WEBVTT - Interview Only w/ Mechele Dickerson - Does America Need A Middle Class New Deal? 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.360 This episode of the Chuck Todcast is brought to you 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.240 by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:11.280 frozen subscription box for sour dough breads, arteisonal pastries, and 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.800 fresh pastas, plus all the items conveniently baked in twenty 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.759 five minutes or less. Unlike many store brought options, Wild 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.880 Grain uses some simple ingredients you can pronounce and a 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.480 slow fermentation process that can be a lot easier on 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.080 your belly, little gut health there right, and richer in 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.600 nutrients antioxidants. There's also no preservatives and no shortcuts. The 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.800 Wild Grain boxes are fully customizable. 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This 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:51.160 is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code well. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.680 As we get to the run up of not Just 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.160 Campaign twenty twenty six week Campaign twenty twenty eight, one 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.640 of the things I'm going to actively be seeking out 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:05.800 are academics and authors and historians that are that are 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.400 trying to lay out visions that look forward, not necessarily 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:15.480 relitigating the past and whether it's in How are we 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.680 going to reform and change and modernize the public education system, 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:23.079 which I think is something that I hope our next 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:28.680 presidential campaign can begin to discuss. And in that vein, 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:33.440 there's a terrific new book out by a professor at 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.480 the University of Texas Law School, by Michelle Dickerson. She's 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:38.239 my guest today. 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:39.040 The book is. 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:43.359 Called The middle Class New Deal, Restoring Upward Mobility and 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:49.120 the American Dream. This is more than just a white 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:54.400 paper of saying of aspiration. This is a book with 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:59.560 a detailed blueprint for how we should tackle this. And 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.079 what's in interesting about this and I'm going to shut 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.720 up here in a minute and bring in Michelle, is 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:08.960 that I view it as this better be a book 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.239 that anybody running for president, I don't care which party 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:14.160 you're running from, ought to read, because whether you're a 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.640 liberal or conservative, the goals that are outlined here in 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:25.480 this book, I think are something that frankly, both the 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.240 left and the right aspire to. We're just disagreeing on 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.520 how we get there. But it does begin here with 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.240 I think the reminder that in order to have a 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.080 middle class, you actually have to have government policy that 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:43.400 wants to have a middle class. And I think that 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.320 was before we begin our conversation. The most important insight 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:49.640 I think that I took away from this book. So, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.000 without further ado, let me bring in Michelle Dickerson, University 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:58.360 of Texas Law School. Been there, multiple books, She's written 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:03.000 multiple books. Is again not a I don't this doesn't 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.000 strike me. It didn't strike me as a political book. 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.400 It struck me as a answer to the economic anxiety 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.520 that has essentially been reflected in what has been now 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.400 twenty years of what I call vote against politics. We 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.839 know what we don't want, nobody's yet come up with 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.640 the answer for what we do want. So Michelle Dickerson, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:22.839 welcome to the podcast. 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.000 Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:27.719 So let me start with this because I think you 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.599 know you hear the words new deal, and we've seen 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.720 a lot of economic prescriptions using the umbrella of the 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.760 new deal, right, and you know a lot of times 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:44.000 it's just borrowing a popular phrase to sell something that 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.119 people have been trying to sell for years. This didn't 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:51.960 strike me. They tell me your origin as to what 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:57.279 motivated you to put these ideas together the way you did. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.040 The first thing I did is I thought about, so 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.680 how is it that we have a middle class? And 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:05.839 this is a point that you just made in the introduction. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.480 We have a middle class because political leaders decided we 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.320 needed to have a middle class. Now, part of it 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.640 was in response to the depression, but after the depression 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.960 in World War one world War two, political leader said, 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.360 you know what, it's not a bad thing to have 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.120 a middle class. They do good things for the US economy. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.400 And also as political leaders, we need to do good 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.200 things for lower and middle income folks who are looking 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.920 to achieve the American dream to have upward mobility. So 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:44.800 I landed on the middle Class New Deal because we 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:49.720 created the middle class roughly as part of the First 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.360 New Deal, and political leaders need to stop. And I 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.880 agree with the way that you framed this. This is 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.479 not a left or a right, or a Democrat or 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.000 a Republican book. This is a book for all political 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.760 leaders to make a decision do we care about the 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:07.800 middle class in this country or not? 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.680 I thought the most important insight and it's almost to 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.919 me it's the table stakes, right. If you don't accept 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:17.800 this premise, then you're not going to accept the premise 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.880 of the book is that somehow a middle class just 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.680 happens in a free market economy. The fact of the matter, 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:27.400 it doesn't. And when we lionize, you know, you know 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.440 we It's always one of those things. Everybody wants to 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.160 say they're in the middle class, right. It is popular 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:34.360 to be in the middle class, even as we aspire 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.680 to be. Even when you're not in the middle class anymore, 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:39.920 you still want to say, well, I've got middle class roots, right, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.960 there's something about it, right, we want to be here. 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.320 But this is not something a free market economy creates. 