In a riveting episode filled with astute analysis and heartfelt commentary, guest host Andy Pate discusses the often hidden workings of the state and federal welfare programs. By referencing enlightening quotes from renowned economists like Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman, the conversation unpacks the surprising inefficiencies and unintended consequences of well-intentioned policies. Explore the impact of Medicaid expansion and the political funding cycles that perpetuate systemic issues, inviting listeners to reflect on the ways prominent and small-scale decisions affect the way we live. Engage in a dialogue where economic policy meets societal norms, and every claim is examined under
SPEAKER 10 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 07 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 05 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 14 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job first. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 17 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 06 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 02 :
Filling in is Andy Pate, party of choice.
SPEAKER 11 :
And welcome to hour number three here on Rush to Reason, KLZ 560. I’m Andy Pate filling in for John Rush. On the line right now, we got Jersey Joe. Joe, I got a challenge to give you right now. What’s that, Andy? Can you be more entertaining than a secret CIA NSA sex chat?
SPEAKER 08 :
I cannot beat that, Andy. I’m sorry.
SPEAKER 11 :
Can you believe what they uncovered, what these people were saying to each other? I’m not going to repeat it on air because, well, you know, Charlie would have to throw me out of a 12-story window. But, wow. My only question is, did any of these people ever do their jobs?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I don’t know if you’re aware. There’s another talk show host on another different station, and he was head of FEMA for a while. And he tells the story how he was brought to his attention that one of his employees was spending eight hours a day, five days a week, watching Internet porn on his government computer. They had all the computer logs and what he was logged into. It took 11 months to fire the guy. They had him dead to right. His computer was logged onto a porn site 40 hours a week. Took him 11 months to fire the guy.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, for those who haven’t heard the story, they found these people, a bunch of people in the CIA, NSA, and I think there was one other, one of the military ones, that were interacting with And they were bragging about trans surgeries they had and really kinky, weird stuff, which I won’t get into. And it was absolutely disgusting. Word is they are being fired or already have been.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, good. Couldn’t happen to a nice bunch of people.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s not going to take 11 months is what I’m saying. But anyway, Joe, just so you know, the entertainment bar has been set high. So let’s see if you can bring it.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, well, I got to, you know, normally I open my podcast with a quote of the week. Well, tonight I’ve got two quotes. One is by the economist Thomas Sowell, who’s, I don’t know how many people, he’s a black man, he’s a very famous economist. Awesome. And he’s got a bunch of great quotes. And here’s one that I really like. He said, when you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. Now, how true is that? Democrats always tell people what they want to hear. Yep. So again, when you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what you want to hear.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, and by the way, that echoes the entire last hour. I know you weren’t listening. You’re in New Jersey. But we were talking about all across the state, people have taken over all these county parties. And these people all believe we must opt out of the open primary so we can have our closed primaries. And we discussed why that can’t possibly happen. Right. And it’s not going to happen. And yet their leaders who they support are telling them, oh, sure, it will, even though they know they can’t do it. It’s it’s incredible. Yeah, that that is one more time. Say that quote.
SPEAKER 08 :
All right. Again, Thomas Saul, that’s S.O.W.E.L.L. If you want to look him up when you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
SPEAKER 11 :
I want to help people, okay? And at times – and it’s really frustrating because when I go out on a limb on issues like this, a lot of people don’t like me. And they think, oh, you’re a rhino. You want to disenfranchise my vote and all this kind of – they won’t look at the facts. They won’t debate the facts. We invite a debate. They won’t do it. Joe, it’s really something. I have never understood – How people literally will they will purposefully maintain their beliefs by looking away from data.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s, you know, Mark Twain said it’s far easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled. And I have found that to be so true. Yeah. You know, I can give people they’ll make these outrageous statements about, you know, the rich don’t pay any taxes and whatnot. And you can give them hard data from Biden’s IRS that says no. The rich are paying the bulk of the taxes, but that’s not true. Republicans don’t want to eliminate Social Security. Once they’ve made up their mind, Andy, they don’t want to hear the truth. No, they don’t. It’s almost impossible to convince them. Okay. You want to hear my other quote? Yes, I do. Milton Friedman, he’s deceased now. He’s a late Milton Friedman, but he was a Nobel Award-winning economist. And I link this. I have a chart, by the way. Do you want to take a guess at how many federal poverty programs are in this country, roughly? Oh, my. No, I couldn’t guess. Tell me. It’s almost 200. And by poverty programs, I’m talking everything from Obama phones to Section 8 housing allowances, to SNAP food benefits, to welfare. I mean, I’ve got a chart that’s got a dot, and every one of these things is, quote, a poverty program. So what Trump is doing, and here’s his quote, and this quote is 20 years old. He said, one of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results. And we have all these great programs, and everyone, oh, but this program is designed to do this, to help poor people, except that’s not. And that’s, you know, so we don’t need 200 poverty programs in this country. You know, I think we could do, I think we only need maybe four or five at the most, and we need Medicaid. You know, we certainly need We certainly need welfare for disabled people and Social Security disability benefits and maybe even Section 8 housing allowance for people who are unemployed and out of work. But we don’t need 200 poverty programs. And they just built, whenever they put a new one in place, they never cancel one of the prior ones. That’s how these things just build on themselves. And by the way, every poverty program has a federal agency administering it. So if you think the average poverty program has 100 employees administering, think of how many government employees there are administering 200 poverty programs.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, exactly. And they haven’t solved the problem, have they? How many trillions of dollars have been redistributed? My goodness. Learn to talk, Andy. How many trillions have been redistributed with no results? The problem is as bad as ever.
