WEBVTT - We're Immune to Massive Government Spending. Lanhee Chen Talks to A&G

0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:06.400
<v Speaker 1>I haven't memorized the various trillion dollar plans the Biden

0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:08.880
<v Speaker 1>administration is putting out because the names don't fit with

0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.400
<v Speaker 1>what they are, So I haven't. They haven't stuck in

0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.160
<v Speaker 1>my head like I'd be able to remember the I

0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.520
<v Speaker 1>don't know, the give kids bicycles plans, if all the

0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.160
<v Speaker 1>money was going to give kids bicycles. But we're we're

0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:25.119
<v Speaker 1>calling things, you know, the make sure everyone has comfortable

0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.320
<v Speaker 1>shoes plan, and then we're using it to build dams.

0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.200
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's just it's everything is so confusing. By

0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.479
<v Speaker 1>a thousand ahead of YAK, it has nothing to do

0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:35.920
<v Speaker 1>with it, which is why I refuse to use the

0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.840
<v Speaker 1>phony names, because they're they're propaganda. To me, they're they're

0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.000
<v Speaker 1>evil pr But to discuss that in other topics, please

0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.159
<v Speaker 1>welcome Lani Chen David and Diane Stephy, fellow in American

0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.239
<v Speaker 1>Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. The Director of

0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:53.239
<v Speaker 1>Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, Lonie. How are you, sir? Hey,

0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.640
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing fine, great booth you guys again, thank you,

0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.280
<v Speaker 1>thank you kindly. So we have been talking about this

0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:03.240
<v Speaker 1>enormous kids that is allegedly something to do with infrastructure,

0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:07.880
<v Speaker 1>but indeed reorders, American society and economics and the rest

0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.040
<v Speaker 1>of it. And we've been reading from the Wall Street Journal.

0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:11.720
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how many op eds they had this

0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:13.920
<v Speaker 1>week about how, Hey America, Hello, I don't know if

0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.080
<v Speaker 1>you're payingny intention. We're about to change the country drastically,

0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.000
<v Speaker 1>like really change the way we operate forever. Hello. So

0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.440
<v Speaker 1>what's your thoughts? What are your thoughts on how much

0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.160
<v Speaker 1>of this is likely to pass, how difficult it's going

0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:28.720
<v Speaker 1>to be to get it through. Where do you think

0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:32.200
<v Speaker 1>we might end up? Well, I, first of all, I

0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.600
<v Speaker 1>think Democrats will have the opportunity to pass essentially a

0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.720
<v Speaker 1>good chunk of what they want to because they're going

0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:43.280
<v Speaker 1>to use this process called budget reconciliation, which basically allows

0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.720
<v Speaker 1>them to uh to pass things that are related to

0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.800
<v Speaker 1>spending or to the collection of revenue with a simple

0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.840
<v Speaker 1>majority vote, which they have. And recall, they've already used

0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:57.280
<v Speaker 1>this once to pass that massive spending package, which to

0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.360
<v Speaker 1>you at this point was kind of masquerading as a

0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.080
<v Speaker 1>COVID night relief bill. You know, I think the challenge

0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.120
<v Speaker 1>with all of these things is that there is the

0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.680
<v Speaker 1>germ of some kind of bipartisan consensus in all of

0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.800
<v Speaker 1>these bills. Right, you talk about the COVID nineteen relief

0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.560
<v Speaker 1>as an example what they could have done. What Biden

0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:20.679
<v Speaker 1>Todenta said, Look, we're gonna do a much smaller package,

0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.919
<v Speaker 1>somewhere around a hundred and sixty billion instead of two trillion.

0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.560
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna we're gonna focus it on getting vaccines out there,

0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.560
<v Speaker 1>making sure schools have what they need to make changes

0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.680
<v Speaker 1>so that they're ready for the fall, YadA, YadA, you know,

0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.360
<v Speaker 1>all the things that people could have agreed on in

0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.799
<v Speaker 1>the same way. With infrastructure, instead of going for two

0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.720
<v Speaker 1>trillion dollars, they could have said, let's do a you know,

0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.440
<v Speaker 1>even six hundred billion dollar package, which is a ton

0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.400
<v Speaker 1>of money already that's focused on things like roads and

0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:54.799
<v Speaker 1>bridges and airports and physical infrastructure, even water infrastructure, which

0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.880
<v Speaker 1>some say, I don't know if it falls in there. Look,

0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.280
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of Republicans would have been totally fine. Thing. Yet,

0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.680
<v Speaker 1>let's improve the way that we get water to two

0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:04.760
<v Speaker 1>more of the American people. They would have been willing

0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.640
<v Speaker 1>to spend six billion dollars to do it. So in

0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.440
<v Speaker 1>each of these cases, there was the germ of something.

