We're Racing Toward Bankruptcy — And No One Will Touch Entitlements

Special Thanks to USA Facts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7_1Mqhmf4Y&t=2495s Welcome back to Impact Theory. I’m Tom Bilyeu, and today I’m giving you my reaction to a high-stakes debate that couldn’t be more relevant right now. Moderated by Steve Ballmer and Jeff from PBS, the conversation brings together Ben Shapiro and Scott Galloway—two powerhouse thinkers with starkly different visions for America’s future. In this episode, you’ll get my take on their heated exchange over the government’s role in the American Dream. Are we racing toward bankruptcy because our government is doing too much, or are there places where it just isn’t doing enough? Ben draws a hard line on runaway spending, entitlement programs, and the dangers of federal overreach, while Scott makes the case for rethinking tax codes, investing in education, and finding smarter ways to support those in need. I’ll break down the key moments, highlight the most surprising and controversial arguments, and share where I think the conversation went deepest—or missed the mark. If you’re hungry for a real, data-driven look at the future of our economy and the social contract underpinning it, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in. Tailor Brands: Check out Tailor Brands to launch your business starting at $0 + state fees: https://bit.ly/TailorBrandsSept Quince: Free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/impactpod Ketone IQ: Visit https://ketone.com/IMPACT for 30% OFF your subscription order PLUS receive a free gift with your second shipment—or find Ketone-IQ at CVS stores nationwide and get $5 off your first 6-pack for a limited time! Perplexity: Start your free trial of Perplexity Computer today at http://PPLX.ai/impact http://pplx.ai/impact and experience the next phase of AI. #ad makeup HeyGen: Create your first three AI videos for free at https://heygen.com/impact. Incogni: Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code IMPACT at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://incogni.com/impact Pipedrive: Get more leads and grow your business. Go to https://www.pipedrive.com/impact and get started with a 30-day free trial. Butcherbox: Go to https://ButcherBox.com/IMPACT https://butcherbox.com/IMPACT to get $20 off your first box, plus your choice of free ribeye, new york strip, or filet mignon in every box for a year — with free shipping always. What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: Want my help starting a business? Join me here inside Zero To Founder https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show Sign up for my AI Masterclass: AI Masterclass https://tombilyeu.com/ai-masterclass?utm_campaign=Live%20Masterclass&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=evergreen Follow Me: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:37Speaker 00

  This debate is the debate as a country we have to have because right now we are racing towards bankruptcy.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  In the context of the American dream, is the government doing too much or too little? Over to Steve now for some facts. Steve?

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Thanks, Jeff. Round two, let's dive into federal government transfers. Here we see the percentage of individuals who receive assistance from key programs and how that has changed since 2013. Social Security and Medicare reached the largest percentage of the population, around 20% and have increased as the population has grown older.

• 2:13Speaker 00

  What I like about this, by the way, is when a lot of times you're going to form an opinion about something and you're not actually going to be anchored in what's really going on. All of us get trapped inside of a frame of reference where you think something is one way. And then you find out it's another way. And by getting to the actual, okay, here are the facts that we're going to base the argument upon. What you don't end up with is a debate where everybody's just pulling out these random facts and the fact checkers are scrambling behind the scenes to try to check it. It's like, okay, here is the agreed upon data. Now let's talk about what this means and what we do about it. And one thing that I found really interesting about this whole debate is that actually breaking down America by the numbers is really pretty startling.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  20% of individuals receive Medicaid, up slightly. And about 11% receive food stamps, down from 2013. Let's look at families who receive these benefits by income and age. Over half of the spending on these programs goes to seniors, most of whom receive Social Security and Medicare. The other half of the spending on these programs is targeted more towards lower earning families through programs like Medicaid, refundable tax credits and food stamps. Although, as you can see, some is also distributed to higher earners. Here you can see the growth since 1980 of mandatory assistance programs,

• 3:37Speaker 03

  such as Medicare, health assistance, including federal Medicaid contributions and Affordable Care Act subsidies and Social Security. Those renew automatically without congressional approval.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  It's pretty interesting. Social Security is flat, but Medicare is up. And Medicaid and other health assistance is skyrocketing, absolute insanity. And then the other ones are pretty neutral. But the, what's going on in your health system is a crime against humanity and is literally part of us bankrupting your country.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Combined, these programs grew from just over 35% of total federal spending in 1980

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Get ready for it.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  to over 54% today.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Over 54 cents of every dollar that's collected in taxes goes to funding these automatic programs. That is not sustainable.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  With these mandatory increases, as well as increases in other government spending in areas like defense, you can see that the deficit has grown from 295 billion in 1980 to 1.78 trillion in 2025.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Oh my god.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Adjusted for inflation. This is important context as we look at government transfers at over 50% of total federal spend. That is sure worth an energetic debate.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  I love the way they say transfers, meaning they take your money and they redistribute it.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Jeff, debate away.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Thank you, Steve. That we will do indeed. So Ben, you're up first.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is Ben Shapiro versus Scott Galloway.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Government doing too little or too much?

