GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, June 15, 2017

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] in the news.

[0:00:08 Speaker 1] Good morning. I’m Professor Shaw

[0:00:10 Speaker 2] and I’m pressing McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for American in Texas politics.

[0:00:14 Speaker 1] So, a week three, you’ll have had your first exam, and we’re gonna turn to the content the second module set of modules for the course. A lot of it is going to deal with institutions like the Congress and the presidency and the courts. A lot of stuff in the news from day one. I kind of set our agenda on Tuesday.

[0:00:32 Speaker 3] And then on

[0:00:33 Speaker 1] Wednesday, you all hell breaks loose literally in Washington. Let me just mention the kind of lead story prior to the D. C shooting at the baseball field, which occurred yesterday morning, the lead start prior. That was Russia, as it has been for quite some time, and I want to make a point about election hacking. Some of you guys may have seen this. Bloomberg News came out with a report on Tuesday that according sources saying that as many as 39 states had some Russian hacking efforts directed towards them during the 2016 election cycle, and this was taken up by pundits and journalists talking about the sort of infiltration of the Russians, and I think playing to this notion that the election itself was compromised. And one thing I wanted to say about this issue before we start talking about some of these other things that happened last week is that I want you all to be aware APRA po of our conversation about federalism in the United States. One of the things that’s interesting here is that the fact that we have such a federalized system, such a non unitary system in the United States, actually helps us with respect to our election systems. In the following way, you could go in and hack, and, by the way, don’t do this. But you can hack the Texas State Secretary States website. You could hack the voter file the official voter part. You could go in and change votes by the way, they you know you can’t. But if you have the capacity to do that, it wouldn’t affect any election outcomes in the state of Texas. Now why, you might ask, because ballots are aggregated at the county level there simply reported to the state. So the state in, in the case of American elections is basically just a bean counter. All of the action occurs at the counties in Texas. You’re talking about 250 plus counties, so good luck to the Russians trying to hack into death Smith or some of these other small counties. In fact, some of these counties don’t have websites, you know, toe hack. And they certainly don’t have online server based repositories for their election information. It’s not mandated by the state of Texas. And so so all I want to say here is that you know the media needs to distinguish between hacking and election manipulation. If you’re sitting out there thinking about what exactly happened in 2016 Shaw, I would say that the focal point is that the Russians are trying to mess with us to delegitimise the system. The Russians also, we think, facilitated the wiki leaks, which was a hack of the DNC server, And they kind of wikileaks systematically put out thes thes emails that were sent by higher ups and the Democratic National Committee, the Democrat formal Democratic Party. They would sort of leak these emails internal emails from one person to another. A lot of this stuff made it look like the Democratic Party was putting its finger on the scale during the primaries to help Hillary Clinton and to hurt Bernie Sanders. That was embarrassing, and that was sort of negative news for Hillary leaked slowly throughout October during 2016. That could have been consequential because that played into a narrative that she was part of the system and maybe dishonest. Even though it wasn’t her, it was his Democratic officials that I think is, you know, kind of a legitimate concern about affecting the dynamic in the narrative of the election campaign, the more specific claim that, hey, election systems were hacking, votes were changed. It didn’t happen. It’s just flat out didn’t happen. It’s not that it’s impossible. It’s highly improbable, and it’s certainly no evidence whatsoever that anything like that happening this cycle. So I just wanted to make a distinction between when they talk about hacking a state election system or state website. That doesn’t mean that votes were manipulated, so we don’t know whether the count in Michigan forget about that. That’s not we’re talking about, but I also don’t want you guys thinking that, Shaw said. The Russians had nothing no man. I’ve seen Rocky four, right? I

[0:04:33 Speaker 0] know what

[0:04:33 Speaker 1] the Russians are capable of here. A grip during the Cold War in Putin. Sorry, I don’t editorialize much in this class, but Putin is probably not a very good guy. So I think we’re all as citizens concerned about this sort of activity. There is a difference between meddling and stuff that’s really concerning. Especially as we look forward to the future about the Russians messing with the legitimacy of our electoral systems. There’s that. And then there’s actually manipulating votes and the former occurred. The latter did not just want to mention that up front. Now we’re going to talk a little bit about the D C. Shooting that occurred yesterday. So, Chris McDaniel, where were you when this went down? Did you hear about it

[0:05:11 Speaker 2] on I e mailed? Because want a UTI grab is actually one of the victims. So he was shot. I believe he understood the extent of the injuries. I know you wasn’t killed. I

[0:05:23 Speaker 1] know. He tweeted afterward from the hospital. He said he was

[0:05:25 Speaker 2] okay, so on, and I knew nothing about it. So I was meeting with students doing a whole bunch of other stuff. When I found out about it, I looked at it on DSO the so Basically, each year, Congress has a, um, basically baseball game.

