2.19.2025 – NLS – Government Spending, Greater Idaho & Congress Shakeups

On this episode with Neal and Julie, they dive into the complexities of government spending and the potential for money laundering within federal budgets, particularly in foreign aid allocations. They discuss how politicians navigate funding decisions and the political maneuvering behind major budget bills. Neal and Julie also touch on government job security, legislative delays, and the challenges of returning to "regular order" in Washington. They explore ongoing debates about immigration reform, public land policies, and economic shifts, including potential manufacturing growth in the U.S. The conversation also highlights the Greater Idaho movement and legislative efforts that could reshape state borders. With insights on upcoming budget battles, congressional priorities, and economic trends, Neal and Julie break down the issues shaping the political landscape. 

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Transcript

Good morning. It's 807 on Newstalk 1079. Welcome. On this Wednesday, middle of the week, we have a big day for you. Of course, we had Senator Crapo just earlier last hour. In about a half an hour. Representative Barbie Hart will join us from the Idaho Legislative session. And in one hour from now, Congressman Mike Simpson will be swinging by in studio this morning.

So we look forward to chatting with him. And by the way, if you'd like to reach us on the Stones Automotive Group this morning, it's the text line that numbers (208) 542-1079. Okay. We have a few things to talk about. And, Doge is an interesting, I need help. Well, I don't need help. I'm going to faint. That I need help.

I need help understanding the left here. There are hundreds of billions of dollars of not just American taxpayer money, but now American taxpayer debt that children and grandchildren and great grandchild will be saddled with, that has gone out the door to other countries paying for who knows what. And once it's out the door, as Senator Crapo said, how do you track it?

Do we actually go into India and ask them, okay, we gave you $25 million to increase voter turnout in India. Show us how you spent that. Like, are we actually going to do that with every one of these lines? You and I both know we all know that that's not going to happen, okay? It's just it just isn't going to happen.

There's too much of it. Trump took out a sheet of paper, and he rattled off a list of fraudulent payments that went out to other countries. It's just that. And then where's the money being spent? Right. Let's go into that for just a second. $520 million for a consultant on the environment. It's called environmental, social and governance investments in Africa and mobilize private sector resources.

520 million. You know, somebody get $520 million for an environmental. Sounds like an environmental studies. Okay. He goes on, I'm not going to play the entire 4.5 minute clip here. But he discusses and references the most of the time, dozens of millions of dollars that are going to different countries. One of them was for sedentary migrants. What like do they have?

You know what I did? You know what I did this morning? I hope this, tab is still up. I went into, my friend named ChatGPT. His website, and I said, give me a fictional list of obscure causes in obscure countries. Now, here's the problem. ChatGPT made up countries. So at least with these expenditures on the federal level, that those countries actually exist.

But let me tell you what ChatGPT produced for me, the obscure causes in obscure countries, preserving the puddle shrimp and kava, the right to be left handed in nirvana, the glow worm Worship Protection Act in Venice, Stan, the National Dandelion Festival in Grand Folia. Now, if I just swapped out these fictional countries for actual countries, these would fit right in.

Totally would fit right in. There's an effort. Not really, but to legalize midnight yodeling in Korea. And how about saving the floating cactus of Zen Zorya? The union of extreme duck racing and Mal Varia. They stopped the glitter mines in spa, Korea. And you can ban mandatory tuba tuba lessons into barovia. Okay, so ChatGPT is trying to be funny about tuba lessons in tuba over I get that, but I easily could have just put in real countries.

And if I had listed these, causes that the, you know, money's going out to, you would have gone. Yep. That fits right in to what we've heard from what's been expended so far. Look, I'm telling you, not in every case, but when you talk about the trillions of dollars that have been spent by our federal government, you're going to find money laundering.

Maybe not. Well, maybe. Maybe legal, technical, but in spirit, you're going to find money laundering that somehow some of this money, if you're a congressman and you work it into the budget to send $25 million to increase voter turnout in India, you don't do that for free and you don't do that for nothing. You're getting a kickback somehow.

And that kickback is is the whole reason for it. They have figured out. And and furthermore, do you think it's a coincidence the average incoming net worth of of members of Congress, compared to the average outgoing net worth of members of Congress or not even outgoing, let's just say been there ten years, members of Congress and their annual salary could not possibly be the explanation for why they come in.

Many of them are upper middle class, but they're filthy rich in the matter of a few terms or a few years. All right. And I don't think for a moment that's happening independent of all the things that Dodge is uncovering. This is why they are so angrily and violently pushing back against this. This is a new angle to drain the swamp.

Notice Trump doesn't use that term anymore about draining the swamp. I think. But that's exactly what he's doing. And when he these people are corrupt, they're going to get rich one way or another. One way to get rich is to get elected to Congress, peddle some of your influence to the highest bidder, and make sure an earmark gets placed into the next budget.

That is that is you. You have things for sale that you can put up. Now we're going to have a member of Congress here joining us in an hour. He would probably take issue with what I'm saying. Who knows, he might even be listening right now. But if he does, we would ask him that question. Then explain how Nancy Pelosi gets so freaking wealthy on a couple hundred thousand a year.

We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars. How does that happen? All right, so we we have we have that. We also have Luke Skywalker. Have you heard that he was at some British award show? So what makes us love cinema so much? We're all gathered here to celebrate tonight. Really? You have to understand, if you haven't seen the video.

So it doesn't matter what he's saying. All you got to know is that he's talking and he's pulling his pants up here in London or anywhere. Because his pants have fallen down and as of the start of the show, we have not received an explanation as to why Luke Skywalker's pants, were falling down or, during his little speech there.

All I know is that Star Wars theme needs an update.

Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground. I don't these people are not serious people. He looks completely sloshed. He. And maybe that was part of it. Maybe he was like Luke. I mean, his name's Mark, but I would imagine people call him Luke sometimes. Mark, you're on in four minutes or you're on in 30s.

And he panicked, and he grabbed the nearest pair of pants that, was in the dressing room and came out on stage, and he's, you know, the pants are too big, and so he has to has to hold them up. Anyway, if you haven't seen that video, it's kind of everywhere. But if you haven't seen it, you should go out and find it.

And, you, you would be rather entertained by it because he, he clearly is like reaching down and, pulling the pants up and, again, I, I don't know if we deserve an explanation. I don't even know if we want an explanation, but on some level, you want to know how does that happen? I mean, this is a highly controlled award show.

So how how did that happen? One last clip here. This is Stephen Miller. He was on with Brianna Keilar. Is that how you say your name? Kyler, on CNN. And I want you to listen to how obtuse she wants to make a point. And sometimes and maybe you, maybe you've been in a situation like this.

You're in an argument with your spouse or with a coworker, so you actually will sideline about 40 of your IQ points because you want to make a point. And so you literally make part of your intelligence stagnant to make the point. Look, either I'm not into cheap insults here. I don't think she's stupid, and I think she knows the answer as to how government works, but she acts like she doesn't, and Stephen Miller has to tell her.

So who is in charge of Doge? The president of the United States? He's the administrator of Doge. No, the Doge is the what was formerly US Digital Services is an agency of the federal government that reports into the office of the executive Office of the president, which reports to the president of the United States. Okay. The way that article two works is a president wins an election, and then he appoints staff, including myself, including Mike Wallace, including Susie Wiles, including Elon Musk.

