Hello, my name is Dominic Lee and welcome to the Civic Media Spotlight.
Each week is four new different segments, ranging from the various interviews we get throughout the week.
We start off the first segment of the Civic Media Spotlight talking with State Senator Sarah Kiepski.
discussing the widespread opposition to a proposed 765 kilowatt transmission line project and outlining the legislative steps she's taking to address her constituents concerns.
Hundreds of Wisconsinites gathered at the state capitol on October 13th calling on lawmakers to oppose the proposed 765 kilovolt transmission lines.
Residents met directly with legislators asking them to take a public stand against this project.
State Senator Sarah Kieske who represents the 14th Senate District
was among the lawmakers meeting with constituents.
She's joining us now to talk about what she heard, where she stands and what happens next.
So thank you, Senator, so much for joining us today.
We appreciate it.
You're welcome.
Thank you for inviting me.
Well, let's just jump right into this because I know you've been pretty vocal about these lines as you learn a little bit more about them.
And as I said, you met with constituents today who traveled to Madison to express their opposition to these transmission lines.
What are you actually hearing from those individuals?
I'm hearing fear and worry and anger and frustration.
I'm hearing people that are talking about
the impacts that this potentially will have on their property values, on legacy farmland, on small businesses.
We have agro-terrorism that is really big in our driftless area.
A lot of people concerned about the impacts on the environment, on migration patterns, on the water table.
And then there's people that are concerned about the electrical emission and how that will impact health.
So there's a number of issues of concern and a broad breadth of them were discussed in our conversation today.
Was there anything in those conversations in particular that stood out to you?
I think, gosh, there's so many pieces of it.
I think that for me, being somebody that grew up on a farm, now living rurally in the Lodi area, I understand this desire to live in the country.
basically, and to live rurally and to have that rural livability be something that you get to experience the beauty of the environment, the quiet, the natural habitats of the animals and the beauty of Gibraltar Rock and the Ice Age Trail and all those things.
So I think understanding just kind of the deep heartfelt
pain in thinking about that being devastated through the act of changing the topography with something so big, so broad, coming so fast, and having very little
understanding about it, say in it, and clarity about it, I think is just really off-putting and quite painful.
Residents who were at the Capitol for this event, we're asking legislators to publicly commit to opposing this project.
And as I stated, you've been very vocal about it.
I've seen you at some other forums discussing some of the issues that you think these lines are gonna have.
Have you made that commitment and that they were asking for and what does that mean for you?
Yeah, so they were, they're very organized.
And first of all, I wanna say like,
kudos to anybody that gets involved in the process of advocating for things that they feel strongly about.
I'm sort of an activist at heart and so I like feel so much for them coming and if they weren't.
if I wasn't in this seat I probably would be with them honestly because that's kind of the way that I have always oriented is like when I feel strongly and fiercely about an issue I really try to do something about it.
So I give them great credit for standing up and speaking out and I applaud them.
They did have three asks and those three asks were good
and had some limits to them, which is appropriate.
So I'm not exactly sure what they will look like, but one of them, the first one was that I would be willing, would I be willing to meet with bipartisanly with other legislators and work on crafting legislation that might be protective.
Now, that's not clear what exactly that would look like, but that would have some protectiveness to it for the next session.
that I'd be more than happy.
I'm always willing to work in a bipartisan way on things that are going to serve constituents across the board.
So that one was the easy one.
Another one was, let's see, let me think of the other one.
Whether or not we could have public hearings.
And that is,
an interesting one because they want public hearings to be had on the side of the Senate and the side of the Assembly in the committees that are the utility committees.
Those are chaired right now by Republicans, so would be asking those Republicans to be willing to have hearings.
I'm open to that idea.
eager and offering to endorse that idea, whether or not they will listen to this Democratic Senator asked for that.
I don't know, but I certainly am happy to do that.
