NC Governor's first "State of the State" speech (03-13-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 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 thepeekkalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] So once again, today's show will be abbreviated, but extra long, if you will. So it's going to be abbreviated, the radio side is going to be abbreviated because we have the Tar Heel game. We normally put the show out as three episodes, basically every single day as a podcast. But because we are preempted at 1.30, an hour and a half into the three hour show, we're just going to cram it all into one single podcast today.

[00:00:57] Because the Tar Heels won. They blew out Notre Dame yesterday. And that means they're going to be facing Wake Forest starting at 1.30 right here on WBT. Wake is the number four seed. And basically, they're both trying to secure a spot in the NCAA tournament. So we'll see what happens.

[00:01:19] But either way, we'll be back to our full show on Friday. Win or lose, doesn't matter. We are back to the full show on Friday. All righty. So last night, we had the State of the State address. This was our new governor, Josh Stein, a.k.a. Roy2D2, because he's a protege of Roy Cooper.

[00:01:45] Our former attorney general, Josh Stein, now the governor. This is his first address. He's only been in the office for, what, 10 weeks, I want to say. And so, you know, it's there's not a lot that he can kind of tout at this point. So these kinds of speeches at the very beginning of your term and you've not been governor before, a lot of it is just going to be sort of predictive.

[00:02:13] You know, you're going to hopefully, you know, try to rally people to a vision. And honestly, I thought he did a decent job. He's not a Republican. I don't expect him to do or say Republican things. But I will say I did catch a whiff of Obama. I caught a whiff of Obama-esque language with the whole.

[00:02:38] Remember, when Barack Obama ran for his in the first race in 2008, when he beat John McCain, Obama towards the end of the campaign sounded almost like if I hadn't heard Obama's speeches throughout that campaign.

[00:02:58] If I didn't know anything about the guy, as a lot of voters did not know anything about the guy before they went to cast their vote for him in 2008, they could have been forgiven for thinking that this guy was like a Reagan Democrat kind of a candidate, almost like a blue dog. He wasn't. But that's what he sounded like. And it was captured in that famous phrase. There are no red states. There are no blue states. There are only the United States.

[00:03:25] And that is an aspirational thing that's uniting. And it gave people some bit of comfort. Right. It assuaged concerns that he was going to govern like a radical leftist, like he's some community organizer out of Chicago. And so that allayed a lot of fears. Now, of course, he didn't govern like that.

[00:03:50] But that's what he was pitching in the final days to try to win over, as Rush used to call him, the mushy middle. Right. The so-called, quote, moderates. And it was successful. Now, he lost a lot of those moderates in the reelection against Mitt Romney.

[00:04:10] But it was a successful strategy the first time around. And I caught a whiff of that kind of language last night in Josh Stein's state of the state speech. And maybe he will actually attempt to govern more as a moderate. He might. I we're going to wait. I mean, we're going to find out.

[00:04:33] And the first big test is going to be what comes forth out of the legislature with their budget proposal, because that's what he kind of ran through last night. Some some you could call them positive signs, I guess I would consider it to be a kind of a positive sign that he, you know, he called for the top priority, as did the the response from the Speaker of the House, Destin Hall. And I have some audio from his address also.

[00:05:04] But they both seem to be on the same page with regards to the top priority being Helene relief, Western North Carolina recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene. One of the things that I took away that was, I think, a bit of a positive is that he told the General Assembly that he is ready to sign their next recovery bill,

[00:05:33] which is the five hundred million dollar bill. Remember, he had come out and this is sort of classic Democrat governor strategy against a Republican legislature, which is whatever the legislature is proposing, basically just double that and then say you care more about the problem. And then you can veto everything under the sun and say it's because you care more that you're blocking all the funding for the things that you care about.