And those staff report to him. Okay. Well aware. So Elon Musk a week ago, you weren't well aware. You just asked as though you didn't know. So you don't need to ask a question. Then when he gives you the answer, say, I already know that. So first of all, that was irritating. Answered a question about transparency of Doge.

This is how he spoke about Doge. Well, we actually are trying to be as transparent as possible. In fact, our actions we post our actions to the Doge handle, on X, and to the Doge website. So all of our actions, we are maximally transparent. You hear him there, we post our actions. All of our actions are maximally transparent.

Does Elon Musk know he's not in charge of Doge?

Okay, she doubles down on this, this question of who's in charge of Doge. And by the raise of hands, dear audience, how many of you work? Okay, I do like me. I know if I'd call this work, but you know what I'm saying? And in one context, you could say who's in charge of Newstalk 179? And the answer would be Neil Larson is I'm the program director for this Newstalk station.

But that doesn't mean I have ultimate authority. So in a different context, I would say the name of the general manager is. But then in yet a whole different context, I could say the name of the owner of the radio group that owns Newstalk 179 and Brianna here from CNN, in an effort to make a gotcha question for Stephen Miller, she has to sideline 40 of her IQ points.

She's probably around 110, maybe maybe 115 on a good day, but she sidelines a whole bunch of that and pretends like she can't understand Elon Musk saying, we're going to post our actions. Meaning what we've uncovered, what we're suggesting to the president, what we're he's not saying I've made this decision and nobody can question it in the same way.

I could come to this microphone and say, you know what? I've decided that Michael Coats whether can only be five seconds long instead of 15 seconds, the GM could override me. But if I'm making the day to day decisions, I'd be like, I, I don't, I don't want snow. So I need Michael to keep it short. Like, you see what I'm saying?

She doesn't seem to understand that point, that ultimately Donald Trump is going to have veto power, ultimate decision making power. But Trump doesn't have the time. And quite frankly, compared to Elon, maybe not the expertise to identify all of the inefficiency. Elon Musk knows how to do this. He knows how to building SpaceX and Tesla and PayPal and now running X, all of that.

He knows how to assemble a team, train the team, tell them what to look for, find the inefficiencies, find the fraud and root it out. That's exactly why Trump picked him. But the left is getting hung up on these semantic terms and arguing over, well, who's in charge? Don't. Meanwhile, they remain zealously uninterested in the fact that hundreds of billions, at best have been misspent.

We've been defrauded. They don't give a crap about these expenditures. They're hung up on the semantics of what Elon Musk's role is. It is. I've seen posts, again, if I if I had a different person, I have a personality, I'm like, okay, move on. I just move, roll right past it. But my head could explode over this.

When you have the left yawning, it's crickets over the fact that trillions of dollars have been misspent over the years, and they're upset that Donald Trump showed up at NASCAR in the beast. That's that's what's slighting their hair on fire. It's it's wild. It's 824 now on Newstalk 179. Time for a break. We are about 15 minutes away from Representative Barbie Hart, but I will start acting like that.

If you want me to. Welcome back. It's segment two here. It's a 24 hour conversation, as you already were. I was it though. All right. Julie, is this real or not? Did we spend money to fund the Swiss cheese hole size regulation effort in Switzerland? And we did not. Okay, how about saving the last typewriter factory in India?

Oh, he did not. How about an effort to ban Eiffel Tower selfies in France? That didn't happen either. Okay. You're right. Here's another one out of Scotland. An effort to ban fake Scottish accents in Edinburg. That was not really there. Although, it would not surprise me terribly if we did see something like this come up on.

They've been this ludicrous. So it's perfectly fine. It's perfectly fine. I can I address a text that you got during your monologue? You sure? Yeah. This person says, have you guys touched on the mass firings that went over? That went on over the weekend, and how the loss of a lot of these civil servants will impact us locally?

Look, this person has never texted before, okay? And I bet there are 100% genuine worried about somebody that got fired. I'm guessing at the initial. Yeah, I would be really careful with their wording. Mass firings? Yeah, I bet that is not accurate on either part. I don't think there was mass. When you consider the full amount of people that are employed at the idle.

Yeah, mass is a little. You better be talking hundreds. Yeah. If it's mass. Yeah okay. So I would, I would, I would be careful using the word mass. And I'm sure like I said I'm sure this person is super genuine and worried about somebody. I would also be careful with the word firings. Yeah. I would verify if some of those people voluntarily left, took the severance package or getting paid until October.

Yeah, I believe there's probably some people that go and, you know, in an effort to cut waste, but I would be careful pairing those two words together. Well, I, I would too. I also feel like and and again, we have no history with this person texting in. We don't know you know what context they're coming from. They did.

So thank you for all their good work, for all our good work. I think they're really being genuine, I really do. Someone says speaking directly at public land agencies, hundreds of them across the state, all of them terminated. Well, you have to understand is and Stephen Miller mentioned this, just because they've been terminated doesn't mean there's not going to be an avenue to rehire the needed positions.

Sometimes you just it's like when you clean out your closet, you take everything out of the closet because you need to vacuum and you need to wash the walls and wipe out the cobwebs. But you put some of the things that you need back, and then the stuff that needs to go to the dye or the dump. You take it to the dye or the dump.

Yeah, there probably have been a lot of look, if if this person would send us a link, I'd like to see what information you're drawing on. I actually think they're probably, referencing the the affiliate piece that ran in East Idaho News. Okay. About the lands workers that were were let go is what I'm. Yes. Okay. And that's that's fine.

I'd like them to send the link though if if they would. So we know what information they're drawing on. And I would ask the follow up, do you know that they're not going to be rehired? Stephen Miller talked about this in in his clip with Brianna. Kyler and and said the exact this exact same thing, right. Crisis and catastrophe for you and for CNN.

What the American people see is a government that is finally delivering a promise of accountability under President Trump. You want to have a conversation about transparency. Let me ask you a question. Do you have any idea where the $22 billion that the Department of Health and Human Services provided to illegal aliens under Joe Biden is right now 22 billion with the big.

That's enough to provide a free house to every homeless veteran in America. Where's the $22 billion? I don't know, you don't know. Nobody knows. Joe Biden just spent it and now it's gone. Transparency begins with having an accounting of where every federal dollars spent. And God bless President Trump for leading this effort. Stephen, it seems like the crisis here had to do with the nation's nuclear stockpile.

And for these particular federal workers, which which I'm not. So this isn't my personal crisis, military members. Well, I don't think it's a crisis would ask me about this. Well, this I don't think it's a crisis. And you don't think it's. Why are we talking about military? Yeah, she's calling it a crisis, so. But then she kind of is like.

Oh, because his point was, any kind of temporary disruption with the federal government is a crisis to the people at CNN. Yeah. Now, does it help their ratings if they reference it as a crisis, that if we have a government shutdown, they make it make you feel like everything's falling apart? Yeah. It does. They want to raise alarm levels around the news cycle because that keeps people emotionally invested.

I will say this now if if we have to change the way we clean up public lands at campgrounds, is that the end of the world? Well, and I think that there's probably far more layers than were addressed, because I would guess working on public lands in Idaho is a pretty great gig. Yes, if you're going to work for public lands, Idaho is a great place to be.

There's other places not so great. Yeah. And some of them might be have positions available in, say, New Mexico. Yeah, that's not going to be near as fun, but you have an option for another job. Yeah. And and when you work for the government, you have to accept responsibility that your job isn't always going to be exactly the same.