And then the third one was asking that during the public, sorry, during the public comment time where the PSC is going to be listening in about whether or not MS
MGS will become a utility.
There's a public comment time when I would be able to ask that that become a contested case and write a letter to say, hey, I want this to be contested and I would like there to be an open hearing for the public to participate in about this request for a utility designation by MGS.
Again.
absolutely open to doing that once that public comment period opens with the PSC.
As Senator, a state Senator Sarah Kieski, who represents Wisconsin's 14th Senate district joins us to discuss what she heard from constituents who gathered at the state Capitol on October 13th to oppose the proposed 765 kilovolt transmission lines.
Let's go back to what can realistically be done and kind of piggyback off that Senator Kieski.
I mean, what can your colleagues in the legislature realistically do right now to influence the future of this project?
That's such a great question.
And that's what I've been trying to really understand being I'm not on the utility committee.
And so all of this as far as energy generation, energy transmission has been kind of a big learning curve for me to try to understand, okay, what is the lay of the land?
How is this done currently?
And what might
be possible to change with regard to that.
So right now we're looking at legislation that kind of makes the request that is already part of statute but even make it a little bit more robust that asks for any transmission lines that are coming that are new to be following existing corridors.
That's one of the things that is legislation that we can work on and
there was a bill that I was willing to sign on to earlier in the session.
And we'll be working on seeing if we can even make that a little bit stronger.
So that's one example.
I've asked the PSC, pardon me, I've asked MGS to postpone their request to be put their,
request forward to build this.
I've asked them to postpone that until May 2027.
And I asked my colleagues that are in the assembly within the same Senate district, two Democrats and one Republican to sign on to that with me, asking again for more time.
Because right now, the PSC has 180 days that can be extended to another 180 days.
But within that timeline, if they are not able to get everything figured out at that 360
day mark, then it would be an automatic yes, which has me very nervous.
So I asked, can we extend that 180 more days?
That would be another request of asking for changes.
Because we need to have enough time, we need people to have a say about what's happening.
I think
property values and how people are compensated if this were to come through is an issue that we need to be addressing.
We need to be helping people understand if there are companies, big manufacturers, data centers, et cetera, if they're coming and needing.
a lot of energy off the grid.
How about if they are mandated to generate their own energy?
What would that look like?
So there's a number of things as this issue is coming forward in such a quick and fast and revolutionary way because of the changes with data centers in particular.
I think we're going to have to think about energy
going forward and what it's going to look like in our state, what we have regarding the guardrails around that, including asking our state to be one that is like the other, I think, 33 around the United States that has a integrated
planning process that outlines kind of what we do versus doing piecemeal each project at a time.
So there's a lot of different pieces that ultimately need to look at and those are just a few that I'm aware of.
Is there any first step that can be taken immediately by legislature?
And
I
know that's hard because there's been a recess and things and you guys aren't technically working right now.
But is there anything for the residents right now?
I think the really tricky thing is that because the election is just 21 days away, that will change who is even in elected office may change.
who has the majority and minority and therefore who the leaders will be and therefore who will be in charge of different committees.
So in some ways that's a little bit tricky.
So right now what we can do is kind of talk about what we want to see in 2027 to address some of these issues and start to get some ideas out there.
and work with whoever is willing to work on it right now.
Some people are going to be retiring.
Are they still willing to work on it right now?
I don't know, but I'm open to working with anybody that is willing to start to figure it out.
What kind of legislation do we need?
What tweaks to the statutes now do we need that address some of the new issues that are coming forward given the changes in the lay of the land of electricity needs,
data center demands.
And the way that we have this grid that is called MISO, this grid that is a 15 state one province grid that is sharing energy and how those plans and get created.
So looking at all of that and thinking about what we want to do going forward.
particular things I think would be related to the state.
And again, following corridors, making sure that we have energy generation by big companies that are asking for generation.
Some of those things I think would be particularly poignant right now.
Senator Sarah Kieske, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your perspective on these meetings with the constituents as well as the proposed transmission lines.