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:52.400 Free Market economies, when left unchecked, create uber rich and 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.160 a lot of poor. It actually, it doesn't automatically create 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.800 a middle class. And I think understanding the history of 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.120 the great building of the middle class of the fifties, 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.440 the GI Bill, that was a government essentially making sure 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.480 the troops that came home didn't become poor, gave them 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.800 an opportunity to stay out of poverty, not even necessarily 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.960 bringing people from poverty to the middle class. The development 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.720 of the suburbs, the development of all of these things 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:24.480 were in support of the middle of creating a middle class. 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.120 And I think that might be hard for some of 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.040 my free market conservative friends to sort of wrap their 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.560 arms around, but guess what government actually has to create 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:37.320 the conditions to allow a middle class to exist. Did 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:39.120 I summarize your argument parently? 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.240 We did exactly, And what I would say is, if 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.920 you want to know what happens when the government is 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.120 not involved, look at what has happened to lower and 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.600 middle income people since the nineteen eighties. So if we 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.600 want the free market to control, what that means is 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.040 we will have the uber uber rich and everyone else 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.880 will be struggling. So it's really hilarious to me when 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:03.840 people look back at the middle class and all of 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.240 the wonderful things it did. It helps people go to college, 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.880 it helped people buy homes. But if we really wanted 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.520 to put labels on what happened that the factors that 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.440 helped to create the middle class, we'd have to say 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:23.440 things like socialism and interfering with free markets, And of 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.960 course nobody wants to say those words. The S word 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.560 is just horrible. Well, fine, don't call it socialism, just 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.120 call it what do we think this government owes to 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.520 people who work hard, get up every day and try 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.920 to do the right thing, and yet continue to struggle. 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.679 If your response is we owe them nothing, then we 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:44.600 need to just say that. 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.160 Well, and you know I can make a national security 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.560 are if you want a stable and thriving population that 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.640 also is patriotic, then you better have a sustainable middle 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.160 class if we don't have one, Yeah, if we. 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.439 Want a happy be population. So if again, even ignoring 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.640 whether or not you care about the economic security of 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.640 most families in this country, one of the things that 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.959 I always say when people ask me, well, why is 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.840 it so good to have a middle class? I can 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:22.520 point to lots of things like toasters, or trash cans 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:29.480 or Ford pickup trucks. Billionaires can only buy so many 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.160 of those. So even if you don't care about the 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.439 stability of human beings, the economic stability of human beings, 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.480 y'all ought to care whether or not you can sell 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:46.760 lots of pickup trucks and trash cans and microwaves. That's 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:51.080 what the middle past also does. They drive spending in 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.120 this economy. And if they're struggling financially, or if they're 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:58.240 scared and we're seeing a lot of fear now, which 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.160 is also unhealthy, then we're going to have a week economy. 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:06.480 So I feel as if that you're you made a 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:13.720 case in this book that government in sort of supporting 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.440 the middle class. It's not about guaranteeing a certain level 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.679 of income. But it is about guaranteeing and the following items, uh, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:27.800 the ability, stable employment, predictable health costs, affordable education, pathways 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:33.679 to home ownership, and retirement security. And that those things 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.880 Government has to involve itself if you want to have 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.600 those guarantees, and that that that middle class is less 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:49.440 about income and more about does the average American able 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.720 to achieve those five goals in life? 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.240 Yeah, And one of the things when I talk about 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:58.160 the middle class that I always stress is people who 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.520 are struggling financially are not saying we need to be billionaires. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.240 They're simply saying, why is it so hard for me 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:10.800 to find a full time job forty hours a week 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:17.680 with benefits including health insurance and a retirement plan where 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.720 I am called an employee when I go to work 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.079 and not an independent contractor? So why is that so hard? 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:27.520 Why is it so hard for me to be able 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:31.400 to either go to college myself and not drown myself 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.800 in student loan debt or help my kids go to college? 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.800 Why is it so hard for me? And I'll tweak 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.840 one thing that you said, it's not so much now 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.440 to be able to own your own home. It's to 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.000 be able to find affordable housing, even to rent in 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.280 a lot of cities. Why is it so hard for 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.520 me to find stable and secure housing? Why am I 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.720 drowning in debt? Why don't I have savings? So you're 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:01.000 absolutely right. My book isn't arguing that everybody needs to 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.240 earn the same thing, but everybody in this country that 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.560 works hard and wants to achieve. Whether we call it 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.959 the American Dream, upward mobility, I really don't care. 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:13.400 But everyone that wants to. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.720 Be stable should have the opportunity to do that. 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.439 So let's talk about let's pick out these things one 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.920 at a time. So the role, What are some ideas 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:28.120 that government could do to create a more stable employment environment. 