510: Carolyn Bourdeaux—The Math Ain't Mathin'

What's really going on with America's national debt, and why should any of us care? Dr. Carolyn Bourdeaux is giving us a much-needed lesson in fiscal reality and sounding the alarm bell. A former U. S. Representative from Georgia, Bourdeaux is a public finance expert who holds degrees from Yale, USC, and Syracuse University. Today, she's the Executive Director of The Concord Coalition https://www.concordcoalition.org/, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating Americans about the dangers of our growing federal debt and unsustainable fiscal policies. Carolyn and Concord are working to mobilize citizens and pressure lawmakers to get serious about balancing the budget and paying for the promises they make. In this conversation, Carolyn schools Mike on the difference between debt and deficits, the staggering cost of servicing our national debt, the consequences of kicking the can down the road, and what happens when interest payments begin consuming an ever-larger share of our national resources. Turns out, the math ain't mathin'—and the bill is coming due. The question is whether Washington, and the rest of us, are paying attention. Big thanks to our awesome sponsors ZipRecruiter.com/Rowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxZipRecruiter—The recruiting site that really is the smartest way to hire. Post a job for FREE and find a qualified candidate in 24 hours. American-Giant.com/Mike https://bit.ly/AGxTWIHI—American Giant makes clothes that last, and they make them 100% in America. Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order. American Giant—American Made. America's Workforce Academy https://bit.ly/TWIHIxMetaAWA is a nationwide, unprecedented fast-track to a long-term career in a skilled trade, powered by an initial $115 million first year investment by Meta. Go to Meta.com/AmericasWorkforceAcademy https://bit.ly/TWIHIxMetaAWA to learn more. Chapter.com/MikeRowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxChapter—Chapter compares every Medicare plan nationwide to recommend the right coverage for you. Call them at 804-CHAPTER or visit chapter.com/mikerowe https://bit.ly/TWIHIxChapter to get free, unbiased Medicare help. Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and standalone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan's contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don't directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Mike Rowe?

  Hey guys, it's Mike Rowe. This is The Way I Heard It. And if numbers frighten you, fair warning, you are about to be terrified. Because my guest today has spent her entire career looking at numbers that would make most of us want to lie down in a dark room and just stay there. She's a public finance expert, a college professor, and a former member of Congress who actually cares about where the math leads, regardless of party lines. I'm talking, of course, about our national debt. Carolyn Bourdeaux runs the Concord Coalition.

• 0:43Mike Rowe?

  This is a nonpartisan group that is trying to wake Washington up, along with the rest of us, wake us up to a math problem that has officially spun out of control. We all know this. We all know the national debt is a thing. We've all seen the clock, right? The big giant debt clock ticking down from 5 trillion to 10 to 15 to 20, 25 trillion, 30 trillion. It's no longer a vague theoretical warning for our grandkids. This is it. We have officially crossed a terrifying threshold, $40 trillion in national debt.

• 1:26Mike Rowe?

  To put that in some kind of perspective, our government is currently spending about $2 trillion more every single year than it brings in. And we are now spending more money just paying the interest on what we owe than we spend on our entire national defense. So Carolyn is basically here to argue that this is not a Republican problem or a Democrat problem. Both sides have taken turns running up the credit card. Both sides have kicked the can way, way, way down the road. The question is, how do we fix a system where the politicians are incentivized to keep

• 2:10Mike Rowe?

  spending money we don't have? Sidebar, those of you who follow me or my foundation know that there's a thing called a sweat pledge that all of our scholarship applicants have to sign, and there is a tenant on that pledge that talks about debt in a somewhat cheeky way, but I'll stand by it. It says, "I would rather live in a tent and eat beans than borrow money to afford a lifestyle that I can't afford." I wrote it that way to be intentionally controversial, because I think it's important to talk about debt, and I think it's important to teach our kids some level of financial literacy. I was lucky to grow up with a very, very parsimonious dad who kind of drilled that into my head.

• 2:54Mike Rowe?

  And look, this is a tricky topic, because nobody wants a lecture or a sermon, nobody wants to be scolded for being in debt. But we have to talk about it on a micro and a macro level, because $40 trillion is, it's a number that most of us frankly can't imagine, but we're going to need to imagine it, because it's not in our imagination anymore. It's right in front of our faces. Please welcome a woman who is brave enough to bring hard logic and honest math to a town that hates both, Dr. Carolyn Bordeaux, right after this.

• 3:34Mike Rowe?

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• 4:18Mike Rowe?

  So you meet the right people faster, and then your candidates can tell you in their own words, also important, why they're excited about your job. For instance, when Chuck first said to me, "Mike, I've always wanted to work with a glazed ham," I had no choice but to hire him. And that was over 10 years ago. And look, he's still here impersonating a podcast producer. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles. Try them for free today at ziprecruiter.com/rowe. That's ziprecruiter.com/rowe. Meet your match at ZipRecruiter.

• 5:08Mike Rowe?

  Thank you so much for making the time.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  All right. Great to be here.

• 5:12Mike Rowe?

  Is it fair to say that you're coming at all of this through the lens of academia rather than politics?

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I've had a career that's kind of been a bit of both. So I have a very strong policy background. I've got a PhD in public administration with a focus in public finance. And so spent years teaching people in this area, but also have worked in public policy, worked for policymakers, ran for Congress, ran five very intense political campaigns. So part of this is organizing people, organizing the grassroots to be engaged in issues of the debt and deficit, and part of it is policy. So it's a great intersection for me.

• 5:52Mike Rowe?

  I normally don't spend a lot of time on bona fides and so forth, but I just think the topic is so rife with confusion. And I want people to understand that everything feels so political today, and whatever feelings, whatever agenda you might have overall, it's such a seesaw when we talk about the debt and the deficit, depending on who's in charge.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:15Mike Rowe?

  Where's the virtue? Where's the righteousness?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:18Mike Rowe?

  Right? And so you've had a front row seat to all of that. You said you ran for Congress.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  I won.

• 6:23Mike Rowe?

  I assume you won once, right?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I did win. I did win. I was a member of Congress, so I served in Congress. I know the legislative process. I was also staff to the legislature in Georgia and helped them balance the budget during the Great Recession. So again, I've been at this sort of policy, politics, grassroots, you know, I've had my foot in all of these different worlds.

• 6:44Mike Rowe?

  On purpose?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yes. I really enjoy new challenges. I enjoy kind of new ways of looking at things. And you mentioned the politicization of everything. And one of the things I really love about Concord is it is bipartisan, you know, we...

• 6:58Mike Rowe?

  It's the Concord Coalition.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  The Concord Coalition and Concord Action. So there are two parts to the organization. Concord Coalition is the educational part, and Action is the let's get some stuff done part.

• 7:09Mike Rowe?

  Where'd you get the name?

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Concord has been around for over 30 years. It was founded by Warren Rudman, Paul Tsongas, and Pete Peterson. Again, bipartisan, Democratic and Republican senators. And so it's been around for a while, so it was named after Concord, Massachusetts. Originally, we still keep this, the logo is the Minuteman.