Of course, here at Civic Media, we're going to continue to follow this story and all of the next steps in the process.
For more news from across Wisconsin, as well as those updates, visit civicmedia.us.
Hello and welcome back to the second segment of the Civic Media Spotlight.
This segment focuses on Josh Call.
We talk with this Wisconsin Attorney General about his efforts to protect election security and voter rights, his office's legal challenges against the Trump administration, and his public safety record as he runs for re-election.
Election Day is approaching and questions about election security, voter intimidation, and the possibilities of federal agents at polling places are getting plenty of attention here in Wisconsin.
Attorney General Josh Call is also seeking another term in office, facing Republican challenger Eric Tony, who has questioned Call's handling of the office and his legal challenges to the Trump administration.
Today we are talking with Attorney General Call about protecting Wisconsin's elections, those legal battles, and his priorities if re-elected.
Thank you so much.
for joining us today, Attorney General.
Thanks for having me.
Let's just jump in here because this has been kind of a hot button topic over the last few weeks.
Your office recently issued a reminder about voter intimidation and threats against election workers.
As we do approach November, what concerns you most about election security in Wisconsin and what's your office doing to address those concerns right now?
There have been three things in particular that I've been focused on.
One has to do with mail-in voting.
There's been an effort by the Trump administration to undermine our ability to have our ballots cast and counted through the mail process.
The good news there is my administration and other states challenged a rule that the Postal Service put out.
We were successful, and so folks in Wisconsin are going to be able to vote by mail the same way that they have previously.
with one important caveat which is that unfortunately the Trump administration has made the postal service less efficient and so it's important that folks get their ballots in early.
Secondly, making sure that we are prepared to respond if there is any kind of deployment of federal agents to the polls is going to be important.
We made clear recently with information that my office put out that it's against federal law for a federal officer to direct
armed agents to an active polling place.
And I don't think that the Trump administration will be violating that law, but if they do, we are prepared to respond.
I think we will see movement and possibly have public communications about this before it happens.
But if it does, we will be prepared to go to court and to ensure that access to safe voting is protected in Wisconsin.
And then third, we've been focused on the concern about ballot seizures.
There were ballots seized from 2020 in Georgia and Arizona ballots were subpoenaed from 2020.
And it's critical that ballots not be seized while the certification process is going on.
There's no legitimate law enforcement reason for the federal government to seize ballots in Wisconsin before the counting process is completed and the certification process is completed.
So again, we will be prepared to go to court if need be.
I will say that
We have dealt with challenges to our elections before in 2020.
My administration defended the results of the elections in Wisconsin and we won in case after case.
We had Michael Gabelman's preposterous investigation into the 2020 elections.
We stood up against that and ultimately that investigation really led to nothing productive.
And then recently, as I mentioned, we challenged the attack on mail-in voting.
So we are prepared, we're gonna be vigilant, but I also am confident because of our preparation and vigilance,
that Wisconsinites are going to be able to cast their ballots safely and that we will ultimately have a free and fair election.
Are there any challenges right now heading into this election that Wisconsin hasn't had to deal with in previous years?
Well, what's somewhat different about this election is, you know, those three things I mentioned, they are all because of the President of the United States.
This is what we're talking about in terms of protecting our elections.
Now in 2020,
Donald Trump tried to overturn the results, so it's not unique.
But the major concerns we're talking about are related to the president.
The mail-in voting, again, is slower, so it's important people get those ballots in early.
And we want to be prepared to respond if there are unforeseen events that happen around the elections or following the elections.
What I can tell folks is we are going to be prepared.
We're also working with other states around the country so that we're prepared.
And I'm confident that we will be able to respond effectively regardless of what happens.
Attorney General, you alluded to the possibility and talked a little bit about federal agents that might include ICE appearing at the polling places.
I guess my question to that is if a voter does feel intimidated or see something concerning at a polling place as we approach the election, what should they do?