SPEAKER 08 :
Since Lyndon Johnson declared the war on poverty… It’s been $20 trillion. And you know what’s happened to our poverty rate in this country? What? It’s unchanged. Yeah. So 1967, war on poverty. So here we are 75 years later, 65 years later, $20 trillion spent, and our national poverty rate is unchanged. By the way, poverty in this country is upper middle class in most countries. People living in poverty in this country… you know, they’re living in, typically it’s municipally like Philadelphia Housing Authority, New York State Housing Authority. They’re living rent-free in a home that has central heat, central plumbing, running water, air conditioning, TV, and an Obama phone. That is upper middle class in 90% of the world today. Right.
SPEAKER 11 :
It is. And by the way, it’s expensive.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s expensive. And by the way, we’re going to talk, you asked me yesterday about What does it cost? What’s it costing taxpayers to take care of 13 million illegal aliens? I actually have that number, but we’ll talk about that later. Okay. But by the way, let me talk about Medicaid for a minute. The Republicans are taking a lot of heat because they are proposing, by the way, Medicaid is a, is a state administered program. It’s not administered by the federal government. And the states bear some of the costs and federal government reimburses them for some of their costs. Well, When they enacted the Affordable Care Act, a lot of states, and Obama encouraged them to do what was called Medicaid expansion. Initially, Medicaid was for people just living at or below the poverty level. Right.
SPEAKER 11 :
I remember this.
SPEAKER 08 :
And then he expanded it, and he encouraged people to expand it. Well, here’s how generous it has gotten, and I was totally out of control. In many states, almost half the states today, mostly blue states, the states who administer these programs say, have expanded the program and the income limit so that a couple, a working couple, both people have jobs, if they have a combined monthly income of $5,800 a month, which is $69,400 per year, they can get on Medicaid.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, so they have a combined income of $70 a year, and they can get on Medicaid.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. Now, most of these people, by the way, have access to employer-subsidized health care programs. So let’s say that one or both of them work for an employer like Walmart or Amazon or somebody. Because under the Affordable Care Act, if your employer has 50 or more employees, they’re required to offer you employer subsidized health care. But here’s why they’re jumping on Medicaid. So let’s say one or both of you work for a company like Walmart. And Walmart has a great health insurance program. There is an employer, you know, a minimal, I’m going to talk of a nominal payroll deduction, you know, it might be 20 bucks a week or something. And when you go to the doctor, there’s a $25 copay and whatnot. But if you say, hey, I qualify for Medicaid, guess what? There’s no payroll deduction for Medicaid. And when you go to the doctor, there’s no copay, there’s no deductible. So if you work for Walmart and you had a $69,000 income, you’d be insane to sign up for Walmart’s health insurance program. You and your spouse… would jump on Medicaid because it’s free.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. See, that’s insane. That’s an incentive to game the system. And meanwhile, here you go. You go to work at Walmart. And by the way, God bless you if you’re working at Walmart. Great institution. Great. Do the work. I love people who go to work. But here you are. You’re serving people. And guess what? That person you serve, They’re having to pay for their health insurance. They’re having to pay for their co-pays. They’re having to pay for this stuff, and all you’re doing is opting out and having it put on their dime.