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.720 Well, one thing is to focus on what I just said, 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:36.320 why do we continue to allow businesses to treat their 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:40.920 employees as independent contractors? Because if you say they don't 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:43.680 have to treat them as employees, then that means they're 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.199 not guaranteed forty hours a week, they don't get benefits, 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.840 they don't have the right to unionize. So we need 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.040 to start asking why is it that we allow companies 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:59.439 to outsource whole swaths of their employment of their employees 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:04.200 and the back as an independent contractor. We have to 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.439 ask why is it. In the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:13.520 people that worked had a defined benefit pension plan. That's 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:15.520 what my parents have and I talk about them in 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.680 the book. My parents get two I won't say checks, 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.520 because it's not checks anymore. Two deposits into their checking 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.720 account every month because they worked their entire lives and 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:31.840 they have guaranteed retirement income. I am terrified to think 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.720 what we're going to see in about ten years when 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.400 people start retiring. They don't have pensions and they have 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.440 not much saved in a defined contribution for a one 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.240 K four three B plan. 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.240 Oh, baby boomers are the last ones that got pensions, 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.600 and ZAC gen X is the first generation. You know, 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:52.840 you know, we're the ones that I had to figure 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.120 out what is four O one K mean? Okay, it's 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.360 like alphabet soup? Yeah, right, Ira roth Ira? What is that? Right? 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.760 There were all these sort of new sort of you know, 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.280 tax coded you know, numbers and numerologies or the names 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.760 after senators who came up with the idea that we're 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:15.040 all designed essentially to keep Americans from being angry that 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.760 pensions were going away. I don't know any other way 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:18.600 to describe it. 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:24.840 Yeah, they shifted the risk of retirement security from employers 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.200 to employees, and they did it in ways that was 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.000 designed for us to end up exactly where we are. 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.960 I remember the first time I had my first job. 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:38.640 It was at a law firm, I think, and I 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.120 went there and I had to actually look at the 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:45.000 retirement offerings. I mean, I was a bankruptcy lawyer and 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.800 I've graduated from law school. It so terrified me. I 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:50.800 had to put it down and come back the next 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.160 day because it was so complicated. Well, if I can't 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:59.440 figure it out, imagine just a normal didn't doesn't have 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:03.120 two degree, you know, isn't in bankruptcy employee that's sitting 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.120 down trying to figure out what do I need to 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.960 invest in, and when do I think I'm going to retire, 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.360 and what level of income do I think I'm going 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:14.120 to need the things that employers used to do for 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:14.920 their workers. 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.960 Look, politically, that's going to be very difficult, right you 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:24.400 look at Let's just take FedEx in Amazon. Right. FedEx 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.520 is an older company that arguably is the first major 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:33.320 company to succeed with independent contractors. Right and Amazon obviously 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.160 many of these people that work at Amazon don't work 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:40.960 for Amazon right there, they're independent contractor. They have a 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.920 lot of political leverage, right and the whole And there's 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.120 some that will argue, well, independent contractors allow people to 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.280 make more money because it can be a side hustle 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.880 and right. You know, there are different ways that have 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:59.440 been used frankly to convince or persuade parts of the population. No, no, no, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:05.160 no no. These these empower you, These don't hurt you, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:06.920 you know. And I'm not asking you to be a 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.000 political messaging guru here, but I think that's going to 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:14.960 be the political challenge to an obvious policy conundrum. Right. 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.840 And we talk a lot about freedom and choice. So 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:23.160 you have the freedom. You can choose not to work 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:24.880 forty hours a week you want to have you want 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.720 to be an independent contract it's good for you. You can 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.680 choose to work in the gig economy, you know, pick 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:32.920 up a little bit of work here and there. But 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.920 if you actually talk to the people who are exercising 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.800 the choice to be an independent contractor, it's not a choice. 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.160 And I can say this from personal experience. I have 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.200 a twenty five year old son who worked briefly for Amazon, 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.000 but he didn't work for Amazon. He worked for a 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.640 delivery service provider and they treated him very well. But 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.080 at the end of the day, he was never going 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.880 to work for Amazon, and he was never going to 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.600 get forty hours a week working at the DSP because 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:09.639 it wasn't set up for them to be full time 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.920 forty hour a week. You got to give them benefits. 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:15.679 Do you think this has to be mandatory legislation that 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.440 basically says is there you know, can you design what 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.440 would a what would a simple piece of legislation do 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:28.280 to sort of dissuade the independent contractor route. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:33.000 Well, several states have actually tried. I think California tried. 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:36.239 All have failed, but several states have tried. Basically, if 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.439 you have someone that is doing the same work that 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.800 people you called employees are doing, those people must be 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:49.000 treated like employees, whether you call them contractors or not. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.399 So give them health insurance, allow them to participate in 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.600 the retirement plans, and more importantly, allow them to organize 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:03.400 and to participate in any or union organizing attempts at 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.120 your company. Because at the end of the day, when 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.560 you have fewer employees your cost or less as a business, 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:14.760 and you're not at grade of a risk of having 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.040 a strong union presence, because if you have fewer employees, 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.280 you're less likely to have to deal with those pesky unions. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.560 This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.720 by Quints, and I love me some Quints. New Year, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.960 colder days. This is the moment your winter wardrobe really 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.720 has to deliver. If you're craving a winter reset, start 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.359 with pieces truly made to last season after season. 