0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.360
<v Speaker 1>But instead of trying to work together, what you see

0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.760
<v Speaker 1>is just an effort to go big every single time. Uh.

0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.360
<v Speaker 1>And at some point, you know, people grow immune to

0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.959
<v Speaker 1>the fact that we are spending you know, six trillion

0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.919
<v Speaker 1>dollars over the course of like eight months, and and

0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:29.480
<v Speaker 1>and and people are just immune to it. They just

0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.600
<v Speaker 1>don't It doesn't register with them anymore. But that is

0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.240
<v Speaker 1>an awful lot of money. Right. What I was driving

0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.360
<v Speaker 1>at was, I've heard that they're a handful of moderate

0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:42.960
<v Speaker 1>Democrats who are really uneasy with this a wild I mean,

0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.560
<v Speaker 1>like coke binge spending. Well, they might be, they might

0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.240
<v Speaker 1>be uneasy with it. And I take you know, Joe

0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.560
<v Speaker 1>Mansion of West Virginia is a good example. He's a

0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.720
<v Speaker 1>he's a very moderate Democrat, probably in a different life,

0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.280
<v Speaker 1>could have been a Republican. And and he said, look,

0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.880
<v Speaker 1>I'm not comfortable spending all this money. I'm not necessarily

0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.960
<v Speaker 1>comfortable doing this. But you know, Joe mantions a good

0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:05.880
<v Speaker 1>example of somebody who at the end of the day

0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.560
<v Speaker 1>is a pragmatist. And if he ends up with some

0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:13.279
<v Speaker 1>significant boondoggle for the state of West Virginia, which he represents,

0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.719
<v Speaker 1>he's gonna be perfectly fine voting for two trillion dollars

0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.040
<v Speaker 1>and spending. The same goes for Senator Cinema from Arizona,

0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.880
<v Speaker 1>who's another one that people say, oh, well she's a moderate. Yeah,

0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.719
<v Speaker 1>you know, look, they're moderates until it comes down to

0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:27.560
<v Speaker 1>the question of what are you going to give me

0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:31.120
<v Speaker 1>in return from my vote? And believe me, Chuck Schumer,

0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.560
<v Speaker 1>Joe Biden, they're gonna get very creative. They're gonna make

0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.000
<v Speaker 1>sure Arizona and West Virginia come out of this looking

0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.479
<v Speaker 1>very very nice. And it's gonna give Cinema and Mansion

0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.600
<v Speaker 1>permission to vote for these big packages. That is the reality.

0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:47.240
<v Speaker 1>They can cloak their language in in in this sort

0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.800
<v Speaker 1>of notion of you know, hey, we really need by

0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.960
<v Speaker 1>partisanship and what we actually need is fiscal responsibility that

0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.920
<v Speaker 1>or you know, horse manure. At the end of the day,

0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.760
<v Speaker 1>what they really care about is what am I going

0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.359
<v Speaker 1>to get for my state? And well, if I'm cursed

0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.560
<v Speaker 1>in Cinema, you know what I'm asking for. I'm asking

0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.800
<v Speaker 1>for Lake Michigan. I'm gonna say Illinois, Wisconsin aren't doing

0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:11.360
<v Speaker 1>much with it. Arizona needs water. I want Lake Michigan.

0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.919
<v Speaker 1>I'll settle for Lake Erie, but I want Michigan. You're

0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:18.680
<v Speaker 1>you're on a bunch of these shows with other Pundit's

0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.520
<v Speaker 1>some of the punditry. Punditry that's coming from the conservative

0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.280
<v Speaker 1>pundits is driving me freaking nuts because I'm so tired

0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:26.880
<v Speaker 1>of hearing about Well, I'll tell you what, a lot

0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.440
<v Speaker 1>of voters are gonna like this, and it really ups

0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.800
<v Speaker 1>the chances for the Republicans to take back the House

0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.400
<v Speaker 1>because they're stepping on sometimes. And that's sort of a

0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.320
<v Speaker 1>view of back and forth. Every two years, Hey, we

0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.159
<v Speaker 1>won the House back. Who cares if Joe Biden is

0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.640
<v Speaker 1>able to transform the nation in one two year period

0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:47.440
<v Speaker 1>in a way that you know, none of these entitlements

0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.480
<v Speaker 1>will go away. If you could give me the reverse,

0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.200
<v Speaker 1>if if the Republicans could have a two year win

0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.680
<v Speaker 1>where Okay, we shrink the size of government, we reform entitlements,

0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.320
<v Speaker 1>we secure the border, you know, whatever my wish list is.

