Transcript
Is this really the way were going about it? (Hour 1)
The Earl Ingram Show · Tue Feb 25, 2025
Brother, what's that?
This is a new recording, man.
I can dig it.
Good morning and welcome to the Earl Ingram show.
As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.
That's 855-752-4842.
You can text us at that same number.
Good morning to you, Cardi.
How you doing, man?
Man, I'm feeling good, Earl, man.
It is a blessed weekend ahead of me.
I got a lot of stuff going on this weekend ahead.
I'm looking in the forecast.
Yeah, it's Tuesday.
It's Tuesday.
And you're already looking at the weekend?
I'm already forecasting the
weekend.
Sandy, you know, man.
the
It's Tuesday, man.
You know, I have been forecast.
I mean, I got a lot of stuff going on, but I got to take it.
Sandy.
one day at a time.
Is that what happens when we...
I was just reading an article about how there's a school course that's being taught on teaching Gen Z people how to use the telephone.
Apparently, apparently most Gen Zers have a phone phobia other than texting on the phone.
In fact, they don't know what the phone is for in terms of talking into it.
It's just for texting.
If you don't know by now that's my co-host Sandy Williams.
Hey Sandy, good morning to you.
Let's start with the pleasantries.
you just, we're just in a place, you know, that I'm trying to understand, you know, Generation Z, you know, I've got some, I've got some old cassette tapes, right?
that I've had for a long time and they're in the basement and yeah they're antiques.
What's the point of it even?
Well people still held on to those eight tracks and it turned out the eight tracks wound up being worth some money.
And it's, you
you know, elevator music.
Well, let me ask you, because if you go back, Sandy, you know, you probably, I'm sure you had real the reels.
Did you, did you hang on to your real the reels?
people held on to them.
They wound up being worth some money
That was the
Even I don't remember that one, Sandy.
Well, but I also say, Sandy, if, you know, just thinking back on those things, did you keep your, um, what do you call those things?
Uh, uh, not the records, but no, no, not records, but.
uh the big ones the big oh the 78 rpm no no not this not this the 78 rpm was a little bit before my time but yeah you know they had a little 45 records and then they had the other ones that were oh the vinyl disc is that they didn't call them right no they didn't call them yeah
now they call
yeah but they were big well i'm talking about uh
What do you call them?
They used to buy these, you go in the store and you buy these albums.
I guess albums, they were called.
Yeah,
albums.
Or
Well, I mean, I know people who kept all this stuff.
Man, I got rid of this.
If you kept, if you kept all that stuff, Sandy, I mean, you'd almost be considered a hoarder, right?
kids
I just chewed the gum
was horrible,
know,
Yeah Well, but I mean people who kept these albums and you know
And the album came back to be worth something.
But, you know, I guess, you know, I wasn't even smart enough or I just could not see holding on to a bunch of albums for 15
Does that include you and I?
of a
Well, maybe
some people collect them Well, maybe that's well, maybe they should be asking our wives if we are more valuable as we Yeah, well
you guys old-timers you guys are vintage Yeah,
I guess we are that but anyway got a lot to talk Sandy 52 degrees yesterday
Well, but Sandy it certainly had its you know It had a good run right.
So, you know, it was 52 degrees
All that snow melted.
I mean, it's amazing how quickly it went.
But I guess 52 degrees does something harrowing to snow and ice, right?
brown.
Well, you know, man, maybe, uh, this, this snow that we got a week before last, maybe that snow was good because we, we do know that snow melts.
It turns into water and it eventually does something for the earth, right?
And grass.
Uh, anyway, uh, listen, a lot to talk about.
today, Sandy, an offer.
There's always a lot to talk about.
I want to begin, Sandy, though, with...
You know...
The Trump policies caught up with UW-Madison and Milwaukee Public Schools the other day.
UW-Madison had been offering courses to bring in teachers and educate them for special ed, since there's so many, such a lack of special ed teachers in Milwaukee Public Schools.
There was something that was going on where there were money set aside to train teachers in order to at UW Madison in order to make sure that they would be able to come into Milwaukee public schools and feel major voids to address, you know, many of the children who are special ed students.
And so Trump's policies shut all that off.
and they shut all of that off because they said, well, there was DEI training going on there.
Sandy, we're living in strange times.
I mean, it's cruel.
The notion that, you know, voucher schools don't have to take all these special ed students.
