E6 Ð Government Shutdown [SCOTT WALTER] Thanks for tuning in I'm Scott Walter, [MIKE WATSON] and I'm Michael Watson. [SCOTT WALTER] As Congress and the president negotiate another spending bill to avoid a government shutdown we look at some of the influencers behind the debates over the federal budget if Congress can't pass a spending bill by January 19 the government will shut down. Though a short-term extension of government spending authority seems likely to pass before the deadline. These month to month or year to year fights are a sideshow to the federal budgets long-term problems debt and spending. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office projected that federal debt held by the public would rise from 77% of national economic output known as gross domestic product or GDP to a hundred and fifty percent of GDP by 2047. The CBO also projected that the drivers of rising debt would be spending on Social Security federal health care programs like Medicare and rising interest payments on the existing debt. Because these budget debates touch almost all areas of policy, countless interest groups actively seek to influence future. All federal spending government worker labor unions like the American Federation of government employees or FG seek to continue the current path of spending in debt on the other side some reformers are fighting to change pension and spending policies for government employees. Mike give us a little bit of the background of what's happening. [MIKE WATSON] so first before we talk about the current debate which comes from Congress doing its job in the way it's not supposed to do its job I'll briefly explain how it's supposed to work. Congress is supposed to pass 12 annual appropriations bills which fund a section of the discretionary portion of the government which is everything but Social Security and Medicare basically. Supposed to pass 12 of these bills. They're passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the president by October 1st. [SCOTT WALTER] Now when was the last time that actually happened? [MIKE WATSON] 1997 [SCOTT WALTER] So, some in our audience were not alive [MIKE WATSON] Some in our audience were probably not alive. I was in first or second grade the last time that happened so since 1998 because the appropriations bills have generally not been, they've certainly not been passed on time, and they mostly haven't been passed at all. Congress has operated under these continuing resolution [SCOTT WALTER] or CRS [MIKE WATSON] Also known as CRS which are stopgap funding authority measures that it passes in lieu of an appropriations bill. Congress does this pretty much regardless of whether the President and Congress are controlled by the same or opposite parties. [SCOTT WALTER] or Republicans are Democrats [MIKE WATSON] Republicans or Democrats. You know so it's not like you know a Democratic president or a Democratic Congress you know President Obama and the Democratic Congress in 2009 didn't pass their appropriations bills they all ran under CRS. Obviously, President Trump and the Republican Congress right now running on, running under CRS George W. Bush got it some appropriation did some appropriating proper appropriating in his term but in 2003 with the Republican congress nope. So regardless of the alignment, Congress has abdicated its responsibility to pass its appropriations bills on time, and the president has gone along with presidents have gone along with this CR stuff. So because they didn't pass appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began October 1st. So the 2018 fiscal year the government has been funded under continuing resolutions. And the current continuing resolutions as we've been saying expires January 19th. [SCOTT WALTER] Now, what is one of the biggest obstacles for Congress to actually pass these things? [MIKE WATSON] So the Senate has the filibuster rule which means that if you want to pass legislation with a couple of very technical exceptions under the reconciliation rule if the Senate wants to pass the legislation it needs a 60-vote majority. So that means that you have to get both Republican you know with the exception of the whatever it was eight months between the seating of Al Franken in 2009 and the election of Scott Brown in January 2010 when the Democrats had 60 votes. With the exception of that brief little window, you're gonna need at least some members of the opposition party. [SCOTT WALTER] Although I think I would it's only fair to toss in virtually nothing of significant controversy passed even during that window in spending or otherwise. [MIKE WATSON] Yeah, that was because that was all tight down by Obamacare rather than the Democrats passing their 12 appropriations bills even to do Democrat stuffÉ [SCOTT WALTER] Yes or say card check, for instance, was a labor billÉ [MIKE WATSON] A bill that labor unions very much wanted to make it easier to organize and I believe Blanche Lincoln then-Democratic senator from Arkansas ultimately shot down. There was bipartisan opposition, not bipartisan support butÉ [SCOTT WALTER] Oh net neutrality, just since that's news lately that also did not pass despite the PresidentÕs efforts [MIKE WATSON] That was not advanced legislatively now everything went