Best of The Program | Guests: Sen. Mike Lee & Nicole Solas | 8/2/21

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Welcome to to the podcast.

Today, we talk about the Olympics and some of the fun stuff going on with that wonderful patriotism being viewed by all of America as we watch the Olympic Games.

We also talk about the troubles of Da Baby.

I know you're a

huge Da Baby fan, as Glenn and I are as well.

We have an update on Glenn's art show, which I tried to keep as short as possible because it apparently went well.

We have Ronal Pastrito on as well to talk about

the similarities between the Woodrow Wilson administration and the Joe Biden administration.

And Senator Mike Lee joins us to tell us why we're spending $1.2 trillion with the sign-on of Republicans.

We'll get into all that today on the program.

Don't forget to subscribe at blazetv.com/slash Glenn.

Promo code is Glenn.

And take a minute to click subscribe on this podcast as well as Stu DoesAmerica.

We'd love when you subscribe over there as well.

Rate and review the podcast.

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you're listening to the best of the blend back program

mr pat gray joins us from pat gray unleashed yeah so how'd the weekend in park city go with the art show with the art show it uh it was pretty good yeah i mean honestly

just for the audience, we really do need to get to the news of the day today.

There's a lot going on, Pat.

I mean, I was listening to your show today.

What a great show, Pat Gray Unleashed.

It's available on Blaze TV.

What if that were dirty lights?

Where do people download that?

Pretty much anywhere.

Anyway.

Anywhere.

It's really interesting.

What I was wondering was how many paintings.

Friday, he said people would come in and spit on the painting.

Really?

I don't think I said that.

I noticed he did.

That was inaccurate.

Inaccurate.

Nobody slightly on any painting.

No.

And he said, like, no one would show up.

I may have said people should spit on the paintings.

I don't know that I said that they would.

And it was all he could talk about last year.

It's all he could talk about.

Now, strangely, he doesn't want to hear it.

I'm sorry if the news is more important than your little art show from the weekend, Glenn.

I'm sorry.

You know, our country right now

is on the edge.

Yeah.

And you want to talk about your paintings?

Right.

Well, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, is it a big deal to talk about it for just real quick?

He's wasting much more time.

Inflation,

terrorism,

pandemic.

Let's spend some time on you drawing.

Okay.

Your heightened level of

coloring book.

Yeah.

All of, you know, all of my proceeds going to Mercury One.

Wait, for what?

I don't.

What?

For what?

Like, what are they, what are, is there any, is there any important issue that maybe we should talk about?

Like, but I love the slate of global sex slavery, maybe the murdering of Christians around the globe.

But maybe we could spend some time on that instead of your stupid paintings.

Anyway, anyway, I don't have the final number, but it's about $250,000 raised this weekend.

Really?

Just Saturday.

That was fantastic.

Yeah, it was

a wild success.

I think we have a generous audience

to put that sort of money into this cause at the expense of also taking home your painting.

I mean, what an incredible honor.

It was very, it was, and it was wonderful.

It was, it was packed all day.

Saturday?

Yes, Saturday.

And was taking, you know, people about 30 to 50 at a time through the gallery

and, you know, talking, telling the stories behind each of the paintings.

And it was just great.

So many people came from, drove a long way, you know, didn't, and didn't even buy anything, which I was totally fine with.

And it was, it was great.

And we should, I've had a lot of questions

from the people who have purchased your paintings, and the answer is yes, you just have to put it up when Glenn comes over.

You don't have to have it up all the time, right?

Just put it up.

If Glenn's coming over your house, put up the painting.

Be kind.

All right.

So, Pat,

did you watch the Olympics at all?

I have watched about two minutes of coverage.

Really?

Maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I haven't watched a darn second of it.

I do know that the women's soccer team lost.

Oh, no.

Not to Canada.

Gosh, gosh.

It's torn apart by that.

Torn apart.

They seem like such a lovely team.

Don't they, though?

They do.

So patriotic and wonderful and loving and dedicated

to their sport.

They do.