[0:05:42 Speaker 5] So it’s Republicans versus Democrats. The money goes to charity. So it’s basically, you know, a way to kind of play upon partisanship, but in a positive way. Toe give back the chair and something

[0:05:51 Speaker 2] happens every year. And so they’re they’re practicing for the game because you don’t

[0:05:55 Speaker 5] want to lose and you don’t look bad. You don’t look back their cameras, I think.

[0:06:00 Speaker 1] Don’t you throw like this and

[0:06:02 Speaker 5] you don’t You don’t want to be

[0:06:04 Speaker 2] that the, uh, the candid who throws out the first pitch like 50 Cent or Snoop. It just doesn’t look good or with your jersey tucked in like Michael Wilbon that untucked my way Advice from us. You

[0:06:18 Speaker 1] get the first pitch opportunity untucked jersey, don’t

[0:06:20 Speaker 2] you? It’s your not you’re not 80

[0:06:23 Speaker 5] even even 80 year olds. Don’t

[0:06:25 Speaker 2] tuck it in. All right. There, like a 100 year old throughout first picture in Boston. He didn’t touch it. A a one

[0:06:31 Speaker 5] 106 year old has more swag than you that you really check yourself, but going back to this. So in particular, one of the key individuals. There was not just staffers, but through the Republican Party, whips representative Steve Scalise from Louisiana. Waas was one of the victims. He was shot. We was shot in the hip. It’s actually

[0:06:55 Speaker 1] playing second base and was one of the initial targets. Uh oh, this is just to make sure it based on the same page of this this occurred. It was in the third. Some reports say was in Virginia. My assumption was that the baseball field

[0:07:07 Speaker 2] was maybe out change everything out. OK,

[0:07:10 Speaker 1] so thes guys, his Republican teams out practicing early in the morning to get the practice

[0:07:16 Speaker 3] in and then, you

[0:07:17 Speaker 1] know, be traffic into the district and get back to Congress. Apparently, this gentleman wandered up. If you guys been to a baseball field lately is used the only one entrance, everything’s locked down. I think that’s especially true in D. C. And in Northern Virginia, where there are many facilities around, they don’t God forbid, people play on their field. But it’s relevant here because apparently this guy wanders up and ask, Is this the Republican or the Democratic team. Someone says it’s the Republican team and he opens fire. And what Professor McDaniels saying is, Scalise, who’s again the Republican whip, and you guys will see this as you get to the Congress lecture in the module in the second set of modules that we’ve released. It’s a sense of the third ranking position in the House of Representatives. Ah, Whip is someone who goes on accounts vote. So Scalise is. Actually, it was important in the counting of votes for the repeal and replace on Obamacare is a pretty good reputation. But the key thing here is that Scalise is entitled to a Secret Service detail, and if he had not been, if the whip had not been on the team, there have been no protection, no secret, I said. Secret Service is actually district police, I think over there. So we had to police with him otherwise, and those police were the ones that took down this crazy guy on shot him. But otherwise you had all of these guys and I presume some women to on this baseball team who were trapped on a field that’s locked and it could have been carnage we were saying you could have had 10. 15. Congressman and Congresswoman. Assassin staffers, staffers AIDS could be killed. Um, so is awful. Is it is There was actually it was actually a little bit fortunate that it wasn’t a lot worse. Right? So, um, but it speaks. Of course, people on the right you’re talking about This is a reflection of trump derangement syndrome and people who are just over the edge. People on the left are talking about, you know, this is a gun issue and and that Trump has fed into this hatred and are sort take on this professor of doing. I said, It’s like, just want you all shut up with that for a little while. Why don’t we just kind of let let’s make sure people are okay on Ben? We can have a discussion of the larger policy implications,

[0:09:37 Speaker 5] E. I mean, the thing

[0:09:38 Speaker 2] about it is, while there were the only person who was killed was the shooter you have remember his community, You know, he had family members. They’ve lost somebody. And they have now answer like what? What does this person do it, then? On top of that, you have individual with the actual victims. And so they have to process what happens