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Quints dot com slash chuck go to Predictable 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.720 Health cust You know there was a time, I want 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.920 to say twenty years ago, where I thought that there 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.000 was a deal to be cut with big business. You 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.840 know I would hear the complaints, you know, because I've 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.200 worked where I worked I'd have interactions with this CEO 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.679 of ge and I've had interactions with the CEO of 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.879 Comcast and interactions with other CEOs, and all of them 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.560 would complain about the cost of healthcare, and so you 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:40.600 could I always thought that there was this great grand 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.000 bargain where the government would say, look, we can save 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.840 you some money. We'll take care of health We'll take 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.240 healthcare out of your situation. Then you can go back 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.159 to having pensions or you can go back to you 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.280 know that there was this grand bargain to be had, 0:20:54.320 --> 0:21:00.679 so to tackle predictable health costs, you know, is it 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.000 realistic to stick with the employer based healthcare system that 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.399 ultimately we're still kind of attached to, even though the 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.640 Affordable Care Act was supposed to make this a bit 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:14.520 more portable. Do you think we need policy fixes that 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:16.199 sort of deal with the world that we live in, 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.520 or do we need to radically rethink how we deliver 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.320 health insurance to folks or health care. 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:26.520 I would say we need to make a radical change. 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.560 And these are a couple of options. And I'll lead 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.480 into this by telling a story involving a class that 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.119 I taught at ut So it was a class that 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:40.679 had both law students, public policy students, schools from students 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:44.159 from a school of education, and foreign exchange students. So 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.440 we were talking about the middle class and this particular 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:51.040 class session we were talking about insurance and one of 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.120 the students from the Netherlands finally asked a question says, 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.720 I don't understand why when we're talking about health insurance 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.119 you all keep talking about jobs. What do jobs have 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.680 to do with anything? And then we had to explain 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.960 to her, Well, in the US, that's how we provide 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:12.800 health insurance. So if we leave it with businesses, businesses 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.480 have to assume the cost. So rather than pushing the 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:21.199 cost onto employees, tell them that, you know, whether we 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:23.240 want to say that there are caps on what they 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:28.560 can charge or but businesses can lobby Congress and be 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:33.000 much more effective in coming up with solution that individual 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:36.720 employees can. I will also say, and this is not 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.879 necessarily a model that can be scaled, but when we 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.720 look at the way that a military personnel in this country, 0:22:43.760 --> 0:22:46.880 how they receive health insurance, they receive it from the government. 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:51.480 Is it perfect? They would probably say no, Is everyone covered? 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.720 Yes they are. So we have to do something radical 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:59.600 because we can't continue with the status quo. And I 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.040 would also again thinking back to the past, although I'm 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:04.800 not going to stick say in the past, I want 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:06.280 us to be thinking in terms of the. 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:08.320 Oh, and this is the point of your book is 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:10.760 to stop. You know, we can't relitigate stuff. 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:12.160 That that has happened yet. 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:12.720 Right. 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:17.360 But the reason that we have so many employee benefits 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:21.800 tied into work was because in World War Two there 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:26.200 was a wage controls, so they couldn't increase wages. So 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:28.720 what businesses did is say, oh, but we can give 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:34.240 you non wage benefits. Once that happened, it became the norm. 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.280 And so one of the things I want political leaders 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:39.359 to do is to say, well, if it wasn't the 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.959 norm until we created it, maybe we can create something 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:44.879 new and that'll then become. 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:48.520 The norm, a new essentially some new norms exactly if 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:51.400 you want. But you're right, I mean it was people 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:56.800 would panic if they found out healthcare wasn't connected to work. Yeah, right, 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.280 that's what Look, that's what the Clintons found out when 0:23:59.280 --> 0:24:03.320 they first touched the healthcare back in ninety three. Whoa, whoa, whoa. 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:05.320 People hate the system, but they like their own health. 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:08.880 Care exactly, and they're always afraid that, well, I have 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:12.119 to have the best health care and I have to 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:15.880 have every single procedure that I want covered. And that's 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:19.800 great that in theory, until you lose your job and 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.280 then you have no health care. So one of the 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:25.200 discussions we're going to have to have is to ask people, 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:28.720 are you going to fight for what you have right now, 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.600 knowing that if you lose your job you have nothing? 0:24:33.160 --> 0:24:35.520 You know, I what are I think there are real 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.000 trade offs here that might be net positives for everybody, 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.719 right if the government takes on the role of essentially 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:48.240 guaranteeing insurance, guarantee health care, access to healthcare, in theory, 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:54.280 that should free up money for corporations. I mean, and 0:24:54.880 --> 0:24:57.560 you know, I don't know. You know, we don't do 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:01.400 nuance very well in our country anymore in our political debates. 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:03.480 But you know, that seems to be the type of 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:09.760 thing that that that in a in a mature setting, 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:14.240 that that people would accept the idea that this is 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:17.120 trade offs. This isn't you know. Okay, I want this guarantee, 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:18.920 but it means it won't get it over here, okay, 0:25:21.320 --> 0:25:22.159 and you put it out. 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:24.800 There, Yeah, I mean we're again at the where we 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:27.439 unfortunately spend most of our time in the political space 0:25:27.520 --> 0:25:31.359 with you know, we let perfect be the enemy of good, right, 0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:35.320 and so why not say these are the six things 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:39.560 that we think people in this country deserve. And if 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:43.640 we can agree that everyone deserves healthcare, everyone deserves some 0:25:43.760 --> 0:25:47.320 kind of retirement security, we can then say, Okay, now 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:50.480 that we've agreed on that, who do we think should 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:55.280 be responsible for providing it? Ignoring who may be providing 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:58.840 it right now, but who going forward do we think 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:01.760 should be responsible for providing it? That to me is 0:26:01.760 --> 0:26:08.320 a much more productive conversation than relitigating, well, it's not 0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:10.760 fair if businesses have to do this and it increase 0:26:10.800 --> 0:26:14.119 their costs. Okay, let's just assume that your true. Let's 0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:14.800 go forward. 