Bill Scher on the Biden Administration, Stimulus Bill, and Business Regulations
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Welcome to Broken Potholes, the show that explores the mess politics are making of our inner cities and our country and talks about how we can get back on track to fixing it. I'm Sam Stone. With me, my co-host, Chuck Warren. Good morning. Chuck, it's been a week basically since the Capitol riots. Oh my gosh. Kind of the top topic for everybody still, along with the 24-hour impeachment campaign.

I think on the first topic of the capital insurrection, we'll call it, I think the thing that concerns me as a conservative is so many on my side trying to justify it. And I think we talked about this last week with Eric. I just thought that was something I would never have to say some, not all, not a supermajority, but a segment of our side.

but to participate in something like that where people actually lost their lives. Yeah, you know, I've talked to a lot of people and I've also had a number of them kind of excuse what went on and what happened. And what was disconcerting to me about that, I have always been very comfortable

in condemning any sort of violence in the public sphere. Right. Because there was never any question. I have never seen Republicans engage in that type of activity before. And I have condemned it every time we have seen it in the streets with Democrats. And I have no hesitation once again condemning it when it's us. And it should never be us again. Right. Absolutely. And I

Our side, those who try to justify it or try to make excuses just need to stop. Yeah. They just simply need to say that is not how we behave. It's what our mothers told us when we were young. Well, if your friend told you to jump off the bridge, would you jump off the bridge?

Right. And you know what's really interesting? It's very clear. I don't think President Trump was telling those folks to jump off the bridge. No. And so I think the individuals who did those things need to be held to account. And we're seeing that happen. But more importantly, any individual who goes out to these type of events needs to know what the boundaries are. Protest your butt off. Right. It's in the First Amendment. Absolutely. Absolutely.

But when it comes to violence of any sort, when you're breaking down barriers, when you are hitting a cop over the head with a fire extinguisher. Or hitting him with bear spray, things of that nature. And again, you know, and the other topic that's been disappointing is.

is we keep trying to say this is all Antifa people or BLM people. There's no evidence to it. Now, I'm not saying there weren't some in there. I'm not saying there's not agitators. I know they've arrested one or two. And they should also be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Absolutely. But a majority of those folks who went into the Capitol were not BLM.

They were not some other liberal progressive group. They were folks that voted for Donald Trump. Yeah, absolutely. And that to me, folks, I cannot say this strongly enough.

Our side needs to hold itself to a higher standard because we're under a microscope that liberals will never experience with our current media. Well, a thousand microscopes. Right. I mean, whatever we do, you have a thousand microscopes. You have all of these social networks. I don't like to call them mainstream media. I like to call them New York, D.C. media or on them all the time. And they don't do that. They get a pass. Right. And so, yes, it is unfair.

But at the same time, we need to live to a higher standard how we handle public discourse, how we talk about issues, how we treat people.

And I think that's important and what's really interesting and I think a lot of us on our side were talking about the BLM riots and everything that was happening this summer, Antifa's actions in Portland and some of these other places. And you look at what they were doing and the media is running around calling it mostly peaceful and downplaying it. I mean they're literally standing in front of burning streetscapes and saying, well, everyone here is behaving, right? And obviously that's wrong.

But the country saw it, right? Exactly. People saw through the media narrative. And when that happened, the polling shifted. All of a sudden those riots and protests disappeared overnight, right? All of a sudden you had Democrat politicians calling it out. Yeah. It only took them six months. Only six months. But then they got the polling and they changed their tune, right? Right. Well, Republicans don't get that six-month grace period.

And you're right, it's unfair. But at the end of the day, we have to understand the rules of the game we're playing and the fact that a lot of people out there see through how biased the referees are. And the only thing that allows us to stand up is our behavior. They see it. It is. I just, that visual of our people going through...

the limited barricades they had was just appalling. Yeah. I mean, I'll always remember it. It was gross. Now, that brings up one point, because from what I understand from developing information, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser actually turned down requests from the Capitol Police to provide additional support, which is a pretty darn... Well, and she's a major propaganda machine. Yes. So that doesn't surprise me at all. This is the same mayor who...

wanted to paint BLM in front of the White House and so forth. So she's I mean, she's a menace to the people of D.C. Absolutely. That's something I didn't understand that day. And it makes much more sense understanding that that happened and they didn't have that backup because I kept saying to everyone I know, obviously, I work with the city of Phoenix and Councilman Sal DeCiccio.