Yeah. You're working on budgets that are decided on. And like that is just part of the risk of working for the for the government. Yeah I agree other duties as assigned. You know you you might have to to pickups. I think this is the attitude I don't like the attitude. And it it specifically applies a lot to people who work in government jobs.

People believe nobody should ever lose a government job. Yeah, that oh, I agree, I think people absolutely believe that that they should never lose a government job. That's not reality. When budgets are decided on and and laws are changed and programs are altered and, and things come and go, the job is going to be at risk. Yeah.

It is all right. We're going to push back our news break because I believe Representative Barbie Hearts joining us from the Capitol this morning. Representative how are you. Hey guys I'm doing great. How are we doing? Good. Good. You're. The legislature is sizzling right now. There's a lot going on. There is a lot going on. I think we took a little too long to, get things rolling, and that that there's a whole reason for that.

A lot of new drafters, things got kind of tied up in the queue, but, yeah, we're we're moving and, definitely I'm, you know. Yes. We're it's wild right now. I looked at the week by week progress chart, Barb, just a couple of days ago. And this compared to previous legislative sessions, there was something like 651 bills that had been introduced that was significantly higher than the previous legislative session.

So it's it's a very, very busy scene there, isn't it? It's a very busy scene. And that doesn't mean, of course, obviously, you know, that they're all going to get I heard a number of mine have been double and even triple duplicated because of having to read some, but, yeah, it's nonetheless especially some of our new people running personal bills.

And it's like, I want to put a kind of want to put a stop to that. It kind of bog things down. But yes, we've got a lot of things going, a lot of things, hitting the floor. And yeah, we are rolling right now. Let let's hit on one. You were involved with this week. You were on Fox and Friends a couple of mornings ago talking about the Greater Idaho movement.

And with the current Trump administration, that seems to be getting a little bit of new life. Talk about what what you how you've been involved with that? Well, I was involved here in the beginning when they first reached out to the end of 2020. And as I stepped into my first chairmanship in 2021, I mean, it just resonated with me.

And my whole thing was, why wouldn't we want to have those conversations with our neighbors who, you know, where we we'd be looking at land and timber and minerals and water and, and, you know, like minded people. And why wouldn't we want to have that conversation, especially this fast. And it's quick, these ideas growing. And so basically with Senator Vicky, like, you know, the opposite committee to mine, we invited them over to have a hearing and, you know, to be heard.

And I believe at that point we gave them legitimacy, unlike all the many movements throughout the United States. And so that's why I've been on Fox and Friends and CBS and NBC and, you know, all the news places helping to talk about this because it resonates with me. And, you know, as a people, if you, you know, we have every right to seek redress from our government and their government, meaning their Oregon state legislature has not been receptive.

As a matter of fact, they've done many things that will harm the ranchers and farmers and literally put them out of business. And so why not seek redress with us? But it's an interesting it's an interesting movement. It actually has a lot of support. Of course, Washington and California want to be part of it, the Greater Idaho movement.

And we've just had to say one thing at a time. Oregon's been going about it systematically, county by county, but now they've got it's actually in Oregon's legislative body right now. It's this topic in its various forms is in a couple of committees is being addressed, and people have started to, I guess you would say, take it a little more seriously.

We Idaho, we can only do so much. We've shown our support. You know, if we move forward this year, there's going to be support on both the House and the Senate. And I think we're going to wait till next year because they needed to do some things. And yes, you know, I was quoted a few weeks, maybe a month or so back with, the or Greater Idaho movement as they had petitioned President Trump and they wanted to, quote, was wanted for me.

And, and I said, you know, let's use a little of the left's language. Let's reimagine the borders. So but, yeah. So we'll just see what happens. It's a conversation to everyone out there, you know, concerned. It's a conversation worth having. All right. Let's chat about fairness and women's sports. Love it or hate it, it is always going to be a topic with you, Barb, and I think you should be.

So proud about that. But the NCAA came out with their guidelines, talking about men participating in women's sports. This all based on the EO the President Trump signed. It's pretty soft language. The language? Yeah. The language references what the the birth certificate reads. Well, in more than 40 states, your birth certificate can be altered. So why don't you give us your opinion on what the NCAA did?

Well, it didn't take long for us to recognize. I mean, literally the next day, Eileen, I don't even know if I should say I was stunned, but the the language is the language is terrible. And it was very apparent to me that this was pre-prepared. There's no way they had that prepared. 24 hours later, after making their statement, their statement in regards to what they needed to do was spot on.

So I've been reaching out to our, congressmen and senators today. I'm actually meeting with Senator Risch, and I've got a colleague of mine from icons joining. We're going to make sure, since he's really pushing the resolution, you know, the language in the Senate that he understands, it's Senator Ridge, Senator, people, Senator Marsha Blackburn are all key figures on this.

So we're going to have an opportunity to really lay out, you know, what's happening. And at some point, we're going to have to push back on the NCAA. This is absolutely 100% unacceptable. They're using transgender language. I mean, listen, we don't have to we don't have to do anything but affirm that sports are for women only. I mean, it's pretty simple.

Just affirm title nine, affirm that we're talking about one's biological sex. Girls and and women are to be in women's sports, period. All this other stuff is just garbage. You take out one word and you've got an ACLU masterpiece. So yeah. Yeah, somebody was very clever when they did that. Barb, let's shift to education and parental choice for just a moment.

Wendy's bill. And there are other sponsors as well. But it it did pass the house last week. It's kind of over sitting in the Senate waiting to to be taken up. But I wanted to ask something specifically because, representative Ray bold, she wrote a piece that was in the Post Register in the Idaho State Journal. She cited an instance where, a young person who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints applied to a Christian school in Boise and was denied.

And it was presumed it's because they were of the wrong faith. I don't know if that's true. Another group against school choice sent out a letter purported from the mother. But what's missing is the name of the mother, the name of the school, the. Any details that would make this verifiable ball in during this debate. Was that ever identified?

Was this an actual, instance that happened because Julie and I are starting to get a little bit suspicious. Senator Rubio brought that up on the floor, but nothing specific was at least, you know, to us revealed. And I you know, I almost say it's all of this stuff. This noise is kind of like doge. Everybody's just purposely misrepresenting and misdirecting.

Instead of recognizing, hey, look what's been uncovered. And, you know, I had posted the fact that Trump had said this on, on my site. And of course, they have, one teacher in particular just wants to engage. And, and, you know, they're using the talking points and pretty much what I'm saying right now, guys, I this is almost guaranteed to pass is going to come off the Senate floor.

I don't know how it cannot you know, gosh, President Trump President little they've spoken and I see this is our path forward. You know Senator Lynch didn't get any traction. And there's really not another one that's going to that's out there. So I it's going to be this is $50 million, guys. I owe it to anyone out there in the Idaho stratosphere.

That's a minimal drop in the bucket. It's going to give us a chance to see what, maybe some of our roadblocks are things that worked. Maybe things that didn't. So we can continue to make it good for Idaho. And everybody keeps addressing private schools, and I say, stop this. Micro schools, things you're going to do at home.

You know, private schools. I don't even know. I have no idea if he's going to try to send somebody to a private school. That is a misdirection tactic. And for those because this is also set for those who are poor first, they're not going to be able to go to private schools, but they can sure get this money.