[0:09:59 Speaker 5] when this is a traumatic event, and so to immediately politicized the issue can come up with a very distasteful Andi. Given how gun control is such a hot hot button issue, people are kind of jumping on this immediately. If you go to various websites, they’re like, Look, we’re

[0:10:17 Speaker 2] averaging a mass shooting almost every day and

[0:10:21 Speaker 5] sometimes, like OK, you know, But you have a right. These are real people going through this. And so before you start getting to these debates about, you know what should happen, what should not happen, let’s remember their real people at stake here. They’re really lives at stake. And I think that’s what gets lost in this is that we spend so much time argued back and forth about ideology. We forget that there are actual

[0:10:42 Speaker 6] people

[0:10:43 Speaker 2] that are involved, and we just treat them as kind of chess

[0:10:46 Speaker 5] pieces on the board as opposed to actually human beings. And so because of this, you can see a lot of disenchantment coming from the public with the response to this from on the left,

[0:10:57 Speaker 2] as well as on the right.

[0:10:59 Speaker 1] Just a couple of local notes. Localized notes Roger Williams, who’s a representative from certain near the Austin district, where Austin is carved up into three districts and Roger Williams is one of the representatives. Hey, maybe, you know, for those of you living in Austin, he may be your rep. Hey, Exley’s to play was a picture. TCU and I don’t know whether Williams was at the practice. I know he’s on the Republican team. I believe one of his legislative aides was like on deck or might have even been taking batting practice when this occurred. So there is. This is well, as professor with tenements in this U T students, um, former U T student who was also involved in the practice and was one of the people who was injured. So there is a sort of local connection to, um and, you know, so our thoughts and prayers go out to the U. T students builder, but involved in this we wanted sort transition. We talked about, you know, kind of Russians. In the election. We talked about this d c. Shooting, but Professor McDaniel a. So we were kind of cooking up. What we were going to do for the in the new segments. They wanted to tackle the broader issue of populism. And it plays into this because populism is You guys have probably heard it portrayed in the media, speaks to leaders who kind of appeal to the masses and re if I or, um you honor kind of the common people. But it’s not that easy a concept sometimes. And I think Professor McDaniel has kind of some interesting a slide that he put together to kind of get to this issue of populism, which plays into the climate in Washington and the rise of Donald Trump and these other things you want. Take a whack that we have. First, let’s make sure we get the slide up for the students were watching

[0:12:35 Speaker 5] eso eso we think of populism. People talk about President Trump but also Bernie Sanders as using populism. And you know, this individual was a Sanders supporter. And so let’s like to talk about populism is and pipe lissome again.

[0:12:51 Speaker 8] This is the

[0:12:52 Speaker 5] definition that’s been used quite a bit, and it comes from a book title populism, a very short introduction, and the definition is a thin, centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated. Two to homogeneous and an antagonistic groups. That’s a mouthful. Oh, yes, that’s a bunch of big dictionary words right there, as I say, T. Wordsworth there the pure people versus the corrupted lead on, which argues that politics should be an expression of the general will of the people. I’m sorry. I wish I knew what thin centred ideology meant. Glad you asked that question, because I actually do have an answer, because I had to look that up myself. So dumb, so one of things about people talk about populism. Some say it’s a strategy of the saints and ideology. This definition really says, is an ideology. It’s a it’s a collection of beliefs. But think about populism is that it doesn’t tell us much about. Okay, What do we do about the economy? What do we do about for foreign policy? What do we do about social issues? And that’s what I mean by a thin ideology. And since that it’s really an idea of really the way governments of worker really doesn’t tell us, Okay, what should we be doing? So if you think of nationalism think of socialism, things like that. They’re very clear statement. Okay, here is how the government carry out the day to day things. Here’s how we should handle the economy. Here’s how we think it’ll social issues, things of that nature s o what we say Bye again being a teen ideologies that usually coupled with another ideology. So if you think of Bernie Sanders, his was kind of a socialist populism or a liberal populism in that regard. And so he actually gave a speech, redefined what socialism is You can look that up, gave a speech at Georgetown about that look very clear to me what I mean by being a socialist. But in addition to this, one of things about populism is that populism is really divisive because it makes a moral distinction between the people and the elites. And again, the key thing here is a moral distinction, meaning one group is good. One group is bad, all right. It’s very anti establishment on a sense that you don’t get the elites, the elites of the establishment, you want to push them out. And this is extremely important, but also relies on emotionalism. And again if you think about really the reaction of the Bernie Sanders supporters as well as reaction of the Trump supporters? There’s a lot of emotions running high with these individuals again. It’s a fight between good and evil, Furthermore, because it’s Peters a fight between good and evil. In this idea of these kind of evil elites out there, it’s open to a lot of conspiratorial ideas, with ideally leads working behind the scenes. So in Professor Shall talks about Noam Chomsky and elite on elite Theory, I mean, this is his idea that the least working behind the scenes because again the least of seen as a homogeneous group, the the pure people. The key thing here is the pure people. And so you run into this problem. Who exactly do you mean by the pure people on this is extremely. Now who says the antagonists or the clear antagonism populist would be something such as elitism? Elitism argues that the elites are good, people are good, virtuous people, whereas the masses are just vulgar and ignorant. Populism kind of flips that, and, you know, one of things important. Notice what people have talked about Trump supporters and kind of how emotionally been and have a taking part in some activities that people are not there somewhat controversial. We don’t see you remember that Bernie Sanders supporters were that way as well. Eso everybody says, You know Bernie Sanders supporters all this love fest? Well, there are a lot of DNC super delegates who have messages on the answer machine, which would speak to the contrary. Furthermore, if you think about how many of the Bernie Sanders supporters came after black leaders, where you know there plenty much like what’s wrong with you? You know, you stupid minority vote for your interest. I mean, there are a lot. There’s a lot of this because it’s an emotional thing. They get is good versus evil, all right? And so they saw support for Hillary Clinton as supporting evil. All right, so that’s that’s key aspect of it. But then the last part about

