Drew Ferguson on How the Federal Government Creates Local Problems
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Welcome to Broken Potholes with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We have an amazing special episode for you today. Yes, we do. Welcome. We have Congressman Drew Ferguson from Georgia. He is the chief deputy whip for the House Republicans. He also serves on the Committee on Ways and Means, and he is a former mayor in Georgia. Welcome, Congressman.

Thanks, guys. Good to be with you today and appreciate the chance for the discussion. Thank you. So tell us how you got involved in politics. What was that moment you said, I'm going to do this?

It was really at the local level, and it came down to a decision that I had to make about some work in my hometown. We had lost about 35,000 textual jobs in my area at the corporate headquarters as a result of NAFTA. And we had, you know, I was trying to run a dental practice in a town where you couldn't buy a job. And I was faced with the decision of either leaving my hometown or staying and fighting to fix it. And

So I entered into local politics, was elected in 2008, served two terms as mayor, had an incredible run. We replaced the textile industry with automotive industry. Kia Motors America located their assembly plant there. And we went from zero to 16,000 manufacturing jobs in eight years that I was mayor. And we had an incredible run. And somebody said, why don't you take that story to D.C.?

I said, thanks, but no thanks. I'm not tired of being happy. But long story short, I wound up getting into a congressional race and had a good story to tell, but I think probably the better the truth of it is, a blind squirrel found it up, and we wound up in D.C. Well, Congressman, let me ask you this question. Now that you're in Congress, and you're in House leadership, what do you wish most of your fellow members in Congress would know about

about the influence federal policies have on cities, how they affect what they do. What have you taken from that that's made you a better congressman?

Well, when I think back to my experience as a mayor, a lot of the problems with my community were things that we couldn't fix at the local level. They were barriers that were put down by the federal government. I'll give you two examples, two things that really affected our community and we couldn't fix it because Washington was in the way. The first one was on project-based public housing.

We had the typical late 60s, early 70s barracks-style public housing. It was a trap that kept people in poverty. Well-intentioned, but it was failing. And we knew that having a safe neighborhood with decent affordable housing was a priority for our community. But D.C. wouldn't let us change that. They kept insisting that we have the same old problems. The other area was education.

The federal government telling states and communities how they have to educate children just didn't fit for us. Educating children in the 3rd District of Georgia is different than educating kids on the left coast of the Northeast or Philadelphia. And so we had this amazing advanced manufacturing facility opening up.

And we were telling all of our kids that if you don't go to a four-year college, you're an abject failure. Really what we needed to do, and we had to find a creative way to get around this, was

We said, look, here are great jobs, great opportunities with a great company, and if you learn the basic skill set here, you've got a chance of making really good money with no college debt. And so education and housing were two areas that we just looked at and said, you know, the federal government is making it too difficult for us to succeed.

We see that still today. I work with the city of Phoenix and we have the same problems right now with housing with the myriad of federal requirements that go into it that essentially make the construction of that housing double or triple the cost of what a private developer pays to build the exact same thing.

It's very frustrating. And, you know, look, I'm one of these folks that I know because I've lived it and I've experienced it. The private sector can always do it more efficiently, reach more people and do a better job than the federal government can. And look, I think while we're on the topic of education right now is I travel around the country and it doesn't matter if I'm in the Midwest, the Northeast, the Southeast, out on the left coast, doesn't matter.

The number one issue with parents right now is schools. Yes. Without question. Mask mandates, hybrid learning, online learning, teachers unions demanding that they stay at home and get paid first, and critical race theory. This reminds me, even though I haven't really been in politics yet,

all that long in relative terms. I certainly remember the Tea Party movement, and the grassroots energy in this election cycle right now is at the school board level, and it's the hottest race that I'm seeing across the country. Oh, I agree 100 percent. You're going to see major changes here in Arizona as well. You know, Sam and I have discussed for a while the

We as conservatives have sort of made a mistake, and I think you can speak to this as well as anybody, is we get so excited when we're Republicans talking about tax cuts and foreign policy and judges, right? That's our big three, right? But we often forget these local issues. So, for example, as conservatives, we love school choice. But at the end of the day, you're still going to have, worst case scenario, 80% of kids go to public schools. And it seems that our side has sort of just...