pen and phone, but you know ending the digressionÉTo pass both the CRS and the appropriations bills you need 60 votes in the Senate which means that the opposition party can hold it for leverage and lo and behold that is what's going on. [SCOTT WALTER] Yeah, now you mentioned earlier that there isÉ It is possible in the Senate to pass some monetary bills with just the 50 vote margin and to escape the filibuster, and that's called the [MIKE WATSON] Reconciliation rule [SCOTT WALTER] Yeah, but that has lots of complicated rules, which we won't go into but the Senate rules are labyrinthine, to put it mildly. [MIKE WATSON] They have to hire somebody called a parliamentarian to tell the Senate what the rules of the Senate are [SCOTT WALTER] Yes and there are countless rules to that particular rule the most important one I suppose is that the legislation has to theoretically highly theoretically but [MIKE WATSON] Theoretically subject to various technical calculations and the Congress can semi override it which is what happened with the tax bill which was passed under reconciliation. It has to be deficit-neutral ish. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes. Theoretically, it's not going to make a significant dent in revenues up or down, and that is obviously not an easy thing to do if you're trying to change for instance defense spending or entitlement spending. Okay well speaking of defense and non-defense spending talk tell us a bit about how those are currently figuring into this controversy? [MIKE WATSON] So several years ago there was what then President Obama and then-Speaker John Boehner agreed to a deficit-reduction committee known as the super committee, and the super committee was supposed to come together, and Republicans and Democrats would agree on a certain package of spending cuts that would reduce the deficit. Predictably, they didn't but there was a poison a poison pill that was supposed to motivate them to come to an agreement which was known as sequestrationÐa series of automatic haircuts in the budget in the discretionary budgets of the federal departments and roughly half was to fall on the military and roughly half was to fall on domestic discretionary programs things like housing and urban development. The idea was not entirely crazy it was that Republicans would not want the sequestration to fall on the defense programs so they would be inclined to make a deal and the Democrats would not want the sequestration to fall in their non-defense programs. Therefore they would make a deal to prevent the sequestration. That didn't happen there was sequestration. Since the sequestration went into effect the Congress has periodically come to agreements to ease the sequestration somewhat so this is the full sequestration schedule that was in the original budget control bill, the original budget control agreement has not gone into effect but part of it has, and so Congress is debating the amount of sequestration relief that should be given to the relative buckets to the non-defense buckets and the defense bucket. Obviously, the Republicans want more of the relief to go to the defense bucket, and the Democrats want more of the relief to go to the non-defense bucket. [SCOTT WALTER] So that's one of the problems by the way I want to take a digression because you mentioned that this whole sequestration machinery was concocted as something of a poison pill where they predicted Ôah well this is going we know how this will fix things and they were wrong and there actually a pretty significant history of senators being too smart for their own purposes and a really important one in federal law is back in 1964 when you had a lot of racist Southern Democrats trying to put the kibosh on the 1964 Civil Rights Act which is the single most important civil rights law ever to pass Congress. I'm not gonna remember his name, but one of the Southern Democrats stuck in sex as another protected category where there could be no distinctions. Supposedly by sex and he was quite confident that this was going to once again because the southern Democrats had been blocking all civil rights legislation for years that this would be a poison pill that would destroy that would destroy the bill, and it did not and that is now currently causing all sorts of controversy on countless other things transsexuals and bathrooms and more, much more. But anyway well there's another big thing besides defense and non-defense spending that's there, and it goes to your idea of poison pills. So for ostensibly constitutionalist reasons the president has the president the Attorney General have decreed, that the previous presidents decree that a certain class of illegal immigrants the deferred action for childhood arrivals people or [SCOTT WALTER] D A C A [MIKE WATSON] DACA in Washington-ese which is intended to be people who were brought to the United States as children did not willfully break the law but are living here in violation of the law. But have otherwise made a life here and are more or less productive members of society. President Obama ruled just by fiat that they should be given permanent and indefinite relief from deportation. President Obama and Attorney General Sessions have [SCOTT WALTER] Whoops, president Trump [MIKE WATSON] President Trump and attorney General Sessions. President Obama and Attorney General Sessions would be very weird universe. But president Trump and Attorney General Sessions have concluded that that exceeded President Obama's authority. [SCOTT WALTER] And to be fair, he had been saying that for some years beforehand, [MIKE WATSON] And to be fair President Obama had been making noise about that he couldn't do that, so he needed Congress to do it for him and then when Congress didn't do it he did it anyway. Certainly not crazy to believe that President Trump and Attorney General Sessions are correct that since the executive cannot give this relief president Trump has said that he would like the Congress to come to, and it comes to a compromise and agree on a deal that would give at least some of his border security, you know big beautiful wall for security policy and then give relief to DACA recipients through legislation. We will discuss this the background of the immigration fight a little bit more next week I think. [SCOTT WALTER] Yeah, that will be our focus I think next week and so for a lot of folks who care passionately about that we will do a good deep dive next week. [MIKE WATSON] But as a surface matter, the left wing of the Democrats are threatening to shut down the government unless a so-called clean DACA passes. And in Washington-ese ÔcleanÕ means it's just the relief all by itself with nothing else. You know and you can see how kind of slick the language is because you know even President Trump and his little negotiation little-televised negotiation they had the other day you know he wanted a clean bill that also had security which you know tells me that he doesn't speak Washington-ese which is one of the more refreshing things about him as I say as a usual critic. [SCOTT WALTER] Well, it will certainly be interesting to see if how that goes down with Americans in general, but the real question, of course, is what for you to put your crystal ball in front of us for a moment. What do you think the most likely outcome in the short term of these fights are? [MIKE WATSON] I suspect Congress will engage in its usual behavior of punting everything and it will punt for a month or two, there will be another short-term CR which is what we're currently operating under because they just punted it from December. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, to govern is to choose is an old bit of wisdom. [MIKE WATSON] Choose when you choose you to choose against some people who are very angry and vote against you in the next election and therefore Congress does not often like to choose. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, well I said at the beginning of the broadcast about how these interesting squabbles that we get every year or at this point every few months where the whole talk is a government shutdown and cliffs it's been a while since the cliff metaphorÉ [MIKE WATSON] Yeah, its been a while since the cliff [SCOTT WALTER] Cliffs and shutdowns, those are exciting to talk about, but they don't deal with the true drivers of what the problem is with the government being able to deal with its budget the way that a family at home has to deal with its budget. So let's dig a little deeper and go into the real problems that are the sea underlying this froth at the top. [MIKE WATSON] Sure, you mentioned the metaphor of a household right now because the public likes their taxes to be low, but the government has to do lots of things and give them stuff. You know the national debt itself is not necessarily bad if you're investing for the future in productive assets you take out a loan you know that's a defensible financial decision, itÕs like taking out a mortgage. You know the more Keynesian economists will say oh this is an investment we're taking out a mortgage. For the national debt that doesn't matter. It does become a problem if you're using a credit card to pay off your credit card and to pay off your Sears card and as more and more of the budget goes from the discretionary appropriatedÑthe things that the government the things that we think of when we think of the government doing the stuff: building roads providing a national defense, having national parksÐthe more that it goes away from that which is more kind of the mortgage stuff to the paying old people stuff which is more the credit card stuff the sort of the justification for borrowing all this money kind of starts to starts to melt away the intellectual distraction for borrowing all this money seems to melt away. As we mentioned earlier the government, the CBO Congressional Budget Office projected at the beginning of last year that the national debt held by the public is gonna double in the next 30 years to the point where right now the outstanding debt is less than the economic production in any given year it's gonna be more in 2047 unless something changes. [SCOTT WALTER] Of course, I think there's also a moralÉ There's both a practical question of at some point as we all know people who borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and then things collapsed in householdsÉ [MIKE WATSON] Oh no my seventh credit card didn't pay off my fifth credit card [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, so