Wonderful.

I hope they got equal pay for that loss.

I actually, I would have liked them to have won.

I would not have.

They're from the U.S.

Oh, I really.

I'm past that.

Are you really?

Yeah, I'm past that.

I have always been past it with soccer because soccer I want them to lose.

Because the more U.S.

soccer teams win, the more I have to watch highlights on ESPN or wherever I'm watching sports.

They treat it like it's a real sport.

Well, then you should be against Ted Lasso.

Ted Lasso's doing that, isn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

He's normalizing soccer.

Normalizing soccer.

Yeah, you're reasonable.

Normalizing soccer.

You're right.

I need a news stance in my life.

Anti-Ted Lasso seems like the right thing.

Yeah, it does.

Don't normalize soccer.

Don't do it.

Did you see the, what what was her name that

oh, you mean the beautiful trans woman?

The Victoria Secret woman?

Yeah, she's so beautiful.

She's lovely.

She's lovely.

She's a Victoria.

Wait a minute.

Hold it.

Are we talking about the same woman?

Well, she's not.

The shot putter.

The putter.

The shot putter.

Oh, the shot putter.

No, that's not the trans person.

Oh, okay.

The weightlifter is the trans person.

Okay.

What is she winning?

Stunning development.

No, she crashed out.

Oh, darn it.

Stunning development, though, that a trans weightlifter would excel

enough to get to the Olympics.

It seems like such a, what it's of all the sports, it seems like a lot of people was expected to medal.

And so

happy.

Who would go figure that?

So happy.

A person who used to be a man might have a leg up in that competition.

And again, no reason to change my stance of I'm glad to see the U.S.

lose.

Because when they win, that's when you see

people like Raven Saunders.

She was sporting a neon green green and purple buzz cut,

and she made an X sign with her wrists, with her wrists up at the podium.

She just crossed her arms and made a, and she said, later, because everybody said, what the hell does that even mean?

And she said, I'm glad you asked.

It's the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet.

That is right at her wrist.

Right.

Right at her weird stand on her wrist.

That seems like too many people for one set of wrists.

And then, and then after she decided to twerk.

And it was sexy.

I can imagine.

I wanted to meet on her wrists after that.

I did.

I was like, I think I was oppressed by that.

I don't know how to go on.

She said,

I just wanted to be me, not to apologize, to show younger people that no matter how many boxes they try to fit you in, you can be all you can and you can accept it.

People tried to tell me not to do tattoos and piercings and all that, but look at me now.

Look at her now.

I'm popping.

I'm popping.

She said she, you know, she's been, she's had a lot of things weighing on her for 22 years and she was finally able to process it.

And she was finally able to separate Raven from the Hulk, which was really

good.

That's so Raven.

That is so Raven.

That's exactly the type of behavior you'd expect from from Raven.

She's a delight.

She's a delight.

You know, I have to tell you, Simone Biles, and, you know, I'm not going to tear her apart because she's gone through a lot, et cetera, et cetera.

But, you know, as I was doing these tours about the painting, one of the paintings that I did was Jesse Owens.

And I painted him so

his eyes would follow you in the room.

And I have him at the

starting line at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

And don't talk to me about, you know, oh, I've got so many things I'm oppressed.

He was oppressed.

He was oppressed.

He was living in America at a time where he had to use a separate water fountain if he wanted to drink.

So half of the population in the United States loved him.

The other half didn't love him.

When Hitler

invited him and the U.S.

to come over for the Berlin Olympics, half of the black community said, you can't do it.

You can't go because you can't support the Hitler government and you can't support the United States government.

The other half said, you have to go.

You have to go because you have to show the black man is

human over in Germany because he says you're subhuman.

So you have to go.

FDR didn't want to meet with Jesse Owens, didn't want to support Jesse Owens.

Hitler, he's in the stadium with Hitler staring at him.

You want to talk about pressure?

Shut up.

Talk to Jesse Owens.

And what did he do?

He won the gold.

And then he stood there proudly as the national anthem played.

