NC Governor promises affordability but offered no specifics | Hour 2

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the Pete calendar show.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All right. As I threatened earlier, I have audio. I watched the, um, Press conference by Governor Josh Stein, a.k.a. Mini Cooper. And he said some stuff that I thought was interesting for you to hear. And so I captured the audio and then I edited it. And we'll have some commentary along the way as we do. So first off, he starts off by saying it was an incredible night for America and for North Carolina. Yes. The voters of North Carolina made their voices heard loudly and clearly. They want balance. They want common sense in their government. They flipped the House of Representatives in dramatic fashion, and they narrowed the margins in the state Senate to ensure that there will be balance between the two parties. Right. So talk about reverse engineering something, right? Everybody does this, okay? I'm not picking on Stein here. Everybody does this. They attempt to craft a narrative, the quicker the better, right? They do it during you know, breaking news stories, particularly evident in like mass shooting events, right? Everybody races to try to pin the motive on their political adversaries, right, before they know any information. And so, you know, Josh Stein is out there saying that this is a great day, an incredible night for America. Why? Because Democrats won. See, when you Every time you hear Democrats talk about democracy, just swap out their party with the word democracy. And that's really what they're talking about. So when he says a great day for America, you know, for the Democrat Party, this is not a great thing for America. And even if it turns out to be, you don't know that at this time. So everybody is trying to craft a narrative and then have that harden, have it calcify. So this way, everybody going forward is thinking differently. through that lens right that oh this was about north carolina voters wanting to bring balance by giving democrats a trifecta you think about the absurdity of this but this is like the gerrymandering or the redistricting or fair maps right when democrats say fair maps they mean maps that advantage them that's what they prefer but they say fair maps And by the way, all the talk about how you're drawing all of these maps and Democrats can't ever win under these gerrymandered maps. And blah, blah, blah. That was a lie. Right? That was a lie. Well, we should have won by more. But it was a lie to say that you couldn't win. You literally now control as many House seats as the Republicans did. Right? 10-4. That's the split now. And that's what Republicans had. Before they did the mid-decade redistricting to try to get, you know, what, 11 or whatever it was. So the 10-4 split is what Republicans drew a couple years ago. And you said those were gerrymandered maps and Democrats would never be able to win them and Republicans were like, you could win them in a Democrat wave and all of this. And no, no, no, this is suppression. So if it was suppression, how did you win? How did that happen? Because suppression... would indicate you couldn't win. You guys were saying you could never win back control. This is so out of reach because of the gerrymandering. You flip the House, you're one seat away from flipping the Senate, and you got 10 of the congressional seats. But they'll keep saying this lie. They'll keep saying this stuff because the media will just repeat it. Because they're Democrats. This is Democrat privilege. You get to say things like this and never get challenged on it. Governor Josh Stein did not get a single combative question. No challenging question during his brief press conference. It ran like 15 minutes or so. He took about eight questions, which is like eight more than Roy Cooper took during the entire election. So at least Stein made himself available. But he didn't get any challenging questions. Right. He just got out there and was given the opportunity to preach unity and talk about, you know, how we're going to do all these things and we'll work with people. And, you know, we need to listen to the voters who went to the ballot box to bring balance. So, again, balance to him is flipping the House, taking like two thirds of the congressional districts, winning the Senate seat. And almost flipping the state Senate. That, to him, is balance. That that's what voters were saying. Which is not what voters were saying. No voter in any of the exit polls that I've seen came out and said, we're coming out to vote for balance. That's not what they said. Not at all. Okay? He then goes on to say, voters want leaders who work together on their behalf. Our job as those elected leaders is to listen and to work together because we can work together to lower costs. The cost of housing, electricity, and healthcare are too high for North Carolina families. Why? We can work together to keep people safe. We know we need more well-trained local law enforcement on the streets, in the community. We can work together to invest in our people so that they have the skills, the knowledge that they need to succeed in this fast changing economy. Investments in education, pre-K, K-12, community college and universities are investments in North Carolina's future. Okay. So a lot of language there, euphemisms, right? Boilerplate slogans, but nobody asks him, Like, OK, let's take one of your examples. You said housing, electricity and health care too high. How do you bring the cost down? Governor, how do you intend to do that? What are your