• 7:31Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Right? And so it's raising the alarm about the debt and deficit and all of the...

• 7:34Mike Rowe?

  Wasn't there a famous, was it Emerson? A famous poem by Raff Waldo Emerson called Concord.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Oh, no, The Ride of Paul Revere, right.

• 7:43Mike Rowe?

  There's that, but there's a, and God, I should have, I should know this, because I sung it once. Beautiful hymn.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 7:50Mike Rowe?

  That's actually kind of germane, I think.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:54Mike Rowe?

  Concord, Concord is here, Concord, our days to bless, the ripest fruit hangs where not one, but only two can reach.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Oh, I will look that up.

• 8:05Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it's pretty.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:07Mike Rowe?

  $40 trillion.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:09Mike Rowe?

  Are we screwed?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  It's a pretty grim situation. So we are very heavily in debt. Most people I talk to, and when we look at it, the bigger problem is there's no plan to deal with it. And every Congress that comes in doesn't help improve the situation, but makes it worse. We are running, you know, roughly $2 trillion each year deficits. So that's $2 trillion is added to the debt each year, and we are on a fast track for that to be $3 trillion. The interest payments, I'm sure everybody out there who's had big loans knows the challenge. You get these interest payments, and they just start to consume, you know, all of your disposable income. It's around 14% of our expenditures are just interest payments on the debt, and that's

• 8:55Speaker 01

  projected to rise to 19% within a decade.

• 8:58Mike Rowe?

  To what extent?

• 9:01Mike Rowe?

  Is the challenge to keep people's eyes from glazing over as we talk about numbers, we talk about percentages. I don't, I had a teacher years ago that insisted, as a math teacher, and he just wanted the class to count to a million.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:15Mike Rowe?

  Takes like a week.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:17Mike Rowe?

  But you start to get an appreciation for just what a big number that is.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:21Mike Rowe?

  And then, of course, you know, tens of millions and billions and do we like, can we even really conceive of the amount?

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Right. And I think another important part of that, right? So one is, yes, it's a huge number. And it is scary. People do get scared by it, that we are this indebted. I do think it's important to think of it in the context of our economy. So we are around a 32 trillion dollar economy. So we are, we are very wealthy. We do have this huge debt, though, which is a huge problem. And you may notice the 40 is larger than 32. So we are, and that's gross debt. So we are more in debt than the entire size of our economy. But we are a big economy. So when we think about these big numbers, it is important to also think about sort of the overall wealth and power of America.

• 10:10Mike Rowe?

  Is it a time, what's the term that overlays that number? Like, is this, when you say we're a 32 trillion dollar economy, is that annually, is that?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that's all the different transactions going on in our economy. So it is, it is a measure of our economic strength, wealth and capacity.

• 10:33Mike Rowe?

  Okay. Seems like a lot. Seems like we ought to be able to just move some stuff around to knock that down.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  We should be able to move some stuff around to knock it down. And if, the problem is if we don't, right, and this is one of the things where we're trying to explain to people what the problem is, if we don't, if all of a sudden, the bondholders, the people who hold those, that debt starts to really demand really high interest rates, there's the chance that we're forced to inflate our way out of it, really pushing up inflation. We really could lose wealth in a very fast and rapid way. So everybody's worried about that. We could have an Argentina-like scenario. And that's what people are really concerned about. So we are strong and wealthy, but if we let this debt grow out of control, we could lose an awful lot of that wealth and power that we have.

• 11:23Mike Rowe?

  How much of the 40 trillion is owed to ourselves versus outside stakeholders?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  So the 40 trillion is gross debt. I know this is, we're going to get into the weedy numbers and less, less the interesting stories, but around 32 trillion is the publicly held debt. So that's the debt held by other countries, held by big pension funds, held by banks, held by all of us. If you have an investment or retirement fund, you often have some funds in treasuries. That's publicly held. And about 20% of that amount is held by other countries. So the Japan, China, UK, Europe, other countries like that who hold that debt.

• 12:05Mike Rowe?

  So maybe, just to step back a little bit, to make sure people understand the difference between the debt and the deficit, I know the, you said we're basically spending 2 trillion a year more than we're

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Bringing in, yeah.

• 12:18Mike Rowe?

  Bringing in. So what does that mean for the practical American? Why should they, how much should they care?

• 12:27Speaker 01

  They should care a lot, because that 40 trillion is not really, it may sound abstract, as you said, it sounds very, very big, but it's adher, it's affixed to us, right? We owe that. We are on the line for that. We are liable for that. So it is very important. And just to back up, so 2 trillion, that's the annual deficit, that's what we're adding to that 40 trillion every year, around 2 trillion. We have 7 trillion in expenditures. And that is driven by things like social security, Medicare, other entitlement programs are really the big ones. And then interest on the debt has become a huge part of that 7 trillion, a trillion of that, roughly speaking, is just interest on the debt. And then we

• 13:10Speaker 01

  bring in around 5 trillion in revenues. And this is, you know, rounding a little bit. There's 100 billion here and there.

• 13:16Mike Rowe?

  Here and there.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  But among friends. So that's where that 2 trillion comes from. So we are, we are not covering our expenses. And the challenge we face is that those expenses are really going to grow because our population is aging. So we are going to have more and more people going into the social security system, more and more people going into Medicare, and we have zero plan to cover all of those benefits that are going to be flowing out the door. So that gap between our expenditures and revenues is going to grow wider and wider. That means we're pushing more and more debt out onto the market. As we push more and more debt out, it often requires higher and higher interest rates to entice people to

• 13:59Speaker 01

  buy that debt. Those higher interest rates have put a real drag on, I know you're interested in entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, and, you know, people getting out there and hustling. It makes it harder for people to hustle. It makes it harder for people to start a small business. It makes it harder for people to own a home, because those interest rates start to go up and up.

• 14:19Mike Rowe?

  Have we lost our minds? I mean, I, I hear you saying, there is no debate. There's no doubt that the numbers are going to continue to advance if we don't do something. And when it tips, we just simply won't be able to afford the interest on the, like,

• 14:36Speaker 01

  That's right. We won't be able to afford, and we'll start printing money.

• 14:38Mike Rowe?

  So, so we know it's coming.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 14:41Mike Rowe?

  And there is zero plan?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  That's right. Right. Which is extremely dangerous. And what you're seeing right now are all sorts of, for those who are following it, there's a lot of wobbling right now that's happening on Wall Street. You see the Treasury Secretary Scott Beson out there, you know, trying to reassure the bondholders that the US is, has the situation under control, right? So, yes, we, we need everybody listening to this. We need the, the public at large out there to go and to engage, call their member of Congress. It's not that hard. We can talk about, you know, citizen engagement and, and demand that they do something, demand that they come up with a plan and, and fix this. And the number one crisis on the horizon

• 15:27Speaker 01

  is going to be social security. The trust fund is going to run out of money in 2032. And

• 15:33Mike Rowe?

