a year 14 00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:36.200 just in interest payments alone on the national debt. 15 00:01:36.200 --> 00:01:37.200 Nothing on the principal. 16 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:40.760 The principal is never going to be paid. 17 00:01:40.760 --> 00:02:10.760 But a trillion dollars a year on nothing, basically on nothing, which I guess is not that different from how the government spends money normally, but a trillion dollars, so that's, but the other problem is the entitlement programs, which are also, we have no entitlement reform, no mention of that whatsoever in this proposal. Medicare and Social Security are underfunded by about a hundred and fourteen trillion dollars. The one consolation of that is that it makes the national debt seem not so bad. When I hear Harry Reid just come out, is it a bold face lie? 18 00:02:10.760 --> 00:02:23.760 And Mises' misunderstanding of the facts, when he says that Social Security is fully funded for 40 years, what possibly could he be looking at to say that? Or is he just a bold-faced liar? 19 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:31.760 It pretty much is, because it's already in the red as of now. It's in the red sooner than expected because of the recession. It's already paying out more than it's taking in. 20 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:37.980 He's referring to the fact that there's an alleged trust fund, but that is the most embarrassing 21 00:02:37.980 --> 00:02:38.980 accounting gimmick. 22 00:02:38.980 --> 00:02:43.840 If any private sector insurer tried to pass off this alleged trust fund, he would be in 23 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:47.440 jail forever and we'd be throwing eggs at him. 24 00:02:47.440 --> 00:02:53.640 The trust fund, it's true, the trust fund is full of assets, but what are the assets? 25 00:02:53.640 --> 00:02:55.240 U.S. government bonds. 26 00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:59.760 So when the Social Security people go to cash them in, how do those get paid off? 27 00:02:59.760 --> 00:03:01.360 We get taxed again. 28 00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:05.600 The government taxed us for Social Security, blew the money on other things, and now the 29 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:10.200 IOUs that it's sitting on entitle it to tax us a second time, and that's supposed to comfort 30 00:03:10.200 --> 00:03:11.200 us. 31 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:12.200 It's an unbelievable scam. 32 00:03:12.200 --> 00:03:17.400 In fact, one of the actuaries of Social Security was on the Peter Schiff show not long ago, 33 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:19.920 and Schiff said to him, you know what a Ponzi scheme is? 34 00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:20.920 And the guy said, yeah. 35 00:03:20.920 --> 00:03:24.200 And he said, what's the difference between a Ponzi scheme and Social Security? 36 00:03:24.200 --> 00:03:25.720 I'm not joking, Dennis. 37 00:03:25.720 --> 00:03:29.720 The guy sat there, and Schiff said, look, I'll give you the whole break to think it over. 38 00:03:29.720 --> 00:03:37.720 So, dare I say our current accounting techniques are Madoffian, so to speak. 39 00:03:37.720 --> 00:03:41.720 Yes, indeed. Madoff should be made Secretary of the Treasury. 40 00:03:41.720 --> 00:03:51.720 The new Alexander Hamilton. We're talking to Thomas Woods. He's got a book, Rollback, Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse. 41 00:03:51.720 --> 00:03:58.720 God, even after the year NPR has had, I see nothing about rolling them back at all. We're not even serious about this stuff. 42 00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:20.720 I want to ask you this. Take me inside a true believer's head like Barack Obama. Do you think, first off, he understands we're going over a cliff? Secondly, do you think he thinks that's a price worth paying to take care of the disenfranchised? And believe me, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Is there something more malevolent about his wanting that to happen? 43 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:50.720 I can't believe that he doesn't know it's coming. In fact, Pete Peterson has talked to the finance ministers of all these West European countries, and they admit behind closed doors, of course we're in big trouble. We can't pay for the aging of the population, all the strain it's going to put on the system, but we're all going to be safely retired by the time that happens. And I think Obama's very much a kick the can down the road, let the next sucker pick up the pieces type of guy. And then secondly, the idea that maybe he's persisting in his current path and spending 44 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:40.720 I get this all the time on talk radio. People say, they can't be this dumb. If they were just dumb, they would occasionally just fall ass backwards into the right thing. They would occasionally do the right thing. They always do the wrong. So it can't just be stupidity. Maybe they really want to hurt the country. I don't know. I can't get into the guy's head. 45 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:45.280 I don't think he wants to hurt it. I think he wants to change it fundamentally. I think 46 00:05:45.280 --> 00:05:51.080 he wants this to be a place, much like Finland or Luxembourg or Liechtenstein. What he doesn't 47 00:05:51.080 --> 00:05:56.720 realize though is in a boutique market like that you might be able to sell some of these 48 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:00.920 social justice things. But when you're the alpha dog, when you are literally the engine 49 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:05.480 of commerce or about to become the second biggest engine of commerce on the planet earth, and 50 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:09.680 you snuff the fires out in that train, it sets off a horrific chain of events for the 51 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:11.280 and the entire planet at that point. 