Speaker 1: On this episode in each world. The One Big Beautiful
Speaker 1: Bill Act reduces taxes, reduces or increases spending for various
Speaker 1: federal government programs, increases the statutory debt limit, and addresses
Speaker 1: agencies and programs throughout the federal government. It is known
Speaker 1: as a reconciliation bill and includes legislations submitted by eleven
Speaker 1: House committees. The Act passed the House on May twenty second,
Speaker 1: with two hundred and fifteen yea's, two hundred and fifteen
Speaker 1: o's and one member voting president, but as narrow margin
Speaker 1: as you can get. The Act is now being considered
Speaker 1: by the Senate, Andrew's receiving some criticism from Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and others. Here to talk about the bill, I am
Speaker 1: really pleased to welcome my guest, Matthew Henderson. He is
Speaker 1: the interim Chief Government Affairs Officer at America First Policy Institute. Matthew, welcome,
Speaker 1: and thank you for joining.
Speaker 2: Me on Newsworld. Absolutely, it's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Would you just start by talking about the work you
Speaker 1: did would Save America Coalition to help kill the Biden
Speaker 1: Build Back Better Bill in twenty twenty one, and how
Speaker 1: that led you into the work you've done over the
Speaker 1: last three years on one big, beautiful bill.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm happy to taking a step back. If we
Speaker 3: remember what was going on in twenty twenty one, America
Speaker 3: First Policy Institute was just getting started and the Biden administration,
Speaker 3: who had just come into office, was looking at passing
Speaker 3: their agenda. And it's almost like they took their entire
Speaker 3: agenda and they put it into legislative build text. They
Speaker 3: passed one reconciliation bill rather quickly. The other bill, it
Speaker 3: was the Build Back Better Agenda. This was a monster
Speaker 3: of a bill. This was introduced early on in the year,
Speaker 3: and as America First Policy Institute was building up as
Speaker 3: a think tank, we were attracting talent from the first
Speaker 3: Trump administration, and a lot of folks were coming together
Speaker 3: and watching this process unfold in front of us. And
Speaker 3: this bill, there's really no other way to explain it
Speaker 3: other than a big government socialism bill. This bill would
Speaker 3: have fundamentally reshaped the society that we lived in, turning
Speaker 3: it into a socialist society. And there was tremendous momentum
Speaker 3: against this bill. And as the process moved along, I
Speaker 3: came on board with AFPI in about October and I
Speaker 3: was hired to run a conservative coalition of a number
Speaker 3: of organizations. At the time, we had about sixty organizations, conservative,
Speaker 3: bisically conscious organizations and groups that decided to come together
Speaker 3: and really make an effort to take a stand against
Speaker 3: this bill. There were about six organizations initially that came together,
Speaker 3: and as time went on, I was tasked with the
Speaker 3: responsibility of putting together a campaign identifying some of the
Speaker 3: worst provisions that were in this bill.
Speaker 2: And it's no.
Speaker 3: Wonder it was such a bad bill. It couldn't get
Speaker 3: traction in Congress. It wasn't moving, and that granted us
Speaker 3: an opportunity and a window to highlight some of these
Speaker 3: horrible provisions that were in this bill. And ultimately it
Speaker 3: came down to the end of December and a lot
Speaker 3: of the work that we had done in highlighting some
Speaker 3: of these issues, issues that you've written about before, mister Speaker,
Speaker 3: and I think you can remember that time very clearly
Speaker 3: of what was going on, because it was outrageous some
Speaker 3: of the things that were being proposed. Eventually made it
Speaker 3: to December and we're able to successfully kill that portion
Speaker 3: of the bill. It came down to what was going
Speaker 3: on with Senator Mansion in West Virginia. We were able
Speaker 3: to simply talk about how this bill would have decimated
Speaker 3: energy jobs. This bill would have raised gas prices. This
Speaker 3: bill would have outsourced jobs to China and the Communist
Speaker 3: Party of China. This bill would have essentially condoned the
Speaker 3: use of slave labor of what was going on with
Speaker 3: the weaker population that was in China. And we just
Speaker 3: brought those issues to the voters. They spoke up and
Speaker 3: they told Center Mansion, absolutely, don't vote for this bill.