[00:05:59] Right. Because you wanted I want a 30 percent pay raise for teachers and I'm only getting a 15 percent pay raise. And so that's not enough. I'm going to veto it. And then the you know, the media and the Democrats. But I repeat myself, we'll celebrate you as, you know, being the defender of the teachers or something. And so like that's the strategy has been the strategy. And so far on the relief and recovery funding aspect, that's what Stein has been doing.

[00:06:29] But last night he said he would sign the bill when it comes to him, the five hundred million dollars and urge them to approve it. So that indicated to me that maybe he's like that's an olive branch. This is a OK, I want a billion dollars. You've carved out five hundred million. We all know that this is not a recovery that's going to be done in a week. This is going to be a long term thing. So there are going to be more recovery bills.

[00:06:57] That would be an honest policy approach. Right. Right. But too often you end up with politicians that demagogue these issues, which I think Roy Cooper was particularly guilty of. And instead of just saying, OK, you're doing this one bill, we have more bills coming down the pike. That's great. Let's keep doing more bills instead of instead of encouraging more bills and supporting the ones that come through.

[00:07:24] It was, you know, I want more money. You're not giving me more money. So you're evil. And that does not inspire cooperation. So maybe this is a maybe this is going to be a good idea, a good approach. Right. We'll see my advice on. I don't I don't know. OK, I don't know what caller Bill wants to talk about.

[00:07:50] So I guess if Bill wants to hang on during the break, I'll talk to Bill. I have no idea what that comment is on the board. I thought it may have been about the about the budget. But we have audio from the state of the state speech. I pulled some of the clips from the speech last night. Also, I would point out that the Democrat female lawmakers were a lot of them were wearing white, which is what the Democrats on Capitol Hill were doing and have been doing.

[00:08:17] It's like a women's suffrage thing. It's like a protest or whatever. But they wore it at last night's state of the state speech for their own Democrat governor. So I'm unclear as to why. And I haven't seen an explanation for why they all decided to wear white like their Democrat colleagues on Capitol Hill wore in protest of Republicans. So I'm not maybe it was also in protest of Republicans. I don't know. Here's a great idea. Yep.

[00:08:42] How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain? And Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter.

[00:09:06] Nestled within the breathtaking 14,000 acres of the Pisgah National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, it's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions.

[00:09:24] With hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi-Fi, grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch, choose from 13 cabins, 6 cottages, 2 villas, and a great lodge with 11 king-sized bedrooms, Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion. And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068.

[00:09:49] Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Last night, Josh Stein, governor of North Carolina, gave his state of the state speech. And he's only been in office for about, you know, a month and a half or so, two months. Well, yeah, almost three months, two and a half. He began the speech, I think appropriately, by talking about, you know, the worst natural disaster to ever hit North Carolina.

[00:10:18] Assuming this office's responsibility has led to prayer and reflection, when any of us faces an important challenge, we search for strength. Strength to rise to the occasion. Strength to reach across differences in search of common ground. Strength to stand up for what we know is right. Strength to meet the moment. Sometimes, you don't know how strong you are until you are put to the test.

[00:10:47] Hurricane Helene and its horrific aftermath tested our state and our people in unprecedented ways. The storm flooded western North Carolina, stealing too many lives from us and devastating too many communities. But in the days, weeks and months that followed, I have seen, we have all seen that the state of our state is strong. North Carolina, strong.

[00:11:16] Perfectly appropriate. I think that was the right note to start on. I know people in western North Carolina, you know, want to feel like they have not been forgotten. And honestly, there have been times over the last six months where they may have felt that way because it seemed like that. So I thought it was good to focus on something that's unifying.

[00:11:43] This is something that everybody in the state should be on the same page about. And honestly, I feel like we are. I'm not aware of anybody that's running around saying that we shouldn't be focusing on western North Carolina recovery. He then highlighted tax cuts as good. And then he opposed tax cuts or something like that. We can cut taxes to help families manage the cost of raising a child. Right.