And he came back.

That's why he's a hero.

He twerked afterward, though.

He did.

Of course, he twerked.

Yeah, he had to twerk.

There was twerk.

It wouldn't have been any good if he had to do that.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

There was ceremony.

Let me tell you the same story with Jesse Owens.

Do you know why he won the gold?

Because he was faster time.

Fastest time.

He crossed the finish line before the others.

Yeah.

So that's what happens when you're going to.

You two turn your mics off and turn your headphones on.

You're not allowed to listen anymore.

Let me just share this with you, okay?

Here's the reason why I won in the long jump: is because the guy who he was competing against

noticed that Jesse Owens was jumping too soon.

And he kind of sneaks over to Jesse's side and he's standing there and he says, hey,

listen,

you're jumping too soon.

And Jesse said,

what are you talking about?

He's like, don't look at me.

Hitler's looking at me.

Don't look at me.

You're jumping too soon.

So

I'm going to saunter over.

to the pit and

I'm just going to drop my towel where you should jump.

and so he does and this is a german competitor i believe for the wasn't it oh yeah yeah oh yeah yeah and he puts his towel down right where jesse owens should jump jesse owens jumps and wins the gold

it didn't take long for that guy to be sent to the russian front

That guy was sent to the Russian front because he lost to Jesse Owens and he helped Jesse Owens.

Jesse Owens and he became friends.

He was sent to the Russian front and the last thing he said to Jesse Owens was, please, one thing I ask, please tell my children when this madness is all over, I was not one of them.

So don't tell me about your oppression,

Hulk Raven.

Don't tell me about your oppression.

Well, there was a tantu thing they had to deal with.

Well, yeah, and she was told

not to pierce, you know, and I'm sure that there's a lot of people who are oppressed that were really sad to hear that that kind of oppression was going on on her.

People don't look at this anymore, but the Nazis were very anti-piercing.

Very that was one of the things people don't even discuss.

That's horrid.

He rose to power that horrid?

Yeah, he rose to power based on the non-piercing views.

Yeah, he did.

Gosh.

Oh, we're such cry babies.

Thank you, Pat.

Pat Gray unleashed wherever you get your podcast.

The best of the Glenbeck program.

This is the Glenbeck program.

Nicole Solas is a stay-at-home mom in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.

She enrolled her five-year-old daughter in kindergarten in the South Kingstown School District and then said, You know, I want some information because she had heard that the teachers were starting to teach critical race theory.

And so she said,

I need some information from the school.

Now, she is, it's perfectly legal for her to request.

In fact, they have it on their own website.

If you want information, blah, blah, blah, you can do it.

Well, she requested the information.

Then she figured, I should probably pull my daughter out of school after they

threatened to sue her because of her public record request about critical race theory and gender theory, which the district told her to submit.

She's now being represented by the Goldwater Institute, and she is on the phone with us now.

Hi, Nicole.

How are you?

Hi, Glenn.

I'm good.

Thanks so much for having me.

So not only did they threaten to sue you, they told you you had to pay $74,000 to find out if the school district is

teaching CRT.

Right.

And this isn't the first time that they have given me these very high high estimates to get public information, which, frankly, we already pay for with our taxes.

First, they had given me a $9,000 fee to get information when I first started submitting my public records request.

Other information was $2,000, $3,000.

The Goldwater Institute resubmitted a public records request on my behalf with much more specific terms that were more likely to turn up information, and that was now $74,000,

which is insane because this is public information.

And and it shouldn't be a government secret.

It's information that really the public has a right to access, and a public record request is just the way to get that information.

In my town, 80% of the budget goes to the school, and it costs $27,000 per student to educate.

Wow.

And now I have to pay $74,000 to know how they're being educated.

It just seems like this is not the way it's supposed to work.

So you asked for lesson plans and course materials used or assigned at any school within South Kingston's School Department in the 2021 school year that include any of the following terms, 1619 project, Zinn Education Project, or Howard Zinn, equitable math, gender theory, white privilege or whiteness, systematic racism, CRT or critical race theory, Ibram Kendi or Kendi, Robin DiAngelo or just D'Angelo.