We've ignored public schools to a degree. We just sort of complain. And what do you think as a mayor who's dealt with education, what can we do as Republicans to show people that we also support, you know, we all believe in school choice. Every child's different. But what can we do and what should we start campaigning on, our messaging, saying, look, we support public schools and these are the things we need to do and this is what the federal government needs to get out of the way with it?

Yeah, sure. So it is about flexibility and being able to tailor education in your community for what your community needs. Let me give you an example of why school choice is kind of a – it sounds really good if you live in D.C. or maybe even Phoenix or Atlanta where you have choices of schools or potential choices of schools. I want you to take about half of my counties –

that I represent, there's one school. It's one school system. It's a county-wide school system. There's one high school, one middle school, maybe two elementary schools. That's not uncommon. So where's the choice going to be? We have to do what we can to

to get out of the way, and I truly mean that, get the federal government out of the way, quit telling our local school systems what they have to do. These are professional educators. They'll figure it out. Parents will figure it out. Let the parents decide and dictate at the local level how they want their kids educated. It makes no sense to send a bunch of kids to a four-year college to get a degree in basket weaving

when the jobs are in advanced manufacturing. It just, you know, we're setting the kids up for failure, and if you will allow our local school systems

to have flexibility, to understand that not, you know, we're not trying to exclude anybody down here. What we're trying to do is make sure that every kid has a real opportunity and an opportunity defined by the parents in the community as opposed to someone in another congressional district. Congressman, my brother-in-law has a specialty manufacturing business, so I know a lot of what you're talking about.

People start out working for him. His starting salary is $80,000 a year. His average employee makes $100,000 a year or more. And yet we act like these are lesser jobs than someone who goes out. This is a lesser career path than someone who goes to a four year college, gets a degree in some nebulous topic that has no actual career attached to it.

I got to tell you, I respect the person who got the technical learning, taking care of their family, taking care of themselves. That is a big commitment. We need to honor that. Oh, I 100 percent agree. And right now, in a pre-pandemic, especially in a booming economy, we were seeing the fastest growth in wages because it was happening the right way, not because the federal government was mandating a particular wage.

But in a growing economy where you needed people coming into advanced manufacturing or you needed people, you know, carpenters, plumbers, pipe fitters, welders, go down the list, auto body mechanics, auto mechanics. There was a competition for work and for workforce. And so there was a natural competition for wages. And you take a kid that can go and two years to a technical college, learn one of these skills that they can go monetize, only

All of a sudden, $80,000 to $90,000 seems pretty common. And that's not a bad way to go, particularly when you're starting a job coming out of college with a four-year degree. It's probably more like $40,000 or $50,000. And by the way, you've got a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt. It's a horrible business model. I've got four kids. Let me say this. I've got four kids. Two boys, two girls. Age ranges of 17 to 27.

And I am telling you right now that the thing that I've learned being a parent with them is they all learn differently and there are different pathways to success for each of the four. And we need to recognize that with everybody's kids. You know, one thing I brought up before, Congressman, because I have worked quite a bit in the education field also is

Why don't we somewhere after 10th grade, so 11th and 12th grade, look at creating various options for those final two years? One option for kids who want to continue that college track, but another option for them to start getting these skills and developing, getting technical degrees, putting themselves in position to go straight from high school into the workforce. Right.

Listen, I'm in full agreement with you on that, and I've seen the success of doing that in not only my hometown, my home county, but in this district. It doesn't matter if it's in the movie industry. It doesn't matter if it's in, you know, we happen to represent a big part of the movie industry here in Georgia.

advanced manufacturing, agriculture, a lot of different things that these young folks can make really good living for a very long time. That's what we need to be focusing on. And have a very nice life doing it. Absolutely. We're with Congressman Drew Ferguson. He's the chief deputy whip for the House Republicans. He represents the great state of Georgia. And when we come back at our break here shortly, we want to talk about, Congressman, how did you view

President Biden's European trip.

and his summit with Putin. And what are a couple items you think Republicans this election cycle need to really make a case for with their constituents about why we deserve the majority and what's going on in Washington right now is bad for the country? For an administration that's supposed to be super tough on Russia, today's announcement that they're pulling their support for Ukraine is pretty astounding. It's amazing. It's amazing.