[00:12:10] We can cut taxes to make child care more affordable. We can cut taxes on working families to put more money in their pockets, lift children out of poverty and stimulate local economies. These three targeted tax cuts are what being pro-family looks like. There's no mention, by the way, of the standard deduction on any of this stuff. So I'm guessing rich people are also going to get these tax cuts?

[00:12:40] We can afford them and still meet our critical education, health care and public safety needs. But we won't be able to make these necessary investments if we do not address the self-inflicted fiscal cliff that we face in a couple of years, especially given today's economic uncertainties. We're at a fork in the road when it comes to our budget.

[00:13:01] We can go ahead with the nearly $10 billion in tax giveaways over the next four years, mainly to the wealthy and to corporate shareholders. And by the way, very few of those shareholders are North Carolinians. Heck, most of them aren't even American.

[00:13:20] Or we can help our neighbors recover from Hurricane Helene, invest in our public safety and public schools, provide targeted tax cuts to support our working families and keep up with the needs of our fast growing population. So what is it going to be? Are we going to give money to out-of-state shareholders or invest in North Carolina families? We cannot afford to do both.

[00:13:45] We should choose North Carolina's children and family every time. All right. I detect a false choice, everybody. There's a false choice in those comments, right? Giveaways versus investment. What is he talking about, these shareholders that aren't even American? He's talking about foreign investment by companies.

[00:14:10] And the Republicans have been, over the course of over a decade, knocking down the corporate tax rate and the individual tax rates. They've been bringing down the tax rates. And so when he talks about, quote, giveaways, that's what he's talking about.

[00:14:25] The same guy who will go out there with an oversized, ridiculous pair of scissors and cut ribbons to announce tax giveaways to corporations to relocate here is giving you a false dichotomy, a false choice, saying, oh, it's either the children's or it's the foreign shareholders. Yeah. And so it's like, dang it.

[00:14:49] I was so hoping he would be more of, you know, a unifier type of a candidate here. But, you know, we shall see if this is just rhetoric that he's thrown out there for the Democrats in the chamber. Or is he actually going to, like, make this sort of a centerpiece like Roy Cooper did of his gubernatorial term? All right. Hey, real quick.

[00:15:11] If you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000 people multiple times a day, send me an email at Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com and ask me about advertising. It's super affordable. It's baked into this podcast forever. And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck. Send me a message. Pete at the Pete Calendar Show dot com. And I can show you how it works.

[00:15:41] Let's head over and talk to Chris on the telephone, I think. Let me see here. Can I get Chris up? OK. Hello, Chris. That is correct. I'm here. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It's always the best privilege there is in America to be able to talk to you, Pete Calendar. Wow. OK. I don't know if I'm going to live up to that. But OK, I'll take it. So anyway, you know, on the national politics stage, we got like the past administration kind

[00:16:06] of was probably with the deep state and Obama and probably Pelosi and the Clintons maybe were influence there. Sure. Do we do we have the possible same thing in state politics? And I want to refer back to the several past year or two that you've always thrown out there with our good friend Ray Cooper. He I don't know if he had been a straight up. We pulled out some people and replaced them.

[00:16:33] But I know you did tell us that there were several people he would primary because they weren't. I want to say your words. He wasn't. They weren't liberal enough. Yeah, they would. Yeah, they wouldn't support his. They weren't they weren't falling in line behind whatever his priorities were or his vetoes were. Yeah. And the way and the way I get that from you, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there was so that lends a power to him where he's got an influence.

[00:17:01] So my question kind of comes down with Josh Stein. And do you think that there's a big influence with him on Josh Stein? So yeah, yeah, that's a great. Yeah. Can we quantify that? And then really, we can pick it out and see it in the future. So it's a fair question. Josh Stein is using a lot of the same personnel that Roy Cooper used political consultants and stuff like that. Right.