And so the public school system ends up being the one that has to deal with, and, you know, these people,
The special ed students do require special education.
They can be difficult to have in a regular classroom.
They can make it harder to teach all the rest of the students.
And so it's important that they're be trained.
to properly provide the opportunities to these special ed students.
And if you have a policy that is essentially trying to turn your back on public schools, trying to fund vouchers, you can also stick your head in the sand about special ed students and ignore them.
And it's not just cruel, but it's counterproductive.
It makes it very hard to teach the rest of the students.
You know, Sandy, the fact that the reason and the rationale
that they gave was they're doing DEI.
I mean, you know...
I mean, DEI seems to be a term that is used quite broadly, and it's not clearly well-defined.
Just what is DEI education?
It could mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, and apparently it doesn't seem to support
supporting special ed
students?
You know, Sandy, you certainly said it right.
Cruel, just cruel and humane to cut that off.
And we're going to talk a little bit later on.
And I guess, actually, when we come back, I want to talk about nearly 40% of contracts canceled by Doge.
are expected to produce no savings.
You said that.
Yeah, I mean, when they rolled up their sleeves and looked for actual savings, much of what they're cutting is theoretical money that wasn't maybe going to be spent anyway.
or is money that was miscalculated and the savings have been severely, extremely overestimated.
And so, yeah.
And this is all for the purpose of trying to cut taxes.
And after we come back, I did some research on the level of taxation in this country over the past 75
years.
8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42.
It's Tuesday.
That means Tuesdays with Michael Hossan and Williams and you on The Earl Ingram Show.
Don't punish me with brutality Talk to me so you can see
as you can join us at 855-752-4842.
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It's twos, that means twos is what my co-host's saying to you.
I'm saying to your music.
The music that evokes or is evocative of sort of a sense of craziness.
That's Harry Nielsen jump into the fire, which is one of my favorite pieces, actually.
it seemed apropos of our time today because I wake up each day and something about what's going on just feels bizarre, you know, it doesn't feel real.
One of the things that I mentioned before the break that I just wanted to mention having
done the research is that much of what's going on, the doge and the rest of it, seems to be to justify a tax break under the assertion that government is big and wasteful and that we're being overtaxed.
Well, the history of our taxation level is contrary to that proposition.
For the last 75 years, the U.S.
taxes collected by income taxes has been quite stable and has been in the 8% of GDP range for 75 years.
We were taxed at a higher percentage of GDP in the 50s and 60s.
And for the last 20 years, we've been taxed at a rate of currently our rate is about 7.7% of GDP, which is lower than the 75 year trend.
So currently income taxes for as a percentage of GDP, which is the drag on the economy that it might be, is at its lowest level over the past 75 years.
So all of this.
talk about the need to chop it government and put a meat ax at it to get this tax burden off of our backs defies the reality.
Well, you know, Sandy, the, the GOP, many GOP senators right now, uh, and Congress people are calling for even deeper cuts, um, in the budget.
And I'm looking here nearly 40% of federal contracts that the Trump administration claims to have canceled as part of its signature cost cutting program aren't expected to save the government any money.
The the administration's own data shows the Department of government efficiency run by Elon Musk last week published an initial list of 1125 contracts that it terminated in recent weeks across the federal government.
Data published on Doge's wall of receipts shows that more than one third of the contract cancellations, 417 in all are expected to yield no savings.
That's usually because the total value of the contract has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so, Sandy.
Well, an NPR did a deep dive with their staff into the alleged savings that Doge was claiming last week, and it was Doge was claiming something like 85 billion, and when they rolled up their sleeves, it looked to be nothing in excess of one to two billion as possible savings.
And so, you know, this is a lot of hype, and it's hype designed to support a tax reduction.
They're even grifting us into suggesting that maybe they'll send each of us a big check out of these savings, which incidentally, even with the savings, if they were to occur, would still leave our annual budget with a very substantial deficit, over a trillion dollar deficit.
You know, this is grifting.
This is all just PR designed to support tax reductions, which in fact will leave us with continuing deficits.
This article says it's like confiscating used ammunition.
after it's shot when there's nothing left in it.
It doesn't accomplish any policy objectives, says Charles Teefer, a retired University of Baltimore law professor and expert on government contracting law.
They're terminating so many contracts pointlessly, obviously doesn't accomplish anything for saving the money.