plans for that? What plans are out there that have some merit? Or is this going to be like tax the rich and give subsidies to people so stuff costs less for them, but the cost isn't actually less? You're just redistributing the cost to somebody else. You're making somebody else pay the cost. How do you make electricity cost less? How do you do that? How do you make housing cost less? Be specific. Give me some ideas. What are some of your ideas? What can the state do to make these things cost less? Health care. What about that one? I thought you guys fixed that. I remember the Affordable Health Care Act. It's what you guys named it. You said it would make health care affordable. And now it's not affordable. So what happened? What happened? See, any time like what is what what are these things have in common, by the way? Housing, electricity, health care. I would throw in education as well. Why are these things so expensive? How have they grown so expensive so quickly? They're heavily regulated industries. Government is all up in the business of these businesses. Mandates, right? They're all in there. Making these companies do all of these different things, slapping regulations on them, making them comply with all these various things. And you can say all of these things are needed. We have to hold, you know, like you can't build a home unless you have all these codes and everything else or else people will build homes that would, you know, catch fire and fall apart and whatever. Whatever you want to say as to why you're imposing all the. Restrictions, right? You can have a rationalization for every individual mandate that you're doing, but don't tell me that there's not a cost associated with it, because there are, right? When you require, for example, every electrical outlet in my home to be of a certain specification, that then is borne by me, the home buyer. I have to buy a house that has all of these updated, um, electrical systems, HVAC systems, right? All the building codes. And again, every single one of those codes. Let's just assume, uh, that they're all for perfectly rational and altruistic reasons. Although we know they're not, but let's say they all are. That does not deny the fact that that adds additional costs onto the price of housing. It does. You know what also, um, creates increased upward pressure on housing, more demand. That's economics 101. You have more demand. You have more people that want the homes and not enough homes getting built, right? You know what creates more demand? More people. People are demand, right? People are the ones who are making the demands. I want a house. So what happens when you, I don't know, allow a massive influx of people into the country who need housing? Well, that increases the demand, puts upward pressure on pricing. That's how that happens. And then when you try to build the homes, not only do you have the regulatory burdens that increase the cost, but you also have like local governments that have all sorts of zoning restrictions. Then you have people turning out and saying. I don't want that apartment complex anywhere near me because of the traffic, blah, blah, blah. And the traffic is bad because the local jurisdictions aren't widening the roads. Charlotte, looking at you, right? You're not widening the roads. You're not making those infrastructure improvements. Why? Because you're spending money on other things. You're not prioritizing the things. So, yeah, let's talk about that, Governor. Affordability. Happy to do so. What are your ideas? 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Go to createavideo.com or visit them in Mint Hill just off I-485. Your photos and videos are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you. And they will tell others to come who you are. Visit create a video.com. Uh, some, uh, breaking news. Um, Harmeet Dhillon, uh, is reportedly resigning as the DOJ assistant attorney general for civil rights. Um, that would be, that would be a loss. She has done a lot of great work. That would be a loss, but John Thune still there, everybody. Thank goodness. Um, Let's get to the texts here and see what y'all are saying, what you people are saying. Joey from Asheville says the Democrats are misreading the election results and it will show by winter's end. That is a risk, right? They may be talking affordability, but they don't have the capacity or ideas to actually do anything to address affordability. That's not their jam. So if that's what they think this is all about, their policies aren't going to are not going to deliver those things. Okay. Um, if it was about people's anger at Donald Trump and they turned on Republicans, but they were previously Republican voters and Democrats think that now these people are theirs, they're not, they're, they're not yours. You know, they, they, it was like protest voting. If that's what happened, right. With a large enough portion, uh, that could be a misread as well. Um, 704 number says, I just got the tax value assessment, uh, On my 1996 Ford Ranger, it went from $ 800 to $ 2150. Is this an example of how Democrats get prices down? Yes. Yes, that is exactly what they do. All right, let me get back to some more of this audio because I don't want it to be clipped in vain. Governor Josh Stein says... Voters expect us to work together for them. The next General Assembly has an incredible opportunity if we just listen. If we just listen to what the people of North Carolina want. Yeah, if we just listen to what they want. Hmm. Hmm. They want voter ID. You guys have opposed that. Right? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Polling shows they love the school vouchers. You guys are opposed to that, too. The cap on the income tax. You guys oppose that. Voters voted for it. In fact, there's like almost every single referendum item that voters have approved in North Carolina y'all have opposed. Is that an example of y'all listening to the voters, too? Alternatively, the Democrats could just. Do what they want. and what their voters want. The final question that Stein fielded about the constitutional amendments being overwhelmingly approved, his answer indicated that he's not really interested in listening to the voters. He wants Republicans to listen to Democrat voters and what Democrat voters want. The three amendments were drafted, I think, cynically. to be so attractive to people that they would vote for them because there wasn't enough information. I do believe that if voters had enough information and understood what the consequence of a 3.5% income tax cap is on people, they would have rejected it. Oh, so we're stupid. We just didn't know. Once again, see, Democrats believe that voters never reject their ideas. They just haven't sold it well enough. It was the messaging. This is always the case. I talk about this all the time. Here's another example of it. You just didn't understand what a three and a half percent income tax cap was. That's why you voted for it. See, you're dumb. If only you were educated, but we couldn't spend ten million dollars to educate you. And what would be this education? Well, here's the pitch. The problem is, is it would have taken tens of millions of dollars to educate them. Because if you say to somebody, do you want to pay no more than three and a half percent income tax with no more information? We know the result of that. The majority of voters are going to say, sure, I don't want to pay more taxes than I have to. But here's the deal. If there is a recession, working people are going to be the ones who bear the cost of that. Not the well-to-do, not the wealthy, those who can afford to pay. I considered these amendments to be a con job on the people of North Carolina. Ah, so you were tricked. You were conned. We were all conned. Because if a recession hits... They're going to need to raise taxes and they won't be able to raise the taxes during a recession. See, if you had known that, duh, then you would have voted for it. But you didn't know that. You didn't understand what a cap meant, right? That was the problem. We can't have a cap of three and a half percent because when economic times get tough, we want to be able to take more of your money. See? If you had known that, you would have voted against the cap. Gosh. And we're going to have to now deal with its constraints. What the property tax amendment said was is that the legislature can set a limit. And if they do a restrictive limit like they've done on income tax, what they're going to do is make it so that local governments are unable to meet the needs of their people, whether it's water infrastructure or local roads or parks or. libraries. I don't want my local libraries closing. And so I hope that the legislature is very restrained in what it does on limiting local government's ability to raise the revenue necessary to meet the needs of the people. Yeah, raise taxes. Yeah, this was a message to local governments to reprioritize your spending because you're spending more money on things that are not necessary. They're not core functions of government. We went over this before the election, right? That's what the levy limit is about. It says, here's a formula, usually like inflation plus population growth or something, right? You cannot keep jacking up your property tax rates by double digits. You can't do that. Because you're not prioritizing correctly. But of course, what does he use as the examples of things that would have to be cut? The core functions of government. Well, aside from the libraries, but like the like roads, infrastructure, police, fire, right? That's what they always do, right? They'll raise your taxes to pay for all these things that they want to have. And then when you complain about the taxes going up, they cite the things that they're supposed to be funding at a higher priority than they are. They'll cite that as things to cut. All right, real quick, every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. taking a listen to the governor's comments at his brief press conference yesterday. Again, kudos to the governor, Josh Stein, for at least doing a press conference. He answered more. Questions in one day in 15 minutes than Roy Cooper has answered in his entire campaign. Um, Governor Stein says there are a lot of pieces of legislation that he would like to see come across his desk. We have to strengthen all of our K-12, pre-K, community colleges and universities. We have to invest in public safety. We have to continue to focus on helping Western North Carolina recover. We have to drive down costs for people. That's why I am eager. These are not simple issues. There's not one piece. Of legislation that's going to fix what needs to be fixed in North Carolina. But if we work together, the new Speaker Reeves. The new President Pro Tem, all of the Democratic and Republican members of the General Assembly, I am confident we can deliver for people of North Carolina. All right. So we're going to drive down the cost by spending more on education, spending more for public safety. and on disaster recovery like for Hurricane Helene. But also we're gonna drive down the costs by spending more money. Makes perfect sense. He also says we should kill the school