If that was the Phoenix Police Department, we would not have had the Capitol breached. Well, exactly. Exactly. I mean, we wouldn't have happened. Well, think about these Capitol Police going forward in the future. Most people in the political sphere, not most citizens, but most people in the political sphere have gone through the Capitol and toured it or visited their congressperson. Can you imagine being the person going through those metal detectors and so forth in the future? I mean, it's a whole different sense of...

A whole new level of alertness. Yes. A whole new level of anxiety going into work every day. And I think you're going to see that happen before something that all Americans viewed as sacrosanct. It's been breached.

And, you know, that environmental difference you're talking about, you and I had a chance a few years ago to work on a project I'm still very, very proud of, which is the Civics Education Initiative. Right. Which added the USCIS civics exam to the final requirements for high school seniors. And I think it's like 27 or 28 states now. Yeah, something like that. And got about 21 of those while you and I were spearheading that initially. And I had the privilege of going around the country to talk to legislatures all

all over. And I remember one very specific difference. Indiana, with a fairly humble statehouse. I mean, beautiful, older, but you know, it's Indiana, not New York, not California. Basically no guards, no security, no visible anything.

And it was an incredibly welcoming environment. Everyone in there, you could see there was a level of interaction. There's comfort. People are talking to one another. It was a very, you felt good about being in that building. Conversely, when I went to talk to some of the folks in the New York legislature where you went through seven layers of security to get in there, there's armed guards all over the place all the time. It is very, very intimidating.

And that changes the entire dynamic of how our government operates. Yeah, I just, this is just really a sad day. And I don't care what side you are on the political aisle. It just can never happen again, especially among our own citizens, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the reality is if this had happened,

from a foreign country. We'd be declaring war last week. Yep. Yep. No question. You know, in a few minutes here, you and I, we're going to have Bill Scherer, a guest on the show. Now, Bill, we'll introduce him a little bit more in a moment. But Bill, for those of you who don't know, is not on our side of the aisle, very much a progressive or liberal. We'll ask him how he defines himself. One of the original progressives, actually. There you go. And does a lot of work with Politico and RealClearPolitics. Really wonderful writer, very smart.

has a very different take. And I'm curious to see, you know, I think people need to hear more from the other side of the aisle on this and hear what they're seeing and doing. And I'm looking forward to that, but also to his take on what those events mean for the next four years and specifically on what a Biden administration is going to do now that they have unfettered power. Absolutely. Absolutely. And does

Does a President Biden try to leave a legacy or does he kowtow to a progressive side that is far more left than he is? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not saying Joe Biden is not a liberal, but they are far more left than he is. Joe Biden is an institutionalist. Joe Biden is not a person by nature who wants to get rid of the filibuster. He's not a person by nature who wants to stack the court. So will he kowtow to the other side? Yeah, I have a...

question about that as well. I think there's got to be at least some of those things he gives in on, right? And I'm curious to ask Bill what he thinks those might be. Exactly. And how that will affect Biden's legacy, because I think we saw pretty clearly in this election our country is not far left. We are still center right. How does it affect his legacy and how does it affect 2022? So I believe we have Bill on the line. Let's bring him on the show right now. Bill.

Good day. How are you? Doing well, my friend. How are you doing? You're here with Chuck and my friend Sam Stone. Wonderful. Thanks for having me. Bill, we are so excited to have you on the program. For folks who don't know Bill, he is a brilliant writer and podcaster, explores politics and history. And I just learned something from Chuck we're going to talk about here in a minute about how big of a nerd you are, which I appreciate because I am an equal, you know, love that stuff.

But also contributing editor to Politico magazine and Real Clear Politics, host of the podcast When America Worked, kind of important for the moment. Always important, actually. A co-host of the DMZ online show with conservative writer Matt Lewis and author of the 2006 book Wait, Don't Move to Canada, a stay and fight. Let's also add for you.

For your audience, I'm also vice president of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum Standing Committee. Oh, there you have it. There you have it. Love it. So, Bill, let's start this off right away. What can we expect in the first 100 days of the Biden administration?

I think first order of business is COVID relief. I mean, he knows what it's like to begin a presidency in an economic crisis, having done that with Barack Obama. They internalize the importance of striking fast, striking hard, getting money into the system, you know, very Keynesian approach. And from their perspective, that worked. I mean, I don't know if Obama gets reelected.

if he doesn't get the economy moving on an upward trajectory right away. So to talk about what you were discussing before about bipartisanship versus countering the left, I think he wants that to be a bipartisan bill. I think he wants 60 Senate votes. But if Republicans are going to be a wall of obstruction, they've got to think about the alternative, which is a budget reconciliation bill on a party-line vote.