Speaker 3: And he held a press conference saying that he was
Speaker 3: not going to support the bill, and that was the
Speaker 3: epitaph of the Build Back Better Bill. So we successfully
Speaker 3: were able to stop that bill. Unfortunately, it reared its
Speaker 3: head again. But the reality is we were able to
Speaker 3: save about four point five trillion dollars in taxpayers savings,
Speaker 3: and that's something pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that the brilliance of creating with
Speaker 1: Brooke Rollins and Linda McMahon taking the lead and thinking
Speaker 1: through and creating the America First Policy Institute and bringing
Speaker 1: together an extraordinary level of talent who had already had
Speaker 1: experience in the first Trump administration. Describe for folks the
Speaker 1: impact of America First Policy Institute and how you saw
Speaker 1: it operating and the things that was doing well.
Speaker 3: Coming into the organization, I had spent time on campaigns,
Speaker 3: I had spent time working in the House as a
Speaker 3: staffer and then the Senate as a staffer, and people
Speaker 3: were expecting the president to have a second term, and
Speaker 3: a lot of the minds that came together that came
Speaker 3: out of that first administration, there was a lot of
Speaker 3: work that went into a second agenda and how that
Speaker 3: agenda was going to look in the president's second term
Speaker 3: and when we weren't afforded to have a second term.
Speaker 3: A lot of work went into that agenda. And Brooke Rollins,
Speaker 3: who was our CEO and president at the time, and
Speaker 3: Linda McMahon, who's now Secretary of Education, so of course
Speaker 3: Brooke Rollins' Secretary of Agriculture, and mister Cudlow came together
Speaker 3: as well. Really recognized that there was an opportunity to
Speaker 3: take that agenda and some of the issues that they
Speaker 3: were working on, and to still further the momentum of
Speaker 3: the movement, to keep that momentum going because there was
Speaker 3: a desire to retain staff, to keep people engaged, to
Speaker 3: keep the movement engaged. You know, the president started something
Speaker 3: and nobody knew that he was going to run again
Speaker 3: at that time. But we knew that the ideas were powerful.
Speaker 3: We knew that the ideas needed to continue. We recognized
Speaker 3: that the ideas needed research and they needed to be
Speaker 3: built out. So as you look back and kind of
Speaker 3: see how America First first started, it was in a
Speaker 3: small room in northern Virginia where Broo Browns was head
Speaker 3: of the Domestic Policy Council in the White House. Several
Speaker 3: others who were in the West Wing went from the
Speaker 3: West Wing to a small office in Virginia just to
Speaker 3: continue this cause and movement. And it's kind of astonishing
Speaker 3: that a handful of staffers, I want to say, maybe
Speaker 3: about ten or fifteen individuals who were in that room
Speaker 3: grew into an organization of over two hundred strong just
Speaker 3: over a few short years. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that we first published was the America First Agenda. This
Speaker 3: was a collection of about one hundred and ninety six
Speaker 3: policies that were recommendations that we took to members' offices,
Speaker 3: that we took to the Senate, and we kept those
Speaker 3: ideas alive. We kept those ideas moving forward, and a
Speaker 3: lot of that paved the way to the policies that
Speaker 3: we're seeing now. The policies that we're seen in this
Speaker 3: One Big Beautiful Bill really originated from that agenda that
Speaker 3: the President first came up with in his first term.
