David Schweikert on Rising Inflation and Economic Turmoil
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. Very excited to have our guest in the studio this morning, Congressman David Schweikert.

one of the great thinkers, I believe, in Congress today. Stop for a second. Wouldn't you kill to have the name Sam Stone on a campaign sign? Exactly. No, no, no, no, no. It's a perfect name. I tell them this all the time. You've got to run for office with it. I am running for office. Oh, yeah. At some point, you should tell us about that. Come on. You don't get a better setup than this. This is about as good as it goes. This is perfect. It's like a Robert Patterson novel. Right? Right.

No, my former boss, as you know, Sal DeCiccio, termed out. He endorsed me to run for his seat, so I'm doing that right now. Look, I can only be so helpful. Right? No, you

You set that up perfectly. If you win by ballot name, try putting Schweikert on a sign. And ask people to spell it. I remember the first time I was going to run, and my family had been very active in the community and local politics and those things. I sort of grew up around parts of it. Now, they were much more into the life movement and those things. That's what I grew up around. And dad, I think I'm running for...

No, not with our last name. Stone, you got it. It's a perfect Irish name, right? Is that what he told you? Actually, the funny thing is I'm an adopted kid. I've had this incredible experience. I had the most wonderful birth parents. I've gotten to meet them. My mother who raised me loved my birth mom, those things. Turns out I'm mostly Scottish with the last name Schweikert. Well,

Well, I've seen your solution. It's good. You did the vertical signs. Well, yeah. No, they stand out. Yeah. Once again, for anyone that's listening, it's not in our market. I have a 10-letter last name. On occasion, if you put it sideways, you're basically like a small skyscraper. All right. If you put it sideways, you're violating sign rules in at least three jurisdictions here. All right. Now on to something that's actually important. How do we save ourselves from the mess? Yes.

So tell us how we get inflation. Biden's saying it's not his fault. He bristles, made the absolutely dishonest claim this week that

The United States had the lowest inflation in the world when it's lower in France, lower in England, like seven other countries. The one thing about Biden is everybody gave Trump absolute crap for this point. Biden's the same way. He says something, and he is going to hold to it. It doesn't matter if you put the facts right in front of him. Look, in a world where Larry Summers is being quoted by Republicans—

You know, dogs are sleeping with cats. I mean, the world is upside down. Twenty twenty two. Yeah. OK, look, our high school definition is too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. And the reality of it is last March 2021, the Democrats had a one point nine trillion dollar spending bill.

but it was more than just the fact it was a couple trillion dollars of spending. Within that bill were all these incentives that here's a check, you don't have to work. Here's a check, you don't really have to do anything. Just stay at home and renew your Netflix subscription. So it was everything wrong. And even Larry Summers, who's screaming at his Democrat brothers and sisters saying, don't do this, don't do this. We have a pile of

kindling that's been being soaked in kerosene from the Federal Reserve, and you're about to take a blowtorch and light it off. And if you look at the charts, you can actually see the passage of the Democrats' huge spending bill, and then boom, within a week, there's this inflection of inflation taking off.

And then you have people like Larry Lindsey, who's the sort of classic Republican supply side economist, who within a couple of days came out and said, we're going to have this high of inflation and it's going to be now for years. And he was absolutely mocked.

by the Washington, D.C. press until January when he nailed all the numbers. And I was talking to a broker I work with at J.P. Morgan this morning. He said 10 years is what he and his colleagues are now starting to do. 10 years inflation or 10 years recovery from what we're doing there? 10 years of very high inflation. Higher than norm. That's actually... So what would be the definition of 10 years higher than norm? Well, you figure the Fed's model was trying to get to a 2.2, you know, sort of a baseline.

And there's actually some mathematical reasons you do that, you know, as you're trying to put productivity. We also have some other difficulties that, and you told me I could geek out slightly. Please. We actually, this is not the late 70s and early 80s. The economy was much simpler then in many ways. I'm going to say our demographics were different. Here's our problem. In seven years, 22% of America is 65 or older.

It wasn't that way 50 years ago. So we're actually having an inflationary cycle into a demographic wave at the same time capital markets and these other things, they're stable. But lots and lots of that type of headwind of how do you build productivity when you don't have the working population because we've gotten older. Right.

And that's why many of us actually believe we've now stepped into what they call a stagflation cycle. We're in wage price spiral. Wages go up, so I have to raise my prices. Well, they raise the prices, I've got to raise your wages. Which is something Japan's dealt with for decades now. Well, but theirs has actually been almost upside down at that. And theirs has been going the other direction. Okay.

where they've actually been trying to create inflation because they've actually had excess savings, if there's such a thing, and not enough productivity. So they've been trying to fight price, a deflationary cycle. So let's explain to our audience this as well. So every year we give a cost of living adjustment to those on entitlements.