First, somebody can contact one of the folks who's working at the polling place where they are.
They can also contact their local clerk or the state election commission.
We intend to be in close contact with the election commission.
We regularly are.
And if we become aware of issues that are of concern, we're going to respond quickly.
But we have a lot of authority given under state law to the chief election inspectors, and they've got a lot of ability to ensure that their polling places are running safely and smoothly.
That's the first place I would suggest folks go.
But there are also certainly voter protection hotlines out there.
But what's important is if people see something concerning that they pass that information along so that it can be shared quickly.
My administration has joined more than 70 multi-state cases against Trump administration actions.
And we have seen this administration try to abuse its power to put illegal conditions on grant funds or some cases to cut funds or to freeze funds.
And the good news is we keep winning.
We have won over and over again because the administration is flouting the law.
It's flouting the constitution.
And this is another example of it.
The administration is trying to exercise control over states by threatening to withhold funds unless states do what the administration has demanded.
That's not how our system works.
So we have challenged this effort to withhold funding.
We've had a number of other cases where they've similarly tried to put illegal conditions in place.
And we've had
success in challenging those.
I do think it's important for folks to know that this is one of the critical distinctions in the AG's race because in our recent debate Eric Tony did not identify a single one of those more than 70 cases that he would have joined.
That means he wouldn't at least he hasn't been willing to say that he would have joined challenges to Trump administration tariffs or to policies that make access to affordable health care less less available.
to cuts for funding that supports education to the attempted elimination of the AmeriCorps program and on and on.
These are really critical cases for protecting resources in our state and for preventing the Trump administration from significantly expanding its control over what happens in Wisconsin.
So having an AG who's willing to stand up for the best interests of Wisconsinites is really critical right now.
Attorney General Josh Call, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
There's a lot to watch as we head into November, from election security and voter protections to the legal battles involving Wisconsin and the federal government.
We are going to continue to follow all of these issues as well as the race for Attorney General as Election Day approaches.
If you want more stories and issues affecting Wisconsin, please visit CivicMedia.us.
Alright, welcome back to what's going on with Earl Ingram.
As always, it is always great to have an opportunity to come before you, the listening audience, and always even better.
when I can share this platform with my good friend, Sandy Williams.
Sandy Williams really needs no introduction for those of you who've been around a while.
But I'll just say he's a great economist.
He's a guy that if I start talking about all his accomplishments, it would fill the entirety of this hour.
And we've got too many things that's critically important to talk about.
It's been a while.
But good morning to you, my friend.
How you doing?
I'm doing
all right.
It
has been a
while.
You know, you keep a lawyer away from a microphone too long.
It's like going cold turkey.
Well, well, it's kind of been the same way for me, but it's good to be back in the saddle with you again.
And, you know, we know for sure it's not going to be so long the next time I've been assured of that.
So got a lot to talk about Sandy.
Things are going on that I think
the average person is struggling to understand.
You are a man who is very well informed about the economy, how it works, more so than the average person.
But here we are, Sandy, and the average American is just wondering what happened.
Things are just so difficult.
and they don't seem to be getting better.
They just, and so it's like we're swimming upstream and there's an economy that's booming.
And so help us understand how that contradiction can be taking place and an economy that's booming the way it is.
And yet the American people are struggling to put food on the table.
Well, the segments of the economy are booming.
And if those segments of the economy are booming to such an extent that when you average them into the rest, the numbers all seem very good.
But when you unbundle it,
and you look at the compartments of the economy and what's doing well and what isn't and how various segments are going, it's kind of troublesome.
And it's particularly troublesome for Tom Dick and Mary for a long time now.
You know, we've had a stock market that's soaring, but the number of the percentage of the US population that actually shares in the prosperity created by the stock market is very, very small.
And so we've got this seeming bellwether of economic strength, the stock market, which has been booming for quite a long time.