Speaker 1: I really believe that without the hard work of the
Speaker 1: American First Policy Institute, that it would have been impossible
Speaker 1: to have had the last five months moving as rapidly
Speaker 1: as they did. That you really have a clear coming together,
Speaker 1: if you will, of the ideas, the people, and also
Speaker 1: the practicality. It wasn't just a think tank in the
Speaker 1: abstract sense. These are people who had been in government,
Speaker 1: understood government, and wanted to force real change, not just
Speaker 1: write interesting papers. Now you sort of reverse your role.
Speaker 1: You played a significant role in defeating the Biden Bill,
Speaker 1: and now you're playing a significant role in trying to
Speaker 1: pass the One Big Beautiful Bill. How does it feel
Speaker 1: to have flipped from opposition yelling no to governing majority
Speaker 1: trying to find a way to say yes.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit of a learning curve. I remember
Speaker 3: when we first kind of started on this process and
Speaker 3: when the sequencing of issues was going on, and you
Speaker 3: look at what can be included in what can't. It's
Speaker 3: not every day that you get the opportunity under unity
Speaker 3: of governance to have an opportunity like this to pass
Speaker 3: one big, beautiful bill. So the mindset was for so
Speaker 3: long we had these policies that we had to highlight
Speaker 3: how bad they were for the last four years to
Speaker 3: suddenly a shift and voters spoke very loud and clear
Speaker 3: last year in November, overwhelmingly rejecting a lot of those
Speaker 3: radical policy ideas. And now we're put in a position
Speaker 3: of governance, and so instead of highlighting the worst of
Speaker 3: the issues, you want to highlight really the best of
Speaker 3: the issues. And we know that this is a hard task,
Speaker 3: it's a long road, and that members who are working
Speaker 3: on these issues in the House and the Senate need
Speaker 3: to be supported for their work. So it's a shift
Speaker 3: from really attacking to supporting. And I remember the first
Speaker 3: time I was in a leadership office and we were
Speaker 3: talking through some of these issues, and it's important to
Speaker 3: remember that this is a conservative approach and that we're
Speaker 3: not looking to attack, we're looking to support and highlight
Speaker 3: and educate. So it's a little bit more on the
Speaker 3: education side instead of the highlighting some of the other.
Speaker 1: Things going way up to say a fifty thousand foot level,
Speaker 1: how would you describe to an average, everyday American the
Speaker 1: difference in the future between this bill passing and this
Speaker 1: bill failing to pass.
Speaker 3: This bill is our one shot. To put it in perspective,
Speaker 3: This bill is part of a larger plan. This bill
Speaker 3: is part of the president's strategy to accelerate economic growth.
Speaker 3: This is one pillar to that plan, and it needs
Speaker 3: to happen. Our spending is too high. Our spending needs
Speaker 3: to come down. We also need to cut taxes to
Speaker 3: accelerate growth. This bill does all of that. This bill
Speaker 3: includes more in it that will actually create American jobs,
Speaker 3: fat and middle class wallets.
Speaker 2: That's one fundamental.
Speaker 3: Way to think about this bill, and that's the approach
Speaker 3: we need, and we need the policies to achieve that
Speaker 3: in cutting taxes. Expanding the base is a key fundamental
Speaker 3: way of achieving that growth.
Speaker 1: The tax side of this is pretty complicated. Can you
Speaker 1: sort of walk us through the key elements, starting, of course,
Speaker 1: with the fact that if we don't extend the twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen tax cuts, we will have a massive tax increase
Speaker 1: and virtually every American is opposed to increasing taxes.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: A good way to think about it, and of course
Speaker 3: it changes based on where you live, how large your
Speaker 3: family size is. But a good way to think about
Speaker 3: it is if this wasn't extended. Of course, we're talking
Speaker 3: about the President's tax cuts, the Trump tax cuts, the
Speaker 3: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was put in place
Speaker 3: and enacted in twenty seventeen. If it was not extended,
Speaker 3: if this is something that doesn't pass, that means families
Speaker 3: will lose between of a range about seven hundred to
Speaker 3: about seventy two hundred dollars per year. Now that's based
Speaker 3: on family size and of course where they actually live,
Speaker 3: but that is a sizable amount of money. And for
Speaker 3: families living, for example, in Arizona, they could see a
Speaker 3: loss of close to four thousand dollars in take home pay.