Okay. So let's say our inflation stays- And government workers. And government workers. So let's say inflation averages six, let's just, let's say best case scenario, 6% over the next 10 years. How much will that add to our national debt? Okay. You're actually, that's a more complicated question because- It's a very complicated question. Because inflation actually can- But we told you you can geek out. So- Okay. Inflation is an absolute fraud.

for people who save. You've got to understand, this is what my intense concern is. Too many of us, particularly in the more conservative movement or the Republican, we're talking about, hey, your gas prices today. We're not talking about the fact that five years from now, 10 years from now, you are going to live poorer. We are going to see possibly, if this continues, 10 years from now, doubling of the number of seniors in poverty.

And here's why. Inflation, when you have a government that is out there with $30 trillion of borrowed money, but it's at a fixed rate. And over here you have all these people who have been saving for, let's say, retirement. I just lowered the value of the purchasing power of the retirement money, but I transferred it to lowering the value of all that debt.

It's a massive, massive hidden transfer of wealth that in many ways. So the debt's going to skyrocket because you got to understand if you had a two point rise in the mean interest rate on U.S. sovereign debt, functionally 25, 28 years from now, every dime of tax receipts, not tax revenue, tax receipts at the proper term is consumed by interest.

Those numbers are going to explode, but also we've now destroyed savings all over the United States and the world. I mean, you've got to understand, U.S. inflation is also exported around the world. The whole world is experiencing inflation. And so in 15 months, the Democrats have done something amazing. They've made the poor poor. They've made the working poor poor. They've wiped out much of the middle class's savings. They've made the middle class poor, but they found a dirty way to

strip people of their money and devalue parts of the U.S. debt. Which they're eyeballing as a way to spend more money, not rein in. You get the scam. And so what enrages you, if I came to you right now and said, hey, it's 1981. No one else in this room was alive at that time. Half of this room was alive at that time. Once again, I try to give you a freebie and you don't play. Well, no.

Oh, look, I've earned my gray hairs. I got the salt and pepper thing going. I'm proud of it. But we all, we keep hearing commentator after commentator talk about this guy named Paul Volcker, the head of the Federal Reserve, shows up and jacks. Interest rates. Interest rates through the ceiling. Please, please, please remember there was also a major Reagan tax cut that was done. And the idea is if inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods and services, we're

restrict the dollars. That's what raising interest rate, restricting liquidity. But there's the other side, the supply side, make more stuff. And the 1981 tax cut was about incentivizing all types of business concerns, all types of productivity, saying, go make more stuff. And we keep

proposing to our Democrat colleagues, but they run the House, they run the Senate, they run the White House, saying there are things we can do in the tax code, in the regulatory code, to encourage people to save some money, and that's a way to remove liquidity, but it promotes retirement security. How about expensing some other things we can do in the tax code to get an immediate productivity spike, make more stuff, but they don't want to hear it because it would mean admitting

that their economic model of give away lots of free money, promote consumption, turns out to be heresy. Well, we were talking last week on the show. We will not be surprised if the Democrats propose...

soon. Well, let's send out $500 vouchers to help people with gas prices, which is only going to increase more inflation, right? But isn't that their logic? You already missed it. It's already been proposed. Has it really? Yeah. Welcome to... Remember, Congress now is not about owning a calculator. It's not about the math. It's not about having shown up at your basic economics class. It's basically virtue signaling.

My Democrat colleagues, many of them may have really good hearts, but they get judged by their intentions, by their feelings. Oh, but I meant well, even though I just made almost every American poorer, but I meant well. They can justify incredible punishment, just sort of an economic violence, which they've set off across the country by virtue signaling. They at least meant well.

So we're coming back here after a break shortly. We need to talk about, all right, how do we solve the problem? My favorite discussion. We want to talk about how do we solve this problem. This is something Republican activists need to start focusing more on because this really has long-term benefits. I know we like to talk about all these other issues, but this is something that has dire consequences for not only the United States, but for the world. And

Folks don't understand how many years this punishment is going to continue. Congressman David Schweiger, we have just about 30 seconds before we get a break. How do folks follow you? How do they keep up with you? Because I think they need to hear a lot more of the discussion we're having. Look, there's Rep David, you know, which we have David on Twitter. Is that. Yeah. But but if you actually go to our congressional Web site, we actually put out a pretty comprehensive newsletter every week.

Which I read and it's fantastic. And you've got to understand, I don't do regular politics. I'm the senior Republican for joint economic. I'm on ways and means. I'm the senior Republican for over Social Security. We do math. Well, that's the last word. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your hosts, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. In the studio with us this morning, David Schweikert, congressman from Arizona, one of the, I believe, great thinkers in Congress today.