So broken potholes will be coming back here in just a minute with Representative Drew Ferguson from Georgia. Representative, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. We're looking forward to continuing this in just a moment. Now more than ever before, we are relying on the Internet to keep up with the news, stay in touch with friends, shop and everything in between.

That's why it's so important that you reserve your first and last name dot vote web address for your upcoming campaign. Secure your digital real estate by owning your name, the dot vote, your name, your campaign, your very own dot vote domain. Head to GoDaddy today. Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Sam Stone and Chuck Warren. On the line with us today, very special guest, Representative Drew Ferguson of Georgia.

And we were just talking about Biden's trip to Europe, the G7, and his meeting with Vladimir Putin. Could that have gone any worse?

From my standpoint and for most Americans, absolutely not. It was the worst case scenario. Let's touch on a couple of topics that I think are going to be disastrous for America. Number one, Biden goes into the G7 and tries to negotiate away our competitiveness. He is talking about a global minimum tax crisis.

and tying our economy directly to the European Union. That is not good for American competitiveness or innovation.

And as part of that, and I'm going to put it in as simple terms as I can, and I questioned Treasury Secretary Yellen about this at the Ways and Means hearing the other day, you're going to actually, with this and the digital services tax that they're talking about doing, you are actually going to take tax dollars generated by companies in America for the U.S. Treasury and send them to Europe

to fund their social programs. That's number one. Number two, Biden has now lifted the sanctions on the Nord Stream pipeline. He killed the Keystone pipeline in America and all of the jobs and the energy independence that went along with it.

And he turned around and he gave the green light to Russia to sell energy to our allies. That makes no sense. That makes us weaker. And then he basically gives Putin a pass on nuclear weapons. The whole new – hitting the old famous restart button on arms control, basically making sure that there were no preconditions on the discussion. That gives Russia the upper hand.

We could go down the list, but America is weaker after that trip than before that trip, and that's the bottom line. What's amazing today is the Biden White House political reported on this has basically withdrawn up $100 million of military aid to Ukraine. And all we kept hearing for the previous four years is that Trump's a puppet, Trump's a puppet.

Can you imagine the outrage today if Donald Trump's White House had announced this this morning? I've learned this in my short time in D.C. If the Democrats are screaming about us doing something, you can bet your bottom dollar they're doing it and they're distracting from it. Their hypocrisy is like nothing else that I've ever seen. It stinks like three-day-old roadkill on asphalt in South Georgia.

It's horrible. If you the reality is the way the press treats the Democrats now and their complete illogic and irony of what they propose. If you if we all went to a movie 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we would all be laughing in the theater thinking this is some comedy. And they're just dead serious about what they're doing. It's just like, well, don't don't listen to what I said a day ago. Don't listen to what I told you was wrong. Just don't do any of that.

So I'll tell you this. It is so easy for Americans to get frustrated. They're frustrated because they can't find a true news source, national news source that they can trust.

They see the Democrats in collusion with the mainstream media. And what I have to remember is that the most important, the two groups of voters that as a member of Congress I've got to think about, those are the people of the 3rd District of Georgia that I represent and the Republican House Conference. And so my role is Chief Deputy Whip. My job is to make sure that I'm communicating to members, helping them solve problems on legislation, and at the same time,

We're not only counting the votes, but we're making sure that Republicans stick together on these key issues. And, you know, being in that position has been a fabulous experience. It's been a great experience because I've been part of leading a very new Congress. Most people don't realize that since 2016,

51% of the members, Republican members of the House of Representatives have been elected for the first time with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. So that means that there's a very new majority that is thinking about things in a very different way that at its core,

believe that Americans and America should be put first over the European Union, over Russia, and specifically over China. So it's a really fascinating time to be in politics right now, despite the horrors of what we're seeing from the socialist Democrats. You feel this energy and this excitement on iTunes.

on our side of the aisle because we know that we've got the right ideas and the right solutions for the issues. Democrats call putting America first racism, but then all these other countries, they put their own citizens and their interests first, and that's okay.

You know, just because they call it racism doesn't make it so. I don't think, listen, matter of fact, I think that if you won't find a member of our conference, I don't think you'll find people across this country. If there's racism, we'll be at the front of the line to do away with it. Congressman. I challenge anybody to find me a federal law that condones and promotes racism.