They said that

they could do that, but it it would take them eight hours to retrieve.

Yeah, I think it was a lot more hours.

I think it was like 693 hours or something like that.

And that's, you know, they have, under the statute, they can charge $15 an hour to compile and retrieve all this information, but it still has to be a reasonable fee.

And when you're asking for lesson materials and instructional materials, that shouldn't have to be requested under the APRA, the Access to Public Records Act.

These are not just public documents.

These are lesson materials.

They, at any point, can just email this to me of their own volition.

They can just respond to my questions that I asked in an email without having to charge me money because this is really just a conversation about what our kids are learning.

So they're the ones that constrain me to this public record request process.

And I believe they're doing that to evade my questions and not answer them.

Now, what did you hear?

The teachers were incorporating all this stuff in?

Well, the principal from the elementary school where my daughter would go, I've since pulled her out and placed her in private school, said that they integrate values of gender identity in every grade.

And she said that they have a certain line of thinking about history that they teach children in every grade.

And she told me this after I said, do you teach anything with anti-racism?

And as we all know, anti-racism really just means racism or critical race theory.

It's all the same thing.

So the principal told me that they do, in fact, teach these values.

And when I asked, well, how exactly do you do it in every grade?

They said that they have these common practices that they use.

And when I asked, well, you know, when did this common practice start?

It was all non-answers, either I don't know or let me get back to you.

And then finally, it was submit a public records request.

So I know they're absolutely doing it.

And I have tons of evidence that I've uncovered through these public records requests and with my own research showing that the school district believes that all white people are racist.

I just found a document saying that and that part of their goal is to have implicit bias trainings with students and teachers.

And they're 100% committed to this, but they're not telling me exactly how.

And so I want them to be completely transparent so that people can decide if they want to enroll their kids in this district or opt out of certain lesson plans.

And we can finally engage in a robust public debate about the values of critical race theory or anti-racism or whatever you want to call it.

I tell you, you can file for a Freedom of Information Act and you don't have to pay for it.

I mean, it's, again, on our time, on our dime.

And you ask for all records of communications, including email communication to or from any South Kingston School Department official, principal, teacher, teaching assistant, counselor, or any other person from January 1, 2020 to the date of this request, which includes any of the following terms, 1619 project, Zinn Education, Howard Zinn, equitable math, gender theory, blah, blah, blah, all of these things.

That is public record.

I know that

here in Texas, when we finally did get the Freedom of Information Act from a school district called Southlake, it showed that they were mocking the parents and saying, we're just going to do it anyway.

And

one of them said, let's keep this information away from the parents.

And two of the people went to jail over it.

And nobody had to pay for that information because it came from a government source.

Yeah.

So the Freedom of Information Act is different from the Access to Public Records Act, which is a Rhode Island statute.

And that Rhode Island statute carves out this $15 an hour.

fee that a public entity can charge you for.

They can also charge you 15 cents per hard copy.

But you're right that this information should not have to cost taxpayers money.

They're already paying for the information just

by having the public entity do their jobs.

So

I think that that's going to be a point of contention that it's not reasonable to have a $74,000 fee.

And it's certainly not equitable for all of this talk that schools have about equity and everyone having equal access.

I don't know how you justify that kind of fee just to know what your kid is learning because that sounds like they're saying that only the extremely wealthy are privy to information about what their kids are learning.

So, what did the Goldwater people say?

And what are you doing about this now?

Right now, we're determining what our next step is.

We're still talking about that, and I'm sure we'll make a decision soon on whether we want to go to court or if we want to take some other legal action.

How is the community responding to you?

The The people in the school?

Are they with you or against you or is it split?

I only have overwhelming support.

I have parents and even teachers emailing me and thanking me for putting myself out there.

I also get lots of tips from parents about what is being taught in school here.

And it's sometimes hard to get verification.