Which gives you an idea how screwed Congress is. Fair enough. I mean, really, it is a mess at this point. As my wife patented the term, I work in a math-free zone. Well, look, any zone that thinks modern monetary theory still holds water is

is clearly a math-free zone. Oh, yeah. They have put tremendous pain on the American public. When we went to break, we were asking, how do we get out of this? Okay. And look, there's always the fun discussion groups where here's my monetarist, here's my Keynesians, here's this and that. And I think there's a misunderstanding of how it actually all handshakes itself. Okay, let's first walk through

What do you do to create a disruption of an inflationary cycle? We can actually let the Fed jack up rates, pull out liquidity, put us into a recession. The problem is in this particular cycle, because of our demographics, you know, not having enough workers, we've gotten older, underperformance of young males in the labor force. You've got to break the labor cycle. It means some of these people who keep telling me, oh, David, we're going to have a mild recession, maybe not at all.

I'll go out on a limb and tell you, I think mathematically in two weeks when we finish this quarter, we may be already in the old definition of two negative quarters. We may already technically be. Now, technically, a recession is actually announced by a little committee of bureaucrats. There's actually not a. So that's the real. But in the real world. But in the real world.

And that still will not slow down inflation until you crack the labor markets. That's the Fed's doing. And so they but that's punishing. That makes poor people poor. It's going to create massive dislocation. It's it's it's just mean. So you're a member of Congress. What do you do to step up and say, I care about people? I love my country. I love my economy. I want stability because stability is how you because inflation.

really creates societal stresses. You want to have a society that goes to war with each other. You know, Democrats used to talk about income inequality. The fact of the matter, the inflation they've set off does that. And if we're still going through this year from now, you watch about what's on the streets because people all of a sudden, they thought they were voting for freebies and now they're poor.

Policy wise. Well, they are voting for freebies in a certain way because they're going to be ending up getting a lot of their meals at the food bank. Yeah. Well, I mean, and not to denigrate what those organizations do. But we don't want to be hyperbolic. But the reality is, you know, I have a handful of economists that work for me. You know, I'm senior on Social Security. I'm senior in joint economics. So I'm blessed. I get to go to geekdom.

And a lot of my guys just don't believe how fast the numbers have been moving against us. They're having trouble processing how fast the numbers are eroding. So I come to you, you're a member of Congress, and say, too many dollars chasing too few goods and services. Solutions are I have to remove liquidity out of society. There's too many dollars. This is what the Democrats have done, but now we need to pull them back or we need to make more stuff.

Do both of them. How about a simple idea of, hey, I'm going to give everyone maybe under a certain income. If you'll take $500 of the liquidity that's sitting in your checking account and stick them in your retirement, I'm going to let you count that as even though it's after tax money, you're going to call it a Roth. Government's going to give you a SPF and it's going to be good for retirement. It's going to be good for your retirement security, but it's going to remove

Hundreds of billions of dollars out of liquidity. There's ideas like that on the on the monetary side. That is a very good idea. But it's a monetary idea done by a policy set out of Congress. The other side is make more stuff, legalize technology. You would be shocked how much disruptive technology that would make us productive, healthier, faster, more.

And it's illegal. You know, and it's down from what's an example of that? Well, let me give you the negative side of that. And the Democrats build back better plan. They actually have a hidden little paragraph in there that says our ports on the West Coast can't be automated. They can adopt no automation.

To take the container off and get it on the truck and move these things faster because of the supply chain. Right. So one hand, you have Democrats. Oh, it's a supply chain, but we're going to make sure we break it even more. Flip that. If you're going to have tax code depreciation, accelerated types of depreciation or expensing of these things, make it so you we're going to go back to 100 percent. But it has to be items of productivity. How do we make more stuff faster, better, cheaper?

And it turns out that's one of the classic ways, that's a supply-side view. If we do that, you start to balance out the number of dollars chasing goods and services, make more stuff. And that actually is in the purview of Congress and those of us on the Ways and Means Committee. And do you think a Democrat will ever even come across the aisle and talk to me about ideas that would help working men and women? Oh, good grief, no. Because it means admitting that what they did

Turns out to be economic heresy. When did Democrats stop walking over the aisle to try to work things out? Has it been during your tenure or before that? It really, and many want to blame President Trump. It was before that. It seems like it. But I'm going to give you a slightly different view than you can get from us. It was about the money. So you're a Democrat. You're going to run for office. Right. One of my closest friends is a California Democrat. He's on Ways and Means with me. He's liberal, but he's not crazy.