They can do some micro schools and, you know, be be connected. We're going to be surprised at how quickly people are going to have the networks. It'll probably be initially through homeschoolers and, and and not that homeschoolers are going to use it, but they're going to have networks of people who may be interested. So I, you know, I, I'm, I'm just not worried.

It's time everybody else's is is doing that. That's granted that's not a good reason. But the other red states are doing it successfully and it's just time. So for Idaho's start, Barb, I know that the governor he helped voice a spot for the Idaho Education Association. It was very benign. You know, I had a great teacher growing up kind of spot.

But the IEA we know is very opposed to this. Do you are you a little worried the governor may not sign this bill or is he already said that he will? No, I don't think he said that he will. But I'm actually really not worried. Depends depending what happens in, in the Senate. And I think the vote, you know, if you kind of reverse the most recent vote, I think that's the kind of support, maybe not with all the Democrats, but I think you're going to think you're going to have strong support.

I think it may be veto proof, but I don't really think that we're going to have to worry about that with, you know, governor, I, I really believe he's going to sign it. Okay. How long do you think it's going to be held up in the Senate before they move forward with it? I don't know, I, I really kind of doubt it's going to be held up long, though, because the longer it's up there, the more talk there is.

You know, I mean, I mean, it just it makes it makes it an uncomfortable for everybody. So you know, we'll we'll see. But I, I just don't think it'll be long. All right. Representative Barbie Harte has been our guest this morning. Representative, thank you so much for all of your work on on legislation and the effort you put forward.

And we appreciate your time this morning. And thank you guys very much. Stay tuned. A lot of my stuff's coming out now, including today with the Media Shield law. So okay. Help all of you who report. All right. We're watching. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Barb. 847 Barb. Thank you. Hey, thank you guys. And, yeah, it's. Yeah. Stay tuned.

I've got a lot of my stuff truly coming out to today and tomorrow and Friday. So good. We'll have you back on in a couple of weeks as that goes through committee. And then we'll go back over those things. Yeah. As as the cities explode. Yes. Let's do that because Sydney Vital Files is fired up mad woo. Let's do it.

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Well you get great cuts of meat and new friends. And the friends are free. Yeah. But don't refer to them as cuts of meat. No don't. That's that's not respectful at all. All right. We'll be back. It's 852. We'll wrap up this hour just ahead and in about 15 minutes. Congressman Mike Simpson joining us live in studio this morning on Newstalk 1079.

All right. It's 857 on Newstalk 1079. Here's what I'm going to advise our audience, Julie, if they have a question for Congressman Mike Simpson, send it to us via text (208) 542-1079. That's the Stones Automotive Group call and text line. And, we like to do it this way. That way we can combine questions and, and so, yes, send them to us and we'll ask him, obviously we're going to have questions about Dodge, about the Trump administration, about the new Republican majority in Washington.

We've also got an upcoming budget. So we'll ask him about that. And as a reminder to the audience, we will be on Facebook Live. So that begins about 905, next hour. Yeah. All right. We have a minute left. What else you want to talk about? I there's not enough time, really, to dive into Scott Jennings and I love how he just sort of puts it into perspective.

There are 45,000 FAA employees. And the media's coming unglued because 400 of them were let go. Yeah. And none of them were air traffic controllers by the way. That's classified. None were air traffic controllers. It was people in office positions. That's less than 1%. All right. We'll be back. It's 859 and we're back for our to on Newstalk 1079, Neil Larsen and Julie Mason.

And we're pleased to be joined in studio this morning by our congressman, Congressman Mike Simpson. How are you? Good. It's good to be with you. Well, it's good to have you here. So is the House in recess right now that the house is this is traditionally the the week off for Lincoln today er for Presidents Day. Okay. And in every state, everywhere there are, you know, multiple banquets and breakfast lunches for, celebrating Presidents Day and the House kept their schedule.

But the Senate is so busy, I've never seen the Senate as busy as they are with confirmation hearings and all that kind of stuff. They felt they had to stay in session to get some of these confirmations done. You know, the last few weeks when we have interviewed Senator Crapo and Senator Risch, you would think that they've been taking too many anti-depressant drugs because they're just on the air on cloud nine right now.

Yeah, they are. And, I would imagine you're sharing some of that, that joy having a Republican majority. It's nice having the Republican majority. It's not as big as we would like. We have a one seat majority. Yeah. Until, the special elections replace, Waltz from Florida. And, and, Matt Gates from Florida. And what's your name?

Stefanik. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So we yeah, we so we're going to have three special elections, but up until those occur, we're just going to have a one vote majority, which means it makes everybody king for a day. Yeah. That's true. You can any member can go in and say, hey, if I don't get this, I'm not going to vote for it.

Yeah. And that's tough for, Speaker Johnson to, to, govern that way. But he's doing a great job. I heard in the Stefanik race that Democrats in New York were playing some shenanigans to try and delay getting that seat filled by by a Republican. Well, you know, Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader. Yes, yes, from New York and from what I understand.

And this second hand, but from what I understand, he was talking with the governor and stuff about delaying that or putting that election off, so that they would have we would have less of a majority until that election was, was held. Okay. And maybe put it off for 3 or 4 months, I don't know. But that that kind of fell through.

Yeah. And that's a seat we should keep. Yeah. You always wonder about New York seats, but there are a few of them that are that are pretty solid Republican. And that's one of them. So maybe speaking, you know, a lot of Democrats, you would think that they would learn that it's shenanigans like that that have deteriorated their brand.

That led to some big losses in the last election. Absolutely. And it is one of the things that has just puzzled me is you're absolutely right. They don't seem to have learned anything from the election. Yeah. And, what the American people want, and they protest everything. I mean, how can you protest taking illegal immigrants, criminal immigrants and deporting them when we had some people say as many 20 as 20 million, come across the border.

Yeah. During the previous four years. Yeah. And isn't that what Trump said he was going to do during the campaign? And isn't that what people voted for? Yeah. So I find it. They're trying to find a brand. Frankly, they don't know what their brand is because they lost in every category of of, that. You want to look at it whether from what they had had before with women, with men, with college educated, with Non-College-Educated.

Yeah, Hispanics, with, African-Americans that they lost. They lost, the majority that, the Democrats once had and stuff. So they're really searching for, how to deal with this, frankly. Yeah. You you've got an upcoming budget bill that will happen in March time, hopefully. Yeah. I think that one of the things that our listeners have had concerns with is that we know this budget bill is supposed to be crafted and happening, but all of a sudden, this massive bill drops two days before you're expected to vote on it.

Can you explain to our listeners why is that the way Washington does this? And can Mike Johnson, can Speaker Johnson change that and and make sure that this bill gets read through more extensively before votes happen? Yeah. He can and you know it. I guess maybe it doesn't bother me as much because I'm on the appropriations Committee, so I pretty much know where in the bills, you know, but it it's not fair to other members that don't have a chance to read him.

And, the, the way Congress is supposed to work is we're supposed to, do a budget. The president is supposed to submit his recommendation by February 14th and 15th or 15th. And then, we hold hearings on that and everything else, and we write these bills, we take them to the floor one at a time, and it's under an open rule.

So anybody can offer an amendment when it passes the House, the Senate does the same thing on their side. Then we conference the two and then we bring them back as individual bills. The last time that happened was 1994. Since then we've been wow, we've because we don't seem to to do our work and or get it done.