SPEAKER 08 :
On their dime, exactly, taxpayers. And it’s not just Walmart. It could be Best Buy. It could be King Soopers. It could be Safeway. It could be any large employer. And again, this is an incentive to opt out of your employer’s health insurance program because even if it’s only $20 a week, You’re still saving the $20 a week, and you’re saving the $25 office visit copay by going on Medicaid. So here’s what the Republicans have proposed. Up until now, they’ve been reimbursing states for a percentage of their total cost. And in many of these blue states where they’ve said, oh, you make $69,000, you can jump on our Medicaid, and the Republicans are saying, wait a minute, your percentage cost is outrageous compared to other states. So the Republicans have now said, hey, we want to change the equation and simply give you a – so much per capita, so much per head. No, if you’ve got 20 million people in your state, we’ll give you so many Medicaid dollars and you can spend them however you want.
SPEAKER 11 :
So basically a block grant.
SPEAKER 08 :
A block grant. Okay. And the problems have never said, you need to kick these people off. They simply said to the state, we’re going to change how we calculate the reimbursement you get from the federal government. Now, if you want to keep all these people on your program, you’re more than welcome to do it. You just need to figure out how to pay for it. Well, the left, of course, has said, no, the Republicans are kicking people off Medicaid. They’re going to be going without health insurance. Republicans are not targeting any individual or group of individual. That’s completely up to the state. So if Colorado decides to kick people off Medicaid in Colorado, that’s up to Jared Polis and the state legislature.
SPEAKER 11 :
By the way, really quick here before you race on. We’re going to go to break here in a moment. But Joe. why should our tax dollars pay what Walmart should be paying? Why should our tax dollars subsidize Walmart? Because guess what? Okay, if that person doesn’t take those benefits from Walmart so they can avoid the copay and so forth, guess what? Walmart doesn’t have to pay for any benefits for them. Okay, so the taxpayer, help me out of here, I may be wrong, but I’ve heard Walmart’s kind of big. I’ve heard they’re rather rich. In fact, they own the Broncos. Now, I want you to ask me, I’m just a normal, ordinary Joe taxpayer here. I don’t think I could buy the Broncos. I don’t think the Walton family needs to be subsidized by me.
SPEAKER 08 :
No, they don’t. But let’s make a distinction between the Walton family and Walmart. By the way, Walmart’s profit margins, and I looked at their Form 10-K, which is their annual report to the SEC, despite their massive size, Walmart is scraping by with a 2.45% net profit margin. So Walmart is not price gouging any. No. 2.45% is a razor-thin profit margin.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s tight. And by the way, let me ask you this, and then we’ll go to break. Couldn’t they instead simply say, no, we’re not going to replace what you can get through your employer, but we’ll cover the co-pays out of Medicaid?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, again, the states could say that. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the states. Right. The states could and should do that. And many red states have done that. But you’ve got almost 26 blue states have decided to. They’re going to, you know, this Medicaid extension. They’ve decided not to go that route.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, so if Democrats are saying we’re not going to go that route, follow me here. How many businesses in those states are saying, all right, our campaign dollars, we’re going to give them to Democrats because the Democrats are getting the feds to subsidize my health benefits that I don’t have to pay to my employees, to a portion of my employees? Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, yeah, obviously to the business owners, but business owners are not now they’re big donors, but they’re not big voting blocks.
SPEAKER 11 :
No, but they’re big donors. That’s what I’m talking about. OK, so if you if you’re a Democrat in whatever state, right, you’re in a blue state, you’re a Democrat. Hey, how about, you know, either of ours, New Jersey or Colorado? And you use this scheme, right? So you’ve got all these people who are employed. They’re employed through places where they could get, you know… Employer subsidized health care. Employer subsidized health care. And they could have, at the very most, they could have Medicaid offset, right? They could have it offset just the co-pays and so forth, the stuff not covered. But they say, no, we’re going to put them all completely on Medicaid. All of those employers… know full well that they are saving a boatload of money at taxpayer expense, of course they are going to give big, generous donations to Democrat politicians to keep that gravy train coming. And it’s not keeping the gravy train coming for the poor people. They’re getting the exact same benefit, okay?