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:20.359 Let's talk about affordable education. You know, one of the 0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:24.760 head scratchers to me, I was convinced back in the 0:26:24.800 --> 0:26:27.719 mid nineties that it was inevitable that we were going 0:26:27.800 --> 0:26:31.880 to what I called thirteenth and fourteenth grade, that we 0:26:31.880 --> 0:26:34.919 were going that public education was essentially going to extend 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:37.680 another two years, that there was going to be guaranteed 0:26:37.720 --> 0:26:40.919 public education up through quote unquote fourteen years of it, 0:26:41.040 --> 0:26:43.439 so you divided up how you want to divide it up. Right, 0:26:43.440 --> 0:26:45.199 You had your primary and secondary, and then you have 0:26:45.920 --> 0:26:48.439 essentially free community college, right the first two years of 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:52.480 community college. The fact that we haven't gotten there, you know, 0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:55.040 the fact that we're still, like a think, debating university 0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:59.520 universal kindergarten in some states we have, I would argue 0:26:59.560 --> 0:27:03.440 the entire our education debate is just sort of stalled, right, 0:27:03.560 --> 0:27:07.680 and we're stuck with this terrible system of charters and 0:27:07.760 --> 0:27:11.959 where everybody has taken education in their own hands. And 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:15.199 you know, you're discussing in some cases more about higher education. 0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:19.600 But I feel like the entire educational system just desperately 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:23.879 needs a twenty first century makeover, and it's so politically 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:26.439 polarized that we don't know how to do it. What 0:27:26.520 --> 0:27:31.600 are a few steps, a few ideas you're putting out 0:27:31.600 --> 0:27:34.119 there in the book that you think could make a 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:35.400 tangible progress here. 0:27:36.080 --> 0:27:38.760 Well, I'll leave by saying one group that we also 0:27:38.800 --> 0:27:43.600 have to bring into this discussion our employers. Because even 0:27:43.640 --> 0:27:48.120 if we had K fourteen and everyone had a free 0:27:48.119 --> 0:27:51.479 community college education, employers need to be willing to hire 0:27:51.560 --> 0:27:56.720 them and pay them a decent wage. The challenge now 0:27:56.840 --> 0:28:00.760 is that the bachelor's degree has largely become the gateway 0:28:00.800 --> 0:28:03.680 to the middle class. So employers also need to come 0:28:03.680 --> 0:28:06.159 into the conversation and say, we're going to hire people 0:28:06.560 --> 0:28:09.399 and treat them decently even if they don't have a 0:28:09.400 --> 0:28:13.560 bachelor's degree. But you're absolutely right, we've got to look 0:28:13.680 --> 0:28:18.040 at what happens starting in kindergarten. I would like to 0:28:18.080 --> 0:28:22.560 start actually in preschool as well, And how do we 0:28:22.640 --> 0:28:27.959 treat lower and middle income children in public schools, And 0:28:28.040 --> 0:28:32.160 how do we treat rich children and lower rich children 0:28:32.200 --> 0:28:35.560 who are more likely to be educated in private schools. 0:28:35.800 --> 0:28:38.080 So we need to have an honest discussion when we're 0:28:38.080 --> 0:28:42.120 talking about charters and vouchers and all of these other things. 0:28:42.680 --> 0:28:46.080 Most lower and middle income kids in this country are 0:28:46.200 --> 0:28:50.080 educated in a public school somewhere. If they are in 0:28:50.120 --> 0:28:54.760 a rural area. There are no such things as choice options. 0:28:54.840 --> 0:28:55.480 There's no choice. 0:28:55.480 --> 0:28:57.120 To say this all the time. I mean, you know, 0:28:58.120 --> 0:29:02.920 it's essentially homeschool exactly. That's the only realistic option if 0:29:02.960 --> 0:29:04.240 you don't like your school. 0:29:04.320 --> 0:29:08.200 And some parents are doing that. But as we saw 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:11.920 during COVID, exactly parents were like, oh my goodness, we 0:29:12.000 --> 0:29:15.160 love our school. Teachers, Boy, can we get these children back? 0:29:15.320 --> 0:29:15.520 Right? 0:29:15.880 --> 0:29:18.440 And so it's great to say homes Well, you know 0:29:18.480 --> 0:29:22.440 people need a homeschool. Most parents need two incomes in 0:29:22.560 --> 0:29:25.680 order to survive. So that's just not a thing. So 0:29:25.800 --> 0:29:27.600 one of the things I argue, and I know some 0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:29.600 of the things I proposed in the book are are 0:29:29.680 --> 0:29:33.160 quite radical, but we need to look at the public 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:37.960 school buildings and ask ourselves why are they so underutilized? 0:29:38.040 --> 0:29:41.320 How can we use them to do more? So we 0:29:41.400 --> 0:29:44.040 know that there are educational gaps between lower and middle 0:29:44.040 --> 0:29:47.800 income children and lower rich and rich children. What can 0:29:47.840 --> 0:29:50.640 we do with the public school system to try to 0:29:50.720 --> 0:29:53.680 close those gaps. One of the things that we do 0:29:53.760 --> 0:29:57.680 now is we still treat public school the public school 0:29:58.160 --> 0:30:01.760 calendar is if we're in a great economy, So for 0:30:01.880 --> 0:30:03.480 three some three months of the. 0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:07.480 Summer, got to deal with the crops. Everybody, right, that's right. 0:30:08.040 --> 0:30:11.160 So you have children just there in the phrases use 0:30:11.200 --> 0:30:14.840 as a summer slide. If you're rich or lower rich, 0:30:15.320 --> 0:30:19.479 you can put your kids in these camps and robotic camps, 0:30:19.480 --> 0:30:22.760 and you can have them go to these summer high 0:30:22.800 --> 0:30:26.360 school camps on college campuses. Well, that's lovely, that's not 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:29.800 the reality for lower and middle income families. And so 0:30:29.840 --> 0:30:33.000 you're what I do, both in the book and also 0:30:33.040 --> 0:30:36.320 when I'm giving different talks, is we have to focus 0:30:36.720 --> 0:30:40.920 on K twelve because it's too late once children are 0:30:40.960 --> 0:30:42.920 about to turn eight, age eighteen. 0:30:43.880 --> 0:30:46.800 No, And the whole thing is, you know, nobody's happy 0:30:46.840 --> 0:30:49.840 with the public school system, and everybody would be appalled 0:30:49.880 --> 0:30:50.360 if it went. 0:30:50.280 --> 0:30:51.720 Away, exactly. 0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:56.000 And and you know it's like, look, I empathize with 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:59.240 these parents that go back and forth. Get I get 0:30:59.320 --> 0:31:02.840 school choice I had. You know, my parents didn't. The 0:31:02.880 --> 0:31:05.320 only choice they had was to find another neighborhood to 0:31:05.320 --> 0:31:08.400 live in with affordable housing, and they did that. That 0:31:08.520 --> 0:31:10.720 was that's all they could do, and that's what they did. 0:31:10.800 --> 0:31:14.080 I had a little bit more the ability to truly 0:31:14.160 --> 0:31:17.480 choose what was going to be best for my kids. 0:31:17.480 --> 0:31:22.280 But ultimately, we are not going to have a good 0:31:22.600 --> 0:31:27.360 labor force if we don't have a good public education system. 0:31:27.400 --> 0:31:33.880 And well, look, politically, the impediments have been a weird 0:31:33.920 --> 0:31:36.760 combination of people who don't want you know, I joke 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:38.520 in the state of Virginia, it's the people that own 0:31:38.800 --> 0:31:42.000 an amusement park called King's Dominion that was making it 0:31:42.040 --> 0:31:45.640 impossible for school districts to even start two weeks earlier. 0:31:46.240 --> 0:31:48.719 You know, it would be like these weird you know, 0:31:48.760 --> 0:31:51.360 And then there was some teachers' unions are like no, no, no, no, 0:31:51.440 --> 0:31:54.280 we want we want our time off because a lot 0:31:54.280 --> 0:31:59.360 of teachers, because they're underpaid, spend their summers looking for 0:31:59.440 --> 0:32:02.719 extra in and are afraid of that going away, right, So, 0:32:03.200 --> 0:32:05.720 which then tells you we really aren't investing very well 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:07.320 in our school teachers if they feel like they need 0:32:07.360 --> 0:32:10.840 a second job in the summer. So it's a it's 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:14.440 a it's been a weird challenge to sort of break 0:32:14.520 --> 0:32:17.520 this norm of summer break. 0:32:18.160 --> 0:32:22.040 Yeah, but again one of the they're very COVID was awful. 0:32:22.040 --> 0:32:24.320 It was dreadful and and I've always had to purpose 0:32:24.360 --> 0:32:26.520 this with there's nothing good about COVID, but some good 0:32:26.520 --> 0:32:28.680 things did come out of COVID. And one of the 0:32:28.720 --> 0:32:32.959 things we saw during COVID is what happens when you 0:32:33.000 --> 0:32:37.280 have an extended educational slide. So we have children now 0:32:37.480 --> 0:32:40.960 who still have not caught up and who are still 0:32:41.000 --> 0:32:44.960 behind because of the COVID slide. So you're absolutely right, 0:32:45.000 --> 0:32:49.640 everyone has their own agenda. Actually, before I joined the 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:52.120 UT faculty I worked at. I was at the law 0:32:52.120 --> 0:32:54.680 school at William and Mary and so I know I 0:32:54.720 --> 0:32:57.320 know about you know, those gated communities there. Yeah, and 0:32:57.360 --> 0:33:00.200 it was just striking. It's like, oh, so if you 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:04.720 all don't want to lose cheap high school labor, that's 0:33:04.760 --> 0:33:09.040 the reason you want to. Oh, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, 0:33:09.200 --> 0:33:11.040 but for the school teachers, one of the things that 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:14.920 we can do if we're using our K twelve buildings 0:33:14.960 --> 0:33:19.080 more effectively, we can actually allow the school teachers that 0:33:19.240 --> 0:33:22.040 want to they don't have to to pick up extra 0:33:22.120 --> 0:33:24.560 money in their area of expertise. 