Absolutely right. Doesn't exist. No. And this is one of the big battles I think Republicans have to fight. And I think you said it exactly right. They're going to throw this stuff out in every single situation. And we have to stick together, just like you're asking your members to stick together. We're not always going to agree 100 percent on our policies, but 100 percent of the time, our policies are going to be better for our citizens than Democrat policies.

Couldn't agree more with that statement. Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing in this country right now, it's really just insane. And what you're dealing with as a politician every day, it just gets crazier and crazier. There was a great piece this morning I saw, and I think actually Glenn Greenwald tweeted it out.

saying, you know, everyone on the left assumed Amy Coney Barrett was going to overthrow the ACA. Conservative analysts said, no, this case that's coming isn't likely to do that because she's going to follow the law. Democrats assumed she would because they would. They don't care about the law. They don't care about precedent. They don't care about tradition. They will do anything to win.

And I think in a certain sense that leaves our side at a disadvantage because we do play by – we like to play by rules. We want to agree. We want to bring consensus. Is that accurate? No, it is accurate. And we operate from a position of intellectual honesty and they operate from a position of fear.

And it's all about control. It's about control of Americans' lives, control of the economy, control of foreign affairs. They want to control every single aspect of your life. And we say this, and look, the coronavirus pandemic obviously has been a life-altering event for not only the world, but particularly here in the U.S. But I say this kind of tongue-in-cheek, and

And not to not to minimize the effects of the pandemic. But if you like what COVID-19 has done to your life, you're going to love socialist Democrats in control because they control the economy. They control your education. They control your freedom. See where you can go and where you can't go. So if you like COVID, you're going to love the Democrats. We're going to leave it right there. Broken potholes will be coming back in just a moment.

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all the while reminding them to vote. Visit GoDaddy today to kick off your 2022 campaign right. Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone on the line with us, Congressman Drew Ferguson from Georgia. Congressman, we'd like to ask, what does the day of a chief deputy whip look like? What is it that you're doing there? I think our viewers could use a little civic education because they're not teaching it in schools.

So we're going to leave it to you. All right. So on any given day, first of all, the chief deputy whip is chosen by the conference whip, who is Steve Scalise. And it's typically seen and historically has been seen as the number four ranking position in the House of Representatives. And what my job is every day is to talk to all of the members that I can, talk to them about specific pieces of legislation that are coming to the floor,

How they are going to vote on it, ask them why, if it's something that's going to be bad for conservatives and the Republican agenda and for America, and they think they're leaning towards voting yes, then we go through that process, talk them through it.

the good parts of the bill, the bad parts of the bill, ultimately why they should be a no vote, or sometimes in the majority why they should be a yes vote. And Congress is a place where, believe it or not, it really doesn't have a lot of sticks and it doesn't have a lot of carrots. And so you have to build a reputation of being an honest broker within the different factions of the conference, and

And you have to help people find a way to solve their solutions, whether it's legislatively, politically, or from a messaging standpoint. And so from the time that I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night, it is about communicating and working with members on the House floor. And we spend a lot of time doing that. We've got a great team that helps us with that.

And I would say you have a much more challenging job than Democrats do, because you mentioned 51 percent of the House has been turned over since Donald Trump took office or with that election. Republicans have a very broad political ideology right now. You have people who are traditional Reagan Republicans, fiscal conservatives. You have the more populist branch that's come in more recently.

There is a broad ideological diversity right now within the Republican Party. Democrats are just being pounded into lockstep. They really are.

Quite candidly, what they do is that they put out a message, whether it's true or not, no matter what, and they stick to that message. And Republicans operate from the position, again, of trying to be intellectually honest and solve the real issues that their constituents are facing and do it in an intellectually honest way. But here are the things that I'm finding some common threads that happen.

But I see that Republicans are rallying around. Number one, no matter who you are in this country, you've got to have access to a great job. And paying people to sit on the sidelines for this enhanced unemployment is not the best way forward. So we want to make sure that we've got access to jobs with a growing economy.

Families want to come home to a safe home in a decent neighborhood. They want to stay in how their kids are educated. At the end of the day, they want to be left alone to believe what they want, think how they want, love how they want, and achieve what they want in this great country of ours. So thinking of it as a job, a house, an education, and freedom. And then you contrast that with what the Democrats are doing. They're destroying the economy.