SPEAKER 08 :
Right, and let me give an example.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s for the wealthy.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m involved in a couple of companies down in Texas. Our typical health insurance per-employee some have families, some don’t, is around $380 a month. The typical employee contribution is $80. So for every employee who jumps on the company health plan, it costs the company $300 per month per employee.
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, my gosh. Think of how much money the taxpayers are simply giving to wealthy companies. That’s what they’re doing. Hey, let’s take a break. I’ll be right back with Jersey Joe. Up next is Flesh Law. Kevin Flesh, that’s F-L-E-S-H. He’s ready for court so your opponent knows you’re not bluffing. Call Flesh Law at 303-806-8886 or go to FleshLawFirm.com.
SPEAKER 18 :
Here’s why you need personal injury attorney Kevin Flesch on your side. He understands the way the jury thinks. In the context of a personal injury case, you’ve been hurt by someone else’s negligence. The idea is that you’re going to try to recover so that you can get back to where you were just prior to that incident occurring. What that really means from a jurist’s perspective is that you’re going to be asking them to award you money. So when we talk about fairness, we’re talking about six people that you don’t know. Those six people view the evidence and make a unanimous decision that will decide what the fair value is. When you’re the one who’s hurt, you have a good idea of what you think it’s worth. The question is, can you persuade those other individuals whom you don’t know and were witnesses to believe that’s what the case is worth? Kevin Flesch understands the way the jury thinks. Call now for a free consultation. 303-806-8886
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SPEAKER 15 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Andy Pate filling in for John Rush. And on the line we got Jersey JoJo. Before you get to your clip here, great news that just came out. The, um, Kristi Noem is saying that they have caught some of the leakers. who have been tipping people off before Tom Holman could have them deported. So some of the leakers who have been tipping off illegal immigrants, many of them violent, very violent illegal immigrants, have been caught. They, of course, are going to be fired and I assume prosecuted. So there you go. Great news. Joe?
SPEAKER 08 :
Very good. Hey, can you hear me?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, I can hear you now.
SPEAKER 08 :
Go ahead. You know, fantastic news. I can’t wait to hear some details about who they were and where they were working, and if any were involved in city or state agencies, too, by the way. Oh, yes. I want to get to the cost of illegal aliens, but I’ve got a clip here. Remember a week ago when that plane in Toronto flipped over? Yes. And I’m a licensed commercial pilot with several thousand flight hours. I can tell you right now the cause of that plane was pilot error. The plane skidded, and if you look closely… The plane kind of rocked to one side, the wingtip on the right side, the wingtip dug into the ground, and that caused the plane to somersault.
SPEAKER 11 :
Quick question before we go to the clip. Did they also, I had heard they descended at too great of an angle.
SPEAKER 08 :
They came down, but once he was on the runway, you know, if they had descended too fast, they would have. splatted on the on the end of the runway he was well down the runway so i think that’s a no i meant i i was just i just they didn’t say that was the total cause but that it made it more difficult to write the ship oh yeah he was he was coming he was very he landed at a much higher speed than he should have okay it’s probably contributed to his inability to control the plane on that icy runway all right you know when you’re going going anyway so his pilot error you know going landing too fast right dug the wingtip and all these people there was somebody on cnn was like And even Chuck Schumer came out and tried to blame Trump, who’d been in office for three weeks, for the Toronto plane crash. So our new press secretary has taken him to task, and I think she did a great job. So if we can play this clip of our new press secretary just taking Chuck Schumer to task for trying to blame Trump.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s incredibly irresponsible for Chuck Schumer to say such a thing when the investigation is still underway. And as you rightfully pointed out, John, this crash unfortunately took place in Canadian airspace with Canadian air traffic controllers overseeing it. And the facts about the FAA are that… No air traffic controllers have been let go by Secretary Duffy or this new administration. In fact, Secretary Duffy has put great emphasis on hiring the best and the brightest air traffic controllers who want to be part of the FAA. And President Trump signed a very strong executive order to ensure that the FAA and all federal government agencies are focused on Merit and skill based hiring. We want the best and the brightest, the most competent individuals in positions, especially of public safety at the FAA, the Department of Transportation and all departments across this federal government so we can best serve the American people. So while Secretary Buttigieg and the Biden administration sat on their hands when it came to aviation safety for four years, This administration is taking it seriously and is actively recruiting the best and the brightest to join this very important field.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, if she could only be as eloquent as her predecessor under Biden.