So if they say, oh, my kid had to do something with Black Lives Matter in class, and I'm telling you, I'm hoping you can do something with it, but they're scared to actually tell me the name of the class, the name of the teacher, the actual assignment, because they don't want to be retaliated against in the way that I was retaliated against.

But, you know, you can't just go out there and say something is happening and have, you know, no proof.

So

people are still scared, but they are extremely supportive.

Well,

stay brave.

This will only get harder if people like you don't stand up now.

It's only going to get harder and you most likely won't win in the future if we don't stand up now.

I wish you all the best of luck.

Is there anything that our audience can do to help you?

I just want to reiterate what you said, that more parents need to start standing up to their school boards and just to remember that school boards are made up of ordinary people.

They live next door to us.

They're our family members and our friends.

These people are not working behind the iron curtain of the Kremlin yet.

So we need to stand up to them now and let them know that we're not going to tolerate this indoctrination of kids in our school.

Were you ever, I mean, are you an activist?

Would you ever see yourself doing stuff like this?

No,

I've never been politically involved.

This only happened because I enrolled my daughter in school and then they publicly threatened to sue me.

So, I had to respond publicly because they were trying to destroy my reputation publicly.

They are getting so bold, so bold.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

God bless.

Thank you so much.

You bet.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

I'll tell you who wasn't at my art show this weekend was Mike Lee.

Oh, geez.

I mean, he's got this infrastructure government spending bill.

He couldn't put a little padding in there for the art.

Yeah, put a padding in for a private jet flight to your art show and then back.

That's all.

Yeah, and maybe a couple of paintings along with him.

But oh, no, I'm too serious.

I've got work to do.

People don't want us spending money.

Mike?

You're leaving out the real reason I didn't come, Glenn, which is that I'm still offended that you didn't include any of my art.

I mean, I know stick figures get a bad rap in American art culture these days, but it's pretty good.

Yeah.

It's not going to come from me.

Yeah, no, that's good stuff, Mike.

Mike Lee, the senator from Utah, you were up late last night working on this bipartisan government spending bill.

How many of you guys voted against this

There were

about

40 of us who voted against it, maybe 35 who voted against it at the earlier stages.

Here's the weird thing, though, Glenn.

We voted on this a couple times last week.

The bill didn't yet exist at the time.

The bill didn't exist until last night, late last night.

I finally received it as I was sitting on the Senate floor with a bunch of my colleagues who were getting ready to give speeches in favor of it.

And all of a sudden, I got it electronically.

It's 2,702 pages long.

Yeah, well, that's an easy read.

Kind of strange that they voted to proceed to it without knowing what it was first.

Let me ask you this.

Isn't this kind of just like

weren't really last week just saying, hey, how much do you want to spend?

We'll fill it in later.

How much do you want to spend?

Isn't that what it was?

Yeah, that's...

Yeah, that's kind of what they were doing.

Yeah.

Deciding overall threshold amounts and deciding

in general terms what the agreement would consist of.

But normally that's not how we vote on actual pieces of legislation.

But in any event, we've got it now.

It's 2,702 pages long.

How much is it spend?

How much is it spending on this one?

It spends $1.2 trillion.

I'll love that.

And of that $1.2 trillion,

$50 of it is new federal spending.

It's above and beyond what we were expected to spend this year, which strikes me as curious, given that it's a terrible time to be spending more money at a time when, due to deliberate, reckless overspending by the federal government, poor middle-class Americans are finding that everything they purchase is more expensive.

From chicken breast to gasoline to cars to housing.

Everything is more expensive because we're spending too much money in Washington.

Oh, my gosh, Stu.

How can we listen to this old-timey guy, blah, blah, blah, inflation.

Don't you know that inflation is not a problem?

It's not going to be a problem.

Because they're digitizing.

They're not actually printing.

They're digitizing, Mike.

And that is totally different.

It's transitory.

And that, of course, makes those dollars spend very differently and inflation-proof, doesn't it?

Yes, it sure does.

You know, you brought up, when you were on the floor of the Senate, I watched some of the highlights, and you made a great point about inflation.