[00:17:29] So there I expect to see similar kinds of tactics. Now, will Josh Stein get involved in primaries against insufficiently loyal or I guess disloyal Democrats in the legislature? I don't know. I don't know if he's had. Yeah. I mean, because Josh Stein, you know, came out of a different era than Roy Cooper did. Roy Cooper was in the legislature when Democrats ruled the roost.

[00:17:59] Right. Like they never had to care what Republicans thought. And Josh Stein comes of age in a different era when Republicans were in charge. And so maybe he is not as inclined to to engage in that kind of of effort, that kind of overtly, you know, political effort. I don't know. But I think he does have aspirations beyond the governor's mansion.

[00:18:24] And so I think if he is thinking in those terms, he's going to want to piggyback onto Roy Cooper's national fundraising machine that Cooper built. So I think I don't know. Like, I can't predict which way this may come as a shock. But the Democrats don't ever tell me why they're thinking what they're thinking. They never. You got that insight, though.

[00:18:50] So my only thing is, so when I say if we can quantify it, if there's. And I didn't mean that Josh Stein would do what he did, because I'm saying that influences on Cooper. But I'm saying in his decision making, could we possibly see that's a Roy Cooper thing compared to Josh Stein? And I'm guessing we don't have enough information on Josh Stein to really quantify that. But it would be nice to be able to see that's definitely a Roy Cooper thing. Yeah.

[00:19:19] No, I think. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's right, Chris. I think like I'm watching and waiting to see how he actually governs. And I think this budget is going to be the first example that we we shall see. Hey, I'm not aware of him throwing his weight around like Cooper did before. Remember, Cooper before he even won when he was attorney general, but he had been attorney general for 16 years prior and he was a leader in the state Senate.

[00:19:47] He was a very big part of the Democrat machine. So he had that political weight to throw around. I don't know if Stein has that. And, you know, when Cooper was running against McCrory, remember, he told his fellow Democrats they will have no role in his in his term if they were to help undo HB2 before the election.

[00:20:12] He wanted that issue to remain so it would help him politically at at the detriment to the state, according to him. Right. He wanted the state residents to hurt. And so but he thought that was good. That was a good trade off for his own personal political ambition. I have not seen something similar yet from Stein. So I think when we get the budget, he's going to make his proposal. The legislature is going to come forward with their ideas. And will Stein find a reason to veto?

[00:20:41] I think that's going to be the thing for me is, is Stein going to find some sort of fig leaf reason to veto the budget in order to fundraise off of it. Well, yeah, that's that's what I say. Hey, Chris, I appreciate the call, buddy. Thanks. And I don't know how it's going to shape up yet. And then after you get the budget. Then we're going to be moving into the next election cycle.

[00:21:07] And at that point, we'll see if he starts like cracking the whip on Democrat lawmakers, those who are not sufficiently in line with, you know, his budget proposals or if he vetoes the budget. Do any Democrats cross him in order to get stuff? Does he then try to primary them? Like all of that is uncharted territory. I think right now with regard to Josh Stein, we saw the way Cooper behaved.

[00:21:36] And honestly, it didn't hurt him. It didn't. Right. Like the media still loved him. They gave him all the softball questions and he got to skate past all of the the national scandals of the failure to respond to natural disasters adequately. So he got a pass. That's what Democrat privilege looks like.

[00:21:57] So there's a lot of room for Stein to run if he wants to be a clone of of Roy Cooper. Another Star Wars reference. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News.

[00:22:25] It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom.

[00:22:51] The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15 percent off any subscription. I use the vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.

[00:23:15] Governor Josh Stein took to the joint session of the House and Senate last night, delivered his state of the state speech. And, you know, whenever he talks about investments, he's talking about more spending. When he talks about, quote, giveaways, he's talking about tax cuts and tax cuts for the wrong people. See, he he touted tax cuts for the right people. He's in support of that.

[00:23:41] But he's against tax cuts for those other people. They're double plus on good. Unless, of course, he's handing them a big bag of cash to relocate into the state so he can do a big photo op. That's a different type of giveaway, which isn't a giveaway. That's an investment. See how that works? OK, then he pitched what seems to be kind of like. Doge at a state level.