For a number of years, Harry Reid refused to even do a budget. And that was problematic, obviously. So we kind of had to pick a number out of the air. And, Johnson is committed to getting us back to normal, to back to what we call regular order. How it should work. Yeah. It's difficult when he's thrown in the middle of this and has to deal with what he's with, what has gone on before.

Well, he's doing a great job, I think, in trying to get us in that direction, I would say you talk about regular order, but when regular is 31 years in the past, that's a difficult thing to return to, right? Well, you think about it. There's not very many people of Congress, including me. Yeah, that have seen it work as it's supposed to work.

Yeah, a lot of newer members come in and they think the regular order is doing a con, not getting them done, doing a, continuing continuing resolution, that that's the way it always works. It's not supposed to, but but that's what we're trying to change. That was back when Nancy Pelosi was 70. That was a while ago. Wasn't that where the eyebrows were?

Right. Exactly. But it, it is it is, I like that I made your staff laugh. That's great. But, you know, it's it's interesting and it it is changing things. And some people are upset about that. They like the way it goes. So Congressman, I want to ask you a question. And I ask this of Senator Crapo.

And it's going to maybe sound like it's a it's a personal attack. It's not it's more about process. Yeah. But when we look at Dogecoin, what Elon Musk has been uncovering with you. Yeah. At the president's behest. And we're finding massive amounts of waste, fraud and abuse. You swim upstream from that. It all starts in the appropriations process in the House of Representatives.

Yep. And you always talk about sitting on that committee. That's where all of this begins. And that's where that money is appropriated. So without holding you personally accountable, what the heck is wrong with the process that we end up sending millions, hundreds of millions of dollars for ridiculous purposes overseas that have nothing to do with the benefit of the American people?

And I could go on about expenditure here in the country. I do you hold some responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen? I mean, it is the headwaters of this problem. Let me tell you what the challenges we don't appropriate money to go to DEA funding for something in Mozambique or whatever. Whatever they they found in there, we don't appropriate money for that.

Those are decisions that are made by the, agencies. And when we ask for information about how this is, believe me, it's not listed as we spent $7 million in Ghana for something, you know. Yeah, it's never listed. I say we don't get the full information, but it gets back to the process again. And that is right now we're trying to finish our appropriation bills from last year because they haven't given us the floor time to actually do them.

Senate hasn't done any. We've marked up all of ours in in full committee and had five of them passed the floor. But if we're doing that right now, then we're working on what's going to happen with, with, the budget resolution and reconciliation and stuff. I'm going to start holding hearings on our budget with three days of tribal hearings, starting next week.

But we don't we can't even have the agencies come up and talk to us right now because they're not in place. Yeah. So we don't have time. And I'm supposed to have a bill out by May. Yeah. And that it is. And I've talked to Speaker Johnson about this is that if you want to get, if you want to get back to regular order and you want to do these bills one at a time, and you want us to do the oversight hearings that we should, and do in most cases.

Yeah. If you want to get back to that, you got to create enough time on the floor for us to, to bring these bills down, these appropriation bills, because they they take a long time to pass if you're letting anybody off for an amendment to them. And, we seem to have gotten in this habit of, that more people, more of our members think that it's important that they be home rather than they be in Washington doing their job.

And so consequently, we're there for two weeks, then we're off for a week, then we're there for two days or for two weeks or something like that. And then we're off for a week, or even when they say, we're going to work for three weeks in a row, but we're going to give you Friday off.

That just shortens the time that I can hold hearings. So it's the it's the process we've created. Unfortunately, that has led to a lot of this that doesn't give us the ability to, to, dig in to some of these things. Right now, we're trying to dig into what some of the, the, President Trump's executive orders mean and stuff and how that's going to impact and that kind of stuff.

I just want to know, yeah, we can find anybody, talk to you. So, I mean, yeah, that's the we've got it. We've got to change the way we do things. Well, I'll just follow that with a very simple question. Are you supportive of all that DOJ's doing and the transparency that's being brought? And will that make this process better.

Because people are going to start second guessing movements that they make, because it's going to be so transparent for Americans? I think it's, one of the best things come along in a long time. They're probably they'll probably make recommendations that I disagree with, but the goal is to reduce the size of government, reduce, the tax burden on the American people and make it more efficient.

And that's what people voted for. Anybody thought we were going to reduce the size of government, and that there were not going to be any layoffs. I wasn't thinking very clearly. Yeah, obviously there is. And one of the reasons that's driving I think this, as an example, this hiring freeze and the fact they did firings of probationary people, which are usually people that are just working for a year or just come on last year, so like that, I think one of the things that drove the executive order is that before the Biden administration left office, they sent billions of dollars out, out to be spent in different areas and that kind of stuff,

green new deals, things and DIY stuff and all that. But they sent those billions out hoping they would be dedicated, because then we can't call them that. Come back once they've, once they've been, dedicated to funding. Yeah. So that's the and we're going to pull back a lot of those funds and stuff. I think what they're doing is good.

It is disruptive. Certainly. There are people that are understandably concerned and all that kind of stuff. But in the end, I think it's what I said from the beginning. I don't mind outside eyes looking at what we do. I think it's a good idea. And obviously Musk has his own way of doing things. What do you do?

When he took over, it actually fired 80% of the employees, and they said it would fall. It would fall. It didn't. Yeah. So there's things that we can do and we know we can do them better. I've talked to people on the Appropriations Committee, the Defense Appropriations Committee that I don't sit on, but I've talked to them because that's half our discretionary budget.

Yeah. And I said, you know, you can't tell me that, $850 billion budget for the defense. And remember, 60% of that is personnel costs. But that you can't find any waste there or anything with any of the contracts or anything like that. And one of them was really honest to pieces. I think if we had if they give us the time, we should go ahead and say $40 billion tomorrow.

Wow. Well, and you know, you look at that. We were talking about the Defense Department. I think, Secretary Heck, Seth was asked this question about is what he welcome dodged. Come in. And he answered very, very diplomatically. We all love the military, but that doesn't mean we think that we they should get a pass on being accountable to the taxpayer.

That's right. And they've never passed an audit. They haven't. And it's been a long time. Yeah. It's really bizarre. Yeah it is. And like I said that's 50% of our discretionary budget. Yeah. If you take that the VA and homeland Security has 70% of the discretionary budget. So everything else that's out there, it's not a large part of the budget, but it's still something you got to control.

So, Congressman, an hour ago, I was doing my monologue for the show, and I told my audience I was going to ask you this question. Julian, I have talked about this many times where you look at the net worth of some members of Congress, and I don't know what yours is. Again, this is a generic question, not a personal one.

They come in, most of them are upper middle class. But when you look at people like Nancy Pelosi, whose work now worth hundreds of million dollars or something like that, how do they get to that level of wealth on a couple hundred thousand dollars a year like that? Not even that much. It right. Hundred and 74 is when I came in, it was one that's where your leadership gets a little more right like his leadership does.

Yeah. So but how do they get to those stratospheric levels of wealth on an upper middle class salary that they're earning in. And in DC? It's probably just middle class at that. At that rate. Yep. Are there eyes on it? Well, yeah. I mean, there's been proposals and to, stop, members of Congress from trading in stock and that kind of stuff.

You know, it would be somebody told me one time that, that these they'll hold a hearing on something which will influence the market or whatever, but members know about that. And so they, they get rich off stock trading with information they get from here. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. I'm not smart enough to figure out whether it would be helpful or, or hurtful to my account if I did anything like that.