we all know there's a practical question but there's also of course the moral question which is to me that this also is a redistribution of wealth as our friends on the left like to say it and what its redistribution here is between those people who are enjoying the money and the goodies currently and the people who will have to pay for them which is the children and grandchildren of the people around at the current time and actually I have to say Pope Benedict the sixteenth was asked about this a few years ago and he made that very obvious moral point that you know if you're living beyond your means and then you're expecting someone else to pay for it, for you that's living in a fantasy world [MIKE WATSON] And we can you know, if you want to get really sullen veracity you know the birthrate is down below replacement, so there are gonna be even fewer workers taking then we thought that we thought they were gonna be fewer workers taking care of more retirees there are now going to be even fewer [SCOTT WALTER] That's right, and in fact, it would seem to be that we can't get it we won't go any. Further, this will keep going on the current budget issue, but it's a profound problem that Western Western democracies are giving them. Voting themselves more and more goodies and yet having fewer and fewer babies to pay for those goodies down the road. America is a bit better off than most of Europe which have really collapsing birth rates in most cases, almost all cases. But we don't have replacement birth rates here, and there is no way that you since it is essentially a Ponzi scheme that theÉ [MIKE WATSON] Number of retirees per productive worker I well I believe at the beginning of the Social Security program was something like twelve to one and it's now less than three the other thing about Social Security at the beginning was that the you couldn't get a penny until you were 65 and the average man who was, of course, the strong majority of the workforce at the time died before then that will work but it won't work we have it now where you have 20 or 30 year question of you know of a term life insurance policy versus a you know guaranteed annuity [SCOTT WALTER] Yes it started out as a term life insurance policy, and now it's but well the tax reform bill unfortunately though it has some nice features to it it isn't helping the problem is it [MIKE WATSON] You know I like the tax reform bill there's a lot of good in it but all that you know nothing is there is no such thing as a free lunch and the not the no such thing as a free lunch is that it's probably going to worsen the deficit when I say probably I mean like there's a 95 percent likelihood. Whether it's the commercial budget office which uses a more statically scored doesn't factor in very much economic growth or even the Tax Foundation which factors in a comparatively optimistic economic growth feedback the judgment is the same the deficit is probably the deficit in the amount of debt is probably going to rise one estimate suggests that it could increase the baseline debt the baseline holdings of total debt by about 6 percent. You know we want a low tech you know a wanna low tax bill, and we want competitive our businesses to be competitive, but we're not going to be able to do that if we don't try to get the entitlements of Social Security and Medicare under control and [SCOTT WALTER] Speaking of Social Security and Medicare those are major spending programs here in DC and therefore there are major influencers trying to make sure that they are not touched so tell us about a few of the can't even say particular at this point let's just start with the let's not don't worry about the species about weaknesses [MIKE WATSON] Right, you know since we're talking since we're talking about old people let's start with all let's start with the association ostensibly representing old people Ð The American Association of Retired Persons, AARP. If there is a single mobilizing force against a single political mobilizing force against any entitlement reform against any sort of small government principles as it affects the social disorder of social welfare programs entitlements it is AARP when then House Budget Chairman now House Speaker Paul Ryan was advocating for premium support reforms and Medicare AARP was running ads against him and even as much as as much as they may be representing their members there also is some reasonable belief that they are profiting from the current system they offer and should they offer insurance products that essentially rely on Medicare being structured the way it is [SCOTT WALTER] So they have a double incentive for this and you might even I mean this is a classic case of what many people would call the swamp because they're getting dues from their members by saying we're going to protect you in every possible way every last one of you no matter how well are you happy. [MIKE WATSON] I mean I'll be you know I think a lot of AARP members are AARP members because they get 15% off their you know wrote their motel stays on their on their vacation and in South Carolina the grandkids and all yeah yeah or to see the grandkids but on top of that they also have their own insurance business droning shirt they have their own insurance business on the side and on top of that all the people who remember who have signed up for non political reasons who have signed up for the perks unknowingly are funding the political agenda of what is a substantial liberal political player. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes and just to give folks some sense of what eight 800-pound elephant we're talking about here in the most recent tax filings for AARP they are a billion and a half year operation and a half dollar per year. [MIKE WATSON] Yeah, yes dollars per year [SCOTT WALTER] And about 2.4 billion in assets that they're sitting on so you know if that were a multinational corporation left-wingers would be up in arms about it's having powerful influence in Washington DC so it would be nice if we could all be consistent and an object to that as a lobby group and I do want to say since we're on the topic of the Social Security and pensioners you know obviously at the time in the 30s when Social Security is created I'm pretty sure it was under 10 percent of Americans ended up with pensions at their jobs so this was sort of a substitute for that this is the federal government going to give everybody a pension and and I can understand how that the appeal of that but of course now pensions are enormous ly different and better, first of all, I'm far more common and the government in programs like 401ks that you know for instance we have at our company and countless other companies do they have significant benefits to what ARP is to the to the entitlement that the ARP is defending. One of the supreme ones is that they're inheritable if I die tomorrow my family will get all of my 401K which has been which has been productively invested. Again to touch of left-wing hypocrisy on this what groups are hurt the most by that well the groups with lower life expectancies so if you're a black man paying a lot of probably paying more in many cases paying more so Security tax payroll taxes probably high. [MIKE WATSON] Unless you're exceptionally unless you're exceptionally well off. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes your payroll taxes are the core of your pouring money into this system and you may see hardly any of that money back and you will see your family will be stranded because they they're not going to get it whereas if that money instead went into a 401 K it would be invested productively, and it would be so it be growing, and it would be inherited by your family so be nice to folks who care a lot about the disparate impact on different races and ethnic groups we're paying that. [MIKE WATSON] And that and that was the idea back in the mid-2000s when then President George W Bush proposed a private account sidecar to social security and of course that was ruthlessly opposed by the AFL-CIO labor union and the groups that it mobilized most prominent was probably the campaign for America's future which is now part of the left-wing People's Action community organizing and labor union organizing Network one of these you know matreshka doll type coalition's that generally the left set up where there's a local group and it's part of an intermediate national group and then there's the big national convening that has the convention where Senator Bernie Sanders comes and speaks, and it's kind of hard unless you really study this stuff to realize that this group is part of this network as part of this network. [SCOTT WALTER] I can tell you where you can find out exactly how to disentangle that messy web of influence and that is InfluenceWatch.org if you go to both the People's Action Institute which is their 501 C 3 and the People's Action an affiliate which is its c4 and you'll also find out that they are funded by the Democracy Alliance which is the George Soros founded cabal of left-wing donors [MIKE WATSON] Well, it's I mean Soros is part of the Democracy Alliance, but it's actually the Taco Bell heir Rob McKay, [SCOTT WALTER] Who is a member of Democracy Alliance [MIKE WATSON] Well, he's not just a member, he is the brains. It was him and his political consultant it was their idea. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, and we should give to give credit of sorts where it's due. The name People's Action harkens back to one of the groups that was dissolved or wealth merged into this conglomerate previously known as National People's Action and an especially notorious left-wing activist group. [MIKE WATSON] They're the nasty guys who would show up on who would show up on this on the lawns of people's suburban houses with busses of SEIU guys. You know in one case allegedly terrorizing the guyÕs children when the guy who wasn't even there. I think it was just a random lawyer for Bank of America. Yes as I think they were like and they were, and they were, and it would have gone off with no controversy whatsoever except that the guys neighbor was Nina Easton the I think was writing for Fortune at the time [SCOTT WALTER] So he was lucky quote-unquote well in addition to an AARP and the People's Action Network there also are government employee unions who all of whose workers worked for government and they like to keep government big I mean goodness if you if you reform Social Security so that in the kind of ways that we've