[00:24:08] Of course, we have to be fiscally prudent to be smart about how we invest our taxpayers dollars. That's why I'm directing my budget office to set up the impact center to ensure that our government is run effectively and efficiently, because people should know that their taxpayer dollars are being well spent. I thought Doge was bad. Wait, but let's get it right.

[00:24:37] Let's use a scalpel, not a chainsaw. Oh, you see what he did there? The chainsaw. Right. Today, the state of North Carolina is strong. Let's invest to keep it that way. That includes investing in our teachers. OK, and then he's going to pivot into the teacher pay issue and stuff.

[00:25:01] He wants starting teacher salaries to be the highest in the southeast, which coincidentally is exactly what the Republican lawmakers have proposed. They have they're running a bill. Right. We've talked about it. I think last week we went over the details of the teacher pay bill. And he said this is an area where Democrats and Republicans can work together. Now, the question in my mind is, will they?

[00:25:26] Will Democrats work with the Republicans or will they make demands that Republicans just cave to whatever the Democrat demands are? And then if Republicans don't cave, then they will vote against it. Right. That's that's how I see it playing out. Or they will vote against it as part of the larger budget bill, which will probably also continue school vouchers, school choice.

[00:25:55] And that usually is enough for Democrats to oppose any budget bill. If it's got voucher money in it, Democrats oppose it. Roy Cooper did this vetoing budgets and Democrat lawmakers have done this. So it's like Democrats still haven't realized, even though it's been 14 years since they last

[00:26:19] held majority power, they still don't realize that they don't dictate the terms of the budget any longer. It's pretty amazing. And then, yes, Josh Stein pivoted to a tax school choice. North Carolina is 48th in the nation and per pupil investment. Let that sink in. 48th. We should not be taking money from our public school kids to pay wealthy parents, sending

[00:26:46] their kids to unaccountable private schools to the tune of seven and a half billion dollars over the next decade. Over to over a decade. So that's over a decade. Meanwhile, the budget annually is like thirty two billion dollars every year. OK, so just to put that in perspective, also AP Dillon writing over at her sub stack more to the story is what it's called.

[00:27:13] According to 2024 statistical data from the North Carolina Department of Instruction, the average per student spending across state, federal and local sources was 13,222 with state funding accounting for just under 60 percent of that total. It's 59.7 percent. OK, between 1970 and 2021.

[00:27:41] So over the course of 50 years, data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows the U.S. per student spending when adjusted for inflation has increased 164 percent. It went from like seventy five hundred dollars in 1970 to just under two twenty thousand dollars in 2021. So from seventy five seventy six hundred to twenty grand. And.

[00:28:11] The average per student expenditure in twenty twenty two, when it went up again, was like 16,000, just under sixteen thousand dollars. So thirteen thousand sounds terrible. But the national average is sixteen thousand. So like thirteen thousand dollars a year to educate a kindergartner, to educate a first grader, a second grader. And by the way, if you do the math on that, thirteen thousand times what?

[00:28:40] Twenty kids in the class. You're at like over a quarter of a million dollars. Right. So. If the teacher is not getting paid a quarter million, that's a lot of money to educate that that classroom. Right. Of 20 kids. More kids is even more money than that. Like this math isn't adding up. All right. Hey, real quick. If you would like to get your product or service in front of about ten thousand people multiple times a day.

[00:29:06] Send me an email at Pete at the Pete calendar show dot com and ask me about advertising. It's super affordable. It's baked into this podcast forever. And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making it the best bang for your buck. Send me a message. Pete at the Pete calendar show dot com. And I can show you how it works. Run the numbers with you. Again, that's Pete at the Pete calendar show dot com. We've been talking about the state of the state address that was delivered last night.