Hey, Bill, this is Sam. We're going to go into a quick break here in about 30 seconds. But I want to, as we lead into that, start asking you, did Biden's job get tougher or easier after Georgia? And we're going to come back with that answer on Broken Potholes right here in a moment.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your hosts, Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line right now, we have Bill Shearer, one of the smartest people I know, journalist, works with Politico, RealClearPolitics, does some brilliant podcasting. And we were just talking about what to expect in the start of a Biden administration. And I had asked Bill, do you think Biden's job just got tougher or easier after Georgia?

Well, I think easier. I mean, I'd much prefer Democrats controlling the Senate floor than Mitch McConnell. There's no chance that whatever Biden has in the queue, it will get a vote. It may get an up or down vote. It may get a culture vote for a filibuster, but it will get there. And that gives Biden the ability to use the bully pulpit and say,

This is what the country needs. I'm arguing this is what the vast middle of the country wants. And if you don't support it, then you are standing in the way of what's necessary. And we saw that dynamic work together.

to get the last round of COVID relief passed. Once Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney and Bill Cassidy and Murkowski and Collins got together, and Pelosi and Schumer joined up with that, Mitch McConnell was out there by himself. And he made the conclusion, obstruction doesn't work for me here. I better get something passed now.

So the question is, can that be replicated? You don't need McConnell anymore. You need 10 Republicans. But can you get 10 Republicans to recognize we're better off shaping that legislation than obstructing it? Well, and then that leads to the question of

Because the Democrat Party knows in the Congress, U.S. Senate, Biden administration, they have that clear path. Is that going to lead them to put up things that are much more radical that will be harder to get those 10 votes on?

than would otherwise be the case. I don't think so. I mean, I think right now Joe Manchin is one of the most powerful people in Washington. Absolutely. That's not the game he's playing. He's out there saying, if you want to get this done and get it done in a way that's going to stick, you've got to follow my lead

not AOC's leader. Joe Biden is going to be with them because Joe Biden is very much a moderate. Now, if you have a situation where Republicans do unify to obstruct and they can't get 10 Republicans, then pick up something urgent like COVID relief because we're still in a pre-directed economic situation, then Biden might be compelled to say, I got no choice here. I have to go the party line route. Now, that's not a risk-free route. So,

So, I mean, they have the numbers barely to pass. So folks understand procedurally that one way to circumvent the filibuster is like a budget reconciliation. It's in the Senate rules.

Certain kinds of budgetary bills can be passed in that way, but only once per fiscal year, essentially. You have to pass a fiscal year budget resolution and do the reconciliation bill after that, and only things that have a budgetary impact can be in that bill. And that's how Republicans tried to repeal Obamacare out of the box in 2017.

and even though they'd be nominally had the number of these book couldn't get it done but that's the risk for democrats and mathematically do it but you can't but they they have no margin for error the senate only because five people in the house so of a_o_c_ angel mansion don't agree

One, you don't get a bill, and two, it is solely the fault of the Democrats. If you go down that path and you fail, you really take it on the chin. So I don't think Biden's going to rush to that if there is any sense of an opening of getting those 10 Republicans in the Senate for a true bipartisan bill. So what are discussing this? Let's talk about this $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, I think is what the number was, unless it's changed since I read it last week.

Hopefully it didn't go down. Yeah, no, it never goes down. Bill, what do you think some of the bullet points on it? There's money for state governments. There's money for money for unemployment. There's money for education all the time, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. What are some things there that Republicans say, look, we'll give you bipartisan support, but you have to have these two things eliminated from it or cut dramatically? What do you think those would be that a President Biden would accept?

Well, I wonder how well these checks are going to go. These $2,000 checks have been – got a lot of momentum. Yeah, AOC is now giving us math lessons again, which is just horrible. So Biden is saying, I'm going to give you the $1,800 – whatever it was to get the $2,000 more.

And she says, no, no, no, that's not $2,000. Well, no, that's what it adds up to. So I've seen like we have a Sesame Street math equation going on right now between the Biden folks and the AOC folks.