In fact, I have no idea. So I said, well, what if you vote on a bill that, affects, say, chip manufacturers and micron and you've got stock in micron? Yeah. Said well, I don't know if I've got stock in mica. I don't know anything that I've got stock in. Yeah. So it's, it is but it is, it is curious.

I've wondered how Harry Reid, became so wealthy when he was in the Senate forever. And, so Trump talks a lot about kickbacks, like he's convinced that when massive amounts of money go for foreign aid, some of that money is making its way back into the accounts of members of Congress. And my most jaded take is it's a money laundering scheme.

Now, I knew you'd probably take issue with it. And I can tell by the expression in this first time I've heard this, okay, you've never heard of. I've never heard that it was, I've, I've heard of the, bribery and stuff, but I've never heard that it came back to members of Congress or anything. I don't know how you do that, but, if it's done, that's criminal act.

Well, this at least some distance, probably to family members or. Yeah, organizations or whatever. We're just saying we're sort of putting pieces together that members of Congress get incredibly wealthy. They also have a big voice in where billions and billions of dollars go. Yeah. Is there a connection? I don't think so, but I can only I hope you're right.

I can only look at it. But you you can answer that I know well and and myself. And so you can understand why the American public, who's been stabbed in the back would think that. Yeah, absolutely. That I saw a show the other day where they, had a part on it where it was, how two members, how two members of Congress get rich, you know?

Yeah. Part of what I've accumulated over the years, most of it is from my days practicing ministry and stuff and, the retirement funds we had there and the fact that my wife worked till she was 52. Yeah. So, you know. Sure. Everybody is cases different, but yeah, that's an interesting point to be brought up. And, if there's any if Trump has any evidence of it or any, he can lead us in the direction of that.

I think that's one of the things you got to do is you got to make people respect Congress again, that we're trying to do the right job, even if you disagree with us. Yeah. All right. Well, it's 924. We're going to take a break. We'll come back. We'll have another segment with you. Congressman Mike Simpson joining us this morning.

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Shop anywhere else Denning's your locally owned appliance store. Join me, Guy Benson every weeknight 8 to 11 only on Newstalk 179. All right. Coming up on 930. On Newstalk 179, we have Congressman Mike Simpson for a few short minutes here. Congressman, one question I wanted to ask about the Doge thing. We've had a little bit of anxiety in our text feed this morning because there are some local, federal lands employees that, may be affected by this.

What would you say to the to the locals who might be worried, even though they might support Trump and they support this effort to reduce the size of government? They may be personally affected adversely. What would you say to them? Not to be too worried yet. I know some of them actually got their pink slips and stuff.

This isn't necessarily the way that I would do it. Yeah, I think he ought to go in instead of just saying we're going to have it like an interior. 2300. Yeah, I'm layoffs over the over the country. A lot of those would be in Idaho and stuff. And the western states. I think you got to go in and look at the job and say, do we need to do this job?

And do we need for people to do it and reduce employees that way? But Trump, I got to tell you, in all honesty, when he went out and said, you know, if you voluntarily retire, pay it through September. Yeah, pretty good deal. That's how private sector does. Yeah. Yeah it is. In fact, I've got a very good friend who has taken the deal.

So yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I think that was a smart move on his part. I'm not too upset yet because I don't know too much about the impacts of some of these layoffs. And and some of them are more when you start talking about interior and BLM and the Forest Service and the Park Service and a few of those things.

I'm a little more sensitive to those that I might be to some other agencies that I don't deal with a lot, you know? So, yeah. But I've got a meeting, I think, next week with, Secretary Berger, and I don't know him. Yeah. I never met him personally. I, but I'm kind of excited that I think he's, a really good choice, for Secretary of interior, but.

And then hopefully we'll be able to talk about some of these things and the impacts and that's what we'll that's what we'll be asking when we hold hearings for our Appropriations Committee. All right. Let's talk about immigration reform and the potential to secure some of these immigrant workers who are helping us with agriculture. You have some ideas about how there can be some change there that can help, you know, immigrants here working in Idaho, but also across the nation.

Yeah. Well, there's a lot of things that need to be done, to reform the immigration system. We've had a bill called the ag immigration modernization Workforce. What it really is, is, reforming the H-2a program, the H-2a, visa program for workers that come in, first of all, is cumbersome. And and I, you know, unless you really needed those workers, I don't know why you'd ever go there, but to find if you want to hire an H-2a person, you have to, that job has to be available to Americans first.

And you have to advertise that and try to fill it with Americans. You can't. Then you can do the H-2a visa part. Some people will say, well, by legalizing these people that are the the workforce out there, that you're giving them amnesty and that they're taking away jobs from Americans. The reality is these are jobs that Americans won't do.

They can't fill up, in the dairy industry, they had like 4000 openings across the country. And, they tried to fill them with Americans. Four of them were filled. So, they do us a service. And when you look at the, farm workers that are here, yeah, a lot of them came and there was and they came, illegally.

But they've worked here for like ten, 20 years in agriculture. We need them, depending on what you're willing to pay for, for a gallon of milk. You know, a lot of our industrial with old without, without these, farm workers. So what we do in our bill is we said, listen, if you've been here for a certain long time, you've been working, working in agriculture.

You got to come out of the woodwork. You gotta. We make sure we've that you've paid your taxes, that you have a criminal background check, and there's a fine for coming here illegally. In that case, then you get a permanent green card, which means that if your mother in Mexico or Guatemala, whatever happens today, you can go home to her funeral and come back and still work.

So they get that green card, they can, obtain citizenship down the road if they want to. But they have to meet certain standards and have to work there for I think somebody told me that it would be 18 years before somebody could actually apply for citizenship, but if they apply, they don't get to go to the front of the line to go to the back of the line, just like they would, any other person to join it.

So, Congressman, last couple of questions here because we're getting close on our time. And this is controversial. You've spent a lot of political capital on this issue, but I just thought of this, and I didn't want you to get away without addressing the issue. In the past, you've been supportive of breaching the four lower snake River dams.

But given the current climate in Washington, now that that appears like it's a distant does, it was a distant possibility anyway. But I don't think that the Trump administration would go with that. The Republican majority in the Senate. Is that something you're still pursuing and looking at, or are you recognizing maybe now's not the time? The question is interesting that I'm in favor of reaching dams.

That's not the goal. The goal is to save Idaho salmon run and keep Idaho water for Idaho. And sure, that's the goal. Yeah. Now, how do you go about that? We looked at everything we could to try to find a way. The only thing and every fish biologist in the world will tell you is, is you got a resource for that?

Yeah. So we put that out. There's a concept to start a debate. It started there was a lawsuit that was between the tribes and, and, the Army Corps that was just settled. Yeah, that prescribed some stuff, that they have to do and see how that affects, affects salmon runs and, and so forth. But what really bothers me is that we said nearly half a billion or half a million acre feet of water out of southern Idaho, out of my district, down the snake River.

Why? To flush smolts over dams in state of Washington. Yeah. Why are we doing that? We have water shortages right now. We're going to have a big fight between the mid snake and the upper snake if we don't get some more snow here. Yeah. So why are we sending all that water out of state? And it's not working to do that.

Working to save those salmon. Sure. But but do you think that's an argument that's going to be taken up by the current climate in Washington? It's a it's a it's an argument that you've got to keep making if you think it's the right thing to do. Gotcha. Now, if somebody comes up with a better plan, every time I give a speech on this, I say, if you got a better plan of how to save these salmon, something we haven't tried or whatever, or so that we can keep our water and Idaho and stuff.