[0:17:09 Speaker 8] this and get this. This is

[0:17:11 Speaker 5] why partners wide sees a a thin ideology is that it’s really a set of ideas of how politics should function, not how government should function, but how politics have functioned and emphasis on popular sovereignty in the sense that everything should be the will of the people. The problem you run into this is again to go back to this, the pure people. So who exactly are the pure people? So when Bernie Sanders is using his populism, talked about the people. Who is he talking about? When Trump says is, Who was he talking about? Eso. But the idea populism has been coming on for a while. You think of the occupy movement where we are the 99% this argument, like the 99% on the pure people, the 1% that people working on Wall Street these are the unruly and evil or corrupt elite, you know. And so I think the New York Times had, like a unoccupied protester and somebody walks to actually sit down, have lunch to kind of explain like, Here’s what I do, you know. And so one of things about populism is that it does not. Some people argue that populism can be inclusive, that it can broaden the idea of who would appear people who should be included and this is argument. Menus with populism is applied in Latin America, they say. In Europe, the populism is usually exclusionary where it’s coupled with an idea of nationalism of not just for the elites corrupt but these individuals that are in the nation that should not be in the nation or corrupting the nation and so populism. It works, you know, You see this going on the state, love you see this going on a lot. But populism is very antagonistic, all right? And so because antagonistic, this is why I’m going to see Trump supporters behaving one way because they bind his populist ideal. Same thing with Bernie Sanders supporters and so populism. You know, it’s a strategist and ideology, and it has been beneficial in some ways making sure that people are getting the voice hurt. But it has its drawbacks and anything that’s done to organize people. A lot of times it’s pitted as us versus them. When you have us versus them. The key question running through it. Who was the US that who was to them and you end up demonising individuals. So President Obama is talking about this quite a bit. Then it was 2008 campaigns about how you stop demonizing individuals and if you remember after the shooting in Dallas, where five police officers were killed for President George W. Bush had a great quote where we see the best in ourselves and we see the worst in others. And this becomes really big issue about demonized these other these other individuals and populism is you know, you do. You are demonizing the these people, and populism is going exist no matter what. It’s important to be aware of the fact that populism exist. Populism exists. There are some good aspects to it, but they’re off some bad aspects to it. One of things import with any ideology, with any strategy that there are benefits and there are burdens, their trade offs that you make you must be aware of not just the good, but also the bad. So that’s that’s kind of want to talk about, because I want to know about populism before this even happened. But this kind of demonstrates really one of the negative effects you get out of popular now. One of good things about it is Trump and Sanders were probably able to get individuals who didn’t normally vote to get out and vote. No, but no, I have something to say, but at the same time they had a certain individuals who, uh, who may have taken it just a little, not man who took it too far on. And then one of things that it also points to is you think The Washington Post in your time pointing out that one of his neighbors. So why do you know much about him? He was a Democrat, or Republic was Republican, so I really didn’t talk to him. It’s hard to This is this bigger idea of how the two parties have demonized each other so much. But then, on top of that, your people demonizing party members, demonizing each other. And so you just see this, this increase for actualization of the nation. And we need to ask ourselves, What is the public doing with the elites doing what the media doing? What can we do to kind of solve these problems? Because in many ways the problems are the gaps between the two parties are not as big as we make them out to be. There many policies that Republicans have. The Democrats would agree with many policies the Republicans that Democrats and Republicans agree with, But we are magnets in the world, you’re of them, and so I merely distrust you. And in many ways you could argue that populism under certain circumstances may may feed into this. That’s a very long speech about that. But I want you to make sure you understand what people talk about populism. What exactly populism is because we use a lot of terms out there. We threw a lot of terms out there and the use sloppily, especially by the media. I mean, they were very slapping each their terms. We want to make sure you understand exactly what this term is, and so when somebody talks about a year, but it clearly states this is what this is. This is exactly what this is about using it