  Again, it's not conjecture. This is math.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  This is, yeah, this is math. This is math. It is a projection. So, you know, there's a chance that it might be 2033 or 2031, you know, it might move around a little bit. But yeah, it's going to run out within the next six years.

• 15:46Mike Rowe?

  What will we do?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  And then by law, there'll be across the board, cuts of over 20%. And again, they're different estimates. The trustees estimate about 22%. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it'll be a 28% across the board cut that is legally required.

• 16:03Mike Rowe?

  In social security.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  In social security.

• 16:05Mike Rowe?

  So people who are expecting X are going to get X minus 20 some percent?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:11Mike Rowe?

  And then that's

• 16:12Speaker 01

  So, that's bad. Yeah. That's bad. Yeah. So, yeah, my, my grandmother lived on about $2,000 a month in social security. Those cuts would mean, you know, 400 to 500, yeah, 1,600 to 1,500 dollars.

• 16:25Mike Rowe?

  Plus whatever inflation we're dealing with.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:27Mike Rowe?

  At that point.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 16:29Mike Rowe?

  All right. I mean, look, I'm a glass half full kind of guy, but, but I think it's important. People should understand the stakes. And since you invoke Beson's name, would, what would he say about this? Because I didn't ask him about it when I talked to him a couple of months ago.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, you know, I, I think a lot of us, you know, we appreciate that he's trying to keep the, the ship afloat. And I think he's constrained in the kind of things that he can say. He has to say everything's going to be all right. Right? He has to say those kinds of things. That's his job.

• 16:58Mike Rowe?

  Very diff, so basically, you're, you're here at this event.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:04Mike Rowe?

  I would imagine, and I've, and I've seen you're making the rounds and your name keeps popping up. And I'm assuming you're ringing the metaphorical alarm bell.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah.

• 17:12Mike Rowe?

  Because we've crossed a threshold that in your mind is getting us to a point of no return.

• 17:23Mike Rowe?

  Can't believe it's been 15 years since that headline first appeared in Slate Magazine, the one that said, "The greatest hoodie ever made." That's the headline that put American Giant on the map. And that's the same year their CEO sent me one of these hoodies unsolicited in the mail. I didn't know Byrd Winthrop back then, but he was a fan of Dirty Jobs. He and his kids watched it. And he wanted me to have one of his sweatshirts. So I beat the hell out of it. I mean, I wore it, I don't know, on dozens of different Dirty Jobs. I just saw an old episode last week of me castrating lambs, wearing this hoodie.

• 18:01Mike Rowe?

  No garment in the history of the world, in my opinion, has ever been bespectacled with a more curious array of unholy fluids than my American Giant sweatshirt, and it's still standing. Honestly, at this point, I'm less concerned about replacing it than I am deciding who gets it when I'm gone. But what made American Giant famous, of course, was not just a sweatshirt that refused to die. It was making that sweatshirt right here in America with skilled people doing good work. That's something I'm happy to support, especially when I can support it while wearing something comfortable. If you're looking for a gift that might outlast your relationship with the recipient, consider the hoodie that started it all. Go to American-Giant.com/mike.

• 18:44Mike Rowe?

  You'll save 20% when you drop my name at American-Giant.com/mike. American Giant, American-made. American Giant, American-made.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very dangerous. And once we hit that fiscally-induced economic crisis, once things start to get out of control, and we don't know when it will happen, right? And so one of the problems that people have is like they're afraid to tell people about it because they don't know, you know? It could be in a week, it could be in 10 years, right? We don't know when it'll happen. But there was an analogy that it's, you know, it's like we're walking down a completely dark hallway and there's a hole somewhere and you're going to fall into it and, you know, really be badly injured. Would you keep walking down that hall with that big hole in it?

• 19:33Mike Rowe?

  Well, yes.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  That's what we're doing.

• 19:36Mike Rowe?

  The evidence suggests it will.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:38Mike Rowe?

  Have we been anesthetized in some way to the fear, right? I mean, on the one hand, I want to grab the country by the lapels and give them a shake, and I like that metaphor. You're going down a long, dark hallway, I promise you there's a hole.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:54Mike Rowe?

  Why are you still going?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:56Mike Rowe?

  But, look, we've been told the planet's going to get cold, we've been told it's going to get hot.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:00Mike Rowe?

  We've been told about Y2K and 5K and now AI and data. And personally, I'm tired of people trying to scare me.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:09Mike Rowe?

  So as you try and scare me, I get it. I do the same thing with the skills gap. When I'm a one-issue guy, I'm like, look, we don't have the workforce and so forth and so on.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:20Mike Rowe?

  I just wonder if our best efforts to persuade, it just feels like they always default to some kind of fear proposition. And I don't, I don't think people are buying it anymore.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, we do have to start tackling these issues. And I would point out, with a lot of things like the debt and other crises, there are a lot of problems right now that we are facing. It's kind of like the water seeping under the door. We're seeing higher interest rates. We're seeing it becoming very hard for young people to afford a home, which is tied to those higher interest rates. So if we could start getting this under control, it will help us, one, bring down those interest rates. It will help us be able to afford homes, afford small businesses, auto loans, all of those things will improve. The economy will do better. And so we can do well by doing good in the short term, right?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  So we can avoid this long-term problem. But also, if we start to tackle it, it will help us with some short-term issues that we are experiencing right now.

• 21:23Mike Rowe?

  What looks like success? How much debt is healthy for a country of this size? What feels manageable to you?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Right, so there's a lot of debate over that. Other countries, developed countries, right? They try to peg it at around 60% of the size of the economy or gross domestic product, right? So 60% of GDP.

• 21:44Mike Rowe?

  18, 20 million, 20 trillion. I mean, what's 32 trillion, 60% of that?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, we'd be in that kind of range. But, you know, just starting to move the lines together, the revenue and expenditure lines, so that they start to get closer, would be an enormously good first step. There's a lot of discussion about trying to hold it at 100% of GDP. So it's, and you get, the numbers are confused. There's the gross debt, which is that 40 trillion, and then there's around seven or eight trillion that is money that's in the Social Security Trust Fund, the Medicare Trust Fund. So that's IOUs, basically. We do need to pay them, so from a taxpayer standpoint, right? Those are debt, but that's not the publicly held debt that affects the economy in the same way. So the 32 trillion is what a lot of people look at.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  So trying to hold that at 100% of GDP and not letting it grow above that, that would be a good step, right? That's just stopping the bleeding, right? First step one, stop digging the hole deeper.

• 22:42Mike Rowe?

  When you're in the hole.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  That's right, and we are in the hole.

• 22:45Mike Rowe?

  Is it fair to analogize a country with a household? I hear people do it all the time.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:52Mike Rowe?

  And I assume it's just to simply try and give some perspective or context, but like if, if you're talking about a household, if you're talking about a household income versus a debt.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:06Mike Rowe?

  Where's the proportionality there?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  So, yeah, median family income is in, is around $85,000. It'd be like a family that makes $85,000 a year and has $600,000 in credit card debt. So, so I just.

• 23:21Mike Rowe?

  You're bankrupt.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, you'd be bankrupt.