He and I had done a number of sort of technical bills over the years together about, oh, I think it might have been the 2018 election. He came to me and said, Schweikert, you know you're my buddy, but I can't be seen in even a photo with you. I can't sponsor because I'm getting so many of my

Democrat activists who say the act blue type people move on or they're saying they won't contribute to me if I if you keep working with Republicans, I won't. So at some point it wasn't the politicians. It was the Twitterati and the but but but it's the parasite class. We have to be brutally honest here. And this is going to be taking a shot at media, social media, media.

the click bait that's out there. So I'm a conservative, I get conservative stuff in my email. You're a leftist, you get leftist stuff. And a lot of it is absolutely hyperbolic and completely fake. And it's all there because if you click it, they get 25 cents from an advertiser. And so they ratchet up, ratchet up, because they're sucking money out of your willingness for reaffirmation. - What's amazing about that is you continually see in the press former President Trump

It's just going to burn everything to the ground unless he gets his way. But basically what's happened is the leftist activists of the act blue move on.org are just willing to burn everything down to prove their right. And they're, and they're, and they're willing to punish their loyal Democrats for stepping over and talking to David about how to solve some issues. Look, um, so you actually ask, when did it become now? Also, um,

I'm a bit more libertarian. The math always wins. One of the founders of the Freedom Caucus. Yeah, one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus. So I am what I am. But I actually believe both Republicans and Democrats...

because we often sound like it's the 1990s. I know we have only seconds, but I'll do something really, really fast. If I came to you tomorrow and said there's this thing you can blow into and it instantly tells you you have the flu, instantly bounces off your phone and says, hey, you're not allergic to this and could instantly order your antivirals. Except the problem is that technology is illegal today. We need to change that stuff. Wow. More with Rep. David coming back here, breaking battlegrounds, coming back in just a moment.

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Sam Stone and Chuck Warren in the studio with us this morning, Congressman David Schweikert. We're talking inflation. We're talking a lot of pain for American people. But you brought up something during the break I think is really important to talk about, the effects of what's going on in health care right now. Well, remember, we were trying to do a segment on what do you do to solve the inflationary cycle. But I need you to think actually bigger. And this is without the current inflation calculations.

In 29 years, let's call it 30 years, the United States will have $120 trillion in borrowed money, and that's in today's dollars. So our best estimate is that's 220% of GDP. It's unsustainable. It blows up. 75% of the borrowing that's coming is Medicare.

Twenty five percent is Social Security. The rest of the budget is in balance. It's about our demographics. We got old. And if you get another politician lying to you saying, oh, we got rid of waste and fraud and foreign aid or if we just tax rich people more. You're talking fractions of pennies. Rounding errors on the actual math. And look, I took the single most dangerous job in Washington, D.C. I'm I'm functioning the Republican head over Social Security trying to save the damn program.

And 10 years from now, Social Security recipients get basically 20 to 25 to 27 percent cut in their checks. And that's not even calculating how much poorer they're going to be because health care costs will have skyrocketed so much that even the 20 percent portion they have to pay towards their Medicare will have doubled or tripled. So if I came to you today and said the greatest thing you and I could do to lower U.S. debt

to grow GDP, to have a healthier, better, faster is we need a radical disruption in health care costs. So I am sort of the evangelical of telehealth and but but it's using technology and it is one of the single most lobbied against. Got to send all the expansion you have right now of telehealth during the pandemic. All goes away the day the pandemic is declared over.

And there's an army of lobbyists to make sure it all goes away. And one of the great effects, at least to me, and you maybe can quantify this. I just see it when I go for for health care. One of the great effects of Obamacare was to massively expand medical bureaucracy. I need you. I need you to think radically different. And this is going to be hard for everyone. Obamacare, the ACA, was a financing bill.

It did an expansion, but it said, here's who gets subsidized and here's who gets to pay. The Republican alternative was a financing bill. It's here's who has to pay and here's who gets subsidized. Medicare for all is a financing bill. None of them talk about how to change the actual process.

price of delivering being healthy. Well, but tied to that, as I understand, were changes to coding and billing issues that have forced hospital consolidation and really blowing up bureaucracy. Yeah, that's just because you get a regulatory arbitrage. When you have lots and lots and lots and lots of regulations and CMS and those things, and I used to be on one of the old DRG boards,

you amortize your little bureaucracy over that cost. My argument is legalized technology. The thing, you know, when you can today have something in your home medicine cabinet that you can blow into, lick into, urinate into, whatever, and it can almost instantly... Sorry, but this is the technology. It almost can instantly diagnose you, and the accuracy is off the charts, right?

and allowing that accuracy to order your pharmaceutical and have it delivered to you, that is the first step. But the revolution, the thing I want you, and if anyone's listening, go do some internet search, stem cell cure for type 1 diabetes. Turns out, and it's only been like six patients, and it's in a regulatory hold right now where they're doing a risk assessment, but we've had six patients, I believe, now cured of type 1 diabetes. Wow. Type 2...

diabetes is 33% of all healthcare spending. It's 31% of Medicare spending. Remember that? Type two is how much of our healthcare spending? 33%. 33% of all healthcare spending. Wow. Type 31 of Medicare to cure diabetes. And it's big, it's complicated. You're going to have to find a way to help people not eat the things they do, change the incentives in nutrition support.