[0:22:09 Speaker 1] incorrectly. You know, it’s one final thing on populism, and then we’ll roll onto a couple other topics. Is Eyes someone who studies political parties in both professional game than I do that it’s a particular area that I concentrated populism. Tradition in the United States in terms of substance, is comprised of two different sort of policy, I guess nodes. One aspect of populism is social conservatism that is most populous. That’s not true of Sanders supporters, which is why, in some l’m in some ways he’s not a typical populist candidate. But the idea is, you go back, Teoh long you go back to Coughlin and some of these other figures from populist movements in the United States, Historically back in the 18 late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds, they tend to be socially conservative. That is a pill to religious values and traditional sentiment, and they also tend to be economically liberal. So they, what they really come in and advocate for is government intervention on behalf of the little guy and the little guys. Values and traditions and morals. And so it’s and it’s an odd, uh, substantive space that they occupy in American political conversation. We think of Republicans is socially conservative and fiscally conservative. We think of Democrats as liberal on economic issues and liberal on social issues. Populists are different, their liberal on economic issues, usually and conservative on social issues. And so you see a lot of populism in the South, traditionally, where there’s a lot of religious sentiment, there is a lot of conservatism on social issues and values, issues and race issues. But there’s also you know, great appetite for investing in infrastructure and programs that put the little guy toe work right. That’s, you know, Lyndon Johnson in a lot of ways, although this changes as he gets older. But early on, there’s a lot of populism in what Johnson advocates. So a rate George Wallace with another great example. George Wallace is a great example. As I said, I Huey long in in Louisiana, so you know that something is a lot of guys air from the South. It should be familiar. Okay, we want to also talk about a couple of things. The Federal Reserve rate has rate. The Federal Reserve, I should say, has raised interest rates to between one and 1.25% points. This is something we’ll talk about when we deal with economic policy later on. But we wanted to note it here. It’s an indication we won’t get into what the Federal Reserve is. Stay tuned for a future module coming Teoh Internet Cafe close to you. But it’s a way of what the Fed does is it influences the money supply, how much money is sloshing through the system and when they want to control the money. They raise interest rates because interest rates are connected to borrowing if they want more money in the system. The lower rates. So people borrowing money if they want to kind of slow the money that’s sloshing around in the system, they’ll raise interest rates. So it’s not as easy to get capital and to acquire money. And when they raise rates, that’s an indication they’re concerned about inflation. They’re concerned about the economy overheating, all right, so they kind of put the tap the brakes a little bit. This isn’t much of a rate increase, you know, it’s too between a point and one point that I guess we looked it up appointing 1/4 but it’s more significant than it has been. They’ve been slashing interest rates for years after the 2008 economic crisis to try to get investment going to try to get borrowing to try to get money into the system. This is one of the first times when the Fed has actually increased interest rates, which means they think the economy is back on sound footing and they’re actually more concerned about things like inflation than they are about economic growth. So, you know, just something to note those You’re thinking of buying a home interest rate, You know, the lower the interest rates, the better. Yeah, there’s something Professor McDaniel I know all too well. I think, you know, used to be back in the day. You know, you didn’t invest necessarily in stocks. You could put your money in a certificate of deposit or government bond. But recently, those rates of interest are so low, there’s almost no return. You might as well put your money under a mattress, right? You know, it’s possible over the next couple years that the economy actually comes back. That that would be an investment option for you. All of his interest rates rise than these kind of low yield investment strategies become an actual possibility. Right now, the stock market’s going so gangbusters, you’d be crazy to put your money even into a savings account. If you get more than a fraction percent interest rate on your savings account, you’re doing pretty well. I need to check that, by the way, because I’ve got one of those and doing much for me or my kids. All right. You got nothing on interest rates. Sir,