• 5:21Speaker 04

  I mean, I think it would be hard to argue, given the federal spending, the federal debt, the federal deficit, that the government is doing too little. The government is deeply entrenched in pretty much every area of our life. Again, I think there are areas where the government ought to be involved. I think that's particularly true on the local and state or level of government. And I think one of the things we tend to do in these discussions is conflate all levels of government as though they are the same.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  This is a really important point. This is something that goes back to my whole thing about you can have as much immigration as you want when people roll up on the shores of your country and nobody is there to help them. They're not going to get a handout from the government, nothing. And so they've got to convince their neighbors. They've got to invest in them personally, emotionally, their churches, all of that, to make sure that there's somebody there to catch them when they fall. That way you have checks against the freeloader problem. And when you've got somebody in the church that's like constantly asking for money and everybody knows them and they know that he's just going out and drinking the money away or he gambles or he's just not good with his money, whatever. People go, listen, like, we're not going to keep giving you money. We expect you to go do this thing, like a parent does with a kid that's struggling.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  You start having to put leashes around them. You start having to say, okay, I'll give you money, but only if you have a job or whatever. They'll help you in ways, but there are conditions with that money. They're so intimately connected with you, they can detect lies and bullshit and all of that. And that is precisely why the lower you push this stuff down, meaning it's more local at the family level. The family needs to carry the burden of their own relatives. The neighborhood is going to look out for each other. The church is going to help them. And so you better have spent time building bridges, helping other people, being a contributor, doing things, by the way, that are good for your mental health anyway. But doing all of that, so when you're the one who's down on your luck, that there's going to be someone there to help you. And if you haven't been contributing, that there are people that call you out and say, that's bullshit. We're not going to keep helping you.

• 7:09Speaker 00

  When you do it all at the federal level, what you end up with is massive freeloader problem, massive fraud. And so I think this is a really important point that people often overlook.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  And so it seems to me that many of the functions of the federal government ought to be performed most aptly at the local and state level, mainly because a polity should first look to the people who are closest to it as opposed to sort of a broad spectrum of 330 million people.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  I actually think he's being too gentle here. I think it should be less by the governments and more by actual communities.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  With that said, again, when you look at those statistics and you realize that there really is a, people talk about a uniparty. You always talk about a uniparty that agrees the same things. Both parties agree that they will not touch the entitlement programs that are driving the country into bankruptcy.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  So true.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Both parties agree with this. President Trump agrees with this and the Democrats agree with this. In fact, that was one of President Trump's great heresies in 2016 is when he ran, he said he would not touch Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. And he touched some of those things, but he certainly didn't cut in any significant way or restructure in any significant way that was designed to bring down the cost curve.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  We're going to be extending human life with AI almost certainly. As we do, you're going to have to raise the retirement age, period. Got to happen.

• 8:12Speaker 04

  That is going to bankrupt the country. No one actually wants to talk about the interest on the federal.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Also, you want to talk about bankrupting the company, the country? I always do that. You've got health. Health is your problem. And if you're going to allow people to act a fool, eat whatever they want, be as obese as they want, drink whatever they want, and there's not going to be an increase in what they contribute, that is crazy. You've got to have an expectation that people are going to take care of their health and that if you're a lower risk, that you pay less. And if you're a higher risk, that you pay more because so much of this stuff is decisions that people make. Now, if you want to say, okay, listen, there are things in your control. There are things out of your control and things that are in your control, we expect you to be addressing. And if you are, cool, you're good. There are things that are out of your control.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  And if that's what ends up taking you out, then obviously we don't expect people to pay some sort of penalty for that. But the vast majority, when you take averages, the vast majority of health is controllable.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Federal payments is going to outstrip our defense budget very, very soon, if it is not already. And, and what that means is that we just won't have the money. We are going to, Steve, sorry, Scott mentioned earlier that we are going to essentially have to backdoor tax everybody or inflate away our national debt.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Is a backdoor.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Or we're going to have to go through austerity measures. And we are aiming right for that cliff. So anybody who's arguing that the government is not doing enough is going to have to come up headlong against the fact, unless we're starting to tax like Denmark, then we are going to end up having to cut or inflate or do austerity measures.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  What does he mean by that? Well, this is where I remind everybody that the Nordic countries, first of all, are free market economies. They are not socialist, but to have the massive social safety nets that they have, they tax everybody nigh to death. And right now, the bottom 50% of Americans only pay 3% of the tax. If you want those kinds of huge social safety nets, then you're going to have to go very, very broad. You won't be able to tax the billionaires and get there.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not. I think the argument around whether the government's doing too much. The answer would be it's doing too much for some people and not enough for others.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  I think it's just doing too much, full stop. And boy, I know where he's going with this, but I would love to know, like, for instance, okay, do you mind somebody being morbidly obese, paying the same amount for their healthcare as somebody who is doing anything and everything they can to be in shape? So yeah, I'll be interested to see how specific he gets.

• 10:34Speaker 05

  The biggest, we talk about social security at 1.5 trillion, Medicare at about a trillion, Medicaid, I think at about 800 billion. The biggest expenditure of government, and I would argue it is an expenditure, is if you put your income in and then the tax rate, and then you put your capital gains in in the tax rate, we then give 2.2, 2.25 trillion dollars back to corporations and the wealthy in the form of tax loopholes. I'll use myself as an example. I built a company, I purposely didn't take a big salary because I saw how high current income taxes were, I was in a position to fund the company. When I sold the company 10 years ago, because I'd invested 2 million, with 1202, I got a $20 million tax exemption.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  Do entrepreneurs who do really well need a tax exemption? And people say, well, they're the most productive people, we might give you incentive. No, no entrepreneur starts a business because of tax code. So we're doing too much for the incumbents. We've weaponized regulatory process around housing permits, around sequestering supply from my institutions, letting in too few kids. And we consistently, as a number of personnel, government's been really flat. What you're talking about is deficit spending, which I would argue is mostly there to prop up senior citizens and quite frankly, take while having corporate taxes go from an effective rate.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Hold on, if you look at the numbers that he just put forward, the thing that isn't rising is social security. The thing that is rising is healthcare costs. So do I think that senior citizens are eating into a huge portion of healthcare costs? Sure, old people are always going to be more expensive, but we are all ultimately going to get old. So the question becomes, do we want to be taken care of when we get old? And so how we treat old people will be how the young generation treats us when we're old, so we should be very thoughtful about that. Going back to the tax break thing, though, I was expecting him to say more on that. The reality is that the thing that Drew, you've brought up so many times that I think