talked about where you'd have people's money invested in growing and inheritable by their children if you did that you would need fewer people at the Social Security Administration and similar places [MIKE WATSON] You very well might so, and you would be taking away ultimately the power and authority of the government and you would be taking away you know if the more that people saw that their returns were coming from the private market rather than from the largesse of the government they might, you know start to think that you know maybe small government's a good idea in principle. So needless to say that the federal employee unions: the American Federation of government employees, the National Treasury Employees Union are not fans of any sort of reform to public spending in any fashion [SCOTT WALTER] And in the case of AFGE Union they're not really fans of honest accounting even internally are they? [MIKE WATSON] Yeah based on the Department of Labor has an office the office of labor-management standards where you can go look at unions reports and one of the things that the office of labor-management standards does is it investigates union corruption and based on the investigations that the office of labor-management standards has conducted the AFGE may be the most corrupt union in the United States, by the number of officials and employees that the Department of Labor has had to prosecute which in the last couple years has been about 20. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes they put the Teamsters to shame which is an impressive accomplishment [MIKE WATSON] They put the Teamsters to shame in numbers not necessarily in scale. [SCOTT WALTER] Yeah, sorry there is that there's also the National Treasury Employees Union which similarly has a poor reputation and which has been well we're currently investigating we don't have anything to report yet but we're investigating along with our friends at Judicial Watch the question of whether the IRS employees because of course the IRS is part of the Department of Treasury where National Treasury Employees Union is active and powerful, are trying to see if the Lois Lerner IRS scandals have been in any way connected to the NTE Union. [MIKE WATSON] if they were abetted or if they were direct you know if there was any direction from that from that organization. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, and as a friend of mine points out that the NT II use General Counsel got herself a different government job in the office of special prosecutor if I remember my getting my alphabet soup right it's a Special Counsel Office of Special Counsel pardon me which is essentially the federal government's own office for whistleblowers. So if you're a government bureaucrat, and you want to blow the whistle on some bad guy that's where you would go the idea that the general counsel for a union that represents the person that you may be whistle blowing against would have that job is impressive, but that was what happened. [SCOTT WALTER] Well there also are some folks on the other side trying to fight for some government reforms, and a less out-of-control spending and debt growing government who would those be [MIKE WATSON] Well obviously you have the sort of idea you know pay your ideological conservatives in terms of funding just to pick just to pick one example the sorrel freedom Trust which is a one of the major conservative funders gave a grant publicly disclosed to the American Legislative Exchange Council which is the state-level conservative free-market trade group you can say more of a think-tank. [SCOTT WALTER] They are a membership program. [MIKE WATSON] But I believe they are a 501 C 3 and they help develop state-level policy and the several freedom trusts gave them money to work on state non state pensions now if Social Security Medicare pensions for all old people or why the federal government is doomed to bankruptcy, public employee pensions are why your state is doomed to bankruptcy in the fullness of time or if your Illinois already bankrupt. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, and what we should add that local governments there are examples of local governments that have already gone groans they have actually gone into bankruptcy Christ yes because of their inability to pay their government union workers. Yep, all of the Bennie's all of the nice pensions and health benefits that they have been handed again in the classic the time problem you know I'm a city council member and I can award to all kinds of future Bennie's and then it's somebody else's problem alive and then 15 years. [MIKE WATSON] I could either give you a raise pay it out of current revenue and have to raise taxes because gates in cities states and cities generally have a balanced budget requirement. [SCOTT WALTER] And not printing presses for money. [MIKE WATSON] And not printing presses for making inflation you know I have to either take you know cut service you know cut other services, or I have to raise taxes, and if I raise taxes then I will be thrown out of office so instead I'm gonna promise you perpetual money forever in the future when I'm no longer on City Council. And again it's gotten so bad that even some center and center-left funders