And yet the people who are sharing in that wealth experience is relatively small.
And it doesn't affect Tom Dick and Mary's daily cash flow, for instance.
And so we're finding that families now even rising all the way up to the level of $300,000 a year,
a significant percentage of families at that level of income report that they're living paycheck to paycheck, meaning they aren't really saving money, they're spending all the money they have, they're feeling financial constraints.
Well, if that's happening at the $300,000 level, which is way above the median income in this country, just think what's happening to the median income families.
In Wisconsin last year, the median income
was about $75,000 a year.
What is median income?
That's the level of income that half of the people, up to half of the people are at or under, okay?
So in Wisconsin, if the $75,000 number is the median income, that means that half of the income earners in Wisconsin earn less than $75,000 and half earn more.
And so that's the same kind of ratio that's occurring in the country.
Maybe the national median income might be a little higher than Wisconsin's.
It might be 80,000, but it's well off of that 300,000 bogey where people are living paycheck to paycheck.
So if you ask people whether they're booming or not, and if they're living paycheck to paycheck, their answer will be no, we're
not.
is, it seems, it appears to be almost a negative number you
with.
Very hard
to make things, get things patched together.
And if you have a household income that's in the $80,000 range, you're living a very tight existence.
And then, you know, we've got things that are happening in the economy that some of it's related to the strength of the economy and actually some of it's related to the weakness in the economy.
But for instance, recently, there's been a fair amount of publicity about how the federal treasury instruments with maturities of 10 years, the so-called ten-year treasury bond yield has gone up to 5.6%, which is at a
at a high for over a decade, that's the highest level we've had.
And so why is that happening?
Well, there's a whole bunch of reasons for why it's happening and it sort of ties together a whole bunch of economic factors going on in the economy.
First of all, just to be simple about it, if you're gonna lend somebody some money and you're gonna charge them interest for it,
Well, how will you figure out how much interest you should charge on the money?
Well, one of the things you need to do if you lend someone money and they're going to pay it back to you in, let's say, five years, is you need to make sure that the money they pay back to you in five years is worth as much as the money you lent them today.
And that's a function of inflation.
Inflation is essentially the rate at which a dollar loses its value.
So if a dollar inflates by 2% a year, that really means that next year it takes a dollar and two cents to buy what a dollar could buy today.
And so if you're going to lend someone money for over a period of time, the first thing you want to know is how much inflation is there going to be?
Because I need to charge an interest rate that is at least as high as the inflation rate so that the money I get back from this person is as valuable as the money I lent to them.
A second factor is how risky is this investment?
If I lend this person a dollar, what are the odds that I'm going to get paid back any of the money at all?
Or am I going to get paid back a hundred cents on the dollar by the borrower?
So that's the risk component.
And then a third component of it is
How else can I put this money to work?
And what can I earn on this money if I do something with it other than lending it to this person?
And that's sort of the opportunity cost of lending the money.
And there are other factors as well.
For instance, how much demand is there for my money?
If lots of people are coming to me and saying I want to borrow money from you, I'm in a position to charge more money for it.
more interest for it and all of that is going on right now so the the level of inflation seems to be going up and the predicted levels of inflation seem to be that it's going to be sticky that it's going to continue to be at a higher level that means you need to charge more interest to the borrower meaning in this case the federal government if the federal government wants to borrow money on a 10-year basis you're going to want to get more money back from them because of the interest rate
the inflation rate that you're projecting.
A second issue is how much money is being borrowed today?
Well, in today's world, there's a great deal of corporate debt that's where corporations are borrowing money.
Why are they borrowing it?
Well, the biggest borrowing segment is the artificial intelligence segment, which is building out things at such a rapid rate.
And so there's more borrowers competing to borrow money with the federal government.
That's causing the rate of interest to go up for the federal government.
And then, of course, there's an added level of risk with the federal government because it seems to have an unbridled appetite for spending money that it doesn't have.
