 It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's April the 7th, 2021. I'm Tim Apachele, your host for What Now America. The title of today's show is President Biden's $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan. And we're going to talk about the big plan. So without further ado, let me go to my guests. Today we have Jay Fidel, Winston Welch, and Stephanie Dalton. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Kim. You know, Jay, there's been much to do about the other day when Joe Biden announced his proposal about the infrastructure plan and the GOP kind of went into a tizzy right off the bat. The GOP seems to have the traditional thought that infrastructure is just bridges and roads and that's about it. The infrastructure or maybe some traffic lights. But the Democrats have a far different opinion about what that's what infrastructure should be to include human infrastructure. So I think that's interesting. They're not limiting it to just bridges and roads. They're including things of housing, replace lead water pipes, refurbishment of airports, federal buildings. They want to create jobs, raise wages, benefits for home care workers, upgrade the electric grid, modernize schools, install charging stations across America for the onslaught of new electric cars. And who's correct, Jay? What is the definition of infrastructure? Well, in 1938, the Republican position would have been correct. But we're a long way from that now our society is much more complex and everything you listed in my view is infrastructure. And he's got to do that if he wants to satisfy, you know, the various constituents in his party. If he wants to satisfy me, he's got to do that, I'll tell you. But you know, the problem is that he's still got to get even even with all of that he's still got to get 50 votes, even with reconciliation, which is clearly this is a reconciliation situation. He doesn't have to worry about 60 votes. He has to worry about 50, 51. And so the problem is, I think some of the Democrats may have reservations about the definition you just described. And they may give him a hard time about it. If that's the case, he can't get that bill through. And this is a signature bill. It's really important. It's important to start the economy also or restart the economy. This is an FDR type of WPA type of bill. It has an effect in every corner of the economy and the country. Problem is that he can't be sure to get it through in his present form. And we have to imagine that Ron Klain, you know, his chief of staff has a Blackboard in his office there, identifying every single member of the House and the Senate. And they talk to them all day and they try to figure out which way these guys can vote. And I think they have found that they cannot get the 50 votes with the existing bill. So he has got to change a few things to get 50 votes. And that's why the paper this morning is saying that Biden is now willing to negotiate. I mean, the trap for him negotiating with any Republican member of the Senate is that they'll do a flimflam on him. You know, they'll use it to deter and defer and make the whole thing go away. They've done that before. They like to play out the clock. They're notorious for playing out the clock. Yeah, it's an obvious strategy. And I'm sure he wants to avoid that. He liked to avoid that, but he needs to talk to them now because he's trying to get his 50 votes. And, you know, that that means part of this bill is going to go away. I'm sorry to say, I believe all of it is appropriate, but part of it's going to go away. The more progressive portion of the Democratic Party, obviously AOC's and and the Bernie Sanders, they feel that 2.3 trillion is woefully low. I heard AOC on, I think it was Rachel Maddow show that she didn't think it was out of the out of the reach or out of the plausibility of having a 12 trillion dollar package. You know, just as a background, you know, we we've just spent $5 trillion on the the three COVID relief packages. And don't forget about a couple years prior to that is multi trillion dollar corporate tax cut. You know, at some point, the deficit will catch up to us and we'll see all sorts of havoc revealed as a result of these crazy trillion dollar spending sprees that we seem to be going on. I totally agree. And the republic is the playing on that. That's Mitch McConnell's core point. We can't afford it. And whether whether he's consistent or not, I suggest he's not consistent. He's just a complete, you know, you know, political animal. But but the fact is that that argument will resonate wider and wider as Biden spends more and more because it's going to catch some people's pension that we have to pay it back. And right now it's already getting to that point, I think with some people. It's the balance of we really need this to restart the economy. We have to spend. Let's not worry about it. And the other is let's worry about it. Because at the end of the day, this is going to bite us in some way. And it always bites you to spend more than you have you have to pay it back. Now remember the member that bill calls for an increase in the corporate income tax. You know, by a substantial amount, I think it goes from 22 to 28%, something along those lines. That's a lot of money. And so, you know, at least he's addressing that issue. And he's satisfying the people who like AOC who wanted to tax the rich. And so, so, you know, that's a bit of an answer but very weather. Okay. Hey, Jay, thank you. Hey Winston, to you. You know, the idea of this is most likely as Jay said it's going to be a reconciliation budget reconciliation process. And the question being, is this going to be the last one that Joe Biden has for some time to come. And is this where you plant your flag to get this plus I like to I like to refer to bills as kind of a Christmas tree and everyone like to put a big Christmas ornament on it. And as the ornaments are placed, the cost of the bill goes up and up. But is this is this the bill where Joe Biden may have his last really really big hurrah for at least a year. And that's why this, this is a $2.3 trillion bill, or should it be even higher? Should it be a bigger one because he may not have another crack at this? What do you think Winston? Well, I hope it's not the last major bill he has. He's got a lot of stuff to do. This is just part of the backlog that he's addressing. Voting right stuff is fundamentally more important. But this is what, what was the phrase with Clinton and Bush senior, it's the economy stupid, right? Which I thought was rude at the time. And I still do. But essentially, people vote with their feet. A lot of, although these last four years have turned everything on its head because even though they may be better off, they're not voting rationally all the time. But this bill looks kind of like a hybrid between traditional infrastructure where you would expect roads, bridges and that sort of thing. But the interesting things thrown in there where he's, like Jay said, he's got to throw bones to his constituents. But 174 billion for electric vehicle stations. Is this not something that GM and Ford and Tesla could help pay for? It's interesting. They're saying, nope, this is going to be on the backs of America. So put that in 80 billion for Amtrak. How much is our train? 