Speaker 3: According to our own analysis at AFPI. This is something
Speaker 3: that we don't need in this economy right now. And
Speaker 3: when I speak to the economic growth side of it,
Speaker 3: we have an economy that's growing. I don't know if
Speaker 3: you saw the latest numbers coming out of the Atlanta FED,
Speaker 3: but the number was three point eight. Now what that
Speaker 3: means is already our economy is growing twice as fast.
Speaker 3: The Q two numbers came out, and our economy is
Speaker 3: growing twice as fast. Based on everything that the President's
Speaker 3: doing on his trade agenda, and based on the anticipation
Speaker 3: of this bill as it moves through Congress. Already we're
Speaker 3: seeing a lot of the positive effects of some of
Speaker 3: the policies that are going through right now.
Speaker 1: I've been talking about the combination of what he's doing
Speaker 1: with tariffs to make it more desirable to manufacturing the
Speaker 1: United States, what he's doing with this bill, and what
Speaker 1: he's done just as a good marketer. I mean, in
Speaker 1: his one trip to Saudi Arabia, guitar and the UAE
Speaker 1: he picked up in four days a billion dollars in
Speaker 1: orders for American products and a trillion dollar commitment to
Speaker 1: invest in the United States economy. Now, the momentum of
Speaker 1: those kind of deals has to mean I think by
Speaker 1: next summer we could be in a Trump boom. But
Speaker 1: the key to that is to pass this bill. And
Speaker 1: it's an extraordinarily complicated bill. Can you walk through just
Speaker 1: some of the provisions that people need to be aware
Speaker 1: of that give you a sense of the scale of
Speaker 1: effort going into this.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, and I think really the best way to
Speaker 3: describe it is Americans are going to support this bill,
Speaker 3: and we're already seeing them. More and more they learn
Speaker 3: about that, the more supportive they are because it spends
Speaker 3: less government money, it prevents one of the largest taxis
Speaker 3: in history, which is the tax savings that I was
Speaker 3: talking about a little bit earlier. And of course, it
Speaker 3: supercharges economic growth and that means more investment coming into
Speaker 3: this country, which creates jobs, which grows jobs, and creates
Speaker 3: fatter paychecks, which is something that everybody likes to see.
Speaker 3: I think some of the important components to the one.
Speaker 3: It stops maligned foreign actors from undercutting our American workers.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by saying that is that it
Speaker 3: secures the border. We've heard about border security for years.
Speaker 3: Voters are beginning to recognize that when the president says
Speaker 3: he's going to secure the border, he actually means it,
Speaker 3: and he has the policies that can show action on that.
Speaker 3: This bill provides extra funding so that he can finish
Speaker 3: building the wall higher than necessary to personnel to put
Speaker 3: in place to make sure that border is secure, and
Speaker 3: also invest in technology in order to keep that border secure.