• 23:23Mike Rowe?

  You're bankrupt.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But I also, I actually find that kind of hopeful in a sense because it's not so unimaginable. And again, it goes to that relationship with the size of the economy. Yes, we want to scare people, let's not walk down that path where all of a sudden things spin out of control. We don't want to do that. We want to get our finances under control in a way that is manageable, in a way that is controlled, so that we protect people who need protection, right? We don't have the little old grandmother who's dependent on the Social Security check. She's not bearing the burden of the mess. So anyway, so there is hope to do this in a sense, but it is, the situation is bad. It is grave, right? But we can fix this. And so I think that, in a sense, it's hopeful.

• 24:04Mike Rowe?

  When the Republicans are in office, we hear about defense spending, we hear about tax refunds.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:13Mike Rowe?

  When the Dems are in office, we hear about the vital importance of social programs and entitlements and spending.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:21Mike Rowe?

  And I, as an observer, you just look at that and go, I don't, one more indictment of a two-party system, one more reason just to shake your head and go do something you understand.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  I really, I'm not interested in hitting the fiscal crisis, right? And if we don't do something, we are going to hit that. We have enormous opportunities to fix it now, but I don't want to, I don't want to hit the crisis. And we do have a problem with both parties are, have really lost the vision here of the debt and deficit. And, you know, you mentioned one of the concerns I get a lot is people say, oh, well, organizations like yours have been screaming about the debt and deficit for many, many years. Well, we have, and policymakers have listened, actually. I know it doesn't feel that way sometimes, but we balanced the budget in the 90s. We took, we took a lot of work, took a lot of discipline, it took a little bit of luck. The economy also grew, and we got it balanced.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  And it was a time of enormous economic growth, prosperity, entrepreneurship.

• 25:23Mike Rowe?

  When specifically?

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Capacity. This was between 1999 and 2001, right, that we got balanced. Now, we hit a bump with the recession of 2001, but then, you know, we got involved in wars, we had tax cuts, we did a lot of things that threw the budget out of balance. But again, even during that period, a lot of policymakers were there trying to pull things back, trying to get things paid for. But what really has changed is in the past decade, they have completely lost the thread here. They don't even talk about it, they don't seem to care, and they may pay a little lip service to the debt and deficit, but both parties are just barreling right over it. And we really, that needs to stop. They need to, we need a restoration of fiscal discipline and responsibility.

• 26:05Mike Rowe?

  How much of what you're talking about is psychological or, let me say, just beyond math and beyond politics? And, you know, I've got a modest foundation and there's some language in my nomenclature. I try and demonize debt as best I can.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:24Mike Rowe?

  On a personal level.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:25Mike Rowe?

  But there's a lot of pushback, I get pushback for that, you know, just.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:30Mike Rowe?

  And I, I'm not quite sure where that comes from.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:35Mike Rowe?

  But why, why don't people want to be lectured about the perils of debt?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think that is something that, that was an older generation was very concerned about debt. My grandmother, who lived through the Great Depression, and her family lost everything. They lost their home, they lost everything. And she was always like, you know, if you are in debt, then, you know, someone else controls your life and controls your future. And I think that's an important thing for the American people to understand as well, too, right? If we are carrying this 40 trillion in debt, our ability to control our future, our ability to deal with a fiscal crisis, our ability to handle an international conflict or things like that becomes much more difficult. So it is about that and is about, I do think there's an element of character in there that, that is important to restore.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  And it's part of a, we need character more generally, right? I think in our national government, we need, you know, some restoration and a real conversation about that just among all of our, all of us as well, the virtue, our civic virtues, our public virtues, but also our private virtues. How do you live your life? I think a lot of that needs to be restored, and I do think that is part of the conversation.

• 27:46Mike Rowe?

  What should the consequences of debt be? I mean, do we, is it just the invisible hand coming along to slap us aside the head or give us the finger or whatever the invisible hand does? Because, look, I, in, please don't take this out of context, people, but there were debtors' prisons. There were the notion of, oh, you know what, I'm going to declare bankruptcy and then just get on with things.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:12Mike Rowe?

  You know, not a, no judgment, but it's just interesting to me that, why should people care as much as you do?

• 28:23Mike Rowe?

  When the consequences are not the way your grandma remembers them.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, they are, but we just haven't hit bumps in the road that are quite as terrible as the Great Depression. Obviously, debtors' prison, you can't pay off your debts if you're in prison, right? So it's a little bit of counter productivity there. But yes, I understand sort of the virtue aspect of that. Yeah, I don't know. And one of my concerns is just because we are so wealthy, we've been able to have such a good run, right?

• 28:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  It's going to be a real shock if we hit the wall, and it will be absolutely devastating for folks. And so all we can do is to try to warn people that we need to fix this problem. And I just, you know, it's a moral responsibility to warn people and try not to hit that wall because every one of us will suffer if we do.

• 29:14Mike Rowe?

  What reason do we have to be hopeful, aside from the fact that we did it before? And maybe we should talk a little bit more about how that happened, but it happened in Georgia, too, right? Like, you saw progress when you were in office.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yes, well, I tell folks, local governments balance the budget, state governments balance the budget, the federal government has balanced the budget. It is entirely within our capacity. A lot of folks think, well, it's a democracy, you know, there's too much contention, it's too hard to do it. No, no, we can do it, we do it all the time, but we need to restore that character and those norms at the national level, that this is important. We need our elected officials, one, to at first pay lip service to it, first say this is important. A lot of them don't even bother talking about it, to start talking about it, and then, you know, put plans on the table to try to get there. Okay, we are going to make adult and responsible decisions that do not dump the burden.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  The other big part of this is we are dumping an enormous burden on, really millennials on down, we all used to say our grandchildren, but it's young people now who are going to really bear the burden of this. So we're dumping that burden on folks. So I kind of think I lost the thread there, but that's the, you know, I do think this restoration of character is important.

• 30:27Mike Rowe?

  Is there a particular type of debt that worries you more? Student loan debt, consumer debt, credit card debt? I'm not convinced the average person can put it in a different silo, you know? Forty trillion is an awful lot.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:44Mike Rowe?

  But as you get more granular, you see people who are under the weight, maybe of a credit card, maybe a loan, whatever it may be.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think loans that are nonproductive loans is what really worries me. You talk about student loans and student debt. That's a real problem when you're going into a profession that's going to make it very, you know, it's not, that investment in yourself, right, is not really going to pay off over the long run. And I can talk about student loan debt if you want to. At one time, I, that was something I talked to a lot of people about, but that, you know, credit card debt, similar, right? Anything where you're just funding your ongoing operating expenses, in a sense, or your current consumption. Debt is okay to some degree if you're making an investment in yourself, you're making an investment in your home, you're making an investment, you have an asset that you're

• 31:35Speaker 01

  building, a small business that you're building, things like that. But it becomes a real problem when you're just using it to finance, you know, living large.

• 31:48Mike Rowe?

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• 32:31Mike Rowe?

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• 33:14Mike Rowe?