[00:29:34] We do have audio from the Republican response, but I wanted to welcome to the program Rob Yates. He's the director of communications for the Libertarian Party of North Carolina. Rob, how are you, sir? Not too bad. How's it going? All right. Not too bad myself. Still recovering a little bit, but I'm running about 92 percent, 93 percent. So, yeah. So did you watch the the state of the state and the state of the state response? I did. I've actually watched them both a couple of times.

[00:30:03] Yeah, that's what we do. So. So, OK, what's the what's the official Libertarian Party response to the state of the state address and response? Well, I'll say this first, just sort of the thirty five thousand foot view politics is theater. And I think from that perspective, they both did their jobs. Stein touched on the topics he wanted to talk about. He brought in all the sob stories to go along with it.

[00:30:30] But the Republican response was very much focused on federal level stuff, which which makes sense to me. I mean, they lost the governorship, didn't do great in council state, obviously did much better in the legislature. But Trump Trump won pretty handily here. So they focused on the Trump priorities. And then, you know, we actually we had a live stream response immediately following theirs with our chair, Ryan Brown. And one of the things he talked about was the Republicans are preaching about fiscal responsibility.

[00:30:59] And yet they're trying to pass another continuing resolution that is exactly what Biden had last year, which which is sort of ironic to see just the flip where the Democrats are against it. The Republicans are supporting it. But in particular, our senators, but until it's not known for being friends of liberty. I don't know if you saw the Republican Liberty Caucus put out its liberty index score last week for senators. And I think Bud was a sixty five and till this was like a fifteen percent.

[00:31:30] So. All right. OK. So the focus on the national stuff, because like I've seen some of the strategy laid out on why doing a CR gets you to a reconciliation vote. And that's really the prize to implement what they want to implement from a Doge perspective. But as far as the state goes, because the the the state libertarian party in its statement from Ryan Brown,

[00:31:55] he said that the the party is about bold solutions driven vision that puts people first, not political elites. It mentioned or he mentioned a weak job market, rising prices, were prices, worsening environment, education system, violent crime and a general erosion of our God given rights.

[00:32:18] So what specifically is the alternate vision offered by the libertarian party that we did not get last night? Sure. And that's my favorite question you could ask, because I would love to go into all of those. So let's start with just looking at one of the big topics, which was the response to Hurricane Helene. We saw FEMA openly on video avoiding people based on who they voted for. We had a response at both, I think, the federal and the state level that at best you can call mediocre.

[00:32:48] You know that the libertarian party is going to be against any new taxes. But if we must pay taxes, shouldn't it be going to helping people out? Instead, we had an office created under Cooper that is still what? Forty six hundred families in eastern North Carolina haven't been helped. I think it's a thousand. Yeah, I think it's like a thousand. It's like a little bit more than a thousand is the last number I saw. But yeah, still, they're still waiting eight years later. Exactly. Exactly. And so Stein's response is this grow and see.

[00:33:17] So repeat the same mistakes and ask for money to throw at it. There's no accountability that goes there. We are calling for direct responses. We are calling for an immediate legislative action to eliminate property taxes on everyone who lost property in the storm. He's talking about tax cuts for all sorts of other people and tax cuts are good for middle class families. Well, OK, let's get rid of taxes for people who had their property destroyed. That takes them out of worry about losing their place right away.

[00:33:47] And then let's actually put accountability on the money that is being going to help this recovery. Let's let's really demand some results. Let's put some metrics around it instead of just a bunch of platitudes. What about the education component? You heard both of the Democrat and Republican positions. How does the libertarian position differ?

[00:34:08] So this is one of the ones that's more frustrating for me because we have just seen a slow, steady decline in outcomes for students over many years. And Ryan was talking about, you know, we had the lawsuit in Charlotte over the bus thing thing. We've had back and forth over Leandro for what feels like forever now. Yeah. 30 years. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Just an absurdly long amount of time.