You know, Sandy, it's one thing to say that the government has bloated and nobody
disagrees with that.
And, you know, there are certainly areas that this should be addressed, but to take a meat cleaver or a chainsaw, like Elon Musk did the other day and say, this is the way we're going at it.
And, you know, in the face of it, Sandy, in the face of people who call them out on it,
Excuse me if somebody if you said these things and somebody called you out on it shouldn't you have to defend it?
Well, you know, but the fact is that people should exercise common sense Okay, and and frequently the conservatives are talking about how that's what's being used right now as common sense Well common sense ought to tell you that with the complexity that the US government has Sending in a small team of people into a department and and suggesting that in one week or two weeks they can wrap their arms around Understanding what is going on in that department?
What's important?
What isn't important?
What's waste?
What isn't waste?
what's fraud, what isn't fraud, is to beg credulity.
And so, you know, this is all just arm waving.
And what we really need is a deliberate process for deciding what our policies ought to be, implementing our policies and making sure they're implemented in a sound fashion.
And by deliberate, I don't mean snail pace, but this is far different than snail pace.
This is whirlwind.
This is Blitzkrieg.
You know, Sandy, and as we, you know, drill a little deeper, it almost appears to be no way to stop this right now.
It's going to happen.
8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42 is Tuesday.
That means Tuesday is my call.
Sandy Williams and you on The Earl Ingram Show.
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We're stealing it back.
back to the Erling room show.
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855-752-4842.
Text us at that same number.
It's Tuesday, that means Tuesday is my co-host, Sandy Williams.
So Sandy, Elon Musk is, seems to have total latitude.
to do whatever he wants to do.
It doesn't matter that he's sending out these signals that are just causing destruction and mayhem all over our government.
And Donald Trump refuses to rein him in.
You know, Sandy, he's all over the nation where
people working in government, and you've talked about this many times, even those in leadership don't know what to do or what to say.
For heaven's sakes, the veterans administration, not knowing what to tell the people if they should respond or not.
In fact, ultimately, the Office of Personnel Management, which is part of the White House, decided that they would come out with a memo and say, you don't have to answer that email.
You aren't necessarily going to get fired if you don't answer it.
Which, of course, the president yesterday said, maybe you could get kind of fired.
What does that mean, Sandy?
I don't know.
I thought it was kind of you're pregnant or you're not.
Either you're fired or you're not fired.
But the fact is that he's sewing.
fear and confusion, and they're treating the federal government as if it doesn't matter, as if the federal workers are unimportant to the American people, as if this is just a cumbersome problem that all of these workers that work in the federal government and all the processes that the federal government pursues.
And then it's like poking a hornet's nest, because the fact is that our federal government evolved.
And it has, you know, essentially everything it does is there for a purpose.
And when that purpose gets disrupted, the people from whom that purpose is important will react.
And so, you know, we've got...
We've got a position that's being pursued, which is to chop at the federal government so that we can reduce taxes as if taxes are at some inordinately high level when the facts are that the taxes as a percentage of GDP are at about the lowest level they've been in the last 75 years.
We don't have a burdensome tax process ongoing that needs to be treated in this fashion.
You know, if we had an orderly analysis of our government, that would make, give people comfort.
But what's going on is not orderly.
It's mayhem.
You know, Sandy, even in the face of all of this mayhem, Donald Trump, even though his, those who support him, his approval ratings, let me see what it says here.
I mean, they are, at least James Carville reported on a bunch of surveys that have been done and have demonstrated that his approval ratings are eroding rapidly.
But my fear is that Donald Trump in this term, his only goal is to get his face on Mount Rushmore.
And so it's all about legacy and fame.
You mean literally he wants to get his face on Mount Rushmore?
Oh, literally.
I mean, he not only talks about it, but there's actually a bill in Congress proposing it.
I mean, this is a real aim of his.
And I think he has people around him who are describing to him the things he needs to do to make himself famous in history and to earn the legacy.
You know, there's already a bill in Congress to make his birthday a federal holiday.
you know, this is a person who's pursuing personal gain and personal fame at the expense of national interest.
And that's what causes me to fear that he's letting himself become the tool of a whole bunch of people with a great deal of will who want to accomplish some things with our government that is only going to be good for the very wealthy.
the very powerful and for a bunch of corporate interests and is not going to be good for the people.
Well, you know,
Sandy, here's here's a prime example, because many people may not be aware of this.