voucher program. We're gonna have to sit down around the table and talk seriously about our scarce resources that go to education. Do we really want these scarce dollars for education to go away from a public school kid, take it out of that public school kid's. Backpack, and put it. Into the bank account of somebody who's doing pretty well, sending their child to an unaccountable private school whose child never was in public school. All right, this is so dishonest. Because, first off, the money isn't following the kid, right, in a true sense. That's what the school vouchers are supposed to do. It's supposed to put the money in the backpack of the kid, so wherever the kid goes, right? And he's saying we're going to take the money out of the backpack of the public school kid and stick it in a bank account for some Richie Richie person, right? No. That Richie Richie person has a kid too. And their money is going to their kid's education. Doesn't matter where it's going. It's going to that kid's education. They're not taking the money out of some other kid's backpack. It was in the Richie kid's backpack in the first place. It's so dishonest. But if they are, by some miracle, able to kill the entire opportunity scholarship program, they will count that as an increase in education funding. When it's not, it would be level. It would be status quo, right? Because the money is currently being used for what? Education. Just not government school education. See, it's not real education. unless Democrats control it. That's what's at stake here for them. This is why they turned out. This is why the left turned out in numbers normally seen in like a presidential race. It's because they recognize what the right has been doing, what the Trump administration has been doing, what the North Carolina Republican legislature has been doing in dismantling and undermining their operations. They see it. Um, Florida just announced that, um, their designation of the council on American Islamic relations, like as a foreign terrorist organization, it's been upheld in court and care Florida just shut down. They just announced that like half hour ago. So like. When you, you, you cannot fight something if you're unwilling to identify what it is. And this is what people thought they were getting with Donald Trump. And, in some areas they were correct. He does identify the problem, the adversary. But if you can't even identify, you can't even name the opponent or the ideology, then you cannot fight it. Stein said he's still processing what the voters were saying, though. And what I heard from the people of North Carolina is do something for us, focus on our issues, listen to our concerns, and work together. Don't be so focused on the partisan divide. Focus on producing for people. Very flowery, very euphemistic, doesn't really mean much. And if, you know, for the people, if you were to look at things that people just voted for, such as the cap on the income tax rate, well, don't listen to them on that. You got tricked on that. He didn't know what you were doing that. And don't focus on the partisan divide. This from the people of the no kings and the Trump is Hitler memes and such, right? He made a few references to the White House ballroom for some reason. I'm not sure, like, why that has anything to do with North Carolina politics. And then he offered some helpful advice for Republicans. And really, Republicans, if you can't trust advice coming from the Democrat governor, really, who can you trust to give you some election. Advice, right? Look, I've been through a number of elections over the years, and there have been plenty of nights where I left pretty dejected because my party didn't do very well. And what I would do, obviously I would feel bad the next morning, but what I would do is I'd try to reflect. I wouldn't say the election was. invalid or that somebody stole the election. Nobody's saying that. I would try to ask myself, what did I what am I missing? Why did the voters reject me or my party in this election and then try to learn from it? Right. So maybe don't say defund the police. You could still believe it and work towards that. Just don't say it. Right. Like this idea that the Democrats in North Carolina somehow learned some lessons from their defeats and so therefore changed their opinions and their philosophy and policy ideas, that's a lie. They have not changed, right? The only thing that changed is messaging. That's it. And then grow so that the next election, when I'm talking about the issues, I'm actually more attuned, excuse me, to what voters actually care about. And so I guess that's what I would say to Republicans who are frustrated and disappointed with the results is I get it. I've had plenty of elections that I've been disappointed with the results. But try to figure out what. Voters are actually saying in their results and listen to them. Act on that. He also said he wants to build on the economic successes of North Carolina. There is a lot that's going right for North Carolina. We've been ranked the number one state for workforce development, the number one state for economic development, the number one state for business in North One or two in each of the last six years. We had the best year of job announcements in the history of the state last year. We're the number one state that people from other states are moving to because they know that opportunity can be found here. I want to make sure that we continue that momentum so that more people can actually feel the real benefits, the tangible benefits of this economic growth. Why are all these successes