The deficit projected for this year, the federal deficit in the budget is projected to be $2.1 trillion, which is record breaking for a time period in which there is no recession.
There's no reason, no, there's no policy reason to be running a deficit.
It's just that the United States currently, and it's with its political processes, seems to have a voracious appetite for spending money that it isn't taxing.
And in particular, the government in question today's administration reduces taxes, but continues to spend money at the same rapid clip.
So we have a $2.1 trillion deficit.
We have a $40 trillion plus national debt, which is growing now at a rate of $2 trillion a year.
And so this kind of projection causes those who are lending money to the United States to become more uncertain about the creditworthiness of the United States and its capacity to pay back dollars that will be worth as much as the dollars that were lent to it.
And so
This higher maturity this higher interest rate on ten-year maturity Treasuries spills over into our economy immediately for instance The interest rate on mortgages has gone up.
It's gone up or almost a percentage point in the last month and a half and That is slowing down the rate at which people can buy housing.
It's reducing the value of housing It's reducing the value of commercial real estate.
So there's broad implications
all of which affect not just the sectors, not just the federal government and its cost of borrowing money, which incidentally, the interest rate bill for this year because of the size of our debt and the increasing rate on which we're paying interest is a trillion dollars.
So we're paying trillion dollars of interest this year in the federal budget to just carry the debt and it's
going up.
You know, Sandy, I was reading this article in Money Watch yesterday in prior to our conversation this morning, and I was trying to understand, as an average American citizen, where we fit in this.
And the article, a couple of paragraphs.
and let you explain this.
I want you to explain this to us.
American workers share of the economic pie has fallen to its lowest level since at least 1947, when the federal government began tracking the data according to analysis by the Federal Reserve economists.
The measure known as labor share of income
tracks how much of the nation's economic output flows to workers in the form of wages and salaries, as opposed to the share that goes to investors and corporations through profits, dividends, and other capital income.
A shrinking labor share of income indicates the more economic gains of flowing to shareholders and business owners rather than to workers.
As of early
2026 American workers received 54.1% of the national income according to research from Federal Reserve Bank of New York by comparison that figure top 65% almost 80 years ago when the government began tracking the data following World War II in the in early 2020 it stood at 57.7 indicating that workers have continued to lose ground since the pandemic.
So, if I'm reading you right and listening to what you are saying, and I have no reason not to believe what it is you are saying, and I'm reading this information, that this just almost appears that this debt that continues to grow from our nation, there's not gonna be any room for the people themselves.
We're not the ones who are borrowing the money, Sandy.
Well, we
actually are actually we are borrowing money to our the the amount of money being borrowed on credit cards continues to go up.
Yeah,
yeah.
People
are pinched.
So, I mean... That's because we're pinch sandy, right?
We're pinched, exactly, yes.
And so, like I was saying, the architecture of our economy has changed a great deal.
We have fewer manufacturing jobs.
We have many more companies whose business models are built on using hourly employees, the fast food industry, much of the hospitality industry.
We've turned into a service industry economy which is much different than a manufacturing economy which we were in the 1960s and 50s.
All right,
welcome back to what's going on with Earl Ingram and early 70s.
So the architecture of the economy has changed.
We have fewer people who are working in manufacturing or otherwise working in blue collar jobs that permit them to be in the middle class.
And the definition of the middle class has probably become a little bit under
underestimated in terms of what it takes to be in a comfortable middle class.
When we look at what it takes to live in some manner that isn't just paycheck to paycheck, we realize that it takes more than the median income to get there.
It used to be that the median income was a middle class income and it permitted people to live comfortably and not paycheck to paycheck.
But in the new world,
The median income ends up being an inadequate income and it probably is only in the in the lowest end of the middle class in terms of if you measure the middle class by financial security and financial comfort We've also shifted the way in which we put the burden of Benefits that used to be borne by the employer so that health care the benefit of health care used to be
given with almost no deductible, no contribution from the employee.