SPEAKER 08 :
Don’t we miss Kareem Jean-Pierre?
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, she’s brilliant. And, you know, this is something that I actually told Jordan on America’s Money Answer Man when he called in and he was talking about, you know, the danger of letting go of these people. And I said, Jordan, I don’t think we’ve let go of any of them.
SPEAKER 08 :
Not a single air traffic controller. Right. And, by the way, I bet you tomorrow there was a near miss at Chicago’s Midway Airport today. I don’t know if you heard about it. What happened, it was a clear day. A Southwest jet was coming in for a landing, and you can actually listen to the ATC tapes, which I have. There was a private commercial jet on the taxiway that needed to get to the other side of the airport, and the ground controller clearly told the private jet, the commercial jet, the private jet, to hold short of the runway because it was an approaching plane. Either the private jet didn’t hear it, whatever, and he taxied right across the runway just as the Southwest jet was getting ready to touch down. The pilots did a great job. Their wheels hadn’t touched the ground yet. They were about five feet above the ground. They hit the engines and flew up and over this jet that was crossing the active runway, avoided what could have been a disastrous collision. I guarantee you, between now and tomorrow morning, you’re going to hear somebody on the left trying to blame that near miss on Trump, even though it was clearly the fault of the private jet pilot.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, just 30 seconds, then we’ll go to break. Quick question. What do you think of Elon and some of the others saying what we really need to do is dramatically upgrade the systems for air traffic control and have more AI?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, I couldn’t agree more. You heard Kevin O’Leary yesterday talking about they’re using a system that’s programmed in COBOL, which is a 60-year-old ancient programming language. And they’re running on some incredibly old computers that you talked about. We need to invest some CapEx, which has been in capital investment money. And even though you’re spending money right now, we’re compensated. We’re, we’re, we’re covering for the shortfalls in the system with massive amounts of human capital. You’ve got people, you know, writing things down on a piece in an airport control tower. I’ve been there. They, they literally write down your tail number on a piece of paper on a little block of paper, like a Scrabble thing. And they hand it to the next guy. Can you imagine, this is how we do air traffic control. They write down your tail number on a piece of paper on a Scrabble board, and they hand it to the guy in the next station. Unbelievable. Well, let me tell you something.
SPEAKER 11 :
Elon Musk, Sean Duffy, we’re in good hands. Agreed? Agreed. Okay. Let’s take a break. Roof Savers is next. In the dead of winter, those roofs, they’re cracking, they’re leaking. Get help from Dave Hart at Roof Savers, 303-710-6916.
SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason. Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Andy Pate filling in for John Rush. On the line, we got Jersey Joe. Joe, before you proceed, how can people hear your stuff?
SPEAKER 08 :
All right, if you want to see my podcast, you can go to the Jersey Joe website at jerseyjoe.com. Jersey, however, is spelled J-E-R, as in Robert, Z as in zebra, E-E. J-E-R-Z-E-E, JerseyJoe.com. If you want to send me an email and get put on my distribution list or have a question or suggest a show topic, just send it to Joe at JerseyJoe.com. Thank you much. And again, Jersey, J-E-R-Z-E-E.
SPEAKER 11 :
Okay, what’s next?
SPEAKER 08 :
By the way, before I get into the question of legal aid, I got one of your listeners and one of my listeners sent me this thing. You know who Sheldon Whitehouse is? I know the name far left, uh, far left the Democrat center from Connecticut. Yeah. Okay. Claim. He claimed he was a Vietnam veteran and turned out.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, here’s what, here’s what, here’s what, did you know, by the way, did you know that I was a civil war veteran? It’s true. Totally true story. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Anyway. So it turned out they just, they’ve caught him in an ethics violation. It turned out that he sponsored this legislation to send, um, uh, literally billions of dollars to nonprofit groups, to environmental groups under the Biden administration. Well, it turned out that his wife was associated with one of these environmental groups. Oh. Yeah. Now, after he got the legislation passed, she resigned from the group, but she formed her own LLC, which the group she founded then hired the LLC. So there were no… So that there were no payments going directly from the group to her personally. So it was going to the group that she resigned from.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right. In other words, they became a funnel to her.