0:33:25.240 --> 0:33:27.320 You call this the summer trimester essentially. 0:33:27.440 --> 0:33:31.480 Concept exactly. Yeah, just the building is there, So why 0:33:31.520 --> 0:33:35.160 not use the building in ways that can put a 0:33:35.200 --> 0:33:38.200 little more money in the pockets of school teachers and 0:33:38.360 --> 0:33:41.400 also make sure that lower and middle income children get 0:33:41.440 --> 0:33:47.160 the same educational and vocational opportunities that rich kids do. 0:33:47.960 --> 0:33:51.800 Now, let's talk about labor labor unions, because what's interesting 0:33:51.920 --> 0:33:55.760 is we're in a moment right now where you know, look, 0:33:55.800 --> 0:33:58.280 I think you and I are of the generation where 0:33:58.360 --> 0:34:03.400 labor unions were a punching back, you know, and politically, 0:34:04.000 --> 0:34:06.920 you know, it's like you know, it's almost like that 0:34:07.360 --> 0:34:11.399 every labor union was viewed through the prism of Jimmy Hoffa, right, 0:34:11.520 --> 0:34:14.000 and it's just like they're all, you know, and it 0:34:14.120 --> 0:34:18.600 really the damage, the perception damage Jimmy off did to 0:34:18.680 --> 0:34:22.759 the entire concept of collective bargaining and unions is is 0:34:22.800 --> 0:34:25.440 I think one of those one of those moments that 0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:28.680 probably we as sort of historical journalists need to unpack 0:34:28.719 --> 0:34:32.600 and realize, look at the damage this did. But there's 0:34:32.640 --> 0:34:35.239 now sort of an open mind on this. Now there's 0:34:35.440 --> 0:34:40.759 less ideological divide about labor unions. There's still some skepticism 0:34:40.760 --> 0:34:42.640 in corporate right now, the divide really seems to be 0:34:42.719 --> 0:34:46.040 corporate America versus everybody else. Right, you have a Donald 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:49.600 Trump that in theory sees, you know, wants to be 0:34:49.640 --> 0:34:54.680 on the side at least of the trade unions. They're there, 0:34:55.040 --> 0:34:58.480 and I think with AI, the fear of AI job displacement, 0:34:59.320 --> 0:35:02.520 why collar were workers who you know, I've been you know, 0:35:02.560 --> 0:35:05.160 I've been a little skeptical of news of news rem 0:35:05.239 --> 0:35:08.080 unions myself, sort of like you know, I've always viewed 0:35:08.120 --> 0:35:11.520 unions as to protect the physical labor folks more than 0:35:11.680 --> 0:35:14.879 necessarily the but that's my own bias, and I will 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:18.920 I'm you know, at the same time, the only way 0:35:18.960 --> 0:35:21.319 you're going to get equal treatment is through collective bargainy, right, 0:35:21.320 --> 0:35:22.719 we're about to I think we're going to see this 0:35:22.719 --> 0:35:25.760 in college sports. By the way, that's a separate topic, 0:35:26.280 --> 0:35:32.880 but you seem to peg one of the one of 0:35:32.920 --> 0:35:35.080 the reasons why we had a strong middle class in 0:35:35.080 --> 0:35:40.480 the fifties and sixties was because we openly accepted labor unions. 0:35:40.480 --> 0:35:42.359 So how do you bring that back? 0:35:43.160 --> 0:35:45.920 Well, one of the divides that I think we're also 0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:50.279 seeing is there's a generational divide. So I remember when 0:35:50.320 --> 0:35:54.520 I first started teaching courses on the middle class. Again, 0:35:54.600 --> 0:35:56.440 this is one of the sessions where we were talking 0:35:56.440 --> 0:35:59.480 about labor and I had a student in the class 0:36:00.600 --> 0:36:03.239 to raise their hand and say, so, you know, we've 0:36:03.239 --> 0:36:07.000 been talking about this whole thing with you know, rights 0:36:07.040 --> 0:36:11.560 and workers' power, and you've been talking about unions. Exactly 0:36:11.719 --> 0:36:15.279 what is a union? And it was jarring to me 0:36:15.840 --> 0:36:18.920 until it occurred to me that we had so demonized 0:36:19.400 --> 0:36:23.160 unions that a lot of students fifteen years ago really 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:28.520 weren't familiar with the benefits that unions actually could provide. 0:36:28.680 --> 0:36:32.719 Students now they know exactly what unions do. Part of 0:36:32.760 --> 0:36:34.760 it is because I think they've looked at their local 0:36:34.800 --> 0:36:38.000 baristas who have gone out on strike. They've looked at 0:36:38.000 --> 0:36:41.560 in the educational context, some of the graduate assistants that 0:36:41.600 --> 0:36:44.799 have gone out on strike. I will not talk at 0:36:44.800 --> 0:36:47.160 all about sports because I'm very involved in that space 0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:48.920 at the University of Texas. I'm not going to talk 0:36:48.960 --> 0:36:52.520 about that. But yeah, I think that we have to 0:36:53.040 --> 0:36:57.200 acknowledge that nothing good has happened to lower and middle 0:36:57.239 --> 0:37:01.080 income workers since we gutted union. I would say Jimmy 0:37:01.120 --> 0:37:04.640 Hoffa is a very bad visual. I will also say 0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:08.759 that the destruction of pat Co by Ronald Reagan was 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:13.160 another one of those moments exactly where we forget that 0:37:13.160 --> 0:37:16.200 that then told everybody else you can go out and 0:37:16.239 --> 0:37:17.200 destroy union two. 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:22.399 Yeah, it is a you know, I look at the 0:37:22.440 --> 0:37:26.480 model Germany has, and it's always been a fascinating model 0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:31.160 where workers are actually on the board of directors like 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:35.000 they're so the union culture is so embedded with the 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:39.800 corporate culture that it actually isn't as it doesn't strike 0:37:39.880 --> 0:37:45.280 me as antagonistic. Is there a model there worth worth copying? 0:37:45.920 --> 0:37:50.560 We have to look at the union or employees workers 0:37:51.120 --> 0:37:55.560 as partners. And so again, when we're deciding who gets what, 0:37:55.719 --> 0:37:59.359 if you view the union as a partner rather than 0:37:59.360 --> 0:38:01.920 as the inner, I think we have a very different 0:38:02.000 --> 0:38:08.719 framework going forward. The businesses often views the government as 0:38:08.760 --> 0:38:11.279 a partner. Well, if you view the government, if you 0:38:11.280 --> 0:38:15.120 have these public private partnerships with the government, why are 0:38:15.160 --> 0:38:19.040 you so hostile to the people that actually make it 0:38:19.160 --> 0:38:23.040 possible for your company to be productive. So, whether it's 0:38:23.080 --> 0:38:27.280 there on the boards or you are genuinely working toward 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:30.319 these so we're all rowing in the same direction. We 0:38:30.400 --> 0:38:33.160 don't have that now, but I think we may get 0:38:33.200 --> 0:38:36.239 that if no other reason, young people are going to 0:38:36.320 --> 0:38:36.840 demand it. 0:38:40.400 --> 0:38:44.040 Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from 0:38:44.080 --> 0:38:47.160 personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away. 0:38:47.200 --> 0:38:49.600 We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in 0:38:49.640 --> 0:38:54.000 the best shape. My mother, single mother, now widow. Myself 0:38:54.120 --> 0:38:55.880 sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:59.080 pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had 0:38:59.120 --> 0:39:02.320 one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot, 0:39:02.640 --> 0:39:05.400 but it was important at the time, and it's why 0:39:05.480 --> 0:39:08.719 I was able to go to college. Little did he 0:39:08.800 --> 0:39:12.600 know how important that would be in that moment. 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Application times may vary and the 0:40:12.160 --> 0:40:15.359 rates themselves may vary as well, but trust me, life 0:40:15.360 --> 0:40:18.560 insurance is something you should really think about, especially if 0:40:18.600 --> 0:40:26.000 you've got a growing family, how do you eliminate You know, 0:40:26.080 --> 0:40:30.319 a lot of this take the union issue is that 0:40:31.280 --> 0:40:35.560 are classified. Sometimes people get blinded by race and ethnicity, 0:40:36.000 --> 0:40:39.680 when really our divides have always been class, and race 0:40:39.719 --> 0:40:43.080 and ethnicity have been sort of used as wedges to 0:40:43.880 --> 0:40:48.680 to to advance a class argument one way or the other. 0:40:51.600 --> 0:40:54.080 You know, well, maybe it's impossible, and maybe I'm asking 0:40:54.120 --> 0:40:57.200 you a political question and you're not offering a political question. 0:40:57.239 --> 0:41:00.920 But that seems to be something that we've got to 0:41:00.960 --> 0:41:05.680 get over as a culture before we all embrace a 0:41:05.800 --> 0:41:06.680 union mindset. 0:41:07.120 --> 0:41:09.440 I think we also have to admit it. I mean, 0:41:09.560 --> 0:41:12.400 you admit it. I know that it is true. A 0:41:12.400 --> 0:41:15.319 lot of people will not admit even now, a lot 0:41:15.320 --> 0:41:19.040 of the conversations that we are having are really about 0:41:19.120 --> 0:41:22.800 race and ethnicity. They are not about anything else. I 0:41:22.840 --> 0:41:27.120 don't care whether we's in the immigration space or guy. 0:41:27.200 --> 0:41:29.440 Look at Todd, Donald Trump and the trade unions. He's 0:41:29.480 --> 0:41:31.719 always worried about the trade unions. He's never worried about 0:41:31.760 --> 0:41:33.760 anybody at SEIU exactly. 