Build a bio foundry, the model where you could actually provide a stem cell line that's ubiquitous. But that needs to be the operation warp speed of the next decade because that's the revolution. It's curing people. It's not patching them up and finding a better, faster way to process them through an emergency room.

It's a revolution of technology over here, making it so you don't actually have to go to that urgent care center, that hospital, that emergency room. And over here, curing people. We know how to do this.

And there's an army of lobbyists who want to stop the cures. We're going to let that be the last word. It's depressing. It is depressing. Thanks a lot, David. Congressman, thank you. Now you know why I almost never get invited back a second time. Well, we're going to have you back. We're going to have you back. We need him for the whole hour next time, Chuck. I mean, we'll drink before, but we're going to have you back next time. Breaking Battlegrounds coming back in just a moment.

Welcome back.

to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm Chuck Warren with your host, Sam Stone. Our second guest today is Matt Becker. He's the owner and strategic partner at Pride Staff in St. Petersburg, Clearwater, West Tampa. Prior to starting Pride Staff, Matt was Chief Operating Officer for the 2012 Tampa Bay Host Committee for the Republican National Committee, where he managed day-to-day operations. I'm sure you have a book full of anecdotes and stories on that, Matt.

He also spent five years working as a private banker for Regions Bank. And Matt served in the George Bush administration and the U.S. Small Business Administration and finished his service as Deputy Chief of Staff and White House Liaison for the SBA. So, Matt, welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. Great. So we had David Schweiker on before. Absolutely depressing conversation about inflation. Smart guy can can put you on the floor. Yeah. And he just says inflation's here and the effects of it for the next 10 years. Would you agree with that?

Boy, I would absolutely agree with that. Inflation is here 10 years that I'm not willing to go that far out yet. But it is here for I'll call it the next year or two, no matter what the Fed does, in my opinion.

So what do we do to get back to low inflation rates that we've been used to for almost three decades now? If Matt is king of the day of the U.S. economic policy, what are the steps that need to happen? And more importantly for our listeners, because we are on the radio out there in Tampa, what do they need to ask people running for Congress about it? And what are the solutions they should be pushing with these members?

I think it begins and ends with your small business community. If you look historically, the heartbeat of the American economy starts with United States small business. It's where the great ideas come. It's where revolution happens. It's the heartbeat, I think, of what we do. So access to capital is always the number one thing for small businesses, but then also helping them compete with the larger corporations in the sense of

Can they get affordable benefits, the health care benefits? Can they get affordable 401k plans? Can they attract the employees that the larger employers are able to do because they have just bigger pots of money, for lack of better terminology? I think we have to continue to look for ways to support small business community. And I will go back and look at the low interest rates we've had over the last few years. Look at what you've seen in the amount of businesses that have opened.

Entrepreneurship has exploded, partially because people got tired of working in corporate garb, but I think part of it is because people have ideas and they have dreams and they want to live them. Matt, this is Sam. You talk about capital for small businesses, and I think there's a little bit of a trap with this kind of inflation where you're raising the interest rates to try to tamp down inflation. Yep.

How do you get capital and especially capital for expansion into the hands of these small businesses at the same time you're tightening the money supply? It goes back to it. I'm going to say something that every banker in America hates. They're going to have to take a risk.

at some point you know what got me out of banking to be brutally honest with you is is i had a gentleman who was exceptionally wealthy and he was applying for a home equity line and the bank turned him down because he didn't have enough credit never mind that he had enough cash on hand to pay the whole thing off never mind uh that is that um he within his business he had cash to buy it three times over and pay for his house again the bank said no he doesn't have uh adequate

adequate credit level because he paid everything in cash. So I've dealt with that. And like I, you know, we pay for our cars, but I have one car that's on lease all the time because I'm told by my bank, you have to have it for your credit report. It's the most back ass backwards thing we have in this country. Your credit reports is you look and saying you have no debt, you make X money. Therefore, you are a safe,

risk for us. You should be running to sell that lease right now, Chuck. So let's talk about the SBA for a minute. What could the SBA do? I've heard horror stories about the SBA and people trying to get small business loans. And obviously everybody has their own unique experience. As you were there, as you're the deputy chief of staff, what needs to happen to SBA now that we're in these times to really provide support for our small business community?

First and foremost, Congress has to respect the SBA. The SBA is generally treated as the stepchild to, say, the Department of Commerce, even though it's a completely independent agency.