And the AOC folks, their game is always going to be move the Overton window, plant the flag as far to the left as possible. And so even if you end up meeting, quote, unquote, halfway, you're better off than where you started. That's how they're going to approach almost every negotiation. Now, Joe Manchin is out there saying we don't need to do another round of universal-ish checks. We need to target it to people who are the most in need. Now, if I'm Joe Biden, I don't know what Republicans are going to draw their lines in the sand on here.

But if the more deficit-conscious Republicans say these $2,000 checks are too expensive, we'd rather target it like Joe Manchin does, and we'll let you have the state and local government assistance, Biden's going to take that deal because Democrats really want that state and local assistance.

I don't know if that's an exchange Republicans are willing to make, but I think the $2,000 thing is kind of a shiny object right now and not what deep down Biden and other Democrats really, really want. Well, I know as a person who was in the initial donor meeting when Mitt Romney kicked off his Senate campaign in Utah –

The three things he said he was most concerned about, and I'm interested to see now that he's got a little more – I don't know. He's more of a utility player now than a Republican per se, and he's not a Democrat as much as everybody likes to say he is. His three big things were deficit. That was his number one concern. Number two concern was China, and he was probably more with Trump on China than people realize. Yeah.

And his third concern was, and this is something I think Democrats can find some vibe. He was really concerned about how AI and technology were going to eliminate jobs and how these folks who do not have the educational background were going to be able to survive and feed their families. It was something he talked about four years ago.

You know, those three things, you know, don't put them, you know, 180 degrees apart from Joe Biden. Now, Biden, I think, is a mix of being deficit conscious and being very keen. I think he is in the mode of this is not the time to do belt tightening. We will be better off dead wise over the long haul if we get the economy back on its feet now.

So can he convince the Mitt Romneys, hey, we need to put a certain amount of money in certain areas that have bang for the buck, and then we can talk about balancing the budget down the road. In terms of China and manufacturing, AI, et cetera, every presidential candidate is

is a China basher. And every winning presidential candidate finds out that's a lot harder to bash China once you're in the hot seat. Even Trump. I mean, Trump obviously was more provocative than anyone else, but even he cut his deals with China, too. So that's always a tough situation. But Biden very much has that lunch bucket American on his mind. So I don't think he's going to do anything...

that's not sensitive to making sure that working class America is going to come out better at the end of his first four years than today. Right. Hey, Bill, we've got to go back to break here in about 30 seconds. But when we come back, I wanted to touch on one of the points you made about the Democrat Party having to negotiate with Joe Manchin and that faction. Are they going to be able so far? The new new progressive Democrats have not been willing to compromise. When we come back, I want to talk about

Is that going to be possible for them in making this work? Welcome back once again to Broken Potholes. I'm your host, Sam Stone, in the studio with my co-host, Chuck Warren. On the line, Bill Scherr, one of the preeminent liberal leaders

writers and prognosticators in the country, someone, Chuck, you and I consider a good friend of ours and a very smart guy. When we left, we were asking about this sort of new Democrat, new progressive Democrat. And will the base of

That is behind the AOC, that is behind the Jamila Priyapal. I probably just got her name badly, badly wrong. But we have seen a very similar dynamic here in Phoenix with some of the new council members who have come on board. And as you're talking to them, they're far more willing to compromise than their supporters are. And that pins them in a very difficult situation now.

Is that going to be something that those folks are able to get some movement? Are they going to have the freedom to compromise?

Well, let me give you a little background about my perspective on this. I came out of the progressive blogosphere, progressive bloggers in the Bush years, the peanut gallery, if you will. I got hired to be at a progressive group called Campaign for America's Future. I worked there for about a decade. And when you come out of that world, you play hardball, you hate compromise, you want to plant your flag and stand and fight at all times.

This was a poll that came out today from Pew. It said 62% of Democrats say Biden should work with the Republican Party, even if it means disappointing some of his voters. And that poll figure is not an anomaly. That kind of poll question has been asked periodically over the last several years, and it's always very similar. While the Republican number on that score is always much, much lower, the Republican base

is much more interested in fighting and fighting hard than the Democratic base is. And some progressive activists have misread

the viewpoint of the median Democrat. The median Democrat likes compromise. There's a reason why Joe Biden was the nominee and not Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, because more Democrats are like Joe Biden, even though it doesn't seem that way, because the AOC and the Bernie Sanders get so much media attention. So Biden has a lot of leeway to reach across the aisle so long as he gets that cooperation. Now, if Biden's not getting it,

And then he looks foolish trying to get at them, those folks who want to be more hard-edged and partisan. Then they'll play the I told you so game. But Biden has been bipartisan in his heart for a very, very long time. I think he has enough people in Congress with him on that, enough people in the Democratic base with him on that, that he has the latitude to try and try considerably at least coming out of the box. Bill, one of the things that I've talked about with a lot of folks recently, and you allude to that poll, and frankly,

I think you can look at numerous polling and other focus group data, things like that, that shows the country is not the country we see on Twitter. And yet that's the country I think a lot of our politicians believe they live in.