Let me know. So far, nobody's come up with one. Yeah, so it is a challenge. But I will tell you, you need to have that debate now, because once a species goes extinct, it's extinct, you know. And what we ought to be looking at is what do we want the Pacific Northwest to be 25 years from now?

Because the decisions we make now are going to make that determination. So we got to think it through. And I like I say, it's, it is an issue that still needs to be talked about. And I'm sure that there's more people that if we get in the water more here, more people are going to be asking why we're doing this.

All right. Well, Congressman, we really appreciate your time today. Any I mean, you do doing any town halls, anything that we want to share with our audience. I in district give a speech today at, to the Rotary Club at noon. Oh, good. And then we go over to Boise, and we do a few things over there, and, then I got to come back.

We got the admiral in charge of, naval reactors and some of the staff from the Appropriations Committee coming out to tour the the, naval reactors. Yeah, that's the site. So I'll be doing that on Friday. And then Saturday morning I fly back to the the snowy winter DC that you guys are experiencing. Yeah. Really cold. All right.

Congressman Mike Simpson, thank you so much. Thank you. You bet. All right. 938 on Newstalk 179 live. Okay. Stimulating talk for East Idaho, the Neil Larson Show on Newstalk 179. Time to get you updated on Newstalk 179. Good morning, I'm Maggie Tolleson. Here are your morning headlines in Idaho's legislator news. A new bill could amend Idaho's indecent exposure law.

Current law defines indecent exposure as showing genitals in any public place. It's a misdemeanor on the first offense and a felony on the second offense within five years. The new bill, introduced in the House State Affairs Committee, would add to the law. It would make it a misdemeanor to show the following in the public places developed female breasts, not including those of someone breastfeeding a child.

Adult male breasts that have been medically hormonally are altered to appear like female breasts. Any artificial breasts, or any toys or products intended to resemble male or female genitals. The committee is now looking to schedule a hearing at a later date. Governor Brad Little signed an executive order to support President Trump's immigration policies. Leaders from both the House and Senate, along with other law enforcement agencies, joined the governor as he signed the Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Act.

The act orders Idaho agencies such as the Idaho State Police and the Department of Corrections to cooperate with federal agencies dealing with immigration and border issues. The order doesn't make any significant policy changes, but rather reaffirms Idaho's commitment to following the federal laws and policies laid out by President Trump. A Snowmobiler is recovering in the hospital after crashing in the backcountry near West Yellowstone.

The Wasilla Stone Police Department received a call on Sunday about a snowmobiler that had a back injury. Rescuers were able to provide critical care at the scene of the crash and transported the snowmobiler to. In the local news eight newsroom. I'm Maggie Tollefson. Your first alert weather is next. Michael Koch from local news eight. We got another storm rolling in here for our Wednesday afternoon, with a few inches possible across the snake River plain of new accumulation.

A high of 34 this afternoon. Low of 29 tonight. The scattered snow will continue into Thursday with temperatures still into the mid 30s for highs. ABC News I'm Sherri Preston. After widespread flooding in parts of Kentucky, the state is now cleaning up from snow and ice and, says Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, if the snow wasn't tough enough. It's cold right now.

It's going to get dangerously cold tonight and into tomorrow. 14 people were killed in Kentucky during the flooding. That same polar vortex bringing Arctic temperatures to parts of the Upper Midwest and Great Plains. A key discovery for investigators looking into this Drano plane flipping this week. The black boxes have now been recovered. That's going to give investigators some key information there.

But without a doubt, the fact that you can actually talk to these pilots because they also survived. That's going to be key as well, because they'll be able to tell investigators what they felt inside that plane. ABC's gio benitez in Toronto. President Trump calling Ukrainian President Zelensky a dictator on social media and saying Ukraine is to blame for the Russian invasion.

Zelensky says Trump is living in a Russian disinformation space. This is ABC news. On the next mark Lee VanCamp and Robin Cho. Are we getting close to being tired of winning? Never, ever, ever, ever will I be. Mark Lee, VanCamp and Robbins weekdays 10 to 1 on news Talk 179. For years we've talked about education, freedom, about empowering parents, about giving students real choices for their future.

We're fighting for school choice, which really is the civil rights of all time in this country. Now we are closer than ever. This issue in front of the left. Hi Facebook. Sorry, we're just snapping a picture and saying goodbye to Congressman Simpson. So.

Okay. How y'all doing? How y'all doing? If anyone's on TikTok, they know that, sound. How y'all doing? Hi. You know what Tik Tok needs to fix? You know that thing at the end? Yeah. It is always so much louder than the actual audio. Yeah, I don't mind that they've branded it. Just bring the noise down a little.

Bring it down about ten decibels in it. Yeah. Be way better. Yeah. We got a lot of text stirring conversations. Oh, yes, we did. And I'm like, I hope his staffers weren't reading everyone. Oh, there were some. Not nice. Did you have yours up? I had my number. He was probably seeing us. Yeah. It's. It's okay. You know what?

They see emails and take your calls. So his staff is great. Yeah, they really are really great. Yeah, and really good to work with. So did you see me working the layering on the on the. Oh, I wasn't paying attention. Yeah. It's good. Okay. What are the chances the story about the Mormon kid not getting in is a small edited story.

I'm going to say 70%. I feel the same. 944 A Newstalk 179 it's Neil Larson, along with Julie Mason. Oh, a lot of moving parts. Julie from Donald Trump and Doge and illegal immigration. And Donald Trump teased some big announcements coming. It sounds like maybe automotive manufacturing coming to the United States soon and microchips and lots of stuff.

So we got some good economic news, hopefully on the way off if it lives up to President Trump's hype. You got a lot of legislative stuff happening too. And I do want to thank Congressman Simpson and his staff for coming in. They know that we're we're sort of different perspectives when it comes to conservatism. And and they know they're they're gonna get some, you know, less than friendly questions.

And our listeners, of course, have shared their frustrations with Congress. But he's still good to come in and take the questions. And I, I deeply respect that. Yeah, I respect it too. And I appreciate that. He has beliefs about certain, issues. And he hasn't really altered those beliefs. I remember the first time we talked to him about dams.

He said exactly the same thing that he just said now, which is, if you've got a better idea, help me find one, because the end goal needs there needs to be change for the end goal. So I even if we don't agree with the dams, he he hasn't yet altered on that at all. Yeah. Well and I think it's also a good example of how we, we all frame things favorably to our side.

Because in my mind you're wiping out for lower snake River dams which has implications for power generation, for the local economies, for the farming for in especially in that area. And he's looking at it. It's not a dam breaching effort. It's a salmon saving effort. It's a way to save the salmon. And by the way, they're added benefits of keeping more water upstream into the you know so he he's making his case.

We make our case and and I think that that's fine to fine to do that. But it's such an interesting layered problem too because he's mentioning the dams and salmon and everything, but layered right into the middle of that casserole is the water problem in East Idaho. Yeah. And there's implications both positive and negative versus his plan versus what we're talking about.

So man it's multifaceted. Yeah, it really is. And and it is complicated. I will say right now the dam breaching potential is only slightly better than the greater Idaho potential. Like I, I think there they're long shots. They are years and years and years down the road if they ever happen. Yeah. At all. Yes I would agree with that.