0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.880
<v Speaker 1>And you say, but you'll lose the House after you

0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:05.840
<v Speaker 1>do this, I'd say, freaking where do I sign? Well,

0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.479
<v Speaker 1>you may recall we we You know, Republicans had that

0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:14.400
<v Speaker 1>opportunity back in seventeen. They had control of basically the House,

0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.200
<v Speaker 1>the Senate, and the White House, and they had an

0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.480
<v Speaker 1>opportunity to effectuate some of these changes. And you know,

0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.880
<v Speaker 1>they did tax reform, which which I thought was good,

0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.839
<v Speaker 1>but they didn't really move ahead with anything else, right,

0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.240
<v Speaker 1>And they had an opportunity to shrink the size of government.

0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.279
<v Speaker 1>They had an opportunity to uh to to look carefully

0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.760
<v Speaker 1>at what they were doing, and unfortunately that wasn't what

0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.160
<v Speaker 1>came out of it. And I think that's why voters

0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.600
<v Speaker 1>now are so skeptical. They just sort of say, a

0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.240
<v Speaker 1>pox on both their houses, because you know, what's pretty

0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.159
<v Speaker 1>clear is when each side, you know, has what they have,

0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.440
<v Speaker 1>they try and do various things. Sometimes they get there,

0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.880
<v Speaker 1>sometimes they don't. But the reality is we are in

0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:57.760
<v Speaker 1>the cycle of politics now where we are destined, I think,

0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:03.039
<v Speaker 1>to swerve from one policy prescription or set of prescriptions

0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.600
<v Speaker 1>to another, and those changes can be quite violent. Not

0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.160
<v Speaker 1>not in terms of like you know, people people picking

0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.040
<v Speaker 1>up pitchforks, I just mean the change going from one

0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.280
<v Speaker 1>side of the other can be so dramatic and so

0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.760
<v Speaker 1>violent because that's just what we that's the period of

0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.040
<v Speaker 1>time we're in right now, and to me, that's not

0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.200
<v Speaker 1>a great way to make policy. No, it's not. But

0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.160
<v Speaker 1>I need to point out that generally speaking, Republican policies,

0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.400
<v Speaker 1>a violent swing to the right can be undone very

0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.000
<v Speaker 1>quickly and easily by the left, whereas the left will

0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:36.680
<v Speaker 1>institute you know, programs and and handouts and yeah that

0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.440
<v Speaker 1>that they are almost impossible to undo without incurring the

0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.200
<v Speaker 1>rage of the voter. Lani Chan of the Hoover Institution

0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.200
<v Speaker 1>Stanford University is on the line, Um, what the heck

0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:47.800
<v Speaker 1>had just flitted right out of my mind? I had

0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:52.080
<v Speaker 1>something very important. Oh, just long and short of it

0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.360
<v Speaker 1>is the United States just plunging toward becoming France with

0:07:55.480 --> 0:08:00.440
<v Speaker 1>two oceans. Journal has been saying, oh wait, well, it

0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.559
<v Speaker 1>is the case that if you build a an entitlement state,

0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.600
<v Speaker 1>if you build a sort of state of support that

0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.000
<v Speaker 1>is large enough. I mean, you guys write a good point,

0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.200
<v Speaker 1>which is that you know, folks get used to it,

0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.960
<v Speaker 1>and and people's sort of vision of it changes fundamentally,

0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.440
<v Speaker 1>and things that were not acceptable before become acceptable. And

0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.239
<v Speaker 1>particularly when you're talking about creating a broader and broader

0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.200
<v Speaker 1>social safety that I mean, I keep coming back to

0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:32.040
<v Speaker 1>the concept of extended unemployment insurance during the pandemic or

0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.600
<v Speaker 1>during the period of the pandemic when the economy was down,

0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.560
<v Speaker 1>you totally understood why it was important. We've seen the

0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.839
<v Speaker 1>economy coming back very very strong. Growth rates are very

0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.560
<v Speaker 1>very good right now, their jobs being created, things are

0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.280
<v Speaker 1>coming back in most parts of the country. And we

0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.600
<v Speaker 1>hear over and over again that what some of these

0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:53.079
<v Speaker 1>programs have created, frankly is they disincentive to return to work.