[00:34:31] But so the Republicans passed this school choice program, which has actually proven to be wildly popular. The Democrats are coming out very strongly against it, but with no alternative plan except to throw more money at it. But the Republicans failed to adequately budget for the popularity of it. We're actually we're really moving towards this whole idea of free market education where we just take the education budget. We split it up amongst all the students absolutely equally.

[00:34:58] So there's no concern about, you know, these big buzzwords like equity. Everyone has the same. And then you put it towards education. And I know that there's a lot more that goes into it again. Thirty five thousand foot view trying to be cognizant of time. But we are really getting into this. So it's real differentiated education where every student can do what is best for him or her.

[00:35:19] So do you do you think that the Republican legislature doesn't have the stomach to actually keep progressing towards a school choice model only or like that? They'll eventually like pump the brakes and leave in place sort of a safety net at minimum of public schools. I think that with education and again, politicians, it's all theater. But, you know, you got to get breaded circuses, but you need to get the applause.

[00:35:49] So you see this bipartisan teacher salary raise being proposed. And that makes me think that they're not really serious, because if you were, you would be looking for a way to reward good teachers and incentivize programs that are working while seeking opportunities for teachers who aren't getting the outcomes they want. I don't know if it's more training or another job or whatever it may be. But it's just across the board. Let's throw more money at it. That reeks of, you know, old school Democratic socialism. Yeah.

[00:36:17] Well, I do wonder if the strategy on that and I don't have any insight on this, but I do wonder if the strategy is, you know, take that issue basically off the table. Right. You you you take it up to a fifty thousand dollar minimum. And if you think step back and think about that for a moment, it's a fifty thousand dollar salary for 10 months out of the year and very, very low cost benefits that are charged to the employee.

[00:36:46] So you have that benefit and you have no experience. Right. You're walking in at a college and you get fifty thousand dollars and two months off minimum. And you've got the benefits. But once you do that now, there isn't really any argument to start changing the the the the merit based component to start saying, OK, this is now the floor. This is what we're paying. Now we're going to start tweaking based on merit.

[00:37:14] And I don't know if the Republican legislature will actually do that, but I see that there's an opening there for that to occur. And certainly of all the legislation that we would be against, this is probably a lower priority. You want to pay teachers more. There's plenty of people making more that probably don't deserve it. And I do believe teaching to be a noble profession in and of itself.

[00:37:35] But from a larger sort of political strategy perspective, I think the introduction of this bill indicates more smoke and mirrors and less intent to really make meaningful change. Just like you were saying before, out of fear of political repercussions. Mm hmm. All right. So anything else stand out for you guys with the speech last night? There were a few things. The sticking with education, this whole free community college thing. Yeah.

[00:38:06] I don't know that there's any chance that would pass. So, again, it could be more political theater. But it's just, you know, from free community college all the way to free lunches. Like Ryan said specifically in a speech, Governor Stein, when you say free, where do you think this money comes from? It doesn't just materialize. There are problems and you're taking it out of people's pockets. And the economy, inflation is getting worse. The job market is starting to slow down. Who knows what these tariffs are going to do? There's a lot of volatility.

[00:38:36] I don't think anyone has an idea what's coming next. And you're throwing more money at problems. Yeah, it is one of those things that was the hallmark of Democrat control of the state for over a century, which was this constant padding the budget with ongoing operational costs, sometimes using one time money. And they just built themselves into a structural deficit.

[00:39:03] And, you know, and it led to all sorts of problems about 20 years ago, which ended up costing Democrats power. So it's just kind of like it's more of the same. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah, see a penny, spend a penny. And then two other things that jumped out at this just real quick. One, talking about health care and bragging on Medicare for all. If we're serious about fixing health care, it's time to get rid of Certificate of Need just immediately.