Speaker 3: This helps him continue to fulfill the largest deportation effort,
Speaker 3: which is something that the President has talked about. We
Speaker 3: keep seeing these stories about some of the hatred and
Speaker 3: some of the unrest that's going on on college campuses,
Speaker 3: which is something that's just outrageous to think about it
Speaker 3: in this beautiful country of ours. That's happening. That has
Speaker 3: to do with some of these visas that haven't been
Speaker 3: updated in such a long time, and it's maligned foreign
Speaker 3: actors who are in a lot of these places and
Speaker 3: they're not actually Americans. Another one is this bill actually
Speaker 3: keeps more money in the pockets of every American. I've
Speaker 3: talked about the tax component, but when we see things
Speaker 3: like no tax on tips or no overtime pay, an
Speaker 3: enhanced deduction for seniors, no tax on car loan interest,
Speaker 3: and of course the ever famous no death tax, these
Speaker 3: are things that are all focused on growing the economy
Speaker 3: and keeping more money in americans paychecks. We also see
Speaker 3: some other provisions in here that are meant to empower
Speaker 3: parents and really protect women and children. I don't think
Speaker 3: the long term play is that there will be men
Speaker 3: playing in girls' sports, but we want to make sure
Speaker 3: that we're able to restore American values, which is a
Speaker 3: key pillar for change and something that we need to
Speaker 3: get back to and something that voters spoke loud and
Speaker 3: clearly to support. It stops taxpayer funds for child sex mutilation,
Speaker 3: which is something that's astonishing that has gone on for
Speaker 3: such a long period of time, but youre speaker, for
Speaker 3: the longest time, Medicaid dollars have actually been going to
Speaker 3: fund some of these surgeries. This bill puts a stop
Speaker 3: to that. We see some other things in here that
Speaker 3: are very good for education as well, in terms of
Speaker 3: putting parents' rights over their children's education again, we have
Speaker 3: expanded educational options for school choice. What that means is
Speaker 3: there's going to be more support for things like homeschooling.
Speaker 3: That means there's going to be more support for things
Speaker 3: that are alternatives to public education but doesn't erode from
Speaker 3: public education. We also see certain things that just need
Speaker 3: to be restored, like DEI or radical gender ideology that
Speaker 3: has really penetrated a lot of schools. So certain funding
Speaker 3: elements are really reformed and put back to where they
Speaker 3: should be. And we also see some very unique things
Speaker 3: like the pro life enhanced Adoption tax credit. What that
Speaker 3: means is that for families who want to adopt, that
Speaker 3: means you can get five thousand dollars off five thousand
Speaker 3: dollars refund in terms of the costs and fees that
Speaker 3: you're actually moving forward with an adoption. And as we know,
Speaker 3: adoptions can be incredibly expensive. So this is a step
Speaker 3: in the right direction towards our values. And I can
Speaker 3: keep going on and on and on. There's actually a
Speaker 3: list I know that we've seen come out of all
Speaker 3: the latest and greatest things, but that's just a little
Speaker 3: bit of some of the great things that are in
Speaker 3: this bill.
Speaker 1: The one thing I do want to focus on just
Speaker 1: from it as I understand it, on the tax zone,
Speaker 1: it's actually very favorable to small business and significantly help
Speaker 1: small businesses.
Speaker 3: Does there's a number of pro business things that are
Speaker 3: in this bill, full expensing that is able to help manufacturing.
Speaker 3: This bill is pro manufacturing, it's pro startup business. It
Speaker 3: is some very unique things that the American First Policy
Speaker 3: Institute has spent a lot of time on. Are these
Speaker 3: opportunity zones. We've heard about these opportunity zones perhaps before,
Speaker 3: but what these are are certain tax zones and structures
Speaker 3: that we're up for renewal next year. These were renewed
Speaker 3: and continue to be put in place. It's their pro
Speaker 3: growth element, so they allow for reinvestment in economically challenged
Speaker 3: areas urban areas, so it allows for reinvestment in our community,
Speaker 3: and it's a good alternative for businesses to invest in
Speaker 3: and also reinvest in our cities. There's also other pro
Speaker 3: growth tax reforms, and that key word there is pro growth.
Speaker 3: We just want to be really focused on growing the
Speaker 3: economy in a positive way. There's a lot of pro
Speaker 3: growth reforms to boost up economic growth, like small business
Speaker 3: exemptions for manufacturing, which I've already mentioned, and just a
Speaker 3: number of provisions that actually helped that regard and push
Speaker 3: the economic pro growth side forward.
Speaker 1: By the way, in terms of being pro growth, it
Speaker 1: seems to me that one of the great problems in
Speaker 1: passing this bill is that the Congressional Budget Office is
Speaker 1: just ridiculously left wing and refus us to score economic growth.