SPEAKER 08 :
A money laundering. So the group received $14.2 million in federal grants. And in a 2024 loan… It was given two sizable grants, one for $5.2 million, which was given to them by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in September, and then another one for $1.7 million. So between the two of them, that was $7 million in one year alone. And you want to know how much his wife, Dr. Sandra Whitehouse, got out of that money? Let me see what… Again, it was paid to the LLC that she founded that in turn… She was the only employee of the LLC. She got $2.8 million.
SPEAKER 11 :
Of tax dollars. She got $2.8 million in tax dollars. And this is one example out of a zillion examples. And, Joe, how many times have we said in every election, how come the Democrats are so much better funded than us?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, now you know. Because we’re funding them. We’re funding them. The same thing with USID paying all of these people. USAID is supposed to be international, and I don’t have that at my fingertips, but it’s come out. They were providing funding to U.S. news organizations, ABC, NBC, CBS, they were getting money and domestic newspaper news organizations were getting money from the USAID as well.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, it’s interesting in every one of these states, and I know they’re blue states, so they’re pretty much locked in and safe. But in every one of these states, these Democrats are going to have to deal with Republicans who are going to run against them and use all of this as advertising. I mean, all of the oppositional research that the Republicans needed, they are getting from Doge across the country. It’s worth a lot.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay. By the way, I have a correction, by the way. One of my listeners just texted me. She said, White House is a senator from Rhode Island, not Connecticut. But again, big deal. East Coast. East Coast. And he’s the guy that lied about his his Vietnam service, too. Anyway, but yeah, so that’s how it works.
SPEAKER 11 :
So, you know, I was in the Revolutionary War. I fought for you. All of this, all this freedom you’re enjoying. I did that. But go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
We have any path to thank for that. All right. Yeah. All right. You want to talk about what illegal immigrants are costing us every taxpayer in this country every year?
SPEAKER 11 :
Nothing. I mean, they’re just such a wonderful benefit.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, actually, if you listen to the left, they’re actually helping the economy. By the way, people think illegal aliens can’t legally work here, but the Biden administration set up something called the parole program, where they would allow illegal aliens from certain countries. They weren’t actually technically legal. They were given what’s called parole status. So they were from Haiti, Venezuela, and I think Honduras. And under parole status, you would be given not a social security number, but what’s called a taxpayer, a TIN number, taxpayer identification number, that would allow you to legally seek employment in this country. And if you legally sought employment, your employer would withhold, you know, a nominal income tax amount. They would also withhold Social Security, even though you weren’t eligible to receive it. So people are saying, yeah, aliens, and by the way, a lot of them work illegally using a phony Social Security number, you know, a borrowed Social Security number, and they don’t get that money back either. So the left will say, yeah, illegal aliens contribute $20 billion in taxes and never collect the benefits. Therefore, they’re actually a boon to – they’re helping with our tax revenue. Well, here’s what the House Budget Committee found. Net of that – illegal aliens are costing this country $150 billion a year, and that works out to $1,156 per year per taxpayer – which is slightly reduced by the amount that they contribute and don’t get back in Social Security taxes. It’s $957 per person. So you and your wife, it’s costing each of you $957 per year, which is two grand per year for two taxpayers. That’s what it’s costing. And here’s another quote from that same house study. Each illegal alien or U.S.-born child of an illegal alien costs the U.S. $8,776. dollars per year. So if you have a family of three, a husband and wife and a U.S. born child, you take eight, seven, seven, six times three. And last time I looked, that’s about, oh, twenty six thousand dollars a year. That’s what a family of three.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, I actually feel I actually feel good about it, though, because by paying all those taxes for them, I allow all these Democrat leaders to have, you know, cheaper people cleaning their pool. And maids and yeah, and doing their landscaping and all this kind of stuff. They get cheaper work, cheaper help to do so many things for them. And, you know, these Democrats are only worth, I don’t know, somewhere in the range of, you know, a couple hundred million each on average. And, you know, I’m helping them because otherwise, what if they had to pay full price for American workers to do all the things that keep their lives going?