What was so striking to me in a Democratic presidential primary was these weren't random people. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, people who have one office, people with experience and knowledgeable staff.

And they all misread their own party. They all thought that Twitter was indicative of what the democratic base really wanted and desired and thought Biden was some kind of dinosaur. Uh,

So Biden had that middle-of-the-road voter all to himself. And the thing that folks really missed was the African-American voter is so crucial in the Democratic Party. You can't win that primary without winning South Carolina. And that African-American voter, particularly an older, working-class, non-college-educated voter, is much more moderate than...

then a younger African-American, more likely to be college educated. It's also a religious group. I mean, that's the thing as well. I mean, the African-American voter is a religious voter.

I think maybe the best example I've seen recently is someone did a poll. I believe it was nationwide. Might have just been here in Arizona asking Latinos, do they refer to themselves as Latin X? Oh, yeah. It was like 2%. It was like 2% said, yeah. I mean, and yet if you go on Twitter, every Latino Democrat activist on Twitter lists themselves as Latin X. Which is something that's amazing to me. I bet if we looked at polling that the –

African-American voter has the highest percentage per capita that goes to church regularly versus the white progressive voter. And that's why when Biden was in the black church, he was at home. It didn't seem weird or awkward that he was there. He's been doing it for years. When Warren or Sanders did it, it always was like entering into a foreign land and they couldn't make the exact connection. Well, when the holy water starts boiling when you enter, it's a bit of a problem. Yeah.

No, that's a very good point. It's a very good point. And I brought this up. I've actually posted something on my Facebook page, and I could not believe the amount of crap and DMs I got. And I said, nonetheless, what you think about Biden, the man goes to church. It's not foreign to him. We have to go back into break right now, but we will be coming back in just a moment with Bill Scherer. Very much enjoying this conversation. I hope our listeners are as well. Thank you.

Welcome back to the final segment of Broken Potholes. I am your host, Sam Stone, with my co-host Chuck Warren in studio today. On the phone, Bill Scher. Bill is a writer, blogger, very, very smart guy. And he's also a liberal. So he's got a very different point of view. And we're enjoying this conversation, exploring a little bit of back and forth, what's going to happen over the next few weeks and the next few years with the Biden administration. And we're going to talk a little bit about what's going to happen

Bill, one thing we haven't touched on yet, talking to business owners across the country, especially in the wake of the Obama administration, the one thing I kept hearing over and over was it's not the tax rate that's holding us back. It's an ever-changing regulatory state and the uncertainty that comes with that.

And it seems like that is an area where Biden may be vulnerable as well, simply given the pressure in the party on issues like the environment, labor, labor, transportation, all these types of things. Is that going to be something that could potentially hamper his administration economically going forward?

It really has to be mindful of. I don't have a reflexive antipathy towards regulation. I'm aware of the optical challenges. You start churning out one regulation after another, you're going to get a lot of business folks mad at you. And a lot of folks at the local level can turn that into animus for the administration. So you want to have anything you do on the regulatory front as much as possible be done through consultation.

so people in the business community aren't blindsided. I mean, the biggest thing out there that Democrats want to deal with is climate on a regulatory front. And there's a lot of corporations that are willing to talk to you about that because they want the certainty. They know it's real. They know something's going to happen. They want you to do something in a way that's going to be gradual, so they can adapt and still make money in the new regime.

where if you do something that's sudden and overly severe, it may be some other startup business because it does very well, but you're out of luck yourself. I think there's actually opportunity. There's a corporate coalition that's for carbon tax right now that includes one of the two companies. They may not want the rate to be as high as Democrats want it to be. They may want to have some kind of trade-off, some deregulatory trade-off in exchange for that. But they're open for business.