Now, healthcare, even when it's provided by the employer, comes with a significant cost burden to the employee to bear the cost of healthcare.
Some of that has to do with how broken our healthcare system is and how expensive it is on a relative basis in the world.
And then also retirement benefits.
which are now also borne by employees materially with 401ks, rather than having an employment pension plan in which the pension is basically caused by the contribution from the employer.
So, you know, we've changed the way things are designed for the worker, and all of those changes in design have put an added pinch on the worker.
And now we've got a shoe that might be falling in the future, this artificial intelligence process, which promises to substantially increase the productivity of certain kinds of workers.
And of course, increasing productivity sounds great, particularly from the employer standpoint.
But when you increase the productivity of workers in a significant fashion, and you don't increase the amount of work that needs to get done by those workers, you end up reducing the number of workers that are required to accomplish the works.
So,
Sam, this has happened without the worker not being aware that these things
have changed.
Well, you know, that's the way things are.
I mean, things tend to change.
in a manner that is kind of creeping change, creeping change.
It's a bit like being, I've never been this, but I think it's, to hear it, the story told, it's a bit like being the frog in the cold pot of water.
And the heat gets turned on and you don't perceive the heat as how hot you're getting until the water boils and it's too late.
And I think that
That's sort of what happens to all of us.
We end up in a situation of creeping change.
We live day to day, month to month, week to week.
And in those time periods, the changes are harder to perceive.
But when we look backwards in time and we look backwards over four or five years, we can perceive that there has been a material change in the five or 10 year perspective.
We can get looking backwards.
It's much harder
to prognosticate what that change is going to look like five and ten years in the future, but the current trends
And then the current unveiling of this AI process leads many people to believe, particularly young people to believe that the future, the changes that are gonna occur in the next five to 10 years could be much more significant than the ones they've realized in the past, particularly as it relates to them.
And we can talk about it later in the show, but I think the impact of AI is gonna be materially affected in the service economy.
It's gonna be materially affected
the effect of it is going to be materially felt by college graduates, the people who have gone to school, paid the money to go to school in order to obtain white collar jobs.
And unlike productivity increases in the past where robotic manufacturing promised to decrease the number of manufacturing jobs, the impact of AI is pretty much prognosticated to have its biggest impact on white collar jobs.
So Sandy, before we...
get there, I want to go back to where the average every day, Tom, Mary, and Dick, and see themselves.
When you pointed out the amount of money that is being borrowed and amount of money that's old, and this is not going to disappear.
This is this is a serious problem that has to be taken on by our government And and real then that some way shape or form isn't it?
I mean we can't just keep let let it go to where it's going No,
we can't and you know, it's a tightrope dance because obviously what what what becomes a matter of concern is the size of our
annual national budget deficit and the size of our national debt, which is the compilation of all of our deficits that are currently remain unpaid.
How that relates to the size of our gross domestic product, which is essentially the size of our economy.
And when the percentage
relationship between our national deficit, annual national deficit, and when the percentage relationship between our national debt becomes too high as it relates to our gross domestic product, i.e.
the size of our economy, it becomes untenable, it becomes unsustainable.
It's just like a family having too much debt, having a mortgage that is too big for them to bear, they can't afford the house they live in,
because the debt burden is too great as compared to their annual income.
It's the same kind of analysis, but looking rather at the gross domestic product, which is like the gross income nationally of everything combined.
And when that relationship, percentage relationship gets too high, it's a problem.
Well, you can solve that in two ways.
You can reduce the debt.
which, of course, can only be accomplished by increasing taxes if you don't have another process for reducing the debt.
Or you can reduce expenditures, which reduces the debt.
You can do both.
Or you can change the percentage by having the economy grow at a more rapid clip.
In the past, what we've always done is have our economy grow at a rapid enough clip to absorb the level of additional debt that we have been compiling every year.
Because we've really only had about four years of budget surplus since World War II.