So much lip service is spent towards we need more small business owners or we love LLCs or subchapter S corporations. You hear it every election cycle with elected officials talking about how important they are. And then when they get to D.C., they do absolutely nothing about it. SBA is largely a forgotten agency within the federal government.

which doesn't mean that they need more money. It means more that they just need more power. They need more influence. They need members of the legislature to listen to what they're saying, because my experience, the people there are hardworking. The downside is when they implement stuff at a bank, use a truce, use a Bank of America, use whatever big bank, Wells Fargo, a lot of those banks have their own

SBA approval systems, they'll go to the client and say, oh, I'm sorry, the SBA declined it when in fact it was their own internal processes that declined it. They were fine under SBA rules and regulations, which is why that same person can generally go to a small community bank and get the SBA loan. Wow. I didn't know that. Neither did I. What else can the SBA do to help small businesses which are now coming to the point of

I mean, that's the other joke about banking. Most small businesses can't get a small business loan from the bank without providing their firstborn, their left finger, and a deed to their dad's house or something, right? Absolutely. I mean, that's what makes banking a joke. I mean, I always love these commercials. We're here to help you. They are truly not there to help you, especially if your business –

That's doing five, $10 million or less a year, which is the majority of businesses in this country, right? So what can the SBA do to help those businesses grow? And the best thing about those businesses, by the way,

is they're ingrained in their community. So they care about their community. They invest in their community. They belong to the civic organizations. And you don't get that from the big corporations. I know they give allotment of time for people, but they don't do it. So what can we do to help those, that business, that market?

You know, I come from the school of thought where I want the free market to reign and I don't necessarily want the SBA to do anything more so that there's more government intervention. I want people with great ideas to have the ability to go forward. And I think back to having a larger voice in D.C., the SBA just has to continue to work at.

building their influence inside the Beltway so that when they go to Congress and say, we need X amount of dollars for this or this type of program will work, they get a better audience. Do they have, pardon me, but do they have an advertising budget? I mean, I think if people knew and to press this on your members of Congress, to press this on the Senate. Well, here's what I think what happens. And Matt, tell me if this is right. I think for most people,

So applying for an SBA loan is like dealing with your health insurance. You don't want to do either. It's just full of paperwork, right? So do you think that's a problem? Have you done studies there that show people don't go to the SBA because they just think it's more hassle than it's worth?

There definitely what we heard when we were in the agency were people that would say that because the misconception is. But again, if you look back at the streamlined processes that the SBA has with some of their bigger lenders, the paperwork is not any more onerous than what you would get in a general loan at your bank, a general commercial loan at their bank. Obviously, it depends on the loan program you're going after. It depends on the bank you're using. So there's a lot of depends in that answer. But it's not anywhere near as onerous as people think it is. They just

They go back to, hey, I'm from the federal government. I'm here to help. And they roll their eyes and say, yeah, sure you are, because we've seen this before. It really isn't that bad. And that's really the credibility issue the SBA has, as opposed to the reality behind it, which is what I found at the SBA, very hardworking organization that wants to do right by the small businesses of America. We're with Matt Becker. He is the former deputy chief of staff and White House liaison for the Small Business Administration under former President George Bush.

Matt, all right, let's go back to inflation. You're the king of economics in the United States for a year. What are the steps you take to start taming inflation? Well, the unfortunate piece is that you've got to stop – you've got to take the money out of the market that was flooded in by this last Congress. Okay.

I do think what the Fed did by raising the 75 basis points is smart for now. Now the question is, how does that impact the hiring process as we move forward? I think the Fed's in a tricky situation because if they do too much, we go into a recession. If they don't do enough, it's not going to hurt or not help inflation. But right now, I think the only move you have is basically what the Fed is doing. And it's just a it's a tight wire rope because this is

This administration waited so long to actually move on inflation because they thought it was transitory when it's not. I would say that at the moment, the rope's quite a bit larger because to really achieve the goals they're trying to do, you have to get the rate over the rate of inflation. And we are still a long way from that. Well, so the question is, Matt and Sam, how much more do you have the Federal Reserve raise rates before it just starts crushing people? I mean, right now at 6.75%,

In mortgage rates, let's say. You know, you've still got people buy homes, right? But you're not going to be able to do a bunch of – I mean, you're going to see more cash. You're going to still have people buy homes, but you're not going to have – you know, we've wiped out the mortgage industry. Matt, tell me if I'm wrong, but I personally think you're going to have to get the base discount rate over 5 or 6, maybe higher than that percent. At the point we're going right now where national inflation is 8.6, here in Tampa Bay it's 11.3, I wouldn't argue with that.

Wow.

There's no easy answer. There's no silver bullet. I think the piece that bothers me the most is just how much it's been overlooked or ignored by D.C. over the last year, year and a half. Well, I mean, I think not only has it been ignored for far too long, but.

Go back and I wish we'd had a little more time with the congressman to talk about this too, but I think they use those stimulus as bait, as basically a very small bribe for a lot of government spending that was the bulk of those bills.