52 00:06:11.280 --> 00:06:16.280 Yeah, it's absolutely true and one of the zillions of arguments that I'm swatting down in rollback 53 00:06:16.280 --> 00:06:18.440 is precisely the Sweden example. 54 00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:22.320 Doesn't that just show that you can spend yourself into oblivion and everything turns 55 00:06:22.320 --> 00:06:23.320 out well? 56 00:06:23.320 --> 00:06:26.440 Well, the Swedes are actually running as fast as they can from that model right now. 57 00:06:26.440 --> 00:06:28.960 I mean, people are moving away in droves. 58 00:06:28.960 --> 00:06:30.600 The tax rates are starting to come down. 59 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.080 The spending is starting to come down. 60 00:06:33.080 --> 00:06:37.440 They've admitted that this has slowed their growth and reduced their competitiveness. 61 00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:41.220 The only reason they've been able to hold up so long is that the free market made them 62 00:06:41.220 --> 00:06:46.220 so wealthy in the first place, and they were able to avoid war, and also because relatively 63 00:06:46.220 --> 00:06:49.880 speaking it's a pretty decent business climate, so they can still get the benefits of the 64 00:06:49.880 --> 00:06:50.880 free market. 65 00:06:50.880 --> 00:06:56.160 Listen, it's cloudy, it's murky, some of the rafters are caving in in the mine, I see one 66 00:06:56.160 --> 00:07:00.440 guy out there with a flashlight on our side that I can trust because he's equipped to 67 00:07:00.440 --> 00:07:04.760 deal with anything, he's smarter than Obama, smarter than all of them, I don't know what 68 00:07:04.760 --> 00:07:19.760 How come he voted for Medicare Part D and added $20 trillion onto the unfunded liabilities 69 00:07:19.760 --> 00:07:20.760 problem? 70 00:07:20.760 --> 00:07:24.600 I'm not satisfied with people who can give a pretty speech, you know, been there, done 71 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:25.600 that. 72 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:30.040 I want to know what your plan for the next 10 years is, because it's all been cut from 73 00:07:30.040 --> 00:07:31.040 year 9. 74 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:36.040 you sent a chill up my spine, I was banking on him to have the answers. Do you see anybody who has the answers? 75 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:42.040 No, I think the Pauls have. I mean, Rand has got a $500 billion cut proposal for the first year. 76 00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:48.040 Well, that's great. I want to know, what is your proposal for right now? I don't care what your proposal for nine years from now is. 77 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:51.040 We can't control those people. What do you want to do right now? 78 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:55.040 And even then, $500 billion is only one-third of the problem. 79 00:07:55.040 --> 00:08:00.040 Right. Well, you were down at CPAC and his old man won the straw ballot there. What do you make? 80 00:08:00.040 --> 00:08:03.960 I can hear you're fond of Rand, what do you make of Ronny? 81 00:08:03.960 --> 00:08:09.760 I like him too, and I love the complaint that, well, we can't take the straw poll seriously 82 00:08:09.760 --> 00:08:12.760 because he inspired all those people to come vote for him. 83 00:08:12.760 --> 00:08:15.760 Well, isn't that kind of the point of a poll? 84 00:08:15.760 --> 00:08:17.640 How come nobody bothered? 85 00:08:17.640 --> 00:08:22.400 Gingrich gets 5%, people can't be bothered to get off their rear ends to take 15 minutes 86 00:08:22.400 --> 00:08:23.400 to vote for the guy? 87 00:08:23.400 --> 00:08:25.560 That is what bodes ill for the Republicans. 88 00:09:25.560 --> 00:09:26.560 Law. 89 00:09:26.560 --> 00:09:30.120 There's some chance of that, whereas under Romney, I don't see it happening. 90 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:34.640 Either we get somebody who's serious and isn't just some plastic man who looks like something 91 00:09:34.640 --> 00:09:38.880 out of central casting, or it's not worth doing. 92 00:09:38.880 --> 00:09:43.640 We might as well just keep fighting, keep the parties divided, and try and carve out 93 00:09:43.640 --> 00:09:44.640 some liberty for ourselves. 94 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:48.720 Well, you know, folks, my favorite guests are John Lott, who I had an epiphany with 95 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:53.680 after reading his book, More Guns, Less Crime, and I'm fascinated by Malcolm Gladwell. 96 00:09:53.680 --> 00:10:02.680 I like counterintuitive guys, and I think we've stumbled onto another one here, Thomas Woods, because I've come waiting in here with a few things I believe, and I just love... 97 00:10:02.680 --> 00:10:11.680 You see, I don't get freaked out when people tell me, that makes me want to go read more about the Paul boys, and I've got to start figuring this thing out, because this is serious time. 98 00:10:11.680 --> 00:10:17.680 I like guys who tweak my intellect and take some of my preconceptions and say, I'm not sure about that, Dennis, look at this. 99 00:10:17.680 --> 00:10:27.680 The book is rolled back, I will be reading it, repealing big government for the coming fiscal collapse, and thanks for agitating my melon today, Tommy, I dig it. 100 00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:28.680 Anytime, Dennis, thank you. 101 00:10:28.680 --> 00:10:30.680 Alright, good to talk to you, Thomas Woods.