SPEAKER 08 :
It wouldn’t be fair. Which, by the way, depresses wages. Totally. If you can hire an illegal alien or somebody here on a parole work status who’s willing to work for the absolute minimum, what’s the absolute minimum wage in Colorado? Is it $15 an hour or something like that?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, but nobody pays that. I mean, let’s face it, people are making $20 plus.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right, except if you’re an illegal alien or a parole day. You’ll take that $15 an hour job. which means that if they weren’t there, somebody else would have to be paid $20.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, or what you’re going to see a lot of is, guess what? Because when you’re talking landscaping jobs, stuff like that, that pays better. Okay, that’s not working at Taco Bell. That’s tough work. Okay, you’re out in the sun. And they would have to ordinarily pay much more to have workers go do that hard work, right? But no, no, no, no, no. They can have an illegal do it and save a bunch of money. And, you know, out of that savings, of course, where are they going to send a donation? To their Democrat candidate.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. By the way, same thing. I know quite a bit about construction, particularly residential construction. If you’re a general contractor building a home, like there’s going to be how many hundreds of homes rebuilt up in Louisville after the fires up there. Right. Tons. You hire a general contractor to build you a home. Well, he in turn gets bids for all the electrical, the plumbing, the foundation. And he’ll get a bid for the sheetrock. Well, typically the sheetrock… company many of them are minority owned by you know u.s citizens are minority but those minority owned companies in turn they will hire massive numbers of illegal aliens because you know sheetrock is hard dirty work that’s how they can underbid that’s how they underbid everybody else they will hire you know if there’s 20 people putting up sheetrock i’d be surprised if more than two or three uh were legal tax paying u.s residents when that’s sub and again it’s not the general contractor It’s a subcontractor he hired to put the sheetrock in that house.
SPEAKER 11 :
You know, and let’s not forget, a bunch of that money these people are making isn’t being spent here. No, that’s in Mexico. Yeah, it’s being sent back. You have whole economies. In other parts of the world, like Mexico, like Ecuador, a lot of these places that largely run on money that’s being sent back from people working in America, taking jobs by undercutting American workers. OK, so if an American worker makes that money, OK, but this American worker costs, I don’t know, 20, 30 percent more. Right. And you think, well, but that’s tough on the American consumer because now it’s going to be more expensive to get that product because of the American workers. Ah, but let me tell you something. Those American workers are then turning around and spending all their money right back into your economy. You American consumer, wherever you make your money, they are spending more money to have your product.
SPEAKER 08 :
They’ll spend it in local neighborhood restaurants. They’ll spend it in local stores. Bingo. You know, they’ll buy cars at the local car dealership. They’ll buy a new refrigerator for their house. You know, they’ll replace their old air conditioning. So, no. that money will churn through the economy many, many times over.
SPEAKER 11 :
Absolutely. When you pay American workers, I know that initial cost on that product costs more as a result. But guess what? All that money is staying here, and that money is coming right back to you. Let’s take a break. We’ll be right back with Jersey Joe. Up next is Ridgeline Auto Brokers. New cars cost too much, and with used cars, you really need to trust your dealer. For trust and value, find both Ridgeline locations at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 05 :
It’s time to leave your safe space. This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 11 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Andy Peet filling in for John Rush. On the line, we’ve got Jersey Joe. Joe, what do you got for me?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, surprisingly enough, during the break, Charlie came on and gave me a little additional information on Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. It turns out, you know, Charlie, I know his Yoda. He knows everything. Turns out that six years ago, some news agency discovered that he was a member of an all-white country club in Rhode Island, of which, by the way, his wife is an investor in the country club. And he was challenged about how come there are no minority members in your country club. And his answer has been, we’re working on it. Well, he’s been working on it for six years, and apparently they can’t find a qualified minority member in six years. They must be working night and day. But in six years, they’ve been unable to find a qualified minority to become a member of the all-white country club that he’s a member of, that his wife is an investor in.
SPEAKER 11 :
Two things. First of all, it’s not all whites. It’s rich whites. So I couldn’t get into that country club either. And secondly, Joe, this really reminds me of Martha’s Vineyard when Ron DeSantis sent a bunch of the illegals up there and Martha’s Vineyard threw them out right away.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right away. I don’t think they lasted eight hours on the ground in Martha’s Vineyard.
SPEAKER 11 :
And they did speeches. Thank you for coming. You’re wonderful. You got to go.
SPEAKER 08 :
Now get the hell out. Get the hell out. Okay, go ahead. But Charlie, thank you very much for that. I want to talk about, you know, remember Nice Peaceful Sweden? Yes. You know Sweden, right? Yes. Everybody’s happy and smiling and frolicking. It’s a peaceful place.