You were like, even just the act of spending all of this money when you're talking about infrastructure will drive the cost of the things that are already expensive up because now the private sector has to compete with the government.

That's exactly right.

So everything that goes into these projects, from cement, to the aggregate materials you use to make concrete, to steel, to labor, and everything else, all those things are more expensive right now.

And so, look, I'm not

a fan of stimulus-style spending.

But even to those who might be,

they might be able to make a slightly less bad case for this in a time when demand for these products is low and industries are shutting down.

I still wouldn't like to see government doing that, but whatever.

You can make a case for it in that circumstance, not one that I agree with,

but you can't make a good case for doing it right now, where everything is inflated, where every federal dollar we put into this is going to go less far because it's a federal dollar and it comes with lots of strings attached, and it will go even less far because of the fact that all of these things are in short supply and can be procured only at a premium.

We will get less from this as a result of the fact that it's federal and as a result of the fact that we're doing it right now.

So why are they saying this is a good deal?

Why are the Republicans even thinking we have to do any of this stuff?

Well, look,

I'm always always reluctant to speak for those who are not present.

I'm not a good spokesman for them because I disagree fundamentally with what they're doing.

I suspect if one of them were on the phone with us, they'd say, okay, well, first of all, we need infrastructure.

Secondly, if we do this, then what the Democrats do on their bill, the bill that they intend to pass with a simple majority,

either later this week or later this month,

they will spend less than they would otherwise spend if we didn't do this.

Now, if we were in court and someone testified to that effect, I'd stand up and say

objection assumes facts not in evidence.

I don't know how they can possibly know that they will spend less if we pass this bill.

And in any event, that doesn't mean

we don't have to put our names on something that we think is bad and harmful to the American people if we don't agree with it.

Look, Glenn, there are sort of three different groups of people in America, one of which will benefit from this bill, one of which might not notice much of a difference, and the others will be hurt by it.

The first group, consisting of those who might benefit from it, tend to be wealthy, well-connected individuals and business interests in this country who might actually get rich off of it.

The next group consists of well-off Americans who have enough money that they won't notice a big hit to their cost of their

lifestyle.

But almost everyone else, the vast overwhelming majority of Americans, fits into the third category of people who have limited paychecks.

They're in many cases living paycheck to paycheck.

Every dollar will buy less as a result of spending like this one.

Those people will be hurt.

So in some ways, we're exchanging one thing for another.

In some ways, we're taking money away from poor middle-class Americans and giving it to the wealthy and well-connected.

I can't justify that.

This is the opposite of Robin Hood.

This is the opposite of Robin Hill.

The opposite of Robin Hood.

Exactly.

Senator Lee, there's some argument that

passing something bipartisan gives Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema,

some talking point to go back to Democrats and say we shouldn't drop the filibuster.

Do you think there's anything to that at all?

Yeah, look, I don't want them to drop the filibuster.

They shouldn't drop the filibuster.

We have no guarantee.

that if we didn't do this, they would drop the filibuster, or that by doing this, they won't.

No guarantee whatsoever.

What we have to vote on is the legislation before us.

Now, the legislation before us, 2,702 pages long, which we received late last night, has been hammered out over a period of four months by 10 very smart, very hardworking senators, senators with whom I happen to disagree on this issue, but but they worked hard on it.

They've had four months to come up with 2,702 pages.

It is beyond folly to suggest that the entire Senate should now get up to speed on that and be expected to process it, amend it, vote on it, and pass it within a period of a few days.

We need, arguably, at least as much time as they did.

At a minimum, we need at least a few weeks to work on this.

We have no business spending this amount of money and passing this size of a bill that we saw for the first time last night within a few days.

And Remember, it was Barack Obama who said he was going to have the

transparency that had never happened before, and he would post every bill for at least a couple of weeks before it was ever voted on.

They never did that.

Nobody ever has an intention of doing this.

And all of these things

are banged out.

And really, a lot in the House is just put together by the heads of the party.