Speaker 1: That if you actually take what will probably happen based
Speaker 1: on the Reagan years we did when I was speaker,
Speaker 1: this bill should get us up to at least three
Speaker 1: or three and a half percent growth, And I think
Speaker 1: they're scoring it at like one point two. So what
Speaker 1: that does for our listeners is it means all of
Speaker 1: the extra revenue that would come in because the economy
Speaker 1: gets bigger, more people go to work, more people get
Speaker 1: pay raises, more companies make a profit, All of those
Speaker 1: things help pay for the bill. And consistently, the Congressional
Speaker 1: Budget Office has refused to score the scale of change
Speaker 1: that occurs when you get the right kind of positive
Speaker 1: pro growth policies. And it seems to me that that's
Speaker 1: one of the things Congress should fix is that the
Speaker 1: Congressional Budget Office is very left wing and is five
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five bureaucrats who specialize in underrating how
Speaker 1: good our reforms are and really underrating how effective our
Speaker 1: tax cuts are. What's your thought on that?
Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right, and that's why i wanted
Speaker 3: to lead with that surprising news. I'm not going to
Speaker 3: say it's surprising because it's a realistic approach. The Atlantica
Speaker 3: Federal Reserve came out with their number for the accelerated
Speaker 3: growth based on Q two this year alone at three
Speaker 3: point eight percent, So that means our economy is already
Speaker 3: growing twice as fast and in terms of the CBO
Speaker 3: three times as fast.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go on X and Truth Social and
Speaker 1: ask the question, what was the Congressional Budget Office score
Speaker 1: for the second quarter.
Speaker 3: I think it was right around one point two percent
Speaker 3: or something ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So if you just adjust how wrong they were for
Speaker 1: the entire bill, you literally pay for the bill by
Speaker 1: the scale of economic growth, which they refuse to admit exists.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating story. Let me ask you, though, I
Speaker 1: mean the one glyphs that's come up in the last
Speaker 1: few days. We can't talk about the bill without confronting
Speaker 1: the set on. We get this writing on X by
Speaker 1: Eon Musk, who says, quote, I'm sorry, but I just
Speaker 1: can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork filled congressional
Speaker 1: spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who
Speaker 1: voted for it. You know you did wrong. You know it.
Speaker 1: Now I have to tell him. My first reaction was
Speaker 1: he was off his meds, and I don't quite know
Speaker 1: what he's doing. But if you were debating him, how
Speaker 1: would you answer all those charges?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a little confusing.
Speaker 3: I guess I'm perplexed because this bill actually reverses the
Speaker 3: spending cursed plague. There's been a spending curse on DC.
Speaker 3: And you know this more than anybody else in this country.
Speaker 3: But DC has been on a trajectory of more and
Speaker 3: more and more and more spending. It's continuous. This bill
Speaker 3: actually delivers the largest deficit reduction in nearly thirty years,
Speaker 3: with one point six trillion in mandatory savings. To put
Speaker 3: that in layman's terms, it's the largest single reduction in
Speaker 3: spending in Congress's history in terms of the level of
Speaker 3: mandatory spending that this bill actually cuts. So that is astonishing.
Speaker 3: And I don't think that no tax on tips, or
Speaker 3: no tax on overtime, or things like saving costs for
Speaker 3: seniors are elements that would be considered pork. You know,
Speaker 3: pork is bringing something back for enriching that wealthiest one
Speaker 3: percent of people in this country. And that is something
Speaker 3: that the bill Back Better Bill did. That bill was
Speaker 3: riddled with special interest savings. I don't understand how this
Speaker 3: bill something like finishing the President's border wall keeping Americans safe,
Speaker 3: I don't understand how that's pork. I don't understand how
Speaker 3: this bill protects medicaid for Americans who truly need it.
Speaker 3: I don't think that that would be something that would
Speaker 3: be considered pork. On top of saving taxpayers in some cases,
Speaker 3: I've mentioned some of those numbers before, but in some
Speaker 3: cases it's close to fourteen thousand dollars in take home pay.