  I'd like to hear about student loan debt from you, because you're PhD.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, so it's not.

• 33:21Mike Rowe?

  You probably spent some money along the way.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  I did, yeah. I've got a good story about that. I went to, it was the first in my family, my community, to go to an Ivy League school. I went to Yale. But while I was there, my family went bankrupt. And we were, we lost everything, including our house, you know, moved out of the house, like, the day before the sheriff was going to come and throw everything out on the street. And so there was a lot of discussion about whether I'd continue at Yale, and I went on Pell Grant, Perkins, Perkins Loans, people in the community chipped in to help me make it. I worked a lot for a kid who was at Yale for like 30 hours a week or something like that to help scrape my way through.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  And when I graduated, the student loan officer sat me down and said, young lady, you have a lot of debt, you need to get a job right away. So I understand, you know, that dilemma. I did fight my way through that.

• 34:19Mike Rowe?

  How old were you?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  I was like 21, yeah.

• 34:22Mike Rowe?

  And what was your major? What was your degree in at that point?

• 34:25Speaker 01

  History and economics.

• 34:27Mike Rowe?

  So you've got to go out right now and get a job, being a historian and economist?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I had to go out and get a job right away, but actually, an interesting story. My father, who was, you know, himself recovering from bankruptcy and, you know, fighting his way along, and he said, you know, Carolyn, I don't want you to forget that this country invested in you, you know, people invested in you. And so, you know, do what you want, but there's an element there where you need to give it back to your community. And so I did choose to go into public service, in a sense, because of that. And I will say, even though I was a little bit scared about the debt, I did have a lot of confidence that I had, you know, the capacity to get a really good job and to pay it back with a great deal of discipline over time. So I lived very frugally.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  I did go work in Washington for a member of Congress, which was not a fantastic paying job.

• 35:19Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, bank.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I do have the stories where I walked, you know, a mile and a half in the snow in high heels to get to work and back, you know, I lived extremely frugally and paid off my debt.

• 35:32Mike Rowe?

  Brothers, sisters?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  A lot of discipline. I have a younger sister, yeah, and she also has debts. She was, she became a doctor. So those are people who really take on a lot of debt, yeah.

• 35:40Mike Rowe?

  You know, I'm, I just think it's so interesting, it's such a, it's such a calculus. Those disciplines are, they're so important. And the risk doctors assume, the financial risk, they must assume now.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:58Mike Rowe?

  My mom just did a stint in Hopkins, you know, for about a week. She's okay, but it was, it was, I was there a lot. And while I was there, I had a chance to talk to the nurses and the doctors and just ask them, you know, what does it feel like to, I mean, the malpractice is crushing, that insurance is crushing. And these guys, they're, they're not prospering the way we assume they might be.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was, it's a lot. It's a lot to take on. And a lot of young people, so I went on, I've got a PhD, so I've spent a lot of time advising young people about going to different career paths. And I think law school is the one that really gets me. You know, a lot of kids go to law school, they take on a huge amount of debt, they go to law school because they want to do good in the world, you know, they want to defend the poor and, you know, and make the world a better place. And then they're immediately shunted out until they have to go work for the big law firm so that they can make the money to pay off the debt, and it's a real tough situation. But, you know, back to one of your points, you know, college is not for everybody, it is not necessarily the right way to go.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  One of our biggest problems is there are a lot of kids who kind of, they just don't know what they want to do, but they think they ought to go to college, so they go in, they take on debt, they drop out, you know, and that's some of the worst situations.

• 37:20Mike Rowe?

  No credential, no degree. You still have the debt.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:25Mike Rowe?

  No direction.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And they're, and, you know, I love your programs. There are plenty of excellent jobs and excellent opportunities out there that do not require you to take on that kind of debt to get out there. And I'm a big supporter, you know, of the way Georgia does it. Georgia keeps tuition very low. It is, you know, so for those who want to go to college, it's easy to go to college in Georgia and not take on a huge amount of debt. But they also have extraordinarily good trade schools, the technical colleges of Georgia are excellent, and they provide all sorts of scholarships for young people to go there as well, so they don't have to take on debt, and they can get out and they can have, you know, a good, a good job when they leave.

• 38:08Mike Rowe?

  Do you think that AI and the, just the extraordinary access that virtually every American now has to the entire compendium of knowledge?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:22Mike Rowe?

  Accumulated over the eons, right? That's different than you and I went to school.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:28Mike Rowe?

  This thing right now, I can tap in, I can get any question answered.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:32Mike Rowe?

  Do you think that will have an impact on the way we teach kids at that level and on the attendant cost?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  So I just, there's so much potential in AI. There's, it's one of those things, it's a, there's so many wonderful things we can do with it. There's also a lot of bad things that are going to happen with it. I think AI has enormous potential to customize learning for people in a really individualized way, which would be fantastic. I do think there will always be a place for, you know, the human interaction that's important in learning and the, the back and forth dialogue that happens in some academic settings. But I do think, you know, some academic work is just purely instrumental knowledge, right? I used to teach budgeting and I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a mix, I'm gonna teach you the theory and some of the history and we're gonna talk about some of

• 39:27Speaker 01

  the issues, but I'm also gonna teach you how to use a spreadsheet. That could be done by AI.

• 39:31Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  And learning how to build a budget and a spreadsheet, right? Or those kinds of tasks.

• 39:37Mike Rowe?

  How do you think about financial literacy as a discipline juxtaposed maybe to the trades and to a normal curricula? And HOMAC, I mean, what, what do you think could happen to the next generation if just the basics were incorporated into some kind of syllabus?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  I, I think that is so important. And one of the real challenges we're facing right now with the boomer population aging out is that a lot of them are coming into the retirement system. So one of the key things with financial literacy, right, is knowing you gotta set aside your money right away, you know, and what you save when you're young pays enormous dividends because of that compounding interest over time. But really getting in early with young people to know that they need to start that disciplined savings is so, so important. And we're most likely gonna be dealing with a generation that kinda didn't have that, whose parents had, you know, pensions that were kind of, you know, prepaid, pre-set up

• 40:44Speaker 01

  for them, then those went away and now they were expected to make these investments to save for their retirement, but they didn't really know, you know, to do that, they didn't have that financial literacy. So you have a whole generation probably coming out being much poorer than they ought to be, right? And so anyway, yeah, no, I'm a big fan of financial literacy, we should get in early, really teach young people about that. I'm also really interested in policies on the other side that support, support the entrepreneurs, support those investments in retirement funds. I've had a small business myself at various times.

• 41:19Mike Rowe?

  What'd you do?

• 41:20Speaker 01

  I just consulted, you know, I was helping, my, my, my trade is, is government and how to make government work. And so people would hire me to help solve problems and fix things and things like that. So I had my, my own consulting business, but I mean, I would say that the healthcare benefits sucked.

• 41:35Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  As best I could do, you know? And then you don't have a lot of retirement, you know, investment options. So I think there's a lot that could be done from a policy standpoint to stand up better options for entrepreneurs to help them save, to help that financial piece for everybody.

• 41:52Mike Rowe?