And that government spending is not going away. I mean, that's one of the things that money's been spent. But now all these local governments are raising taxes and chasing increased spending permanently. Exactly. Exactly. And exactly. And to me, you baited the American people, but now they're the ones paying the bill. And it's not going to be these government institutions that are going to get hit by this. They're all going to get cost of living adjustments, all the people working for them.

The businesses, the giant businesses, the corporations they deal with are going to be just fine. But it's the small business and the individuals who are going to take the hit. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, Matt. So besides your former service, government service, you are the owner and strategic partner at Pride Staff, which basically encompasses the Tampa metro area. Long story short. And, you know, you're your staff leasing agency. How has it been trying to.

attract workers that you can go then for and provide for companies asking for short-term staffing issues? So it's been a challenge. Listening to your former guest, I hopped on, and what he said was right on point, was as a nation, we've aged.

And that's exactly right. The unfortunate reality is that the United States has age. We have not reproduced in the levels that we need to to have enough people out working, which gives us an employee-based market, meaning the employees hold the cards when it goes to employment. And we still have a fair amount of people who don't want to come back to work yet because they found ways to live during COVID where they're completely content in the lifestyle that they have.

So it's been the best of times and it's been the worst of times because businesses are growing rapidly, but finding people has been a nightmare. Quickly here, we have one minute. How do you feel the Tampa Bay area business community is doing? Is it growing leaps and bounds?

So I think the greatest news that we have, and forgive me for getting too political here, but I think we have the greatest governor in the nation. And I think Florida opened for business a year, year and a half ago. I mean, once, and businesses took off. So I think Florida is well above

well ahead of the curve in terms of where other states are in terms of their COVID return to business. I mean, it's fascinating to me because right here in the Tampa Bay market, we have just been hiring like gangbusters and the amount of people coming to Florida has been at

So I think we're ahead of everybody else. So I love where the Tampa Bay market is. I think we've got 30 seconds left. Tell people where they find you, you, your company, and we'll terminate it here. The easiest way to find us is staffingtampabay.com. That's our website that would cover both offices, but I've got an office in Clearwater and I've got an office in Tampa. But staffingtampabay.com is the easiest way to find us.

Matt Becker. Thanks a million. We hope you have a great week. Um, this is breaking battlegrounds. Join us next for our podcast only segment. This is Chuck and Sam and Matt. Thanks a million, buddy. Have a great week. Absolutely. Welcome back to the podcast. Only say a segment of breaking battlegrounds. I want to cry in my seat right now, Chuck. This is a depressing dang episode. We just sprung on people. Well, it's a reality episode and we need to go and put this on our various social media outlets, do clips of it as well. Um,

Look, we got real problems. And what's going to happen here, which the Democrats say they're opposed to, but this is going to happen. The rich are going to get richer. A lot are going to get poor. This is really going to one third of people will be able to juggle it and survive and thrive. Another two thirds are going to battle this. I want I looked at it this morning. I guess before coming to the show, you know, it was six thirty six a gallon.

And we're in Arizona. This is not known as a high gas price haven until now. I'm worried about it just because, you know, you look at our businesses, you're going to limit what you hire. You just say you're going to do more and you have to give your people more money. So you're going to do that.

I mean, the thing is, as well as we I mean, we don't have a lot of you know, I always like to ask this question. I talk to legislators like our Senate leadership or so forth, like who on your caucus really understands the budget?

Right. And a lot of times they can point water to— David Schweikert, who was just here, does. But in Congress, David Schweikert can. And that's not picking a side in this race, but he honestly knows this issue. Right. And I wish he had a bigger megaphone because he's animated, he understands it, and they need to listen to him. Well, yeah, absolutely. You know—

I go back. I'm 46. My first memories come in kind of the late 70s, the early 80s. And I got to tell you, as a kid, my impression of it was that was a really – it felt gray. Everything felt dark.

Well, that's brown and gray. That's why Reagan's advertisement after all the hard decisions this morning in America was the perfect was the best tagline ever for a presidential campaign. Absolutely. Because you did. You felt it lift. Yeah. And, you know, I remember 80s. All of a sudden the world brightened back up. And I remember in the early 80s, my parents had a home. They're paying 13 percent interest rate on their mortgage. Yeah. And I mean, I hope we don't get to double digits again. I'm afraid we are headed absolutely right there.

It's just it's going to cripple so many people. I mean, you know, I'm thinking about, for example, let's look at Scottsdale where David represents all those mortgage brokers out there, all those real estate agents who've been living high on the hog. I hope they've saved. They better have. They better have saved a lot in their savings are going to be taking a hit. So they title title companies. You know, I have a friend that has a she works at a spa, but she does private massages and she has a lot of mortgage brokers.

Two of her bigger clients have just been laid off the last two weeks. Well, and I sort of threw it out there in the previous segment saying, hey, you should sell your lease. But I'm not kidding.