[0:26:51 Speaker 5] I think the key thing about is the chair of the Federal Reserve is Janet Yellen. She was appointed by President Obama. President Trump was critical off her, however, he has warmed the idea of renewing her appointment. But even if even if he does renew her appointment there, other positions that are open and so President Trump will actually play a very key role in shaping the Federal Reserve over the next couple of years ago so that at least four slots open on so he will appoint these individuals for the Federal Reserve. And so there may be a bit of a fight over that. I know some of the Democrats have already written letters opposing some of the names have been floating out there.

[0:27:27 Speaker 1] This gets back to this question about populism, where the Federal Reserve system, which has put in place in the early 19 hundreds and again the actual contours of the system, have described both in the text and they’ll be described in the economic policy slides and lecture that will deliver later on. I think it’s in the third set of modules will release so we won’t go into detail right now, but the Fed the Fed system was put in place. You know, in the 19 tens or so it’s a multi member board, and what they do is they really dictate what federally the banking system that’s backed by the federal government federally insured all those air member banks for the Federal Reserve system and the Federal Reserve Board basically sets the terms on which they participate in this federal banking system. And part of it is the reserve requirement how much money you have to have on deposit part of their interest rates. So the rates that you’re charging for consumers and people taking out loans. That’s why the Fed is so important because it sets the tone from on high and it filters down, told a member banks. And that’s why we care about this kind of stuff. And you know, people who don’t like Wall Street and think the Fed was part of the problem from the economic crisis they’re very concerned about. We’re all concerned about these appointments was a lot of sleep over it, but but people in the occupy movement in the, you know, in the trash Wall Street kind of mentality are. You know, they would prefer to have a much more kind of aggressive, dynamic Federal Reserve system that isn’t, you know, connected as much with Wall Street. So a right eso it’s moved to We’re gonna move to kind of our rapid fire potpourri session here at the end today. Uh, Chris McDaniel got you want talk a bit about the Kansas experiment, right?

[0:29:07 Speaker 5] All right, so let’s talk about Dorothy and Toto. Eso Kansas is one the States that we saw kind of the tea party Come, come into power. Kansas, one of those key states and Governor Sam Brownback when he was elected. Based on you know what, we’re going toe get with a lot of these taxes, we’re gonna cut down on a lot of our social spending. This is like 2010. Got about 11 s o he comes in on, and actually, he actually says that this is gonna be a This is gonna be a big experiment. So clearly says this is gonna be experiment. We’re going to show you that by reducing taxes as well as reducing spending that people want not be so, depending upon the state and that will see economic growth. That has not happened on what you’re seeing is that in a lot of areas that that Kansas actually had a where it had a but surplus now has a shortfall where it’s had to borrow money. And also it’s been underfunding. Things is education to the point where the Supreme Court ruled that it was not spending enough. This was that it violated state states Constitution. And what you saw most recently happened is that the Democrats, as well some of moderate Republicans within the Kansas State Legislature, basically brought back some of the tax there were there, so took, basically push against Brownback was actually calling for more cuts and said, No, we’re going to reinstate some of these taxes because the state is just not operating properly. One of the things that state did to try toe to overcome this shortfall is they raise thesis Ailes tax. But many people argued well, sales hackers classic referred to as a regressive tax because it actually hurts poor individuals more so than others. So while the paying of the same rate, the idea is that if I make $10,000 a year and I pay you know, $70 for something. It means that means more to my bottom line than if I’m making $100,000 a year. And so it’s also argued that poor people are more likely to buy products that receive a sales tax, whereas where is it might be tax breaks for people by wealthier things. So this scene is kind of being more more aggressive towards the poor, where you’re seeing again the lack of expansion of Medicaid on DSO like The Washington Post can talk about this one particular family, which the mother makes to my grandmother’s taking care with three grandchildren. She makes too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to qualify for, but not enough money to where she could receive the subsidies for through the change system through Obamacare. As this has become one of major issues, we’re seeing a lack of funding for the schools, and so you’re really seeing this kind of pushback you’re saying. The same thing happened in Louisiana, where, after former governor Bobby Jindal stepped down, the new governor came in a Democrat. They say, Look, we have such a huge shortfall. We may have to shut down the universities and so everything don’t know l s u football. Oh, my God! And the true we saw last season, it probably better off roll tide. All right, But the key thing here