  Do you have an opinion on, or is it relevant to your work, this idea? I think it was in California, it was called AB5, and then in Congress, it was called the PRO Act. And essentially, these were attempts to push the gig economy away and to discourage freelancing. I only ask because I, most of my life, I loved freelancing.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:19Mike Rowe?

  I love it. And, you know, if you were running a consultancy, you probably, you're setting your own hours, you're setting your own rates.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  I do like that.

• 42:28Mike Rowe?

  Picking your own client.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:30Mike Rowe?

  And gosh, what, why is there such an aversion to it?

• 42:34Speaker 01

  I think the horse is out of the barn on that. I think that we, we are headed to the gig economy, I think AI is gonna accelerate that because, you know, on the one hand, it is that kind of gig economy model, but on the other hand, it's gonna be an explosion of entrepreneurship and things that you can do. And I just, you know, every day I sit there and like, oh, this is a question I would love to answer, you know, this is something I could help people with. I don't have time to do that right now, but there's just so much potential in AI. So yeah, I, I think on the, as opposed to trying to shut that down and force everybody back into the large corporate model, right, is, which is what we had before, but instead to build the support structures that, and it doesn't have to be government funded, but

• 43:14Speaker 01

  it's like creating different retirement opportunities, right? Different types of IRAs, 403Bs, you know, all of those kinds of things that are, you often have to have an employer to, to be able to offer those kinds of things.

• 43:28Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  To create that, those kind of structures. And then, yes, healthcare, right, one of the big challenges of our nation, you know, finding ways to support entrepreneurs with affordable health insurance options as well.

• 43:41Mike Rowe?

  Gosh, it's so, I wanna ask you somehow about unions. I wanna ask you somehow about, you just said it, the, just the psychological idea that I'm gonna put my future in the policies of my employer. I'm gonna bet on financial instruments that are set up on my behalf by somebody else.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:04Mike Rowe?

  I'm gonna count on my union to do this, this and that. I'm gonna, and I get it, but the thing about AI, and I don't know if anybody's articulated it here at this conference yet, but with regard to what you just said, I think the potential to encourage initiative.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:24Mike Rowe?

  Is really interesting. And I think, I think you're right. When, when people start to see it as a tool and then combine it with some measure of ambition, entrepreneurship, creativity, ingenuity, then something will be unleashed that we haven't seen before, and it could be pretty cool.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  I think it could be very cool. You know, cause I am sort of always thinking about how does public policy support these kinds of, support an entrepreneurial, you know, vibrant economy. You know, I think the, the, the role that on the policy side we need to do is to create the platform for people to be very, very successful. And that does involve sort of creating a, a place where, you know, people can get health insurance, there's all sorts of, there's tax disadvantages too as well, you can get the, you know, being a small business, to create the platform for entrepreneurship and success.

• 45:19Mike Rowe?

  We just have to, it just seems like encourage what we wanna incentivize, discourage what we, there's a guy, do you know Riley Moore? He's the rep of, out of West Virginia right now.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, yeah.

• 45:31Mike Rowe?

  He has a really interesting, it's a, it's a bill. I don't know why it would be opposed, but it's similar to a 529.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:41Mike Rowe?

  Right, so you can use a 529 for a trade school.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:46Mike Rowe?

  This goes a little further. You can, with pre-tax money, set aside a fund to pay for your tools.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Okay, I love it, yeah.

• 45:55Mike Rowe?

  Right, so you're getting into the trade.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:57Mike Rowe?

  Maybe you're an entrepreneur, maybe not. Look, a lot of guys who wind up, and women who start working maybe for a big welding company, but whatever, you could have thirty, forty thousand dollars of tools you gotta buy.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:10Mike Rowe?

  A truck, a work truck could cost you a hundred grand.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:12Mike Rowe?

  So this is that conversation. And I'm just amazed, Doctor, at the resistance to it. Like, why, why would that be a problem?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 46:26Mike Rowe?

  Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who wanna work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.

• 47:08Mike Rowe?

  I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since, it's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you or your spouse or your kid or your grandkid are looking for a straight path into a career

• 47:52Mike Rowe?

  with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. It sounds good. I'm sure there's always, always concerns about cheating in the tax system, you know, in some kind of, how do you make sure that they bought the tools and bought the, but, but there's a lot of effort to try to set aside money. I know that you did a podcast with Scott Besson about the Trump accounts, right? And that's an interesting one. It was something that I advocated for in Congress as a Democrat.

• 48:27Mike Rowe?

  Really?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  We called them baby bonds, though. We called them baby bonds. We called them something different.

• 48:31Mike Rowe?

  It is a slightly different brand in play.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  It's a different brand. Exactly. I think Hillary Clinton and Cory Booker were some of the initial advocates for that idea. But that's a, it's similar in the idea that you start setting aside money really early. It goes to that, you know, debt concern, making sure that people are building wealth, building assets from a very young age. And one would hope that one of the ways that you could use that money, you know, could be for student loans, could be for a house, could be to start up a small business and cover some of those expenses.

• 49:03Mike Rowe?

  Back to your consultancy. Were your clients individuals, or were they companies? Or were they states?

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. And so I, I work in economic development, local economic development. I worked with a group called Gateway 85, which is a community improvement district, so a business improvement district. They go by different names. It's where business owners tax themselves a little bit extra in order to make improvements in the community. In Georgia, this was a super interesting community, but they, you know, they just needed help with getting projects, writing grants. I worked on micro-transit to help people get to their jobs more effectively. I can talk about, you know, factory workers. There was enormous,

• 49:52Speaker 01

  very large tortilla factory in Gateway 85, employed a number of, you know, very working class, very blue collar folks. There is no transit in this area. And so these folks were having to walk, you know, a mile in a ditch with no sidewalk, you know, to get to the plant. And so we were trying to find ways to, you know, help them get to the, from their home, to the plant, to the doctor's office they needed to, to the school to support their kids, you know, move around the community. So that was the kind of stuff I was working on when I was doing consulting.

• 50:23Mike Rowe?

  And you're not, do you miss it?

• 50:24Speaker 01

  I like the flexibility, but I, I do feel very compelled by this cause that I'm involved in right now.

• 50:30Mike Rowe?

  All right. Well, there it is then. That's, you're sitting here now because I woke up a week or two ago and saw Bill Cohen's column. And I think the headline, what was the headline? Making financial responsibilities?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  Making financial responsibility sexy again. Yeah.

• 50:45Mike Rowe?

  Yes.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  All my friends thought that was very funny. Yes. That I, and then my picture was under it. So they were like, oh, Carolyn.

• 50:50Mike Rowe?

  Look at you go. Look at you. Well, that's why I read the article. Because, you know, years ago, when I was trying to figure out if there was a headline around my cause, it was like, well, can you make work cool again? Can you take the, can you take the drudgery out of it? Can you, can you repackage that?

• 51:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:09Mike Rowe?