happening? Well, you can thank the Republican General Assembly for that, that dismantled the existing status quo, the tax structure that was the Democrat policies. They did that. You reap the benefits. You're out here touting all of these things as building on this momentum because people know that they can come here for opportunity. But I thought we weren't educating any children here. How is that possible? Why would businesses and people want to move here? Why are we so attractive? It doesn't make any sense. Claiming all of the credit for the Republican policies. Okay. That's SOP here, though, for our Democrat governors. Not just Stein, but also Cooper. Back to the text. Line I go. Trey says, Governor Josh, Little Roy Stein, the people voted and they want better. But also, Stein, The voters were too stupid to realize they got fooled. They don't really want lower taxes. Pretty much. Yeah, that was the message. And here's the thing. Not a single reporter asked him to clarify those two oppositional positions. Right? On the one hand, we need to listen to what the voters are saying. But on the other hand, oh, that was a con job. They were tricked. Shane. says, I think what most of the electorate fails to perceive is the nature of politicians. It's right there in the word politics. If you break it down, poly, which means many, tick, means blood-sucking parasite. There you go. Poly, tick. There you go. Corey, Pete, I am proud to report my formerly black-pilled brother, Greg, has emerged from election night remarkably optimistic. Oh, praise God. We are beginning to suspect his black-pilled condition was simply a severe case of pre-election anxiety and maybe listening to other show hosts a tad too much. He's actually been downright pleasant. The family's cautiously optimistic, although we're keeping him under observation. Regarding Chris the troll, trolling you today? Well, that's just what Chris does. Trolls gotta troll. Absolutely, right? He is the scorpion. He is but a scorpion. What did you expect, right? Thanks for being a giver, Pete. Keep on giving. I intend to. As for Greg, we are slowly reintroducing him to political commentary. So far, no relapses, although someone mentioned the next election and he started pacing. This is from Stan, who says in the Charlotte metro area, regulations account for approximately 26 percent of the final price of a newly built single family home, averaging about one hundred and thirty two thousand dollars. There you go. Keep in mind, this amount is also rolled over into the mortgage, which means you're financing and then paying interest on this expense as well. So add 275 per month in property taxes to fund the failing schools. And what you've told people is if you can't afford these additional regulatory costs for a home that aren't going to actually own the home, you're better off homeless. 704 number says three and a half percent income tax cap sounds good until we understand it, according to the governor. But that same logic. By that same logic, does free health care sound good until we understand it or die waiting in line for it? That's a very good point, 704 number, if that is your real name. Great point. Yeah, people are deceived by a 3.5% cap on income tax because it sounds good. But people are not deceived when we say the Affordable Health Care Act or free health care for all, Medicare for all, right? People are not being deceived about that. Uh, Matt says, I'm trying to enjoy a day off doing some hobbies that require loud tools. I cannot get anything done for sitting here, listening to you. The tools drown you out. Then when it gets quiet, I'm lost. So I'm sitting here getting nothing done. You're not helping my restoration project at all. Oh, that's, that is my bad. I apologize, Matt. Um, I grew up this Joe says I grew up in New York capital district, School taxes are a separate assessment, right? People vote on the school budgets up in New York. And so when they would run a deficit, first thing the school board announced was to cut sports. School administration and the board would then implore everybody to raise taxes. They would have the football team become community activists to save our sports. Classic bait and switch. Yeah. Growing up in New York, they did that to us, too. Voters would vote down the budget as too expensive. They would cut the sports and they would cut buses. So then everybody had to walk to school or your parents would drive you to school. I always walked. So like that's what that's how they would pressure taxpayers up there. All that goodness of our state that he's talking about right now is because of the Republicans. It ain't because of him or the Democrats. Um, school vouchers, 3,500 to 7,900, depending on household income, North Carolina spends 12 to 13 K per student per year. It does not take a genius to see the voucher program saves the state money that dude is either ignorant or a liar. Likely the latter. Yeah. Um, don't forget Mr. Tough on crime. My good friend Ray settled on only letting 3,500 criminals free as a compromise. How many of those recommitted felonies again? Half. Yeah. He was then asked. About Shelley Heaton, who won the House seat. Shelley Heaton, she said, our only hope is an attack on U.S. soil, preferably Alabama, Louisiana, where the stupid people live. That's who Democrats sent to office. Oh, and she also posed in front of the Auschwitz ovens where and then said this is where Trump supporters belong. So this is the unity of the Democrats. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete Kaliner show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.