• 12:35Speaker 00

  is the real thing, is that ultimately what you're looking for is, okay, people should not be able to trap their wealth in a vehicle that they can borrow against, and then they use the step up basis at the time that they die. Now, for people that don't know what that means is, if your wealth is growing and growing and growing, and the interest that you pay on the debt is less than your wealth grows, now you can basically just refinance, refinance, refinance in the same way that the government does. And then, when you die, you pass that wealth on to your kids. Your kids, though, aren't taxed off of like the value that you would have been taxed on, because it's always, it's, okay, what did you buy in at? We're not going to tax you below that. So you start it at your strike price, as it's known.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  So where did you start? And then where did you sell? And we only tax you on the gains. It's a very fair way to do it, but your kids get the step up basis because they're getting it at whatever it's worth that day, and so they're only taxed on the gains above that. Now, that makes sense if the person has already paid tax on that going in, and so, you know, they were being given cash or something like that. But if they've been borrowing money all along the way, and they never actually paid tax, and so that's, those are pre-tax dollars that are getting a step up in basis, I get why people have a beef with that. And so that, you want to say, okay, you can pass it on to your kids, you can do that, but the kids are now going to be taxed from your basis, not their step up. That would solve the problem.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  But the question here is, is the government doing too much? And so what I don't hear him addressing is, where are the inefficiencies? So you said some people are getting too much, some people are getting too little. Let's get very specific. Who are the people that we think are getting too little? This is where I think I'm going to have a growing beef with people, is that we're not being honest about fraud, we're not being honest about the freeloader problem where you're incentivizing people to do nothing, and therefore they are going to do nothing. Just like when you incentivize women not to get married and to have kids, because they will get more welfare for doing so, that's the exact outcome that you get. So if we're talking about creating a system where it's like, okay, somebody is quote unquote slipping through the cracks, what's going to be the definition of their slipping through the cracks exactly? They can't find a job?

• 14:46Speaker 00

  What incentive do they have to get a job? So this is where, as you build a bigger and bigger state, you create more perverse incentives. It won't affect everybody, there are some people who are going to get a job no matter what. But again, a reminder, 50% of Americans, 50, pay 3% of the taxes. So you have a huge swath of America that just doesn't pay taxes full stop. So that's where it's like, what are we talking? They're clearly not paying too much tax. So everything that they get is a gimme. And so I forget what the percentage is, but there's a substantive amount of people that get far more than they give to the system. And so you've got to find some way to balance that out, especially as the only thing that

• 15:30Speaker 00

  we're doing well in our economy right now is finance. So how do we bring jobs back, incentivize people to get jobs, rather than just paper over some of the problem by keeping them essentially docile, by giving them a bunch of government handouts?

• 15:44Speaker 06

  Quick question on that, though. Especially right now, Netflix just announced they're laying off 6% of their workforce. Based off the big, beautiful bill, this year, they just got a tax break for roughly in the $900 million area. So the narrative is always, we give tax breaks to the most productive members of society. Scott just said it. And they're the ones who reinvest, build jobs, things like that. We have a company directly, they got their big tax bill, yes, the government helped them out, they didn't give it to the government, cool. But now they just laid off 1,000 people. So it's one of those things, that 988 million, I would say is now just money in their pocket and no external help for those, like, for the people itself. Like it did it, that money didn't trickle down. So couldn't we have the same criticism that you're giving to the perverse incentive system?

• 16:29Speaker 06

  Perverse incentive system that you're attributing to the individual side?

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• 20:07Speaker 00

  Our government is a parasite and is not accurately categorized in people's minds. They think the government is mom and dad that is here to save you. It's going to take care of you. It's going to nurture you. And the reality is what the government is very good at is taking money from highly efficient, intelligent people, meaning every taxpayer, and saying, uh, we're going to make this inefficient and we're going to think for you. So mom, I know that you hate the local school, but I'm not going to let you take the money that we're going to pay for your child, no matter what, and take, decide for yourself, what is a better school? We think you're too dumb for that. And so they do that in a gazillion ways. So as a reminder, that money was earned by Netflix.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  That money was earned by people who founded a company, did all the hard things to build it and scale it and make it something real, to hire people and pay all kinds of employment taxes on them, give them jobs, all of that. Uh, and do what is truly a miracle, which is to build a self-sustaining economic engine. That this one happens to be called Netflix, but they make something that people really want. And people are willing to pay their hard-earned money to get that thing that they really want. And now we're acting that like when the government just doesn't take more of their money, that somehow that company is doing something corrupt. That's fucking wild. That's the money that that company earned. Now, where I think people should be annoyed is that, well, corporations, and I don't know that Netflix does this,