Our country is much less safe today with the defund the police movement, the Biden border crisis, and now the effort to defund the military. And I mean, we mentioned it earlier on the show. Parents are outraged about what's happening in schools and schools.

The federal government and state governments, particularly Democratic governors, have been eroding our freedoms and telling us for the last year and a half where we can go, what we can eat, when we can eat, how many people we can eat with. Can we even go to our family's house for a holiday?

It's a 180-degree difference. And I know in my heart, most families, most people in this great country, a job, a decent, safe place to live, a great education for their kids, and to be left alone, that is a winning message every single day. And that's what we're focused on. As we wrap up here, and we have a minute left.

Congressman, if there's people sitting on the fence listening, thinking about running for public office, why should they? I mean, we can't even imagine the amount of vitriol and hate emails and phone calls you get. But why should they sacrifice and run for public office?

First of all, I would say don't do it if you're mad. You can have a burn. You can have something that drives you. You can have something that's – you get a little burr under your saddle, and that's a good motivator. But you've got to be willing to sacrifice. You've got to be willing to put others ahead of yourself. And you have to be – and you have to have a very strong desire to see your fellow Americans succeed.

And what we're finding is, is that Republicans are doing that. They're willing to step up and make the sacrifice to make this country the greatest place on the entire planet and to keep it a great country. That is perfect. Congressman, I want to thank you so, so much for being on the show today. We really appreciate it. Broken Potholes will be coming right back in just a moment.

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You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You know, it is time for the irrepressible Kylie Kepner and our sunshine moment on Broken Potholes when you hear this song. With a local story as well. Yes. Yeah. I'm actually very inspired by this story because all of COVID I've been wanting to start my own business.

But a 15-year-old student from Hamilton High School here in Chandler, Arizona, she started her own business called Ice Therapy. And it's a shaved ice booth in the food court of a major mall here in Arizona called Chandler Fashion Square. And her company is absolutely booming. I don't know what's better during the summer heat than eating shaved ice. But in an interview she did, she said that she eats a lot of ice. And her dad, who's a businessman, said, why don't you do something about it?

make some make something out of it so in between her high school classes she researched and wrote a 30-page business plan and with the encouragement of her family she presented it to the management of the fashion center and they gave her the green light to move forward so she and her sister are now running the business themselves during the summer break

And she's really, truly an inspiring student altogether because during her business plan, during her homework, she's also learning French, Mandarin, Spanish, and Japanese. Oh, my goodness. We need to hire her. Yeah. Maybe when you go start something, she can take your place. She can take my place. I'm feeling pretty inadequate right now. How many high school students start businesses? Okay, so that number is very hard to find because you still need an adult to sign all the paperwork. Oh, okay.

However, I did find a few stats. Ageism. Yes. Ageism in America, Sam. Hey, I got friends who have started businesses and didn't write a 30-page business plan, which is probably why they're out of business. Well, basically, every Silicon Valley business is on a napkin, and some idiot venture capitalist says, here's $100 million. Anyway, continue. Yeah, but I did find that 41% of small business owners are baby boomers.

13% are millennials and 1% are Gen Z, which is most likely going to be those under 18, maybe a little bit over. I mean, that's a significant number. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a study that Junior Achievement USA conducted in October of 2020 that says one in four teens are less likely to consider opening a business because of the COVID-19 impact than

But I feel like what I read from that stat was still three-fourths of students or teens are still willing to start a business regardless of. Well, and that's a great point. So several years ago, I saw a survey that 68% of those who they polled said they had no desire to own

or manage a business, right? They just simply want to go collect their check, have their weekends, blah, blah, blah. That is a complete opposite with this Gen Z and these millennials. And I think they've seen, I need to control my destiny because they've experienced family members who've been laid off through corporations, things of this nature. So what's the best way to control your destiny is if you have confidence,

start your shaved ice business or whatever the case may be. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I just want to put a little plug in there for my Gen X, because based on those statistics, we've got to be way overrepresented. Y'all know who the greatest generation currently around is. Come on. You know it. Well, Gen Z, apparently. Well, I'm a millennial. Come on, have you seen them? They were eating Tide Pods last year. I found actually that 90% of

New American billionaires are all self-made. How many? 90%.

Well, it's true, and I think there's a confidence. Sam and I have talked about this, about political candidates before. There's a certain confidence about earning money and taking risk. Yes. So I've had two types of candidates I've worked with in the past. There are those who are worth substantial money, tens of millions of dollars, and they're always the ones that come from the corporate set, like I worked at IBM or Hewitt Pack or something. And so they've had these stock options. They climb the ranks of executives. And what I found is they always talk big,

about I'm going to put this much money in the race and then they never do because it took them years to build that and like I can't replace this and then when you work with folks like these self-made people they're always the quickest ones to say I'm going to roll the dice

And if I lose or even as a business or politics, if I lose, I'll go make it again. It's a different mentality. It's a totally different mentality. And actually, you hit on something really timely that I've been dealing with because we're looking at expanding the medical marijuana industry here in Arizona with a bunch of new licenses. Right.

was working with a group, frankly, to see if we could get one of those licenses. Because I'm not looking to smoke pot, but I'm looking to make money. The show would be better if you did, but continue. You know, it's legal. It is legal here. It's good for elbows. Continue. But, you know, we had a group of people. It costs...

$25,000 per application. There's no guarantee. It's a lottery. And it's not refundable. It's not refundable. $25,000. And we were partnered with some folks. We found out that a bunch of these big dispensaries had put in a huge amount of money. And those of us who were not wealthy in that group didn't want to go forward and take that level of risk where we're going to throw away 25 grand each on a one in 100 chance. The self-made millionaires in the group...

were disappointed that we all didn't go ahead and do it. You know, for them, they literally were saying exactly what you just said. Well, I don't care if I throw out 50 or 100 or $200,000 on a one in 200 chance. I'll do that when I go to Vegas anyway. And this has a better payoff in the risk reward. Ideology, if you will, is different. Well, it's a it's a real

It's a real mental aspect how you view money. As you know, doing so, I mean, I'm a guy who will take chances like that, right? Right. It's just there is a mentality to it, and you have to be able to do it and not fret about it afterwards. We have a mutual friend that's also part of our Sunshine Movement, McKenzie. I remember once we talked her into betting $100 on a jazz game, and it was the points, and we won based on points afterwards.

I mean, she was frantic about the lousy $100, right? And finally, at the end, I'm just like, what the hell is wrong with you, right? I mean, come on, don't we pay her better than that? Yeah. But, you know, she just had it. So, well, that's really interesting. We need to try to get this young woman and her sister. What would be nice is to get the young sister and her parents in here. Because what I'd like to find out is they've obviously –

built this mindset with her to do it. I mean, you know, she's probably this very creative, ambitious young woman, which is fantastic, but she also sounds like she has home support, right? And it brought up something. I listened to a podcast this morning. It was a faith-based one, and the person is athletic director, and her comment was,

Our homes need to provide a home-filled advantage. In sports, we always say there's a home-filled advantage. And, you know, you have like the Jazz and the Phoenix Suns. They have a home-filled advantage. Yes. Right? She said to build strong families, the home that they live in needs to be a home-filled advantage. I would say it sounds like this young woman, her family, she comes home, she has a home-filled advantage. It's filled with support.

Detail, love, and optimism. Well, and really, honestly, some realistic thinking. Because one of the things I saw a poll fairly recently among Gen Z and millennials, the number one answer of what they wanted to be was a social media influencer. Right.

And it was literally a plurality of that group that thought that that was their career path. Right. Whereas this girl understands she actually has a better opportunity to become a social media influencer because of the success of the business she's starting right now.

in all the lessons she's learning right now. Maybe we can go do a podcast. Maybe we can do the show one day, go visit her at Chandler Mall and have the family there and talk to them. I think that'd be fun. I mean, with it being 117 here, I might go over myself and just get some shaved ice. She started the business at the right time. I'll give it that. My goodness. So now let's talk about Congressman Ferguson we just had on. I thought he was a well-versed

intelligent representative. And what it takes me is I don't think our party throws people like that out enough. He should be on every podcast and local news doing interviews. I mean, he should be all over the place. And he's not. And if this guy isn't Georgia, listen, I don't know how many people are listening in this podcast in Georgia. But if you are,