0:41:33.920 --> 0:41:35.000 And Sciu just. 0:41:35.000 --> 0:41:38.560 Looks that union looks different than the Carpenters Union does. 0:41:38.640 --> 0:41:40.960 Although I would argue the Carpenter's Union looks a lot 0:41:41.000 --> 0:41:43.560 more like SCIU than he thinks, but you get my drift. 0:41:43.640 --> 0:41:45.920 Yeah, well, even the Teamsters, I mean, that was the 0:41:45.960 --> 0:41:50.239 one union that was more inclined to support the Republican 0:41:50.320 --> 0:41:54.080 Party than the Democratic Party, and their membership looks very 0:41:54.120 --> 0:41:57.680 different than the service workers unions. And so one of 0:41:57.680 --> 0:41:59.480 the things we're going to we're going to have to 0:41:59.480 --> 0:42:03.960 stop doing is saying that, well, the problems of the 0:42:04.000 --> 0:42:08.160 middle class are the workers are lazy? Okay, so which 0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:11.520 workers are we talking about? Are we talking about all 0:42:11.600 --> 0:42:14.759 workers or do you have a certain profile of a 0:42:14.880 --> 0:42:18.600 worker in mind? What made me actually think that I 0:42:18.640 --> 0:42:21.080 was sort of onto something here because I've been writing 0:42:21.080 --> 0:42:25.200 this book for an eternity. But it was the twenties, 0:42:25.280 --> 0:42:27.640 it was before the twenty sixteen election. We heard all 0:42:27.680 --> 0:42:32.120 of this, oh the angry middle class, and Hillary Clinton 0:42:32.120 --> 0:42:34.560 and Donald Trump were talking about how much they loved 0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:37.120 the middle class and the angst of the middle class. 0:42:37.400 --> 0:42:40.880 And then I kept asking, so, exactly which middle class 0:42:40.920 --> 0:42:46.080 are we talking about here? Because it is absolutely true, 0:42:46.400 --> 0:42:51.120 absolutely true, that there is economic inequality and that there 0:42:51.239 --> 0:42:55.280 is anxiety. There's economic anxiety, but that has been true 0:42:55.320 --> 0:43:01.080 for black and Latunal workers forever. The shift that we're 0:43:01.120 --> 0:43:04.279 seeing now is the same way that the black and 0:43:04.360 --> 0:43:08.080 Latino middle class has been treated, is the way the 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:12.200 entire middle class is being treated. And if we can 0:43:12.280 --> 0:43:15.360 get lower and middle income workers to say, this is 0:43:15.480 --> 0:43:19.560 not tribalism, this is not people that don't look like us, 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:23.200 we are all being treated the same way. None of 0:43:23.280 --> 0:43:25.839 us can afford to send our kids to college, none 0:43:25.880 --> 0:43:29.000 of us can find a forty hour full time job 0:43:29.040 --> 0:43:31.279 where we are called an employee, and none of us 0:43:31.280 --> 0:43:33.520 can find an affordable housing either. 0:43:34.480 --> 0:43:38.040 Look what made I think this book, also why I 0:43:38.040 --> 0:43:40.440 think it should be should be read by all these 0:43:40.480 --> 0:43:43.920 presidential candidates is that, you know, a lot of times 0:43:44.040 --> 0:43:50.239 presidential candidates will focus on poverty, stafe safety net programs 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:58.560 primarily focused on helping the poor, and these you know, 0:43:58.600 --> 0:44:01.359 whether it's a fight about Medicaid aid right, whether it's 0:44:01.400 --> 0:44:05.480 I and you know the synic and me has often said, look, 0:44:06.160 --> 0:44:10.080 all voters are self centered. Okay, let's let's not pretend 0:44:10.120 --> 0:44:14.400 that they aren't. And that's okay. It's your job as 0:44:14.440 --> 0:44:18.600 the politician to figure out a message that both appeals 0:44:19.000 --> 0:44:21.279 to them and at the same you know, in a 0:44:21.320 --> 0:44:23.719 self centered way, but at the same time can help 0:44:24.040 --> 0:44:30.000 help a greater good. Where do you prioritize poverty programs 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:32.840 in your vision here for a renewed middle class? Or 0:44:32.880 --> 0:44:34.960 and you sort of see in an odd way that 0:44:35.040 --> 0:44:39.360 it kind of if you revive a intentionally revive a 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:43.200 middle class, right, because essentially we're arguing that we intentionally 0:44:43.360 --> 0:44:47.880 dismantled it, so you've got to intentionally bring it back 0:44:48.880 --> 0:44:52.719 that you're actually creating an anti poverty program without having 0:44:52.760 --> 0:44:53.560 to target the poor. 0:44:54.640 --> 0:44:57.480 And again, I'll answer this with someone with the story 0:44:57.520 --> 0:45:00.040 with the same course that I taught. I was saying 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:02.839 something in class and a student said something about either 0:45:02.920 --> 0:45:06.480 Medicaid or AFDC, and I said, oh, no, no, no, no, 0:45:06.520 --> 0:45:08.319 we don't care about poor people in here. And then 0:45:08.360 --> 0:45:10.160 I had to stop myself and say, no, no, no, I 0:45:10.160 --> 0:45:12.640 mean I do care about poor people, that's not the 0:45:12.680 --> 0:45:16.440 focus of this class. And then I realized that my 0:45:16.640 --> 0:45:20.319 emphasis in teaching and also in the book is the 0:45:20.360 --> 0:45:23.200 goal in this country has always been to take people 0:45:23.640 --> 0:45:29.319 from being poor to being middle income upward. Mobility is 0:45:29.520 --> 0:45:33.680 wired into the DNA of people in this country. So 0:45:33.840 --> 0:45:38.400 though I am focusing mostly on the middle class. I 0:45:38.480 --> 0:45:41.080 need us to be sure that we're doing things to 0:45:41.200 --> 0:45:46.399 help poor people to become somewhat financially stable, because without that, 0:45:46.800 --> 0:45:50.400 they can't become middle class. And looping back to a 0:45:50.440 --> 0:45:54.160 comment that you made earlier, everybody wants to be middle class. 0:45:54.440 --> 0:45:57.920 It's the norm. It's viewed as you know, sort of 0:45:58.000 --> 0:46:04.480 apple pie and and America and the national anthem. Given that, 0:46:05.080 --> 0:46:08.160 I think we need to say, let's focus on the 0:46:08.200 --> 0:46:12.120 middle class, because people who are poor are aspiring to 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:13.640 be middle class. 0:46:16.840 --> 0:46:20.840 Who's the uh, who do you envision are the biggest optic? 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:25.479 Who are what is the biggest obstacle to your middle 0:46:25.480 --> 0:46:28.359 class new deal? In your mind? When you think about 0:46:28.400 --> 0:46:30.120 the opposition, who is it? 0:46:31.480 --> 0:46:37.800 Billionaires? Billionaires that control Amazon, it is in their best 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:41.720 interest to keep Amazon, to keep the people that drive 0:46:41.800 --> 0:46:47.680 Amazon trucks employed by DSPs and not employed by Amazon. 0:46:48.040 --> 0:46:53.920 DSP would say that delivery service providers right, It is 0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:58.160 in the best interest of billionaires to be able to 0:46:58.320 --> 0:47:02.520 eliminate jobs and to automate jobs, and to have favorable 0:47:02.560 --> 0:47:06.640 tax credits for being innovative, but not be forced to 0:47:06.680 --> 0:47:10.120 do anything for the human beings that you have now 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:14.720 caused to lose their jobs. So again, if the lower 0:47:14.719 --> 0:47:18.239 income people that want to become middle class, and if 0:47:18.239 --> 0:47:21.040 the middle class folks who would like to remain middle 0:47:21.080 --> 0:47:25.760 class for the rest of their lives looked up economically 0:47:25.800 --> 0:47:29.400 and said those are the problems, rather than looking around 0:47:29.480 --> 0:47:32.920 at each other and saying, well, because that person is 0:47:32.960 --> 0:47:35.879 of a different race, so that person is a different ethnicity, 0:47:36.280 --> 0:47:39.040 they're are the problem. I think we could actually work 0:47:39.080 --> 0:47:40.160 on some solutions here. 0:47:42.200 --> 0:47:45.440 You know, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. 0:47:45.560 --> 0:47:49.759 And you know, it feels like we are in an 0:47:49.760 --> 0:47:52.719 almost identical place that we were about one hundred years ago, 0:47:53.400 --> 0:47:58.640 where you had this incredible new technology industrial revolution. Every 0:47:58.719 --> 0:48:05.840 day was bringing more incredible developments to market, whether it's 0:48:06.200 --> 0:48:10.400 the car right, whether it was electricity, personalized, you know, 0:48:10.440 --> 0:48:13.080 getting it to any place. You know, more and more 0:48:13.080 --> 0:48:17.920 that we got it, and we had to come up 0:48:17.960 --> 0:48:20.880 with a whole bunch of laws because left, you know, 0:48:21.360 --> 0:48:24.440 whether it was the oil barons, the railroad barons, the 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:27.440 auto barons, left of their own device. They were you know, 0:48:27.600 --> 0:48:29.719 not everybody was going to be like mister Hershey, who 0:48:29.760 --> 0:48:31.880 thought I'm going to build a city with an amusement 0:48:31.920 --> 0:48:34.680 park and have this wonderful community. There were a few 0:48:35.160 --> 0:48:40.560 companies people like that, but not many Hershey. I find 0:48:40.600 --> 0:48:44.560 that to be just just as a quick sort of 0:48:44.600 --> 0:48:51.439 a sidetrack here. Where do you put Hershey in sort 0:48:51.480 --> 0:48:56.279 of that in that world of you know, should corporations 0:48:56.320 --> 0:48:58.680 behave the way he did in building a community and 0:48:58.719 --> 0:49:03.440 wanting to have that or was that just sort of 0:49:03.480 --> 0:49:10.360 an outlier type of thing that wouldn't work for other industries. 0:49:10.800 --> 0:49:13.920 I think it would work for all industries if again, 0:49:14.080 --> 0:49:16.880 we work on the from the premise that we would 0:49:16.960 --> 0:49:21.399 like to have happy, healthy workers. So you don't need 0:49:21.440 --> 0:49:24.840 to build a community, but you could commit, for example, 0:49:25.239 --> 0:49:29.960 that whatever the top workers earn won't be a larger 0:49:30.000 --> 0:49:32.960 than a fill in the blanks multiple of what the 0:49:33.400 --> 0:49:35.480 forest workers earn. 0:49:35.520 --> 0:49:37.840 Say, that's Costco right now. About the biggest company that 0:49:37.880 --> 0:49:43.040 does this is Costco right The CEO always emphasizes that ratio. 