  And, and that's back to the quixotic nature of your mission and the Sisyphean task and, and all those things. If there's a question in there, I guess, is it, is it fun? Do you like taking that big swing?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, people ask me, why are you taking this on? You know, there are lots of other things you could do. You could do the consulting, you know, I am an academic. I mean, I was tenured academic, so I could go back to that world as well. And, um, yeah, I just wake up every morning with a purpose, right? And I imagine it was the same for you. I, I just, I do not want this to crash this country. I love this country. I am, you know, if, if I think about, you know, my, my mission statement is how is that I can be of service to my community and my country. And so...

• 51:55Mike Rowe?

  That's back to your dad, as I recall.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It goes back to him. And my family was very committed. Both my parents were, though, they, they did some small business, had some misadventures in a small business, that they were, ultimately, they're really educators. And so they were very, very committed to public service and to community. And so, yeah, that, it gets me up in the morning. I don't want the country to go, go down this road. I'm worried about where we're headed. And so, you know, I, I am excited to, you know, try to get people engaged in changing course.

• 52:26Mike Rowe?

  I like the idea that patriotism somehow applies to fiscal responsibility. Is that a part of making it sexy?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. I mean, this is, we, we are not, we are the greatest nation on earth. We are not going to leave this nation 40 trillion in debt. We're not handing off this kind of mess to the next generation. We just cannot do that. I have a 14-year-old son. And I am like, you know, what is his future going to be if this continues? We're going to be within, we're projected to add 24 trillion over the next 10 years, right? Am I going to leave him a $64 trillion debt when he starts his working age? Right? It is going to have enormous implications for the economic vibrancy of this country, for our ability to be the greatest nation on earth. All of those things. Yes, it is our patriotic responsibility to deal with this issue.

• 53:24Mike Rowe?

  You buried the lead, Doctor.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 53:27Mike Rowe?

  Look, I'm, I'm not an expert, obviously, in anything, but that's the tone, if you ask me. No hectoring, no lecturing, no sermonizing.

• 53:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:38Mike Rowe?

  This is not persuasive anymore. But your hands are tied because you've seen the math. The evidence demands a verdict. You've got the bona fides. What you just said and the way you just said it made me sit up because it is part of what your dad said. It's a duty. It's a duty to the next generation. We do owe this country something.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:01Mike Rowe?

  And it's very difficult, I think. And I'd, I'd like your take on this, too. The, the DSA, I just, I mean, as a, as a Democrat, as a former Democrat, as a, whatever that is, it doesn't matter. But what you just articulated will not work with a cohort of people who affirmatively believe the country is bad, who affirmatively believe we're not a great nation, who can, we have, God, there are 212 Democrats in office, right, in, in the Congress. I forget who, the two that did it, but it was a simple statement of purpose.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:43Mike Rowe?

  We believe America is a great country. We value safety over anarchy.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  That was Tom Swasey and Adam Gray. Yes. And I am, yes, that is exactly right.

• 54:54Mike Rowe?

  You would have signed that had you been in Congress.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  I would have signed that. I would have signed that. I've even actually, I write op-eds for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, even put that in op-ed that was just published last Sunday.

• 55:02Mike Rowe?

  Good for you.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  That that is absolutely what I believe in. And I, I don't care what party, you know, stands behind his values. Those are my values, too. Yeah.

• 55:10Mike Rowe?

  I'm just delighted to hear you say it because I, I talked to Joe Manchin the other day about, you know, his push for the independent thing.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:20Mike Rowe?

  Are you, how do you think about that?

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Well, I'm sympathetic, right? I'm sympathetic. I, I, you know, I, I think a lot of us feel increasingly politically homeless. I, you know, I have friends on both sides.

• 55:36Mike Rowe?

  Me, too. Many.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I do think a lot of members of Congress are there in good faith. They're trying to do good for the country. But there are folks who are there who really have, to my mind, very wrong-headed ideology about things, about where we're headed, about what this country is all about. And you said something important, too, which I think is, we do need to get back to this idea that we have, we have duties and obligations, right? And that patriotism is part of, is, is a part of that, right? We have an obligation to our country. We have a duty to our country. And we really have lost that in the civic discourse. And DSA, yes. I mean, I am so, I'm very distressed by them, you know, and how they treat this country. It is not okay. And I am happy to say that anytime, anyplace.

• 56:22Mike Rowe?

  I'm happy you said it. I interviewed a woman, maybe it was a year ago, Gievan Fleet, sort of a, a dissident who lived through the Cultural Revolution, came, came over here, got kind of famous in a school board meeting in Loudoun County, when she just said some things. And now she's written a couple of books. She gave me this shirt and a hat. And they both said, America is good. It's all she said. It's a black shirt, white letters. It says, America is good.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:54Mike Rowe?

  I went out for a sort of a jog the other day. I don't really run anymore. Sort of a loping, forward motion thing.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  You and me, you and me. Yes. Good for you. Good for you for trying.

• 57:04Mike Rowe?

  Actually, I'm rucking, right? So I got like 40 pounds on my back.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Woo!

• 57:07Mike Rowe?

  And I'm sweating and I'm walking through this place where I live in California. And I'm wearing a shirt that says, America is good.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Good for you.

• 57:15Mike Rowe?

  And I probably had five conversations with people who wanted to know why I was wearing it, in varying degrees of, not quite outrage, but just like, I know who you are, Mike. I've seen you. Why do you think, like, like, it became a challenge.

• 57:34Mike Rowe?

  To just explain yourself, explain the shirt. Why would you wear that shirt? And I was happy to.

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:41Mike Rowe?

  But I was just struck. Like that's like somewhere underneath all of this, Carolyn, that that's where the tension is. We're not, we can't assume that people agree with my shirt.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Our conversation, things like this are part of our effort of, you know, restoring those, restoring that civic, you know, and I, it is very authentic. You know, that's the civic virtue, the love of country. I that there is that thread, yes, that has entered a lot of sort of our subcultures in this country that is, you know, really very dismissive of the United States, very dismissive of this country. And I will say, I have a certain set of friends who live in that world, and a lot of them have threatened to move to other countries. And they go to those other countries and they, they come back.

• 58:27Mike Rowe?

  Funny how that happens.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  They come back, yeah, you know, anyway. So we are, we are, we have a lot of problems. We have a lot of problems, but we are really a great nation. And we want to keep it that way and give it to our children that way.

• 58:40Mike Rowe?

  Do enough people understand what happened in Argentina? Do enough people believe it could happen here? Is there, is it worthwhile spending a minute or two just explaining just the totality of that horror?