Speaker 3: So it keeps going on and on and on and
Speaker 3: Plus the bill includes some recommendations that even Elon Musk
Speaker 3: put in himself in terms of the Doze cuts. Now
Speaker 3: that has to do with a separate companion package to this,
Speaker 3: but that nine point four billion dollars in savings that
Speaker 3: Doze initially identified, that's something that's going to be a
Speaker 3: companion of this bill. So he's essentially trashing in his
Speaker 3: own work. I guess I'm a little perplexed at what's
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. You have, I think, very significant bill. It
Speaker 1: has lots of pieces in it. Everybody can find some
Speaker 1: reason to be a no, but if you're going to govern,
Speaker 1: you also have to find a reason to be a yes.
Speaker 1: I'm a little surprised that some of the members who
Speaker 1: go bouncing back and forth, but it strikes me that
Speaker 1: it's really central to having the economy grow and to
Speaker 1: begin to bend the spending curve that this bill passed.
Speaker 1: I say this from a background. When I was Speaker,
Speaker 1: we balanced the federal budget for four years in a
Speaker 1: row for the only time in the last one hundred years.
Speaker 1: So we have some sense of how to do this,
Speaker 1: and I think that this actually helps us move in
Speaker 1: the right direction. I think people need to confront this.
Speaker 1: This is one piece of a series of things that
Speaker 1: need to happen over the next three or four years.
Speaker 1: And I think that if you do those things, you're
Speaker 1: in fact going to dramatically reduce the deficit and ultimately
Speaker 1: get to a balanced budget, which we proved in the nineties.
Speaker 1: You could actually do it. It's not a theory. Well,
Speaker 1: what's your thinking about the notion that this is step
Speaker 1: one of a series of steps that have to be taken.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. This is step one to a larger plan.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Step one is fat and middle class while it's passing,
Speaker 3: this bill delivers the tax cuts that we need to
Speaker 3: stimulate the economy. Step two is aggressive deregulation. That's something
Speaker 3: that the president's been doing since day one, breaking down
Speaker 3: the barriers making it easier to invest in this country
Speaker 3: across every sector. These regulatory burdens of I need to
Speaker 3: file this form, I need to do it by this date,
Speaker 3: and I need to comply with the myriad of different
Speaker 3: agencies that are around Washington, d C. Or within state
Speaker 3: government that needs to be deregulated. It needs to be
Speaker 3: easier to invest, it needs to be easier to get
Speaker 3: things done. That deregulation is continuing to occur. Then, another
Speaker 3: important component of this plan is re establish American energy dominance.
Speaker 3: That's another component to this plan to accelerate economic growth.
Speaker 3: And a great speech I like to point folks back
Speaker 3: to as a speech that or a conversation between Larry
Speaker 3: Cudlow and Secretary Besant at the Economic Club of New
Speaker 3: York where they were talking about what does it take
Speaker 3: to accelerate the economy, and they were laying this plan
Speaker 3: out and it really crystallizes exactly what the potential of
Speaker 3: our country. And when we talk about some of those
Speaker 3: economic growth rates, what that means is that three percent
Speaker 3: forecasted or that three point eight percent forecasted economic growth.
Speaker 3: We're talking about trillions of dollars here, or you know,
Speaker 3: billions of dollars here, or some of these small arguments
Speaker 3: that are being had but what that actually means is
Speaker 3: that's ten trillion dollars of economic growth that comes into
Speaker 3: our country that would be created if this plan has followed,
Speaker 3: and that really brings the affordable abundance that the President
Speaker 3: talks about that we had AFPI have talked about of
Speaker 3: a plan to bring incredible growth to this country to
Speaker 3: realize our full potential, and we have every opportunity to
Speaker 3: do it, and this is one step in that larger process.