And then everybody else is just told vote for for it.

Yes, no, that's exactly right.

And it reflects one of the sad biases that you see in this place.

You know, senators get

praise when they pass big spending bills.

They get criticized when they vote against them.

They assume that passing legislation is a good thing in the abstract.

I'm reminded of something that Calvin Coolidge once said.

He said, as a lawmaker, it's important to both pass good bills and stop bad ones.

They're both important, but as between the two, it's the second that's more important.

It's more important to stop the bad bills because a good bill that doesn't pass today can always be passed later.

A bad bill, once it passes, it's nearly impossible to unwind.

You can't ever get rid of it.

And that's why we've got to focus on this.

Look, a handful of senators will get praised if this thing passes.

But that praise...

and that adulation, that political notoriety for a few days will have long-term consequences for

America's America's poor and middle class, and that concerns me greatly.

Can you tell us what infrastructure even means now, Mike?

Well,

look, it means a lot of things.

In this bill, they're talking about all sorts of things from

highways

to bridges to roads.

Hang on just a second.

We have every time there's a big bill.

It's an infrastructure bill.

When and how much was it going to take to actually fix the roads and the bridges, the federal roads and bridges?

Because I'm tired of hearing about infrastructure fixing the roads and bridges because nobody ever shows us any progress on that and says, okay, we're a lot closer.

Just an endless infrastructure bill.

Fix the roads and bridges.

Right.

And look, you can always identify things that have been fixed.

And that's why things like this can be very tempting.

because people can point to good things that will happen to good people and good communities that are well deserving of improvements.

The question I raise is, does it have to be this much?

Does it have to be right now and does it have to be through this government?

I'm still going through this bill because it takes a while to do.

It doesn't read like a fast-paced novel.

But Glenn,

I will be shocked if there isn't a whole lot of infrastructure in here that isn't federal in nature, that is not or should not be federal.

Now, if it's part of an interstate highway, then

perhaps it should be federal.

Or some other project with an appropriate federal nexus that's close, maybe so.

I'm willing to bet that a large portion of this is going to go to

surface streets that start and stop in the same state and things that are otherwise not necessarily appropriate for the federal government.

And that's not just an esoteric problem.

It creates real financial problems.

The minute you add a dollar of federal spending to an infrastructure project, in many states like mine, it can add 30%, sometimes more, to the cost of the project because you have to comply with this Byzantine labyrinth of federal regulations and mandates.

And so you're buying less with more money when you make it federal.

We shouldn't do that.

There is also a $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill coming our way.

Yes.

Yes.

That is a bill that the Senate Senate Democrats are working on that they believe that they can pass with a mere 51 votes.

And I'm calling it the inflation bomb because that would truly be it.

They've learned over time that bills can be more palatable if you call them something most Americans understand and resonate with.

Patriot Act.

Yeah, if you call it about the troops or about

national security generally, or if you talk about infrastructure, perhaps they'll accept it more easily.

But

this inflation bomb that they want to pass with a simple majority is a whole lot of stuff that has nothing to do with infrastructure.

It's just big government spending.

And to put that in perspective, $3.5 trillion, many of us expect it will be more like $4 or $5 trillion, by the way.

That's

roughly on par with what we spend in a particular year, out of the entire federal government, in a non-COVID year.

So if they expect that we can roughly double that amount

and have no consequences, they're crazy.

They're just not looking at the facts.

Look, 37% of all U.S.

dollars that have ever come into existence have been printed in the last 18 months.

You don't do that without making a whole lot of poor middle-class Americans poorer.

Hey, one last thing I'd like to ask you, because I know that they're working on airports here, but the Green New Deal would like to get rid of all airplanes

by 2030.

Why would we be building new airports if we have to dramatically cut our air travel?

I'd just like you to ask somebody there and see if you can find an answer.

Mike Lee, thank you so much for being on us with us and thank you for standing and fighting the good fight.

I certainly appreciate it.

It's Senator Mike Lee from Utah on the latest infrastructure bill that they put together in the Senate.