The car market's going to break wide open and prices are going to go way down. Right now, folks, if you're carrying a lease, go ahead and sell it. Ride a dang bike for a few months because I really believe you're about to see a giant drop off in all sorts of markets like that. I mean, I don't think we're anywhere near what people will end up feeling from this crisis. No, I agree 100%. It's just amazing. The other thing, talking about the demographics, and this is really across almost the entire world. There really is only...

Africa and a few places in the Middle East where population is not shrinking. Even Latin America now has dropped to the point where population is basically being perpetuated but not increased based on the birth rate. We have this crisis on our southern border and everyone is very rightly concerned about it. But one of my issues with it I don't think people understand is that uncontrolled immigration like this encourages people to want to stop it as they should.

But it damages the conversation we probably really need to be having about legal immigration at this moment because we need to be finding people to fill these jobs. Look, you are 100 percent correct. And I think about David's comment about his dear friend who's on the other side of the aisle who comes to him in 18 and says, I can't even be seen talking to you or have a picture with you anymore. So we have such issues.

we have such a distinct line in the sand on immigration that there are nobody in this insane asylum we call Washington, D.C. right now who's willing to sit down and say, okay,

We need to control our border, but we do need legal immigration. And there's not a person who can bring it up. If you're on the Republican side, you're seen as amnesty. If you're on the Democrat side, you're seen given a Republican. It's a joke. I am on the Republican side and I'm running, but at the risk of being called out by some of our activists on this, look, I have always said if someone wants to come here to work and we know who they are. Exactly. I'm okay with that.

If they can come here legally and we need to expand that, great, fine. No problem with that at all. We need people who are going to put in the time to work because David also alluded to something else. We have a problem with young males in this country right now. We have a big problem. It's a tremendous problem. And I'm concerned about it. No one wants to talk about it. There's many factors involved. So everything's always complex, right? We want to make it simple.

But there is a real problem with fatherless homes with young men. I mean, and here's the reality. I was talking to a video game generation. I was talking to a friend the other day. I was talking to a friend the other day about it. And we were just talking about Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock. And we're just talking about this issue. And I just said, look, when your dad and he had five sons. Right. And they're all doing well. College, graduate school things. I mean, they're doing well. He's a great dad.

And I just said, when they're young, how many times did you tell them, pick up your napkin, rinse off your plate? When they mowed the lawn, they forgot to sweep the walk. And we just laughed again. I said, all the time. I said, exactly. But that's where you learn good habits that make you a good civilian, a good neighbor. And when you don't have somebody doing that, and you can't expect these moms who are working double jobs, doing these things of that nature. There has to be somebody in the house that said, there are lines there.

for a proper civilization and you're going to sweep the grass off the sidewalk. You're going to make your bed. You're not going to backtalk your mom. You're going to do your homework. There has to be an enforcer. Yeah. You know, there's a, I don't know if it actually originates on TikTok or Instagram because I'm not on either, but I ended up seeing it on Facebook because

Because I'm old. But there's a guy who does a series of videos about the difference in each situation between how rich people and really rich people handle things, right? And he had one yesterday I thought was incredibly spot on.

He shows somebody's kid coming to the rich person and saying, oh, hey, you know, the dad says, hey, why aren't you at school right now? And he says, oh, you know, I didn't want to do some of my classwork this week, blah, blah, blah. I need some money. And dad goes, sure, here's 10 grand. Now, don't bother your mother. She's, you know...

She's cooking from her cooking class. The really rich person says, oh, sure, no problem. I'll call the dean and let him know you're going to be out of the next semester. And the kid goes, wait, what? And he goes, yeah, because you're going to be working down at my dealership in downtown for the next six months. And the idea being that there's a level of responsibility that it takes to get to that point of being really, really rich, right?

That gets passed down to their kids through a discipline that they had that a lot of others just don't. Correct. And I think there are habits of discipline. You talk about fatherless children all the time. I'm kind of dealing with that as I think folks, listeners have gotten to know.

with a kid who grew up without a father. And I can see the impact. There's repercussions. There are real repercussions. You've had the greatest gift of all. You've had a great father and mother who have loved you, but they held you accountable. Yeah, these were not handout parents that I grew up with. I mean, I started working, frankly, with dangerous machinery that no child in this era would ever be allowed to go anywhere near.

When I was six years old. You're the Ron Swanson of our radio show. Yeah, look, I literally strapped books onto the seat of the John Deere lawnmower to be over 100 pounds so that I could activate it. I know.

My dad, when I was 15, told me to build a pond on five acres we had, and I got the backhoe. I'm the only person in the room who got the backhoe stuck. I still do to this day. If we had to have a tow truck, come pull me out. Anyway, folks, this is Breaking Battlegrounds. We hope you have a great week. We hope you'll listen and share the show, and we'll be with you next week. We'll be right back.

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