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it is. So what does it mean when we talk about a fiscally induced economic crisis? And I don't want to get, you know, too much in the weeds. The, you know, and the things that caused it in Argentina are different from what might cause it here. We are the reserve currency of the world, which Argentina was not. They were, you know, pegging their peso to the dollar. But the way that these crises unfold are typically with some form of inflation or hyperinflation. I'm not quite sure the math, but you know, you can, you can do it yourselves. You can use AI to go do this yourself. But I was messing around with it. In Argentina, at one point in the early 1990s, as they dealt with kind of

• 59:37Speaker 01

  this fiscal crisis, their central bank lost control of the currency, and they faced like a thousand percent inflation, right? And when that happens, I put it in, it was like $100,000. If you started the year with $100,000, it would be worth, it was like $7,000 at the end of the year, right? And I was reading somewhere that this represented a loss of wealth for their economy. They, their wealth dropped by two thirds. You know, people are impoverished, your unemployment shoots up, you know, to 30%, something really rough. Your money in the, in the bank, you know, just evaporates because the inflation is so bad. And the problem is, when you lose that fiscal control,

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  what we do now with inflation, why people are like, oh, that would never happen here, is because they think that the Federal Reserve will step in, right? And will raise interest rates to bring inflation down. And what happens with something like fiscal dominance, and this is a term people use, when the debt starts to drive the fiscal, the economy, right? And it's not, the Federal Reserve is not able to balance these things anymore. When you hit that point of fiscal dominance, you know, it is just the debt driving everything, the interest rate lever doesn't work. It stops working. You have inflation rising that leads to increased interest rates, leads to increased interest payments on the debt, which means you have to print more money, which leads to inflation, which leads to increased interest rates, which leads to increased interest payments.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  You get into this really devastating cycle with both interest rates going up and inflation rising. So you can't control it anymore. Your only way out is to try to control it through really severe fiscal austerity. And that's what you saw in Greece and Argentina.

• 1:01:19Mike Rowe?

  People love that.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. The, this is a real problem, right? So fiscal austerity, then you have to really raise taxes. You have to really cut benefits. Who takes it on the chin? It is working class people, it is salary people, it is the middle class. I mean, they are devastated by these kinds of crises. I often say progressives should be really concerned about this because it is the communities that, you know, they say they're representing that would be absolutely destroyed by this kind of crisis. So that's the kind of thing that happens. The other big part of it that people need to be aware of is it moves hand in hand with political crisis. Because people are outraged for obvious reasons. And what really tends to happen, happened in Argentina.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  This is where, you know, Vita and Peron.

• 1:02:08Mike Rowe?

  Eva Peron.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Eva Peron came from, yes. And Juan Peron came from.

• 1:02:11Mike Rowe?

  De Camisados.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Well, eventually, yes, it led to that as well. So they came in and they promised lots of social programs and social spending. They're going to get everything under control, you know, don't worry, you know? And, and people are like, okay, well, at least somebody's, you know, listening to us and going to try. But what they did was made the problem even worse, right? Eventually you have, end up with a militar junta, right? And so it spirals into a political crisis as well. And that's the thing people need to realize. We don't want to walk down that path. We don't want to fall into that, that hole in the dark corridor.

• 1:02:43Mike Rowe?

  Don't cry for me, America.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  That's, that's right. I was just in Argentina and they said, you all are on the same path we were on, you know, 40 or 50 years ago.

• 1:02:53Mike Rowe?

  Where's their inflation now?

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Where is their inflation?

• 1:02:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Yes. So very interesting. I spent a lot of time talking to my, my cab drivers here and asking them about the economy and they, and they all, everybody knows about it. Everybody's, and they, they said, you know, you all are, you were worried about 3% annual inflation. We're just grateful that our inflation is 3% a month right now.

• 1:03:18Mike Rowe?

  36% a year.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  That's right. And they're, they're like, that, that's good news for us. But, and it's going down and they're like, you know, Malay, he's, he's, he's doing the job. It is devastating for small businesses. People there, they're not, if you like, try to tip them, they won't take a tip in pesos. They'll take it in dollars. And then they want you to tip them in a bank that's in the United States. You know, because they don't want to hold their money in the Argentinian banks. They don't want to hold it in pesos because it's devaluing so fast.

• 1:03:52Mike Rowe?

  Well, how much of this, as a cautionary tale, is in your, your, your bag of, in your arsenal?

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:01Mike Rowe?

  I find that persuasive, too. It's a real country. It's a real place and it's happening in real time.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're trying to bring it in more and more. I think the concern is we, you know, we don't want to be chicken littles. I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow. I, you know, we don't know. But it is important that people understand the consequences and risks. And we are starting to talk about that a lot more. We have it, you know, we call it our doomsday scenario. You know, this is what happens if we just let this situation spin out of control.

• 1:04:29Mike Rowe?

  What can people do? Where do they go? How can they get involved specifically with Concord?

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Yep, so please go to concordaction.org. Type in concordaction.org, it should pop up. We are building very, very fast. We've added, like, 180,000 people have just joined us over the past year.

• 1:04:47Mike Rowe?

  Whoa.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  I know, hey.

• 1:04:48Mike Rowe?

  You buried that lead, too.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  People are worried, yeah.

• 1:04:51Mike Rowe?

  I bet they are. So you have 180,000 people.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, they're sending letters to Congress. These are, some of them are the kind of my armchair warriors. I still heart them, right? But, but they've been sending letters to Congress. I think we're closing on 500,000 letters to Congress to restore fiscal responsibility. So there are things that you can do if you sign up there, concordaction.org. You can, you know, get our newsletter, get our action alerts, which can lead you to, you know, help you send letters to members of Congress. And then we are building events. You can come to events to talk to us. March 2 through 4 of 2027, we're going to have a National Citizens Debt Summit. So come to that.

• 1:05:33Mike Rowe?

  I, where?

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  In Washington DC.

• 1:05:35Mike Rowe?

  Good lord.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  We want you to.

• 1:05:37Mike Rowe?

  The beast.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  That's right, you're going to come and we were going to set everybody up to go meet with your members of Congress and start this conversation.

• 1:05:44Mike Rowe?

  Good for you.

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  It'll be a lot of fun.

• 1:05:45Mike Rowe?

  Well, I'm going there, right, actually, I'm going to Philly from here and then down to DC for a couple of days.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:05:51Mike Rowe?

  To push my rock up the hill.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Excellent, excellent. Well, you have a great rock.

• 1:05:55Mike Rowe?

  Well, look, I love what you're doing. It is a, it is a patriotic cause. It's a moral cause and I'm glad you're on the case. I don't have a lot of Yale PhD graduates on the podcast.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Okay, well, hey.

• 1:06:08Mike Rowe?

  I appreciate you making the time.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  I was going to say, you know, compared to your other guests, I'm, I'm the small and meek here, but really, really appreciate the time and appreciate being on the podcast with you.

• 1:06:17Mike Rowe?

  Concord is here, our days to bless. And this, our land, our land to endue with plenty. Peace and happiness. Concord and time. The ripest fruit hangs where not one, only two can reach. Each needeth each, yeah, anyway.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Well done, love that.

• 1:06:39Mike Rowe?

  Uh, thanks again.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  All right, all right.

• 1:06:40Mike Rowe?

  All right, that's Carolyn. She's, she's PhD. So, so you can trust her.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. That's, that's actually a non-trust. I don't say it very often because people are like, oh, my God.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  My fresh detector.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  Uh, your what?

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  There it is.

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  What is it detecting?

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  Fresh produce, fresh meat.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Apparently we celebrate. At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices when your fresh detector is going off. Head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.