SPEAKER 11 :
It’s all people dancing to ABBA. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. Do you know over the past year, they’ve been averaging one bombing per day? No. One bombing per day.
SPEAKER 11 :
You’re kidding.
SPEAKER 08 :
Who’s doing the bombing? In 2024, there were 317 total blasts. And in the first 27 days of this year, They had 27 bombings in 27 days. Let me guess.
SPEAKER 11 :
It was all Jewish people.
SPEAKER 08 :
Just kidding.
SPEAKER 11 :
Go ahead.
SPEAKER 08 :
Illegal immigrant gangs and asylum seekers who are angry with the government. So all these asylum seekers. And the Swedish people have had it. They’re saying no more asylum seekers. We’re not accepting any more immigrants. Can you imagine if this country… or even a state, can you imagine? Now, Sweden’s not a big place, but can you imagine if California had one deadly bombing every single day of the week, how quickly the people of California or Texas or Florida would turn on that group of people?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and it really says something about how entrenched in the left Sweden has been that it took that much for them to finally say enough.
SPEAKER 08 :
And this goes back, remember a couple years ago, and it’s still there, remember in Paris they had the no-go zones, where police would not respond to any calls from certain areas of the town which were Muslim-dominated, where they were practicing Sharia law? Yeah. So it started in Paris, and by the way, we’ve had some, if you remember some of the, where they killed the guy that posted the, I forget the name of the magazine where they posted the picture of Mohammed, and they bombed and killed a bunch of people. Well, that has now migrated from France up to Sweden. So it’s spreading like a cancer through Europe, migrant violence. And, again, that’s something the news isn’t carrying. Look, there’s a lot of European reports of this, well-documented, credible sources. But for some reason, the U.S. media doesn’t seem to care about the fact that there’s literally one deadly virus bomb bombing a day in sweden right now and sweden is not a big place i think they got a population like 20 million people it’s not a big place no joe they’re gonna have to they’re gonna have to crack down and you know we just saw the right surge in germany in their elections sweden’s next okay places like that are next because people have had it yeah it is just you know it’s it’s it’s going and i i don’t think sweden’s going to be the only one um it’s it’s it’s you know more and more uh but you know sweden’s been i think sweden took in the most that’s why we’re seeing the most of them there uh what else is going on in the world today um got a minute and a half go well how about we talk about going down my list of stuff oh zero zero fossil fuels by the biden administration had committed to Zero fossil fuel use by 2050, which is 25 years from now.
SPEAKER 11 :
Were we going to have zero Americans?
SPEAKER 08 :
Anyway, go ahead. Do you know how much our fossil fuel use as a percentage of our total energy use has declined in the past 70 years? How much? Two-tenths of 1%. It was 75.4% 60 years ago. And as of the end of last year, it was 75.2%.
SPEAKER 11 :
But I thought green energy was so efficient. My gosh, you get so much energy for the dollar. What a joke.
SPEAKER 08 :
So despite the trillions we’ve spent, literally trillions we’ve spent on green energy initiatives and all these things like Solyndra and this Mojave Desert solar plant that went belly up, and the money we’re pumping into all of these, like Stacey Abrams, you know,
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Green energy. It hasn’t changed. It is literally flat. Now, so my point is, if we’ve only been able to shave it by two-tenths of 1% in 70 years, who in their right mind thinks we can cut it by 100% in the next 25 years?
SPEAKER 11 :
It is one of these totally unrealistic… Yeah, but you put the qualifier there, in their right mind. In their right mind, yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. And there’s no amount of money… I don’t care how much – you cannot get there. You absolutely cannot get there. And I don’t care how many trillions of dollars you want to spend. We cannot ever get to zero fossil fuels in this country by 2050 or any other date because too much of what we wear and use in your computer screen, your shoes, your sneakers – Fossil fuels, plastics, fossil fuels.
SPEAKER 11 :
There are two lessons here, Joe. Number one, fossil fuels are necessary. Number two, the Democrats are going to have to start selling something besides crazy or they’re not going to win again. Jersey Joe, thanks for joining me today. Hey, folks, that’s it for today. Hour one replays next. And let’s see, Dr. Scott is on tomorrow. I’ll be back on Friday with Luke and Tanner. I’m going to have movie reviews. And in hour two, we’re going to be talking the best stand-up comics. Until then, drive safe, God bless, and thanks for joining us at Rush to Reason, KLZ 560.