• 21:32Speaker 00

  but just like we saw with Elon Musk, these guys are going to go, um, hire a bunch of lobbyists or donate to a bunch of PACs. And they're going to try to get everything favorable to their company. And I do not trust that they're thinking about the good of everybody. I don't think they're like, you know, well, we've got to be thoughtful about, um, freeloader and shit. They're not. They're just like, how do I make sure that you tax me as close to zero as humanly possible? Um, so that's where if you strip money out of the equation and you start getting especially politicians economically literate, where we understand the thing that you want out of corporations is for them to grow and be paying better and better wages. Like that, that's the incentive system that you want to create.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  You don't want to be in the business of, I want to tax and tax and tax so that I can make more and more things for free. What you want to do is have an empowered worker base that is like, they can go in, they're educated, because our education system is top-notch, they are competitive in the workforce. They have the exact skills that line up with what the world wants at that moment. Again, that's an education system problem. And now you're not letting people outsource jobs to foreign countries. You're stopping, uh, companies from bringing in, uh, cheap immigrants to do the work. And now it's like the American workers educated, they're empowered because they know that the corporations can't just go, oh, you're too expensive, fuck you, I'm going to go elsewhere.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  And so now by creating a, um, fairer playing field, you're in a situation where the workers empowered, they can now get better wages and you get the healthy tension between the corporation that wants the work to be as cheap as possible and the worker who's like, no, no, no, I'm going to capture a meaningful amount of the increase in productivity. And so that's where it's like, that is a healthy, like, tension. When the government is trying to do everything from the top down, it starts to derange very fast. And we've somehow taught people that that money's not your money. That money is the government's money. You made it, you don't get to keep, I mean, I've been routinely taxed at over 50%. So I don't even get to keep half of what I make.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  And it's like, okay, kids, at some point, like what you give me back for that money better be pretty fucking spectacular. But it's not. And because governments tend towards tyranny, they become parasitic. It is the nature of organisms like that. And because we're not honest about that, we just want to see it get bigger and bigger and bigger. It just becomes more gross and more problematic. So I'm not, no money, no tax, that would be completely asinine. Uh, but it should be, okay, your guys' job is to make the playing field such that we've got nice, well-educated, empowered workers whose wages are going up in real terms over time. If you just look at that metric, growing GDP, real wages going up, oh my God, everything would be so much better.

• 24:18Speaker 05

  The 50% in 1950 to 25% in 1980 and where they are now at 15%. So I believe government is doing way too much for some people and way too little for others.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  Ben, interrogate, if you will, one of those points. And I asked the question, what principle should determine how much more wealthy Americans are asked to pay in taxes?

• 24:39Speaker 04

  So, yeah, I'm actually a believer in the flat tax because percentages are wonderfully neutral. Uh, and so, so the, the sort of progressive tax code of the United States, which is extremely progressive by any sort of international standard, is to my mind unfair. If you actually wanted to have a fair system, you know, the Bernie Sanders is constantly talking about. He will never advocate for a fair tax rate. So Bernie Sanders wants Denmark-style social systems, but he doesn't want Denmark-style taxes, wherein you're paying 60% of your income to the government when you're making at best a lower middle-class wage. Uh, and the reality is that you can tax the corporations and billionaires until the cows come home. It is not going to come close to paying for the amount that we are currently spending on all of these deficit spending programs. And so the reality is, again, there are choices in life.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  The choice that America has made, and I think it's the proper choice, is to subsidize innovation at the expense of, of pretty much all the other things that we are talking about here. Fairness, equality, especially because those are mush words that don't, when people say that the system isn't fair, I always ask, how fair does fair have to be? How fair are we talking here? Because nobody actually has a statistic in mind. What should the range of incomes be? When you say the person doesn't need a $20 million, what, what do they need? And why do you get to define what they need as opposed to what they have earned? It seems to me that the government should have as light a footprint as possible in order to achieve the effect that is sought. And both of those things ought to be actually defined well. What is the effect you are seeking and how big is the footprint?

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, the only place I would push back is the notion we have a progressive tax system. We have a progressive tax system until you get to the super wealthy and then it drops off the face of the cliff, uh, of a cliff. And the distinction is between super earners and super owners. First off, structurally, I think a very regressive tax is to say that we value capital more than we value sweat. I do not understand why people working for a living on average pay much higher taxes than people who make money off of stocks and houses. Again, another transfer of wealth from the young.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  But Ben's already addressed that. So here's the thing, getting to a flat tax where everybody pays a percentage would, that would be perfectly fine by me. Uh, now it's like, hey, guess what? Um, you're going to pay 20%. Everybody pays 20%.

• 26:44Speaker 06

  But I mean, that would be fine because you're getting a cut, like, upper wealth, like higher wealth individuals will be getting a cut. So that's why if I, if he said, okay, one flat tax, everybody pays 50%, would you be like, yay?

• 26:56Speaker 00

  So if everybody paid 50%?

• 26:58Speaker 06

  Everybody pays 50%.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Sure. I'm, I, in that case, in my higher earning years, and it's not true every year, but in my higher earning years, I'm already more than that anyway. So keep in mind, a 50% rate would be a tax cut for me in my best years. So I hope that lands as like, fuck, that's crazy. Um, but I'm trying to address his point, which is that what you end up getting is the people at the top end up avoiding paying that tax because they've got all kinds of ways around it. And so I'm saying, okay, if you're really worried that that is true, then just put a flat tax. And then you know, there's no wiggle room. The tax code is you pay this much. And that's that. And now where, uh, does the, where is the place to hide? There is no place to hide.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  So what happens is because people try to raise the tax more and more and more, what you do is you create an incentive for people to go around it. Everybody ever in all of human history in every country has found a way around that loophole, even around that, uh, the tax rate getting too high, even if that means, oh, I guess in China, I just have to become part of the CCP. But people will find a way around it. Nobody is going to let you take 90% of what they're doing, literally nobody. So once people, people don't want that to be true. They want to be able to extract as much as, you know, all of it if they want. Uh, when people are doing better than them, it comes from a place of resentment. It certainly doesn't come from a place of being fair. And to answer Scott's point, why do we value capital more than we value sweat? Here's the really hard answer.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Capital is far harder to come by than sweat, and that's why. And the world will always value what is more scarce. That's just a tough, tough thing to deal with. Uh, but that's the reality. And so given that, um, oh God, there was a absolutely hilarious, I didn't pull it, but, uh, there was a tweet that went out that said, it was a guy and girl together. Both sort of average looking people. And it said, can somebody please make my husband look wealthy? And somebody photoshopped her into a really attractive woman and then was like, there it is. And it's like that, the day that we have women saying, but he works really hard. And that's why, even though he's unattractive, I'm super hot. I'm with him because he's such a hard worker. It just, it isn't what the world values.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  There are a lot of people that can and will work hard. And there are a lot fewer people that are so successful that they're able to aggregate a disproportionate amount of capital. Capital falls along power law distributions, always has, always will. And so just like athletics, there's always going to be 20% of the people that make 80% of the points. There's going to be 20% of the entrepreneurs make 80% of the gains. 20% of investors make 80% of the wealth. It just, that is the world. And so this is one of those times where I say your beef is with God. Like that's just how intelligence, ability, discipline, drive, all of that is scattered in a way with humans is such that there's a small number of people at the top that are always going to outperform other people.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  And so it's, it is one of those things that becomes really maddening when you start looking at the mechanisms of the economy is there really are things that are broken, but people don't understand the economy well enough to fight for the things that are actually dumb that we should fix. To your credit, you always bang the drum on two things that are just so the right things to bang on, which is the step up in bases, the borrow, borrow, borrow until you die. And then your kids step up and that wealth gain just poof, the, the tax never comes out of it. Uh, and then the other, just build fucking more houses. So it's like, if we could get people to bang on that, like relentlessly, um, you'd be in much better shape.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  But instead it goes into this emotional realm of like, they're not paying their share. It's like, what the fuck are we talking about?

• 30:40Speaker 05

  The old who owns homes and in stocks, people our age, who makes their money from current income and rents? Younger people. You also have essentially, uh, the 25 wealthiest families paying a tax rate of 6%. I, I think we're progressive to a point and unfortunately gets in the way of an adult conversation, because if you're a high earner here, mom's a baller at a law firm, dad's a chiropractor, they make 2 million bucks a year, they've got the right certification, they've worked their asses off. Living in New Jersey or Connecticut, they might be paying 54%. But the person who, the private equity firm that owns the chiropractic clinic, the person who's be able to invest in stocks, that person gets to see their wealth grow tax deferred and compound and never, quite frankly, ever catches up.

• 31:23Speaker 05

  So do we have a progressive tax rate? To a certain point, but we have to discern between the super earners and the super owners. The super owners pay some of the lowest taxes in the West.

• 31:34Speaker 04

  I mean, that is certainly true. It is also true that the super owners, that pool of capital is used to invest in all the innovation that's being done. I mean, that, that pool of capital doesn't just sit in a Scrooge McDuck money vault somewhere that they swim around in at night.

• 31:46Speaker 00

  A lot of it also goes to the government in the form of treasuries so that the government can be as reckless as it is. So also keep that in mind.

• 31:53Speaker 04

  Reality is that what actually differentiates America's markets from the markets of Europe is not just our regulatory structures, which are a little bit looser in some areas. But it really, and there are certain countries in Europe, by the way, that are actually better for business in terms of regulatory structure, like Denmark would be one than the United States. So why do people instead come to the United States when they want to start a business? And the answer is we have gigantic pools of capital that are created by things like those tax structures that benefit investments and, and in a different way than they.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  I know I've said this before, people do not understand the power of aggregated capital. And the fact that the US has done such a phenomenal job of aggregating capital is pretty incredible. When you think about the fact that pre the Iran war, that you had so much of the Middle East just taking all that oil money and turning it into investments in the US stock market. It's pretty crazy.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  Benefit wages. Again, I'll also point out that when you are investing in a stock, typically, when I invest in a stock anyway, typically it's because I earned a buck and now I take that money and now I invest in a stock.

• 32:47Speaker 00

  It's post tax.

• 32:48Speaker 04

  Why should I be double taxed because I decided to invest in a stock where if I just took that money and I put it in a bank, I wouldn't be taxed in a way the same way. I mean, income and income from investment that I've already paid a tax on from, through my wages is a double tax.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  On the question of is the government doing too much or too little? Where's the line between a safety net that helps people get ahead?

• 33:08Speaker 00

  By the way, in fairness to Scott didn't make the point, but I have a feeling if he had more time, he probably would have. Uh, you're not taxed again on the money that you bought the asset with, you're only taxed on the gain. Uh, so keep that in mind.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Safety net that creates dependency.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  So, I mean, obviously I, I think that a huge amount of that is, it, it, no one has been able to solve this problem. This is the fundamental problem of welfare economics. Literally no one has been able to solve this problem. Milton Friedman had a, a solution that he thought was going to be sort of the reverse income tax. It turns out it doesn't work. People have tried UBI, it doesn't work. It turns out that human beings are incredibly good at, at pursuing their own self-interest. And when you offer people cash to do a thing, it turns out that they will do a thing, whether that is to do nothing or whether to do a thing. And so this has never really been solved. And this is why I think that, you know, the, the thing that we have to recognize is that personal decision-making, which we really haven't discussed much here, is in many cases, the key differentiator in whether people rise or fall. We've talked about various social factors and governmental factors. But when we talk about, you know, what are the factors that lead to success in the United States?

• 34:10Speaker 04

  The number one factor that will lead to success in the United States were, were you born into a two-parent household? If you're born into a two-parent household versus a single parent household, that makes a huge difference to you. And that's not in your control, but it certainly was in your parents' control. And what happens to your kids is in your control. And so, yeah, again, I think that one of the things that we have to discuss when we're discussing government policy is exactly this question. What are the incentive structures that continue to push forward people making good, responsible decisions as opposed to alleviating the consequences of decision-making? So what is your fault and what is not your fault is actually kind of a big question and government should help you sometimes with the stuff that's not your fault. But the stuff that's kind of your fault, you probably should bear the consequence of that because the reality is otherwise you're not going to do the right thing next time.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  I expect that to be one of the more controversial things that he says in this debate, that people are going to really take exception to that. People do not like being told that the way that they live their life has consequences.

• 35:02Speaker 05

  Well, the question is, when we use the word fault, and that is as the child of a single mother, I would argue that it was neither mine nor my mother's fault. I'll give my dad the blame. The result was.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  Now, listen, I don't know his dad, but it certainly takes two to tango.

• 35:17Speaker 05

  Without unemployment insurance, the right to access family planning, Pell Grants, assisted lunch, we would have been broke. And I wouldn't have had the opportunity to go to UCLA and then go on to, and I'm going to make a humble brag now, pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes. So some government, government intervention to help people, whether you think it was their fault or not, uh, pays off for all of us. It's been shown that SNAP benefits, uh, have a huge return on investment when people aren't hungry. So there are, there are absolutely benefits. The University of California is the greatest economic elevator in history. It's expensive and we end up with massive tax revenue and innovation and Pulitzer Prize

• 35:59Speaker 05

  winners and Nobel Prize winners that create huge economic benefit. Subsidizing research at universities has had a huge ROI. So it's not about the amount of money we're spending. I think you and I are actually of the same ilk that we're spending too much money, but there are absolutely, uh, payments to people. And I, I think the problem is with the word, we're using it's their fault. Cause I think that comes down to a value judgment. And I think the increase in single parent households quite.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  No about that. We're talking cause and effect here.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  Frankly, is not poor values from those people. I think it's a function, quite frankly, a lot of women have decided they no longer want to be economically indentured to men. And we're seeing an increase in divorce rates from older people who've decided they no longer want to be in those relationships.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  This is where it comes down to what, why I think it is a values question. It comes down to, uh, what do you think is more important? So, um, shout out to my, my dad who, uh, when he finally left, when I left for college, I was the youngest, when I left for college, my dad left, my mom, three weeks later, said he'd been, he had been unhappy for a very long time. And nonetheless, obviously stayed so that I would have a two-parent household the whole time I was there. And so, um, I just respect that. I respect people staying together to raise their kids. Now, listen, I'm not talking about abusive situations or anything like that. You got to get the hell out. Um, but it is very commendable in my opinion that my dad stayed in the house and I didn't

• 37:26Speaker 00

  feel, uh, that, you know, they weren't arguing or fighting or anything like that. Just, hey, I had the good luck of having parents that were together and it was nice and easy. Um, so looking at what are the consequences of these decisions, I think is very important. And if we can look at data and say, oh, kids are actually better off in a two-parent household, then giving people that information and saying, listen, staying together is actually going to be good for the kids. Uh, and having an over celebration of the, you know, mentality of like, yeah, well, she earns her own money, so I can just leave. I don't care. Or, um, I don't want to be chained to him, so I'm going to leave. It's like. Looking at what is the outcome that you want? Is the outcome that you want? I have kids. I want to make sure that I raise them the best to the best of my abilities.

• 38:10Speaker 00

  And I think I'll be able to do that in the house better. Or is it, um, you know, I just, I'm unhappy. And so I'm going to do the thing that makes me the happiest. And if that's peace out, then it's peace out. I think it's a worthwhile debate. Everybody should make the decision for themselves. I do not think people should be forced to stay together. But do I think that kids come out better when there's social pressure to stay together? Yes.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  But there are a lot of people that just end up on the wrong side. As you would say, of bad decisions, who the investments in those people and lifting them up is prevents massive healthcare expenses, incarceration, and also gives a ton of unremarkable kids the opportunity to go on to do remarkable things and create a lot of economic value.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  So, I mean, obviously I agree with you that your status, as I said, as a child or a single mom is not your, you're the child. But when it comes to mom and dad, I mean, the reality is that we're talking broad spectrum. And it's hard to do anecdotal because everybody has a different six.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  And we have to have sympathy for people in their individual situations. Are you talking public policy? You have to talk about the broad numbers. The reality is that the spike in single motherhood in the United States, which was a direct result, or at least correlates very highly, shall we say, with the extraordinary rise of the welfare state in the 1960s. Illegitimacy, which was the old fashioned word that people used to use, was significantly lower in 1960 than it was in 1980. And the single intervening effect was the fact that the government started incentivizing people not to get married by essentially creating a subsidy program for people who were, who were having children without two parents in the household. And that was done out of sympathy. It was done out of empathy for people. But what that actually does is, again, some people are going to make different decisions based on government policy. And so the, the factors that you're talking about, people who are getting divorced at older ages,

• 39:46Speaker 04

  that, that is something that's been happening over the course of the last decade. But the truth is that the, the divorce rate has kind of stagnated in America. It really has not gone up dramatically over the course of the last couple of decades. And the single motherhood rate actually has kind of stagnated in America. It has not radically gone up over the course of the last, I believe it's gone slightly down over the course of the last decade or so. The real major rise that we saw in things like single mother households happened coincident with the rise of the welfare state again, as an indirect result of the market distortion that was created by sympathy. And so, again, sympathy is not a bad thing. Sympathy in government policy, you know, sometimes that falls under the, the old legal phrase we used to use at law school. Hard, hard cases make bad law. The attempt to help one person or a group of people, sometimes people, even inadvertently, make a different decision because they know that the safety net is there as opposed to.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  So true. This is, this is the whole Malay of it all. When Malay took office and he said, I'm going to slash all these different departments. People were like, people are going to starve to death. And he's like, people always find a way to not starve to death. And the reality is it finally gives people the incentive that they need to actually go start looking for a job. They did an interview with a guy on the street. He was 35 years old and he was, um, trying to find a job for the first time. And people were like, wait, how are you at 35 and you're just now getting a job? And he was like, well, I, uh, when I was whatever, 17, I got on the government dole and I've just been on it ever since. And I live with my mom and, uh, also live somewhat off of her, um, welfare. And so, yeah, I've just never needed a job. It's like, god damn.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  And so when those programs actually run out, people get the incentive that they need to go and join the workforce. It's one of the things that people do not talk about in America. Because the unemployment, the official unemployment rate is 4.1 or 4.2. We don't talk about, it's like 8% of people that have just opted out of the workforce. And I'm not talking about old people that have retired. I'm talking people that could actually be working, but have opted out of the workforce. And because they've opted out, we just don't count them. And so we miss that the real unemployment rate is over 10%. So that's where this starts to get crazy, is understanding how these incentives play out. And if we're not honest about that, then we end up with that fact that we started at the beginning with,

• 42:00Speaker 00

  which is that the country is racing towards bankruptcy because all of these automatic payments, these entitlements that we have to people are so big and ever growing.

• 42:09Speaker 04

  You used to have to get married in order to make sure that your kids actually had the two parent household that was going to allow for them to have a better future.

• 42:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just, just want to follow up real quickly. Correlation is not equal causation because I could make just the same argument. The greatest levels of divorce are amongst seniors right now or older people. And it's largely because 70% of divorce filings are from women. And it's largely because women no longer feel economically indentured to staying in a relationship that they feel is abusive or that they don't want to be in. And also, if you really wanted to reduce divorce rates, Ben, the greatest cause of divorce is not a lack of shared values. It's not a lack of morality. It's not even infidelity. It's economic anxiety. If you wanted to reduce divorce rates, you would figure out a way to supply more housing. You would increase minimum wage and you would help people make investments in infrastructure so there were more jobs out there. It's financial insecurity that's leading to more divorce, not a lack of values.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  So, ooh, uh, okay. All the things that he just listed, they would be great things to do. But the reality is, this is like when people say, if you want people to have more kids, you just need to make sure that they're more economically stable. The reality is poor people have a lot more kids. The reality is that for all of human history, we have been, uh, more broke than we are now. There's never been a nation wealthier than the US is now. And the fact is that, uh, relationships are breaking apart now in a way that they didn't historically. So there's something else going on. And I would say that a large part of this is the social pressure. There isn't social pressure. The idea of a shotgun wedding, that doesn't even exist anymore.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  So while I don't downplay at all, economic, um, anxiety creates problems in a marriage. I think that there is a lot more going on that actually causes the, um, dissolving of such a high percentage of marriages that we see now.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  Okay, so, I mean, again, this is going to be an area of significant disagreement. Number one, when we're talking about single motherhood, the vast majority of single motherhood that I'm talking about in the rise in the 60s and 70s is not predominantly due to divorce. It was due to people having babies out of wedlock. But when we're talking about the divorce rate, the reality is that for the vast majority of human history, divorce rates were significantly lower than today and everybody was a lot poorer. And there was a lot more economic anxiety. So I do think that there have been some values that have changed in the United States. I might argue for better. I would argue significantly for the worse. And, and the reality is that I don't think that government changing material circumstances is going to be the thing that predominantly affects divorce rates. I think that there are, there are social factors that, that determine much of the decision making that we do. Not everything is a matter of government.

• 44:38Speaker 00

  It's just not, um, frowned upon in the way that it used to be. And so we don't make the concessions. We don't do the harder things. And listen, I think that's fine. I think people should have the choices that they want. But if we're talking about government policy, then we need to look at what are the outcomes of those policies? If they don't lead to the outcomes that are better for, and then insert your goal here, whether it's kids, whether it is not going bankrupt as a country, then you've got to start making hard decisions.

• 45:05Speaker 06

  I have a question about that because I, this is my socialism friend. I'm talking full DSA. DSA doesn't go left enough, right? Her and her, um, partner, they've been together eight years, never wanted to get married, never wanted to do anything. Recently they came in on some economic issues. They're about to like relocate back home. She's about to go back to school. And through all this, she's like, it will just make it easier for a married because I can get the benefit. My, uh, insurance rate will be different. I can get on his insurance and all these other things. So it seems like the incentive there was having, when you are married on paper, you're turning two individuals into one that allows people to change for health insurance, get, uh, assistance for school, all these other things. So there is the government incentive to get married.

• 45:48Speaker 06

  Do you think that we just need a government incentive to have kids or a government?