So I would not be surprised if Biden's team starts trying to build those coalitions

to say, look, this doesn't have to be a dividing issue in American politics. We can do this in a joint way, in a gradual way. You can still make money. We'll create jobs. And we can have affordable, clean energy at the end of the day. But it requires a lot of coalition building and a lot of compromise. Bill, let me ask you a question. Now, what our listeners probably don't know, and I was telling Sam before, you have read a biography or biographies on every U.S. president, correct?

Almost. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm pretty close. You know, there's the old thing, Shirley MacLaine, that the actress said, there's a 20-40 rule. When you're 20, you think everybody talks about you. When you're 40, you don't give a damn, supposedly. And when you're 60, you find out no one talks about you. I think, have you ever seen a president that created such passion on either side as Donald Trump? In your biographies you read, in your studies...

Or is he the result of...

social media now has been so good dividing us and that we can do it. So would this been the same thing for Bush? Would this been the same thing for Jimmy Carter or Nixon or Roosevelt or JFK? What are your thoughts on that being a amateur historian to a degree and watching politics closely? But the passion he enrages when it doesn't matter what you talk on. You just I mean, I mean, I just don't have any time to say the word Trump and wait for 10 minutes. I have never seen anybody in politics generate the love and hate.

Yeah, there's no middle. And I'm wondering if you think that's more, we obviously know he's an outsized personality, so that has a lot to do with it. But do you think social media played a role on it? Or do you just think

Is that just something we're going to go down now every cycle with whoever's up there? I mean, what are your thoughts? I mean, Trump stands alone in many, many ways. Sure. But look, Jefferson versus Adams, deeply bitter, deeply polarizing. I mean, Jefferson had to come out in his inaugural and say, we're all federalists, we're all Republicans, to try to bring the country back together. Andrew Jackson, deeply polarizing.

A lot of the elite thought that he had no business being president, illiterate military tyrant, feared that the democracy couldn't withstand him. You have a period, you know, I was going into the Civil War. It gets very, very dicey after the Civil War.

Andrew Johnson, deeply polarizing. The defraud, the allegation of fraud in 1876 for Hayes versus Tilden that required a commission to help resolve. So it's not like we haven't been polarized before. I think Trump is unique in actively calling for rejection of the presidential election results and fostering a post-election interaction.

But we have been polarized. We have a longer stretch of close election in the late 19th century than we have right now. This is the second longest stretch of close election. We've had them before. I don't know. And it will end. Someday it will end. Someday one side is going to get a bigger edge over the other side. Some parties may change. The Republican Party may look very different 40,

48 years from now, as Democrats and Republicans evolve considerably around the Civil War times and after the Civil War times. So we can survive this and withstand it. But definitely, as far as polarization goes, this is pretty severe.

No kidding. It's interesting to hear you talk about how close some of those elections and how much polarization was there, because I think if you listen to the media narrative or the public narrative today, it's presented as this is a totally unique time in terms of the conflicts. And yet this is a country that's fought a civil war internally before.

Well, you know, William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan ideologically oppose. Bryan's one of the first true blue populists, and that engenders its own backlash amongst Republican business people. The first election was not a landslide for McKinley, and McKinley wins re-election, and he is assassinated.

By a left-wing anarchist after that. So, you know, bad things have happened before. And I'm sorry, not hoping anything is replicated in that score. Hopefully our security attitude is a whole lot different than it was in 1901. But we have been bitterly divided before. I don't know how much better, considering what happened on the 7th, but...

But just to move on to a little bit different topic, because we actually did want to originally focus the show more on local municipal issues. We were looking to bring yourself and some other folks on board to talk about how federal policy interacts with those things. And unfortunately, we've kind of gotten sidetracked by the national discussion that is all people can talk about and reasonably so. We do still want to talk about that a little bit.

I got the impression working in municipal government, and I know your wife is actually a mayor. Is that correct?

He's the president of the city council right now. President of the city council, okay. So similar type experience. I got the distinct impression leading into the Trump-Clinton campaign that Democrats on the local level were 100% assured by the campaign that as soon as Hillary won, there would be significant bags of cash going out to state and local governments to help cover their pension deficits. Right.

And I think it was a complete shock when that then didn't happen. Is that something you would expect to be coming out beyond just the stimulus bill over the next few years? Is that something Democrats are going to focus on?