0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.280
<v Speaker 1>And that is a good example of a situation where

0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:00.679
<v Speaker 1>American society becomes closer and closer to a kind of

0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.480
<v Speaker 1>society and state they have in Europe in many parts

0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.240
<v Speaker 1>of Europe where there are frankly disincentives to work, and

0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.760
<v Speaker 1>then culturally you get a situation where, you know, like

0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:11.920
<v Speaker 1>if you look at Europe, a lot of countries they're

0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:16.080
<v Speaker 1>frankly or less productive because you know, they take three

0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:17.480
<v Speaker 1>hours off in the middle of the day and they

0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:19.680
<v Speaker 1>take three months off in the summer. And you know,

0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.840
<v Speaker 1>some would say, hey, that's that's how It's kind of nice,

0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.760
<v Speaker 1>but that's not how you create a society where, uh,

0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.559
<v Speaker 1>you know, you have productivity and growth and innovation. All

0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.360
<v Speaker 1>the amazing things we've seen in America come because we

0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.599
<v Speaker 1>have an industrious society that values work fundamentally, and I

0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:37.800
<v Speaker 1>fear that we're moving away from that A little bit

0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.280
<v Speaker 1>and a question. I was going to ask about the

0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.520
<v Speaker 1>whole Liz Cheney Trump thing, but I lost interest, lost

0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.360
<v Speaker 1>interest in my own head. She's gonna get booted out

0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:50.760
<v Speaker 1>any chance. Trump injects himself into the mid terms in

0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:52.840
<v Speaker 1>such a way that, you know what happened in Georgia.

0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Happens you turn off enough people that you lose something

0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.400
<v Speaker 1>you should have won. Yeah, I you know, I don't

0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.880
<v Speaker 1>know what his plans are, what his role will be.

0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.840
<v Speaker 1>I do know this that the midterm elections are actually

0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.280
<v Speaker 1>right around the corner, believe it or not, and it

0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.000
<v Speaker 1>is extremely important for Republicans. I've always argued this. I

0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.560
<v Speaker 1>think Republicans have to focus on putting forth a vision

0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:17.520
<v Speaker 1>of what are the two or three things you're going

0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.880
<v Speaker 1>to do if you take back the House. It is

0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.160
<v Speaker 1>enough to sort of argue. It is not enough to argue,

0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.600
<v Speaker 1>you know, hey, what the Democrats are doing is bad.

0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.080
<v Speaker 1>They're expanding government. We don't like that. You know, as

0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.600
<v Speaker 1>as true as that argument might be, if you're unable

0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.600
<v Speaker 1>to come forward with, hey, here are the things we're

0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.520
<v Speaker 1>going to do to make things better. It's hard. I

0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.280
<v Speaker 1>think people want an alternative vision to vote for, so

0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.400
<v Speaker 1>so I hope that that's what the folks. But you can't.

0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:46.160
<v Speaker 1>You can't run on unspending seven trillion dollars. Unfortunately, once

0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:48.240
<v Speaker 1>it's spent, it's spent. And if they say we're going

0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.720
<v Speaker 1>to repeal and replace Obamacare, I'm moving to Paraguay or Uruguay,

0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.520
<v Speaker 1>I can never remember which one. Lanah Chen of the

0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.319
<v Speaker 1>Hooever Institution, Stanford University, Lana, he thanks so much for

0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:58.760
<v Speaker 1>the insight. Great to talk to you and have a

0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.440
<v Speaker 1>great weekend. Thanks you, guys. I just I just don't

0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.960
<v Speaker 1>feel like people are grasping what's happening here. You Okay, Yeah,

0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.040
<v Speaker 1>we won, we won the House. Who we're gonna do this?

0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.560
<v Speaker 1>Things are changed forever. They're never coming back. Yeah, they'll

0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:14.959
<v Speaker 1>never go back to the way they were. Seven trillion dollars.

0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:16.679
<v Speaker 1>Once it's committed to being spent, will be spent. It

0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:18.760
<v Speaker 1>will be out the door. We'll have to reckon with

0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.400
<v Speaker 1>that no matter what. Are