[0:32:11 Speaker 8] is there’s this this really big

[0:32:14 Speaker 5] push back again. Brownback said, This is the experiment and people, So okay, is this proof of the experiment? Failed again. It’s been several years of this on your seeing Several states, I think. Kansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma are kind of examples of where this experiment things experiment failed or people believing the experiment failed or didn’t work the way they thought it would. And so many people are actually arguing that by lowering taxes, you’re not actually gonna create an economic boom. And, you know, if you look at this Washington Post piece on the walk blawg there’s actually making some comparisons. And again, once people said, compared like California, the Kansas that’s not really comparing apples to apples. But there, as been some work by economists, try to group states by similarity. And what they argue is that with all these tax cuts that the the camps economist actually lagged as opposed to move forward because one problem we’ve had is they have been built the infrastructure so they wouldn’t be able to pit roads, things of that nature. And so, you know, a strong infrastructure brings in strong business. They had been able to do that, but moving on to Kansas. Let

[0:33:18 Speaker 1] me go. Go potpourri for 200 Alex, I’m gonna go for an article in the face to read these things all the time. It’s actually a newspaper. So I was taking a sound on Tuesday and there a couple of great articles, I thought, We’re talking about the media in some of the lecture modules this time around and a couple things I want to mention. I found this article. PolitiFact PolitiFact is a kind of a truth of truth in media outlet that the statesman has a version of the Austin American Statesman, which is a local paper. And it’s an interesting study for those of you interested in trying to figure out how the media covers politics. And you know, Kim, the media do something about fake news or contribute to positive way to our understanding of how to make sense of the world. So I think there’s an interesting piece here, it says. There was a claim by Ottmar on Miss Atif, who is a newly elected member of the Austin City Council. She’s confirmed in 2017 and she had a statement, Miss Matif said. I’m very familiar with Central Health’s mission. So she’s talking about sort of health organization that the City Council overrides Andi needs of the people we serve. I bring a broader representation to the board. Most, Atif went on. Austin has a growing Muslim, Arab and refugee community, and they need a voice at the table. I can be that voice. I’m a muslin and speak fluent Arabic, which is the third most common language in Austin. So, politifact I want you to think about his PolitiFact decides they’re going to test that statement. Is that statement true Now? Do I particularly care about this statement? I don’t know, but I think it’s interesting that they would choose to fact check that statement. All right, so how they fact check it? Well, they go about eight paragraphs in talking about people to central health and what language people speak when they go to the hospital. And it’s not until about the eighth paragraph that I found the following. Jewell Jordan, a Census Bureau spokeswoman, responded to us by pointing out the results from a single year single year as if this changes, you know, minute to minute 2015 American Community Survey for Austin indicating that behind English and Spanish the third most common spoken language was Chinese. According to the results, Arabic was Austin’s 12th most common spoken language. I

[0:35:36 Speaker 9] find this

[0:35:36 Speaker 1] a fascinating, so they rate her statement as mostly false. Now I find this whole thing totally fascinating. Why would you choose this? This is a city Councilwoman who has a fairly innocuous statement. It’s basically English, Spanish and then everything else. But the question is OK amongst third to 12th where’s Arabic? Fall. And then it takes of eight paragraphs till they do what any researcher would do In the 1st 5 seconds of posing this question call

[0:36:02 Speaker 0] the Census

[0:36:02 Speaker 9] Bureau asked the Census

[0:36:04 Speaker 1] Bureau. What data do you have? They said, Oh, we do this massive community survey, and in fact we find that Arabic is 12. Chinese is third, you know. Why did it take you that long? Well, okay. The media has to build a story Professor McDaniels saying They were kind of building drama into this thing, which is totally true. So I found that fascinating, that they could have dispensed with this whole question with a single paragraph that should have been the lead paragraph. But that’s why I’m not journalism. But

[0:36:30 Speaker 0] then I also

[0:36:30 Speaker 1] start think about their scale. Their scale runs as follows. True, somewhat true. Sort of half and half somewhat falls false, you think? OK, that’s a balance scale, right? Two negatives to positives and middle category, but then they have the pants on fire category. All right, so she doesn’t get pants on fire. But why would you have an unbalanced scale skewed to the negative with a pants on fire rating, as opposed to I don’t know What if you balance it be like, what, Angel wings or something for your truthfulness pants on