You need to go recruit this guy to run for U.S. Senate. Senate or governor after camp or something. But he understands the message. He understands people. I do think, and you know this as well as anybody, I am getting to the point that, A, I don't think you should run for federal office until you're after the age of 40 and paid a mortgage or something like that. And two, I'm really going to look more and more at people I support. Have they served...

on a city council or a school board. There's so much to learn there that translates. And so, you know, like he's talking about just how much the federal government just makes housing a mess, affordable housing. There's no reason for what we have. No, there's none. And he's exactly right about that. We've dealt with it at the city of Phoenix for years. But you're right, Chuck, too.

I learned so much. I mean, I've been involved in politics and campaigns and all that for a long time. But about four and a half, five years ago when I went to work for the city of Phoenix, I thought I knew what I was getting into and I did not. No. And you've learned so much about what's really important to people.

At that local level that I think that's a type of experience that we do not promote enough. It's a critically important step. And it is one that Democrats are better at.

They promote a lot of people from those positions. Well, it goes back to the point we've talked about. It's been the failing of the conservative movement. It's been the failing of national Republicans that, A, we do not focus enough on these local elections at all. I mean, we don't even pretend. No. I mean, it's a joke. Democrats have a machine. I mean, there is no reason, even the city of Phoenix and the registration measures, there's no reason we shouldn't have three city council seats. No. Like, zero. Right? Which...

Would be a significant difference to how the city of Phoenix is going to have to face our future debts and stuff. You've just had three fiscal conservatives on that. You got nine total members. We should have, frankly, at least three and probably four based on on the city, which would change votes on from defund the police to the taxes to all these crazy spending they do. Yeah, I've always said if I have to go out and get one vote from the other side, I can usually figure out how to do that.

Yeah, and then... If you need a lot. And then besides local elections, the other thing that we're not doing, and he touched upon it a little bit, but I still... We have to be better. We do not talk enough about public schools. No. Now, he made the great point. He has five counties where there's only one school. Right. What choice are these people going to have? And we all love school choice because every... Look, everybody is a unique creation by God. And we all have different talents. We all have different skills. But all of a sudden...

All of a sudden, we just don't focus on enough. And we have to have a better policy nationally and locally that moms understand. Republicans care about your public school. We want it to be the best it possibly can. And I just don't feel we give that vibe. We don't. And we need to. And we have a golden, unprecedented opportunity thanks to COVID. One of the few things I credit this virus for.

for actually improving his parents' understanding of what their kids are getting exposed to in public schools. And Representative Ferguson hit on it. Critical race theory is racism. I mean, it teaches people to judge you by the color of your skin, oppressor and oppressed. A lot of the other education they're getting,

is essentially sophistry. I mean, they're being told that math and reason, enlightenment is racism, is white supremacy. And thank goodness parents had a chance. You know, you saw those teachers going, don't let your parents see what I'm teaching on Zoom today. Folks, if your teacher has to tell your kids not to let you know what they're learning,

That is not a teacher you want anywhere near your children. No, I mean, what's being taught in the classroom should be one of the most transparent things any of us deals with in our lifetime. And the fact that someone's doing that just simply tells me you are trying to spin some ungodly type of rhetoric and propaganda that you know no one wants to hear. We have our local colleges right now who are in the process of saying that timeliness is

courtesy, classroom conduct, these things do not matter. Right. Because somehow these things are systemic racism. Folks, that is ridiculous. Being on time, being responsible, these are things that any decent human needs to do to show courtesy and respect for their fellow human beings. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. What's the other takeaway you took from him today? You know, just the approachability, the down-home approachability. And I think this is really something all Republicans need to be paying attention to. We can't all be Donald Trump. We can't all be Mitt Romney. There was only one Donald Trump. There was only one Ronald Reagan. Right. But we can all just be human. Like Representative Ferguson, he takes a very down-home approach.

And I think that's what this country is desperate for right now. Missing just that common sense. A little common sense and compassion. Yeah, it's not hard. Nope. Broken potholes. Great show. Coming back next week. Running for office? You need a campaign website. Introducing the web address of the democratic process, .vote. So how do you purchase your .vote website?

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