Speaker 1: I've participated twice in first helping with the Reagan three
Speaker 1: year tax cut and the deregulation of the Reagan era,
Speaker 1: and then the work that we did with the Contract
Speaker 1: with America and our tax cuts and the impact of
Speaker 1: economic growth and the impact of things like reforming the
Speaker 1: welfare system. So I know this can be done. I
Speaker 1: want to ask about one last thing which I've begun
Speaker 1: to work on, and that is I was at the
Speaker 1: announcement in the White House of the Make America Healthy
Speaker 1: Again Report on Children's Health. It is terrifying how badly
Speaker 1: the health of American children have decayed in the last
Speaker 1: twenty years. It was startling to me. If you're a
Speaker 1: fiscal conservative, you really want to help accelerate getting to
Speaker 1: a healthy America, both because it's so much better for
Speaker 1: children to grow up healthy. If we could get back
Speaker 1: to say, the kind of health we had for young
Speaker 1: people in nineteen sixty or nineteen seventy, the amount we
Speaker 1: would save by moving from what is now a sick
Speaker 1: care system, well you only take care of you once
Speaker 1: you're sick, to a genuine health care system where we
Speaker 1: actually try to minimize the likelihood of you ever getting sick.
Speaker 1: So we're not saving money by cutting spending or by
Speaker 1: bureaucratic controls. We're actually saving money by having people be healthier.
Speaker 1: And my guess is, when you realize that healthcare in
Speaker 1: America is about eighteen percent of the economy, yes, is
Speaker 1: we would save at least four percent of the gross
Speaker 1: domestic product by getting to make America healthy again goals.
Speaker 1: That is more than enough savings to balance the budget
Speaker 1: and start to pay down the national debt. And I'm
Speaker 1: just curious what your reaction is to the idea that
Speaker 1: we need to approach very profound shifts from sick care
Speaker 1: to healthcare takes seriously making America healthy again, and that
Speaker 1: it has both a human component that's enormously important, but
Speaker 1: it also has a really powerful fiscal component.
Speaker 3: What you said and what's been this Maha movement, I
Speaker 3: think is critical to not just every individual in their
Speaker 3: personal health, in the health of our families, but also
Speaker 3: the future of our country. It was President Kennedy who
Speaker 3: put in place a concept of gym class and establishing
Speaker 3: that concept, so it really comes full circle that Secretary
Speaker 3: Kennedy is also putting something else in place. And when
Speaker 3: you look at that eighteen percent of GDP of what
Speaker 3: we spend on health healthcare, it seems like there's an
Speaker 3: issue in this country of we take those whatever is
Speaker 3: that largest percentage, and we just throw money at it. Well,
Speaker 3: we don't understand it, so we're going to throw more
Speaker 3: money at it. We need to stop that trend, and
Speaker 3: we need to start taking responsibility for ourselves. And it
Speaker 3: starts with a choice of choosing to live healthier and
Speaker 3: making those choices available, and that's what the start of
Speaker 3: the Maha movement actually is doing and putting those things
Speaker 3: in motion.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that when we think about the
Speaker 1: next phase after this bill, that having the right kind
Speaker 1: of steps towards making America healthy again maybe the biggest
Speaker 1: single step we can take towards balancing the federal budget.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely correct. I couldn't set it better myself or
Speaker 3: anyone else for that matter.
Speaker 1: Well, in that cheerful note, Matthew, I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining me. Our listeners can learn more about
Speaker 1: the work you're doing at America First Policy Institute by
Speaker 1: visiting your website at America Firstpolicy dot com, which we'll
Speaker 1: also have on our show page. And I really really
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time to talk with us.
Speaker 2: Absolutely humbled, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, Thank you to my guest Matthew Henderson. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on
Speaker 1: our show page at newtsworld dot com. News World is
Speaker 1: produced by ginglis Stree sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork
Speaker 1: for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks
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Speaker 1: This is Nutsworld.