[0:37:06 Speaker 2] fires? Also, it’s a normative statement like, Oh, no, you’re flat

[0:37:11 Speaker 1] out. So I just find this interesting. So I am not as you and I’m in the minority on this very much in the minority. Most people love these politifact’s and truth checks. I question the sort of things they choose to study. I question the way in which they assess There’s no set standard. What are we talking about? Are we talking about kind of general intent? Are we talking about the actual letter of the statement? And then the scale is screwed up Just for a basic political methodology standpoint, you can’t have three negatives into positive ratings and claim. You know, this thing is clearly set up to be. And I like Gardner Selby, who does this with statesman. I know him a little bit. He’s called, announced on a couple things. I’m sure he’s called Professor McDaniel to, but this thing is clearly skewed to the negative. And I’m I’m not a big fan of that. I think it contributes to the sort of cynicism and skepticism about politics. So my other things just in this is my last thing in the same newspaper of addition, the metro section I gotta region this. As I said last week, I don’t read often, but this was great. San Antonio. Sure, we have some San Antonio people out there elected a new mayor, and this is my favorite paragraph of this last week of the new mayor is Ron Nirenberg, you know he won and not really an upset, but it was unusual. He doesn’t have AH, long history in politics. Here’s the key paragraph sandwich Between meetings, Nurenberg got in a workout. A former bodybuilder, he is arguably the physically strongest mayor San Antonio has ever had. On Sunday, he knocked out multiple sets of back squats at £315 which, by the way, is pretty impressive. At a victory party the day before, campaign officials told the crowd about the feats of strength Nierenberg had accomplished with the physique. Not unlike the cartoon character Popeye Nierenberg has a small can of spinach tattooed on his inner forearm. That, my friends, is not fake news. That is all you need to know. So feats of strength is now becoming an important part of politics. I welcome this development so

[0:39:10 Speaker 2] you Adler and gonna get The Advocate won’t be about has

[0:39:13 Speaker 1] Great. I think we should just move straight to, uh, you know, essentially doing back squats a 315. That’s how we should figure out who’s gonna lead us. Yeah, I mean, I got no problem with that way. Well, the Russians do dope, but That’s why Putin had to improvements in charge of Russia at this point. But

[0:39:31 Speaker 5] also the last thing to talk about within the state of Texas is something you may not have really been that concerned about. But it’s kind of interesting. And that deals with eyebrow threading in the state of Texas that the state of Texas now no longer regulates that. And so. But addition, this state of Texas also got rid of regulations on the need to get a license for shampooing hair as well as companies put boots on cars. And

[0:39:59 Speaker 8] this has really been a a big

[0:40:00 Speaker 5] push within this amongst a lot people to say to say, Look, you’re kind of killing businesses by asking for all these licenses on really started with the with the eyebrow threading because people say no, you gotta go to cosmetology school, which costs 18,000 take about a year to complete. And so there’s a lot of money spent, and really, the amount of time and columns out in cosmetology school that’s dedicated to this is very small, and so you could argue Well, maybe it’s a hygiene issue like no hygiene is consistent no matter what you have to keep your area clean. You have to do certain things. Hygiene is consistent no matter what. But why exactly do the license to do eyebrow threading? And so they acted challenges in the state Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court ruled in favour off, ruled against the state the steak and no longer enforce this. And so the state, just in the last legislative session got rid of that, but also chose you some other regulations and other things and which required people required people have licenses. Now, maybe you see, this is okay, Great. By deregulating their storyline businesses to florist about having government invention, but also a trade off into this in a sense that when the government required licenses for some of these some of these things, it actually was able to generate millions of dollars of money. And so the state is losing funds in regards to licensing fees, with the hope being that through sales tax and these busy activities, the state can get these funds back. But well, we will have to see, But this is kind of one of the interesting things that come out of the legislative session and really see kind of certain things that are happening that may have an impact on you that you may not may not have realized.

[0:41:34 Speaker 7] All right,

[0:41:35 Speaker 1] we’re done for the week. Thanks for your attention. Pay attention to the announcement. Somebody send posting announcement sent out an email about some of the logistics in the course. Otherwise, stay safe. Stay out of the heat, skin in the air, conditioning, getting pool somewhere and enjoy the modules will talk to you guys next time.

[0:42:02 Speaker 9] Government 3 10 and The news podcast is hosted by doctors Darren Shaw and Eric McDaniel and is produced by the liberal Arts TS Development studio and the Department of Government in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin