President John Pudner returned to airwaves across our Republic recently as he began the 2024 election season discussing the ever-increasing US National Debt, currently sitting at just over $34 trillion as of writing, recent developments regarding both spending and the debt limit within the halls of Congress, and how the upcoming election cycle could affect what solutions, if any, are brought forward.
He begins this tour off the heels of recent contested battles in Washington over this issue as yet another government shutdown looms, with newly-minted Speaker Mike Johnson reaching an agreement to suspend the debt limit until 2025 in exchange for $30 billion in spending cuts, $26 billion of which were already scheduled to occur. This comes off the heels of recent statements from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who stated earlier this year that the Senate would never pass any debt ceiling bill coming from the House, vowing to stand against any spending cut sent from House Republicans.
Pudner and host Stevie Jay not only discuss the serious and wide range of implications our $34 trillion debt has and will have for voters across our Republic and our standing on the world's stage, but also focus on how this battle further highlights the dysfunction and disunity within Congress on nearly every issue - something that Final Five, a voting system that encourages citizen legislators, removes the need for divisive primaries, and incentivizes focusing on the big issues at play - could help to alleviate and is also a measure that President John Pudner testified in favor of in the Wisconsin State Senate and just recently in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
To learn more about TBOR Action's efforts on topics including election integrity, please click here.
The following transcript from this interview is presented in its entirety with minor edits:
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Johnson, Schumer, systemic changes, inflation, deficit, argue, currency, campaign.
SPEAKERS
Stevie Jay and TBORA President John Pudner
Stevie Jay 00:00
John Pudner, ladies and gentlemen, is the President of Take Back Our Republic Action. He was a Bush 2000 aide and the only person in US history to run a campaign defeating the majority leader in a primary, so he's now famous, and lives in Milwaukee. Okay, so now we have a deficit of $34 trillion. I have no idea what that means?
John Pudner 00:23
And that's the problem and why it's not addressed, because no one has any concept, and you have to try to say this is over $100,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country, or it would take you 32 years to count, just try to give people some kind of grasp.
Stevie Jay 00:40
One, two, so 34 years to get to this number if I started right now, What's the ramification...when W. was the president, Barack Obama called him irresponsible because I think it slipped to a $8 trillion deficit or something, so now we're 34 trillion, none of us can conceive what the long term of that is. Are we growing out of that? What happens here?
John Pudner 01:12
Well, we aren't, and I think no one has felt it in the past is the problem. No one's really felt the shutdown and that's partly because the dollar has always been so dominant in the world, and our military has been dominant for so long. Those two things can get you through if you have those two cards to play on how severe it is, but the concern is inflation, the impact it has on what you're spending at the grocery store, but you've now got eight countries starting to use Chinese currency pretty regularly, including Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Argentina. So the fact that the Chinese are seeing US weakness and making such a play for becoming a new currency, that's where you start to not have a monopoly on money in the country, if you will.
Stevie Jay 02:09
Why is that happening? Why are the Saudis using the Yuan?
John Pudner 02:15
They're starting to perceive a weakness in the dollar and not quite the same US strength. All these things tie together, and for decades, we obviously had the unquestioned military might, but Russia likes to fight, and China likes to win. They see currency as the big, long term goal. If they can shift a bunch of the world over to their currency, they become the central player, instead of us.
Stevie Jay 03:00
I think people that watch what's happening in America right now, I guess to be kind, they'd be confused? What happened to America, when we can't get through a day without arguing with calling you him or her? Some of the things we're talking about...We got a real crisis with the border, we got crime that has just gone nuts, we got inflation through the roof. I mean, I'm shocked at how fast this happened since COVID. We were kind of normal, doing pretty well on, in 2018?
John Pudner 03:39
That's right. I mean, it's hard to argue with the progress made up until COVID from 2017. Energy independence, all kinds of good developments, and of course, right then, as you know, the forecast was we hit $34 trillion in debt in 2029, so this sped everything up, and these things tie into all the issues you just mentioned. You have to have to be able to deal with things monetarily and we've got several crisis we have trouble dealing with.
Stevie Jay 04:14
Well, the policies aren't working. I mean, I don't know if anybody is shocked by that, but it's just not working, and I don't know what we have to live through. If we get four more years of these policies, John, I don't think it's gonna be very good.
John Pudner 04:26
No, I just don't see how you can argue results, and of course, that's obviously become the centerpiece of a campaign is what were the results of the last administration versus this one, but I just don't see how you can argue actual results....
Stevie Jay 04:42
The only thing the Biden campaign is gonna do is say how you can't like Adolf Hitler. I mean, it's all they got is how bad Trump is. That's it.
John Pudner 04:54
Yeah, I just don't see how you tell the results. I mean, you got just over 20% thinking you're doing a good job on immigration and these issues are hitting home. Years back, immigration was a border case, now it's not, everyone understands the labor ramifications around the country, so these are central issues we have to deal with.
Stevie Jay 05:22
Last question, John, will we ever have a president we rally around, that there will actually be over 50% that like a president with the negatives, and the always something up, and this guy put his dog on top of the car? I mean, I don't know if they'll ever be a precedent we can rally around because of the opposition stuff.
John Pudner 05:42
Well, the one thing some conservatives don't like, to be honest, is this Final Five idea, but that's the whole point, is you have to get the 50% with that. Joe Biden couldn't win Wisconsin 49 to 48 again because the conservative vote is split, and the system is just so set up to make the whole process divisive, that you don't even need 50%, you need enough people that hate the other one and divide their votes. We're gonna have to make some systemic changes to have a president that's accepted and has even a honeymoon period after a win.
Stevie Jay 06:12
May I have to talk to you next time about that. How can people find you and connect with what you're doing?
John Pudner 06:19
takebackaction.org, and we have had some good Illinois meetings, good turnout, a couple hundred at one of them, so we'd love for people to sign up!
Stevie Jay 06:26
Yeah, you the man.