But, you know, Donald Trump and other minions wanted to go and check on the gold supply.
So so help me understand or help us understand.
Why a president of the United States with all the other things going on in this nation, Sandy, inflation is really starting to kick back up again.
There's fear.
Prices are going to be going through the roof.
All of this, when they talked about Joe Biden and inflation, it was nonstop piling on with the Democrats.
And now they clearly see inflation starting to heat back up again.
Donald Trump is doing nothing and the people with them to address any of those things.
Sandy, people are clamoring and saying they're having more.
The food supply, I mean, what's costing him in the grocery store is worse.
And yet they're going to check on the gold supply.
Come
Well, let me say that this is, I think this is willful and nefarious.
I mean, it was Elon Musk that went with him.
And here's the deal.
Elon Musk has been agitating and Donald Trump has even talked about setting up a Bitcoin type, a cryptocurrency reserve to be either replaced or in addition to the gold reserves as the reserve back up to our currency.
And doing that will make
cryptocurrency far more valuable than it currently is.
And I believe that this was done by Elon Musk and Donald Trump because they intend to do just that, to create a cryptocurrency reserve and to therefore make their own personal investments in cryptocurrency far more valuable than they currently are.
I mean, the Trump family within months prior to the election
set up a business venture that's that's premised on cryptocurrency and Donald and Elon Musk is heavily invested in a cryptocurrency which ironically is called Doge and so you know this is not this is not just willy-nilly and this is not something that's really in in the public interest I think this is something they were doing to combine public interest with private profit you
know you know Sandy
You you watch these things that are happening before our eyes We know you use the verbiage nefarious You know, I got some you know, I'm not as eloquent as you But you know listen man.
He's what they're doing is criminal if it's not criminal it should be criminal and so and so how many Americans own cryptocurrency
All right, let's let's go to Dave from MEC one.
Good morning to Dave.
You say what?
Good morning, gentlemen.
Um,
you don't see any problem.
You don't see any problem with them going and checking on the gold supply.
Um, I think it's, I mean,
come on, man.
Come on.
Come on,
man.
Come on.
But at the end of the day, the bigger issue is the inflation.
Um, and what keep in mind when people are going up in arms.
It wasn't, you know, you guys were not that worried about it.
It was like nine and a half percent for a little while.
We had 40, I mean, if you look at the price of houses, they literally doubled in four years as far as building them and inflation and everything else.
What's going to happen here is this.
Now, first of all, the primary agriculture is revisiting the whole idea of where we eliminated, you know, millions of chickens.
what, 150 million chickens?
Of course that's going to affect egg prices.
What you're going to do is they're going to actually...
Egg prices are the least of the worries, Dave, when they're talking about inflation.
People ought to be taking notes.
But, you know, there is definitely everything that Donald Trump is talking about implementing.
in terms of policies are inflationary, okay?
And to the extent that they are looking at trying to fight inflation, they're only trying to mitigate something which is altogether inevitable, and in particular with respect to his tariff policy.
And if his tariff policy is just negotiation, and if it's not going to be a source of revenue that's paid by the American consumer, then it's also not gonna be a source of revenue to the government.
But it's fully, it's clear that
He does intend to implement these tariffs, and these tariffs will be singularly inflationary.
There'll be a one-time kick that will cause a permanent level of increased prices.
Yes, the boat.
Did you see what Tim Cook and Apple just announced the other day?
Yes,
think that Tim Cook
and...
a Dave
Billion dollar investment into the United States that would have been made in China.
It's no longer going to be made there.
in Mexico.
Okay, so between China and Mexico, what he is doing in Cleveland, which is a steel operator, they are going to
think about, okay, maybe we shouldn't do this.
And yes, there might be some, definitely some short-term pain, but in the-
Hey, Dave, I am going to cut you off.
Dave, Dave, I am going to cut you off because to use the verb short-term pain to people who struggle every day in their lives is unacceptable.
Well, and let me just, let me just-
Dave wants to talk about a world in which tariffs are erected to support...
the production within the United States.
So let me just talk a little bit about what happens in a world where countries erect tariffs to protect the production within their territorial boundaries.
And what will happen is that the United States, the level of international trade will be reduced substantially.
And not only will imports to the United States be reduced, but exports from the United States will be reduced.
Currently, the growth rate of almost every corporation that's experiencing material growth is the result of exports.