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:45.640 I believe yeah, and I am a Costco member. I 0:49:45.680 --> 0:49:48.320 will always be a Costco member. When I go into Costco, 0:49:48.400 --> 0:49:52.319 these are the happiest employees you will ever see. I 0:49:52.360 --> 0:49:54.879 took my children. Now we're twenty two and twenty five, 0:49:54.920 --> 0:49:57.320 but we and their boys so they would eat everything 0:49:57.360 --> 0:50:00.319 that wasn't nailed down. We'd go into Costco and get 0:50:00.320 --> 0:50:05.360 those samples. They have gone back now as adults and 0:50:05.440 --> 0:50:08.680 have seen some of the same employees that used to 0:50:08.719 --> 0:50:11.960 allow them to raid the samples when they were children. 0:50:12.360 --> 0:50:15.480 So it can work. It definitely can work. 0:50:19.239 --> 0:50:21.560 Well, what kind of you know if you had if 0:50:21.600 --> 0:50:25.799 you had an hour to brief President Trump on this, 0:50:25.920 --> 0:50:27.880 what do you think would be your best way to 0:50:27.880 --> 0:50:28.960 get him interested in US? 0:50:29.840 --> 0:50:34.080 I would say that your constituents, the people that support you, 0:50:34.880 --> 0:50:40.040 are struggling. They are not struggling because of race issues 0:50:40.440 --> 0:50:44.279 and class issues. They are struggling because they don't know 0:50:44.320 --> 0:50:46.200 how they're going to pay their bills at the end 0:50:46.280 --> 0:50:49.600 of this month. So if you want these people to 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:52.920 continue to support you, you're going to have to figure 0:50:52.920 --> 0:50:56.720 out a way not to just say they're doing okay, 0:50:57.520 --> 0:51:01.760 but to actually help them to do okay. We can't 0:51:01.920 --> 0:51:04.160 He will not be able to continue to tell people 0:51:04.440 --> 0:51:08.440 that the affordability issue is a hoax, because at the 0:51:08.560 --> 0:51:10.800 end of every month, when people don't have enough to 0:51:10.840 --> 0:51:13.200 pay their bills for that month, they know it's not 0:51:13.239 --> 0:51:14.799 a hoax because they're living it. 0:51:16.000 --> 0:51:18.800 Do you view the election of Donald Trump as the 0:51:18.920 --> 0:51:20.320 middle class primal screen. 0:51:22.120 --> 0:51:26.240 I viewed the twenty sixteen election as the middle class 0:51:26.280 --> 0:51:32.360 primal screen, but it was the fight middle class primal 0:51:32.400 --> 0:51:35.000 screen because it was the first time I think that 0:51:35.320 --> 0:51:39.160 white Americans realized, ooh, something is wrong here, and they 0:51:39.200 --> 0:51:42.000 didn't exactly know how to react, but they knew it 0:51:42.120 --> 0:51:46.040 in their heart, their soul, and their pockets that something 0:51:46.120 --> 0:51:49.000 is happening to us now that isn't supposed to be 0:51:49.120 --> 0:51:50.240 happening to us. 0:51:50.800 --> 0:51:55.719 And the risk of not addressing this erosion of the 0:51:55.760 --> 0:51:59.239 middle class, because that's I mean, look, you give me, 0:51:59.640 --> 0:52:02.320 you know, I look at you know, how did Venezuela 0:52:02.360 --> 0:52:07.279 get Chavez and Maduro? You had a wealthy elite and 0:52:07.360 --> 0:52:11.359 a massive number of poor people, no middle class. How 0:52:11.400 --> 0:52:16.080 did Arawan turn a democracy into an autocracy? No middle class? 0:52:16.120 --> 0:52:21.120 So I know the political risk here of eroding a 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:24.960 middle class. It will drive people into one direction or 0:52:24.960 --> 0:52:27.839 the other, but it will drive them into you know, 0:52:28.080 --> 0:52:31.080 is this We've got ten years, We've got twenty years? 0:52:31.160 --> 0:52:33.680 Is this fear of a lost generation? What is your 0:52:33.680 --> 0:52:36.920 timetable here of like, look, regardless of whether they your 0:52:36.920 --> 0:52:40.960 book is the blueprint, We've got to do something about 0:52:41.200 --> 0:52:43.719 saving the middle class and expanding it rather than what 0:52:43.760 --> 0:52:44.239 we've seen. 0:52:44.960 --> 0:52:48.120 I think it's less than definitely less than twenty years. 0:52:48.160 --> 0:52:50.480 I would say it's less than ten years. One of 0:52:50.520 --> 0:52:52.640 the reasons I would say it's less than ten years 0:52:52.719 --> 0:52:57.040 is because even the younger boomers are going to be 0:52:57.200 --> 0:53:00.800 retiring soon or thinking about retiring, and they're going to 0:53:00.840 --> 0:53:05.280 freak out in panic because they can't retire. Their children 0:53:05.600 --> 0:53:09.799 are going to increasingly have to subsidize their housing and 0:53:09.880 --> 0:53:13.680 their living expenses. And so I totally agree with you. 0:53:13.920 --> 0:53:15.920 We need to look a little bit to the history, though, 0:53:15.960 --> 0:53:19.040 I want to focus going forward to say how do 0:53:19.200 --> 0:53:24.600 these economies end? They don't end well. So the fact 0:53:24.600 --> 0:53:27.200 that there was a Great Gatsby party at Mara a 0:53:27.280 --> 0:53:29.920 Lago over Christmas, I thought, oh, that is a symbol 0:53:29.960 --> 0:53:33.160 that you perhaps really don't want to have. 0:53:33.800 --> 0:53:37.040 Oh they've done some things. You're just sitting there going, wow, 0:53:37.080 --> 0:53:39.000 that was a let the meat cake moment they have. 0:53:39.160 --> 0:53:41.640 You know, there's this exclusive club that they've created in 0:53:41.719 --> 0:53:43.840 DC where the entry fee is a half a million 0:53:43.880 --> 0:53:46.120 dollars and you're like, what are we doing? 0:53:46.719 --> 0:53:51.040 Yeah, and you probably want to hide that from the 0:53:51.280 --> 0:53:56.080 eighty percent of the people in this country that are terrified. 0:53:55.719 --> 0:53:58.360 That they're going to shocking that they didn't hide it. Yeah, 0:53:58.360 --> 0:54:01.239 that's I think, why aren't you embarrassed by this? 0:54:02.840 --> 0:54:04.919 Maybe they're all in an echo chamber and they really 0:54:04.960 --> 0:54:08.000 don't talk to anybody that earns like, you know, ninety 0:54:08.080 --> 0:54:09.919 or even one hundred thousand dollars a year. 0:54:10.360 --> 0:54:11.680 You know, this is why I really like this book. 0:54:11.680 --> 0:54:13.719 And I'm going to close on this, which is it 0:54:13.800 --> 0:54:16.759 is Look, you know, I've always tried to explain, you know, 0:54:16.800 --> 0:54:21.200 why do why do middle class people not want to rate, 0:54:21.320 --> 0:54:23.760 not always want to raise taxes on high class people 0:54:23.800 --> 0:54:26.279 because they think they're going to be wealthy someday. Right, 0:54:26.440 --> 0:54:28.440 That's the beauty of Americas. We all think, well, that 0:54:28.440 --> 0:54:30.719 could be me, and it's like the ninety percent chance 0:54:30.719 --> 0:54:33.319 it ain't going to be you. But you know what, 0:54:33.520 --> 0:54:35.560 if we don't have that mindset that you know, that 0:54:35.680 --> 0:54:38.120 is sort of that is what has always sort of 0:54:38.160 --> 0:54:42.360 created the engine of growth in this in this country. So, 0:54:43.200 --> 0:54:46.120 you know, how do you embrace the aspiration? You know, 0:54:46.239 --> 0:54:48.440 making middle class aspirational? 0:54:49.120 --> 0:54:51.919 Is that well, And one of the things that really 0:54:51.960 --> 0:54:53.560 scares me, and again it is because I have a 0:54:53.600 --> 0:54:56.600 twenty two, twenty five year old, and I also teach 0:54:57.239 --> 0:55:00.200 students sort of ranging from twenty two to thirty. Is 0:55:00.239 --> 0:55:04.680 there's sort of this economic nihilism which terrifies me, where 0:55:04.920 --> 0:55:08.560 they don't think things are going to get better, where 0:55:08.600 --> 0:55:13.120 they are angry at older people. We've got to fix 0:55:13.200 --> 0:55:17.440 that if we want this country to remain normal and 0:55:17.520 --> 0:55:21.920 stable economically and politically. To the point that you've just made, 0:55:22.040 --> 0:55:26.000 we have got to make young people believe that if 0:55:26.000 --> 0:55:30.040 they work hard, they try hard, things will be good 0:55:30.080 --> 0:55:31.920 for them or things will get better. 0:55:32.440 --> 0:55:34.600 It's a great Bill Clinton isn't right, work hard, play by. 0:55:34.480 --> 0:55:36.120 The rules exactly exactly. 0:55:36.160 --> 0:55:39.920 That was all. And I think that is a universalism. 0:55:40.239 --> 0:55:42.760 You know, it's funny. It's like there's for a variety 0:55:42.800 --> 0:55:45.200 of reasons, there's a lot of sort of of the 0:55:45.239 --> 0:55:48.319 Bill Clinton era that gets ignored or it's been sort 0:55:48.320 --> 0:55:51.480 of washed away and all this stuff. But one thing 0:55:51.520 --> 0:55:55.759 he understood was the middle class. It's a way that 0:55:56.800 --> 0:55:59.479 I don't I don't know, and in some ways because 0:55:59.480 --> 0:56:03.520 he was of it right, and I wonder how important 0:56:03.719 --> 0:56:08.759 you know that experience truly is with our elected officials. 0:56:09.080 --> 0:56:12.080 Well, for him it was key because not only could 0:56:12.080 --> 0:56:15.799 he talk about the middle class. He could talk to 0:56:15.920 --> 0:56:18.040 the middle class because there was a point in his 0:56:18.040 --> 0:56:20.680 life when he was poor, right, And so when you 0:56:20.840 --> 0:56:25.080 have gone, when you understand the importance of upward mobility, 0:56:25.400 --> 0:56:27.880 that you were a poor kid in arc and Hope, 0:56:28.040 --> 0:56:32.879 Arkansas who ultimately occupied sixteen hundred Pennsylvania abvenue, you can 0:56:33.000 --> 0:56:36.600 speak about the struggles of the poor and what it 0:56:36.640 --> 0:56:39.600 takes to get from there to where he was because 0:56:39.600 --> 0:56:41.239 he literally had to do it. 0:56:41.880 --> 0:56:44.319 Yeah. Now, I remember during his early campaign that the 0:56:44.400 --> 0:56:46.720 number one place he would campaign, no matter the community 0:56:46.760 --> 0:56:48.480 he was in, was always the community college. 0:56:48.760 --> 0:56:49.640 Oh exactly. 0:56:49.920 --> 0:56:54.520 He knew exactly exactly the type of people that he 0:56:54.560 --> 0:56:57.880 should be talking to. Anyway, Michelle, this was great. Congrats 0:56:57.880 --> 0:57:00.400 in the book. Like I said, I hope you know, 0:57:00.440 --> 0:57:04.680 whether it's Gavin Newsom, jd Vance, Ram, Emanuel Pete Boodage, 0:57:05.440 --> 0:57:10.200 Glenn Younkin, anybody else. This is they ought to consume 0:57:10.280 --> 0:57:13.120 this book as they think about what they want to 0:57:13.120 --> 0:57:15.000 say to the American people in twenty twenty eight. 0:57:15.360 --> 0:57:16.440 And I hope they do too. 0:57:16.960 --> 0:57:21.760 All right, thanks so much, thanks for having me. Huh.