Probably the most, shocking part of the interview. Just because a lot of the answers that, you know, we're used to and aware and everything. When asked about the, budget reconciliation and the plan that needs to be put together by the middle of March. Oh, yeah. They haven't even started working on it yet, and it hasn't been done correctly.

Did he say 1994? Yeah. 90 for the last time at work correctly was 94. Wow. That wow wow is right. Julie. Hey, I have a child. That old is like, come on. Yeah. How are we in this place? How is it been broken that long? All my five children were born after that. Like it's been a long time.

Wow. Cool. You got to go way back. Yeah. Yeah. We were, what, three years out of high school at that point? Yeah, we were to the point where that's not even. They call it regular order. But is it regular now? Like, it's been so long? Yeah. I don't know what regular is. It got to go back to, to the way it was because it made more sense to do it like that.

But but he's not wrong. I think it's just another layer of brokenness in Washington. You know what? And your point about that was, was spot on. My, when my daughter was in high school and she was on the cheer team, they won a state championship as a cheer team. They beat a team that had had the state champion the previous six years.

So they I mean, it was a big loss for that school. Yeah. And I had I actually reminded multiple members of the team because they were frustrated with the way the the team that lost was acting. I said, you guys, this team is full of girls who had no, they don't know losing. They never lost. Yeah. If they've had the last six titles, their seniors have only been in high school for four years.

They don't know loss. That's true. He was exactly right that the people in Washington don't know anything different. Yeah. The turnover. Yeah. They don't know what it's supposed to be like. If the last time a budget has been settled correctly is 94, there is a majority of Washington. It doesn't know how to do it correctly. Yeah. No, you're right there.

The institutional memory of that is is fading quickly. Yep. Yeah, yeah. Which makes you wonder do we ever get back to that. Like it. Or is that just an anomaly from the history books now? Like, that's what the way they used to do it. And because I would think in 30 plus years if there really was a strong appetite to get back to that, they would have gotten back to that.

Yeah. And and I just don't know that they that part of the issue. And kudos to Congressman Simpson for at least trying to address the the immigration issue. I hope we figure something out. And I would you know, rule of law is very important. But I also think you have to look at a situation and and say what is realistically achievable.

And is the cure going to be worse than the disease. If your approach is deport them all. Yeah I don't think it's going to be deport them all. I think Donald Trump says that because that's a starting negotiation point. But in the end I think it's probably a workable situation. People will grumble about it. But it's a workable situation to say, okay, somebody's been here for a couple of decades almost.

They've kept their nose clean. They're not causing crime problems. They're not. And they do help stabilize the ag economy or the construction industry, whatever. I think most people are going to say, we can we can give on that, that that's part of the 20% of the loaf we're not going to get. But we got 80%. And so we'll live with that.

And I think ultimately that's probably going to be the only feasible solution if we get to a legislative solution to immigration. Right. So agreed. Yeah. All right. It's 951. Let's take our final break. Julie. We. All right. We'll, come back. We'll wrap it up when we return. On this Wednesday on Newstalk 179. 1994. What is that?

I got home from my mission in 1994. I got married in 1994. Newt Gingrich won in the Republican Revolution in 1994. I birthed my first child in 94. Wow. He's 31. I'm going to be 32 five days after I turn 52. So I have a I have a theory open to correction, but I've read lots of stuff about how our brains record memories.

Yeah. This is gonna be a really nerdy point, but. And we have a terrible concept of time. Like terrible. Like, we we when we record memories, we record these snapshots. But we we don't have a good or accurate perception of how much time passes over long periods of time. And here's my working theory. If you take, a memory from your past that is vivid, it always feels more recent because it's vivid.

It's it's bright. It's. You know, I remember defined lines. Yes. And and a lot of times it's a memory that something really emotional happened or, you know, something big happened in your life, having a baby or getting married or getting home from your mission or whatever. You don't consider all the interim events that have happened when you're thinking of that one memory?

So it feels like the term just yesterday it happened like it was just yesterday. Well, when you think about it, 31 years is a massive amount of time. Don't don't rely on that perception. Because one thing I do a lot is I think, okay, I'm 52 and that 31 year old memory for me seems like yesterday, which means I'm going to be 83 tomorrow because 52 plus 31 is 83.

So it doesn't work like that. There's loads and loads of time we need to use it wisely and take it a day at a time. But that when you're panicking about retirement's coming or I don't want to, you know, I don't want to go to my grave and I know I will in my 80s or whatever, like just relax, because there's actually a lot more time than what your, your perception of the past is indicating.

Yeah. I think it is weird. I also think that we very, we are very different about the way that we experience the past. I think some personalities don't live in the past at all. Yeah. I think some personalities are wish like that's the only thing that existed. Yeah. They're obeying the traffic laws and the property taxes and the everything that existed in the past.

Yes. And they haven't moved forward right at all. Yeah. It's it's it's strange how that such a variance in human nature. Yeah. Some people are really good at living in the present. Some people are always thinking they're fearful of the future. Some people? Yeah. They still have the same hair, the same clothes, the same. Yeah, but it is the same everything.

So if you're you're 38 and you're driving that 74 transam and you're wearing a sleeveless t shirt and you got a mullet and you're still driving the cruise, you might be living in your past, right? Is that right? Yeah. And you have Motley crew blaring a sticker, and here we go. Well, I'm up here. I've been contacted by some of the biggest companies in the world.

And because of what we're doing economically and through tariffs and taxes and incentives, and they want to come back into the United States and we'll be announcing various very large companies, the biggest, actually, and they'll be coming back having to do with chips and, having to do also with cars and lots of other things. We're going to be announcing some very, very big, very big, momentous, I think momentous decisions are being made by companies all around the world, the biggest.

And they want to come back into the US, the car plants are being canceled in other locations now because they want to build them here. And you read about a couple. Not that I want to mention names or anything, but you read about a couple of big ones in Mexico. I just got canceled because they're going to be building them in the United States.

And that's very simply because of what we're doing with respect to taxes, tariffs and incentives. And, I think it's a very important thing. And you'll be seeing this over the next, probably over the next two years, to be honest. But you're going to see a lot of it over the next couple of weeks. A lot of big ones are going to be announcing.

And so while we're here, I guess we can take a couple of quick questions. Okay. I, I cannot tell you how much I love this. This is Donald Trump using the tariff power in behalf of the United States. He looks at it. He says we're either going to get the revenue from the tariffs to the point he's suggesting a new agency called the External Revenue Service.

It was a great story from last week that I don't think got a lot of discussion because there's so much happening. So the tariffs, the foreign taxes that would come in would come in, you know, it'd be the External Revenue Service or if we don't get revenue from that, we're going to build our manufacturing economy domestically. Back up.

You really if you're Trump you can't lose if this works out. It's you're going to benefit from one or the other. The left in the media and hand-wringing Republicans, they continue to say oh no prices are going to go up blah blah blah. Now watch this. What a couple a couple of these announcements of major car companies deciding to manufacture in the United States.

These nations are going to cave. They will cave. Yeah, I agree with that. I, I think we're seeing that the nations are going we've got to work. We've got to work with them. I mean, look at Zelensky. We went from him acting like the high school jock who owns everything. Now he's jittery and telling everybody, no, you have to pay.

You have to give me the money. Oh, what are we going to do? I am like his whole demeanor has changed. Yeah, well, it really has the gravy train stopping. That's why he's upset. Have a wonderful. Wednesday, July and I back tomorrow.