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Well, so the, there's a mild government incentive on some of the things that you just listed, but there isn't a government incentive if you're going to have kids to be married because the welfare of having single kids outweighs the welfare of being, or not welfare, but the tax break of being married. So looking at that, I think is important. And then also, I think the bigger issue on marriage is societal. I think it's a cultural problem. I don't think that the government, I think the government already does some wise things to give tax breaks to couples. I think that's super smart. I would love to find some way to incentivize people to have kids, but other countries that have tried it, it doesn't seem to really be effective. Maybe somebody's got a silver bullet way to do it, but I haven't seen a country that's found it yet.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  Throwing money at people doesn't seem to do it. So I'm not sure what that's going to be. I have a feeling culture is probably a much bigger thing there. Now, I can actually feel a cultural shift happening a bit now, uh, where we're swinging back towards people having kids is a good thing, maybe at least on the right. Having kids is a good thing and we should be positive about having children. And, um, I think that's going to be more effective at seeing more kids born than a government policy that they'll put in place. Just because kids are hard, they're expensive, et cetera, et cetera. So that would be my thought on that.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Government incentives affect decision making. They're not the only factor in decision making.

• 47:19Speaker 00

  Americans consistently say they want to protect major benefits, keep taxes relatively low, and reduce the debt. Ben, how should political leaders reconcile those

• 47:29Speaker 04

  You can't.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  ...needing demands?

• 47:30Speaker 04

  The American people want a bunch of things that don't make sense in coordination with one another. The American people, many people will say that they want tariffs but also lower prices. Many people will say that they want to, they don't like Congress but they love their congressperson. Poll statistics show Americans that we want fewer services and less costs, and then the minute you name a service, they want it to cost more and they want to spend more money. So politicians have the duty, and this to me is really a question of what the founders, I think, if the founders missed something, it was that they thought that there was an idea of civic virtue that was going to actually adhere to politicians and to people who tried to be responsible for the public wheel. And it turns out that everybody in the end is responsive to what the voters want. And what do the voters want? They want candy today and they don't want to have to pay for it tomorrow.

• 48:15Speaker 04

  And so the American people are, in the end, the ones who are responsible for the fact that we have blown our deficit out, and will continue to blow our deficit out because we keep voting for politicians who want to do that. And then we punish the politicians who say they don't. And Paul Ryan, I'm old enough to remember when he was the Speaker of the House for the Republicans and was basically run out of town on a rail for making many of the same arguments that probably both you and I would make about the necessity for actually restructuring many of our entitlement programs in a more fiscally responsible fashion. George W. Bush, if we had done what he wanted, when he talked about, quote unquote, privatizing Social Security back in 2005, it would have made a significant difference in the cost of Social Security over time. Whether he liked that program or didn't like that program, nobody has made an alternative suggestion since, literally, 2000, it's been 20 years,

• 48:57Speaker 04

  and nobody has made a suggestion on how to fix Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid. So yeah, the American public wants a bunch of things, none of them are in coordination with one another. You know, welcome to democracy.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  So when a government promise becomes increasingly difficult to afford, what should determine whether that promise is kept, reduced, or restructured?

• 49:13Speaker 05

  So I'm not as fatalist. Clinton balanced the budget. You mentioned W. I think that's where things got really ugly. George Washington and George Bush, 7 trillion in deficits. Bush to Trump, now we have 37 trillion. Bush said to the American public, "I can cut your taxes and go to war." And unfortunately, the American public believed him. I do believe the American public is ready for leadership in an adult conversation around reducing some entitlement benefits for people who may not need them, and also raising taxes on people. I think we could get to something resembling a path towards a balanced budget. And I think people are starting to register the effects of inflation that come from constantly printing money.

• 49:54Speaker 05

  The argument you're making has really solid evidence. No fiat currency has ever survived. Every fiat currency in history ultimately goes to zero because of the political pressure to keep printing money. I would like to think there's leadership out there that will say, "Okay, we have to close the tax gap. We have to collect the taxes that are owed, mostly by corporations and wealthy. We probably need corporations and the wealthy to pay more. The owners, not necessarily the earners, we are going to have to reduce expenditures, especially across entitlements, as you discuss." But for example, the Social Security tax, it's capped at $187,000. So an analyst working for me making $200,000 pays $12,000 in Social

• 50:36Speaker 05

  Security taxes. I make much more than that, and I pay $12,000. You could raise, if you just lifted the cap, which is a regressive cap, and said that you just have to pay the same percentage as you get richer, not even a bigger share of your income on Social Security, you have a $350 billion increase in tax receipts. We spend $1.5 trillion on our military despite losing a war to a middle power. Perhaps we should look at military spending around the asymmetry that Ukraine and Iran have demonstrated, and go to a lethal fighting force that, quite frankly, isn't basically a military-industrial complex shareholder act that spends $1.5 trillion, that could probably be $800 or $900 billion. There are common sense solutions here. And I think a lot of people and corporate interests will

• 51:21Speaker 05

  weaponize the delusion or the illusion of complexity that we can't get there. We got there in the Clinton years, and I do believe people see the danger of skyrocketing interest rates and inflation that comes from this deficit spending. If America was a house, we make $50,000 a year, we're spending $70,000, and the house owes $370,000. But when the parents die, the kids are going to inherit that. I do think America is ready for leadership and adult conversation around this.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  Scott, you have the final word in this round. So, okay, gentlemen, the final question? Yeah. Oh, stop there. I think this is one of the most important debates that we could be having right now in terms of, what are we going to do, boys? We are racing towards bankruptcy, and if we don't change something, we will end up there. You guys know, I think that we're on, it was a 10-year clock, we're down to nine. The debt is not going to take care of itself, and it's certainly not going to get paid off. So how do we make the debt death spiral something that we can pull out of? That's the question. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic,

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