perhaps most prominently the Laura and John Arnold Foundation we have gotten into this pension reform space just again because the problems are so severe Lauren John Arnold Foundation has funded the Brookings Institution which is kind of the big center-left think tank in Washington DC they funded the Pew Charitable Trusts which is a left-of-center. [SCOTT WALTER] now a public charity although it began life as there's a long and confusing history of the Pew Charitable Trusts much of which is discussed on influence watch, but it is now a center-left advocacy, and research group and Lauren John Arnold Foundation is given them money to work on pension stabilization and pension reform. [SCOTT WALTER] And there are even some states where they've had a significant influence where there has been reforms. [MIKE WATSON] They had some success in Pennsylvania getting the Democratic governor and the Republican legislature there to make it least some modest reforms. [SCOTT WALTER] And for that matter a certainly left-of-center Rhode Island has done some of this but that it was already so corrupt and near bankruptcy that even a left-wing democrat realized while the money has just run out we're going to have to do something. [MIKE WATSON] Yeah, and it's either it's either we make these reforms or the core functions of government which we like because we're Liberal Democrats are going to have to go away, and that's going to be a problem. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes well well and again I would say that this is a moral argument that if you think the government has significant responsibilities to help people then causing that government to go bankrupt for people who were awfully well-off in the first place as government workers typically are and who have probably saved. [MIKE WATSON] Certainly, those who have made it to retirement nor on a defined benefit pension [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, well and especially since they put on like most folks like you and I pay 30 percent of our insurance that's a pretty typical thing in the in the private sector for a medical insurance. Yypically government worker unions have negotiated it, so they pay pretty much nothing to their pension or to their or to their medical benefits even when they're working much less when they retire and I do want to have a quick side light on the on the lure and draw an Arnold foundation's pension reform work they got in trouble a few years ago people may remember because NPR started running stories that were shockingly balanced on the problems of government worker pensions and that work was funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which was then viciously attacked for manipulating NPR and then when the story actually came out Ð it was that NPR had come to them looking for the money to do this and the Arnold Foundation has said my gosh they know there'd be funders on all sides. [MIKE WATSON] And of course why would why would the left immediately suspect that the Laura and John Arnold Foundation had I guess quote-unquote bought the coverage? Well that's because the liberal funders have gone in and in our last episode, and we discussed the ongoing demonstrations in Iran, we noted that the Ploughshares fund which was organizing the echo chamber to support the Obama administration's appeasement policy had given $100,000 to NPR which then gave favorable coverage to the former administration's appeasement policy. [SCOTT WALTER] Yes, there are many left-wing funders of NPR, and I'm sure that that made just perhaps influence NPR's coverage. [MIKE WATSON] Entirely possible. [SCOTT WALTER] well, give us a quick wrap-up that's about all our time for this week about what to make of the budget fights? [MIKE WATSON] The long-term budget picture is awful and probably will so remain any influencers trying to bring to the public's attention and bring to the public's concern that there is a long-term fiscal unsustainability, face a couple of major problems. One the general human desire for I want my candy now and I will deal with the consequences later and also very large influencers like AARP and the AFL-CIO who want to keep the current system of candy now and consequences later. The immediate budget fights will either be punted or be resolved in a way that just kicks he kicks it down the road for several months, no fundamental change. You know I would be shocked if there was any fundamental change in any direction certainly on budgetary matters, but if it does stall if there is a partial government shutdown I suspect the reasoning would not be anything budget related. I think it would be the extraneous items that are being debated around the budget most probably immigration which is why we will return to that topic at a future date. [SCOTT WALTER] That's right next week is the deep dive on immigration, and that is our show for this week. If you're listening to this on iTunes or Stitcher, know that we broadcast a live video version of the podcast at 10:00 a.m. on Thursdays on Facebook live and YouTube. You can find our pages by searching Capital Research Center and if you're watching the video version we encourage you to subscribe to the audio on your preferred podcast platform. We'll see you next week.