And so we will end up with a world environment in which there is higher prices for everything.
Those higher prices will be sustained.
They won't be reduced over time.
And there will be slower growth rates of GDP as the result.
And the notion that that in the long one will create more jobs within America actually defies a reality.
And there has been a long-term debate amongst economists about this.
But the winning argument for the majority of economists is that stifling international trade for the purpose of trying to
barriers to international trade to support local production in the long run is a losing proposition for everyone.
So Dave, hang on a second.
You know, I'm getting a little frustrated with people who tell other people they need to experience a little pain.
855-752-4842.
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I remember when I remember I remember when I lost my mind
Back to the early group shows, always you can join us at 855-752-4842, 855-752-4842, Texas at the same number, Sandy the Music.
Let me, Dave, I wanted to read a little bit about this from Trump, from Farmers for Trump.
This is yesterday's.
President Donald Trump gets a lot of his political support from farm country, but those who put food on the table are worried that his policies from tariffs to funding freezes will make it harder for them to do their jobs.
The prospect of a Trump credit created trade war has farmers on edge said the Washington Post, one Iowa farm family.
said the president's tears will drive up the cost of chinese made herbicides and tractors they use and will likely cut off the markets for soybean to china and corn in mexico uh that the state produces in abundance hawkeye state producers don't know where we're going to be at
As far as our soybean and corn market, says Susan Sherillis, whose family grows both crops, it's a fresh element of worry as the nation's farmers deal with an unforgiving business environment.
She said, the concerns go beyond tariffs.
The rapid fire array of directors from the Trump administration has paused federal funding on a range of programs and grants that benefit farmers, said the New York Times.
The Doge-driven funding freeze.
at the U.S.
Agency for International Development left hundreds of millions of dollars with the food and supplies sitting in ports while other federal programs, including those that pay farmers for energy production and soil conservation, have also been halted.
The nation's farmers don't need any more uncertainty.
They already have enough.
So, Dave, you say they need to feel a little pain.
The farmers disagree with you
Well, and and let me just say if you use common sense and look at what happens to the world that is has barriers between the countries that are erected in the name of tariffs
What you end up having is a process in which in each country, you manufacture everything that's needed within that country to the extent possible to avoid tariffs.
So the United States will no longer derive its profits and its growth from exports.
It will derive its profits and growth only from the market inside the United States.
And so much like Harley Davidson, if you're going to sell motorcycles in India, you build factories in India.
And much like Elon Musk, if you're going to sell
Tesla's in India, you erect factories in India.
And you do the same in China.
And so you pursue growth in the international markets by building factories that are local to those international markets.
And the factories you have in the United States are built here only to satisfy the United States economy.
And so in the near term, there might be a growth in factories so they can meet the demands within the United States.
economy is stagnant.
It is not a rapidly growing economy.
It is not an economy that's going to support rapid corporate growth.
And the rapid corporate growth that's occurred in corporations across America over the last 40 years has been the result of international sales.
And so common sense should tell people that tariffs will only be a near term kind of an effect.
And in the long term, it will make everything more expensive and jobs will follow
the products, the source of demand, which is the country in which it's sold.
And so, you know, you don't really end up getting very far.
Well, you know, Sandy, I don't believe you plant a seed and that plant grows anyway.
It takes years.
And I think and I think the flippant response that people have about people need to feel some pain is what's at the root of Dave, your response.
I look at the city, I look at the city of Milwaukee.
You worked at Ale Smith for all those years.
There's no industrial production within the city limits of Milwaukee.
Bass Rock just closed up the doors recently and the city is suffering.
And so the policies that Sandy's talking about has not worked out for the average American.
As a matter of fact, we're called the Rust Belt for a reason.
And the reason being because all the ideas that Sandy and other people have had has hurt the average American.
And what I mean by that is, is that if you look at the entire Midwest, Detroit, Cleveland, St.
Louis, they're all in, they're all very different than what they were 40, 50 years ago, where you could make a very good living.
Working at a factory and I disagree with Sandy because we have the opportunity to know with artificial intelligence with AI there could be huge advantages Production it's going to be a game changer as far as automated automated
whatever it is Dave is going to be automated It's never going to create anywhere near the amount of jobs even if you believe that it's going to be automated
shops non-union.
8 by 5 7 5 2 48 put the two guys hang on it's twos that means twos is my call of Sandy Williams and you
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