I don't know how much they're going to do on the municipal pension issue. Governor Raimondo, who Biden just named to become her secretary, she angered the left in Rhode Island because she was pretty tough on...

pension reform. So it's not something that Democrats are unified on right now. I don't know if Biden's going to do that much on that score. I do think they care very much about state and local governments being able to develop their budgets. So I do expect them to fight pretty hard on this route of COVID relief to include some money there, because that's what they did not get in

in the bill last year. And I think the Republican response is, we don't want to bail out your pension. We don't want to give you that money because we think you're going to use it for pension. So perhaps maybe the compromise is, we want to give them that money, but it'll be cordoned off from the whole pension issue. I mean, frankly, if they gave it to the city of Phoenix, because while we have some pension deficit issues, our budget is fine. We're actually up revenue about 6%, 5.6% so far in this fiscal year.

And that's actually ahead of our projections, which were a growth over the previous year. Now, Arizona, like Florida, like Texas, is a little unique because we're getting a lot of influx from other states. But if they give us that money...

I'd rather see them, frankly, spend it paying down our pension deficit, which at least is a structural balancing. Right, right. Lots of other tricky things here. Every city is different. There's some things that are happening across the board and some things are happening in different – some impacts are different depending on the circumstances. And that's why federal legislation can be tricky. So I don't know if there's ways to structure or compromise that.

different cities get different things, or are people going to say that's unfair? That's what compromising negotiation is all about. Well, it's supposed to be. I just don't remember the last time we've seen it, so I guess it's become a... In theory. It sounds good in theory. It does sound good in theory.

All right, Bill, thank you again. We've loved having you on the show. We've got about two minutes until we break out here. But is there anything else you think people are missing out there right now that's going on on the left or that we might not be as aware of out here in Arizona as you are that could be very impactful for the next year or two?

Well, it's not just on the left. I think both parties are experiencing a great degree of ideological flux. I don't think that what each party looks like in the next 10 years is predetermined at this point. There is a growing left on the younger part of the Democratic Party, but still a pretty big moderate faction. The Republican Party is being pretty racked with division now, whether they're going to be a Trumpist top of those party or they're going to kick him to the curb.

And I would just say to folks, you as an individual citizen, get a say. You have a say in

in what direction the party you affiliate with is the direction they're going to take. Don't paint either party with a broad brush. Don't assume that what one person says speaks for the entirety of a party, because both parties are having a lot of internal debate and discussion about what they should be doing over the next several years. Bill, tying it to something you said a few moments ago, in terms of don't assume that what we see today is what we're going to see tomorrow and the differences between different cities and states and so forth.

One of the things that we have been told for a number of years is that millennials and younger voters did not want a car culture. They wanted to reject car culture. Then COVID hit. And at least here in Arizona, and I've got some friends who are in the car business, they said they have had absolute record sales. And it's all being driven by millennials who are buying cars, moving back to the suburbs, trying to get out of those inner city cores.

And I think that is a really significant shift for the future of our urban environments here. All of a sudden, people don't want to be in the 40-floor high-rise downtown. They're getting out of there. They're buying cars. They're abandoning trains. Now, that may not happen everywhere, but that's our experience here.

Look, all these hippies that voted for George McGovern grew up and voted for Joe Biden. If he didn't flip over and go to Donald Trump. Just because someone who's a millennial is saying something today, life experiences are going to occur. And they may have recalibrations over the next several decades. Mortgages happen, kids come along. My favorite current activist is the one-time Paul Bott-turned-Bernie-bro-turned-Trumper.

That's exactly right. I mean, it's not unusual for the younger generation to be pretty far out on the left, but how much they say that way is a huge unknown. So people on the left think that the world is ours and we just hang out long enough, but you don't know how they're going to change or they're going to be impacted. You have a kid and suddenly defund the police doesn't sound so good. Yeah. Yeah.

And how Biden performs the next two to four years is going to matter so much as to how well the Democrat coalition can hold, whether it can maintain majority status over a long period of time, or the Republican Party goes through a massive change. There's so much game left to play here. I think a lot of the listeners on this program are hoping that is not entirely the case or not at all the case. But, Bill, I can't thank you enough for being on the program with us. Really enjoyed having you. Chuck,

Bill, we appreciate your time, buddy, and let's have you on again soon. Absolutely. Absolutely. Good to talk to you. Take care. Have a great day. Bye-bye. Well, we shall see what happens. I wish we had more time to discuss more, but we'll find out what happens with Joe Biden these next 100 days for sure and see if Republicans are willing to cut down some of these progressive agenda items. Our flies with good convo. Thank you. I just did this to turn