[00:39:30] And then I'll give credit where it's due because our perspective on a lot of the problems with corporations who do damaging things to people is open them up to liability. And Stein did go after, and again, more complicated as most things are, but he did go after the opioid manufacturers. But now he's talking about this task force on fentanyl. And our position is let's end the war on drugs. You're creating criminals. You're empowering drug lords.

[00:39:57] You're incentivizing backroom black market deals. You know, we have Republicans in the western part of the state talking about a federal law to take all money away from any state that allows people to smoke pot in their basements. And it's another situation where we're just going to throw money at a problem to create a bigger problem. Rob Yates is the communications director for the North Carolina Libertarian Party. You can check out their website, lpnc.org.

[00:40:27] That's lpnc.org. Yes, sir. I appreciate your time, Rob. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. All right. Take care. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life. And our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video. Started in 1997 in Mint Hill, North Carolina.

[00:40:52] It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos, and videos into high-quality produced slideshows, videos, and albums. The trusted, talented, and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones. Videos for rehearsal dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories.

[00:41:21] All told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They 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 creativevideo.com. I do have some audio. Not going to be able to play at all. Thanks a lot to our heels. But Destin Hall, the North Carolina Speaker of the House, offered the Republican response.

[00:41:45] He talked about how the GOP, since it took over control of the legislature about 13 years ago, cracked the code on how to deliver common-sense policies that fuel growth and protect communities. And he said that the state has remained an economic powerhouse thanks to GOP leadership. He says they cut poverty by one-third over the past 12 years. He said Trump's immigration policies will have the full support of the North Carolina General Assembly as well.

[00:42:15] Just last year, the Republican General Assembly enacted legislation that requires law enforcement to cooperate with ICE to keep criminal illegal aliens off of our streets. But many Democratic officials in our state still want to keep pursuing the same failed open borders policies of the Biden administration. So just this week, we introduced new legislation to close loopholes exploited by those who would seek to turn North Carolina into a sanctuary state.

[00:42:44] If local sheriffs avoid cooperating with federal ICE officials, the citizens of this state will hold you accountable. And if you're an illegal alien committing crimes in our state, you've got to go. This is a common-sense policy that the people of our state overwhelmingly agree with. Another common-sense issue is that men shouldn't be in women's sports or in their private spaces.

[00:43:07] Long before President Trump's executive order, the North Carolina General Assembly passed the Save Women's Sports Act to keep men out of women's sports. It's also common-sense to work to ensure every child in North Carolina has access to quality education that's right for them, regardless of their income or zip code.

[00:43:28] As we expand educational opportunities, let's expand opportunities in the traditional K-12 system so that parents have excellent options, whether they choose public or private schools. Ultimately, it's parents, not bureaucrats, who should choose the best learning environment for their children. Right. So those were the priorities that the Speaker focused on, Destin Hall, Speaker of the House, focused on, tying it back to national-level politics.

[00:43:57] He also spent a good bit of time talking about Western North Carolina, disaster relief and recovery, recognizing the resilience of the people of Western North Carolina. And he promised to support that region for as long as it takes to rebuild. I look forward to working in partnership with Governor Stein, who I know shares my desire to get people back in their homes as quickly as possible.

[00:44:20] He and I both recognize the long road ahead and the need for us all to rise to the moment, setting aside petty partisanship for the sake of our neighbors. As we rebuild Western North Carolina, rest assured, we will not repeat the mistakes of the Cooper administration's failed response to Hurricanes Florence and Matthew. Almost a decade later, thousands of people in Eastern North Carolina are still being forced to live in hotels.

[00:44:49] That is completely unacceptable. And it should be a national scandal. We cannot and we will not let that happen again anywhere in our state. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, the challenges we face cross party lines. The challenges of Hurricane Helene alone certainly bear that out. All right. So that was the Republican response or some highlights of it.

[00:45:13] We shall see if they are actually able to govern together on some things in a bipartisan fashion. You know, the legislation is starting to move through the pipeline as we speak. 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 calendar show dot com.

[00:45:43] Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.