12. So, you know, you can see as soon as this stuff gets parceled out. And of course, they're not spending what 2 billion here in Hawaii. So that leaves 78 billion for the rest of the country. But other things that we think of like bridges, roads, highways in need of major repair. If you look at assessments of Hawaii's bridges and dams, a startlingly high number are in danger or are at below grade, you know, and we saw this in Florida this last week where this massive wall of water might have come out of a dam. The other things that he's thinking of doing is that I think probably is going to get the fat cut out of it is this idea like expanding high speed broadband. Is this not something that the Verizon and T-Mobile and AT&T should be doing? Maybe not. They have us pay for it. And retrofitting 2 million homes and commercial properties. That seems like something where people say, yeah, that's nice, but that's 200 billion that you could spend somewhere else. The water pipes to lead, that makes sense in the long run. You know, you want kids with lead in their brains don't do as well as Stephanie can attest as a teacher. Improving the electric grid, we know that we're one EMP away from disaster. So there's a lot of really good things in there. I think one that's really going to be cut is the caregivers for elderly and people with disabilities. That's 400 billion. And I think that's going to be one that gets the biggest slice taken out of it. Frankly, the rest of it is supporting manufacturing and R&D and, you know, preventing future pandemics. I would hope that they wouldn't fight that. Let me ask you this. What if you're one of the states that, you know, bit the bullet hard, you text your local residents, your state residents, or even a municipality. And you said, we're going to bite the boat. We've got lead water pipes. We're going to have to tear them all out and do the right thing and put in proper pipes. What if you're one of the states that did that versus one of the states that never bothered to do it? And now those states are getting basically a freebie for not doing the right thing back at the time when it was necessary. What do you say to those states? Well, yeah, I mean, it is at some level, someone's going to benefit somewhere. And I doubt, I hope that he didn't say he's just going to aid the blue states. I don't see that anywhere in here. I mean, we know for sure Detroit had drinking water problems, but I don't think it was lead. These are just human problems. The electric grid affects all of us. Texas being a prime example that we need to improve the electric grid and the way that, in that case, perhaps how the energy market functions. But they simply didn't plan on it being cold. So I think a lot of these things are just basic catch up. And the way that he's going to pay for it, and planning to pay for it, of course, is a hike on taxes. You saw Janet Yellen saying something I thought which was quite interesting, which was the idea of floating a minimum international tax on corporations. So no matter where they were going, they can't hide anymore. And I think this is the idea that corporations should pay something because so many corporations really just don't pay anything if they can avoid it. And you're seeing the EU sued Apple for locating in Ireland to avoid taxes and that sort of thing. So we'll see what happens. You know, Janet Yellen has that concept domestically but also she wants to wrangle the G 20 to do basically the same thing. And she's hoping that this at least domestically, the corporate tax hike would raise about $1.3 trillion. You know, not not small change. So there'll be a question on to what degree corporations are going to support or not support. There are a lot of corporations saying it's time that we pay our fair share. I don't know if that's Jeff Bezos or not, but there are other corporations that don't pay taxes at all. And I think they realize that the infrastructure is falling apart. That would be the hook in it. But I mean, essentially remember that the job of a corporate head, or he will be sued or she will be sued is to maximize shareholder wealth. And so if, if they're advocating for higher taxes on themselves, I would say they probably aren't doing their job to maximize shareholder wealth. They might be good corporate citizens and they could approach it from that angle, but I don't think you're going to see anyone jumping in the aisles on the corporate and to raise their taxes anymore than anyone else. I'll remember though you guys that some of the some of the infrastructure points could easily fall on the same corporation. Yes, they're effectively being excused from, you know, huge expenses. So if I would run, yeah, I would run clean. I would go to the, yeah, we're racing corporate tax. We have to do that. But we're also not pushing you on, for example, broadband infrastructure. If you want to do that yourself, it's going to cost a lot of money. We're taking your burden on that. So both sides to that argument. Yeah, if they're putting in 500,000 charging stations for electrical vehicles. So like I said, this should this be a Ford, Tesla, you know, or how about broadband internet? Apple is a $2 trillion corporation now. Do you have an iPhone? That's something they're getting subsidized by that, but we subsidize all kinds of industries all over the place. So this is nothing new. Yeah, it's just how are we going to pay for it. All right. Thank you, Winston. Hey, Stephanie, Joe Biden got a little bit of a, I don't know if it's early birthday present or early Christmas president. But remember the Senate parliamentarian, the one that said, hey, you can't put in a wage hike with the COVID stimulus package. And Joe Biden respected that opinion and, and therefore did not do it. But that that person is Elizabeth McDonald, McDowell. And she is basically said that section 304 of the 1974 budget act allows the Senate to pass a resolution that revises an already passed budget. And by doing so, that gives you another another budget reconciliation chip, if you will. And that'd be done. You know, Chuck Schumer didn't ask her, and she didn't answer. But the bottom line is if this is true, here's a backdoor way of really getting around the filibuster. And we could have now a whole host of things, getting through the Senate that maybe previously was not possible. And I think, you know, I'm thinking of this infrastructure bill using the last opportunity for a budget reconciliation process, but maybe there's more in the future. What do you think? I've heard probably three, but I had heard before that there were two, but before this anyway, so it's it's tremendous opening of the gate, the drawbridge is down. Okay, because the Republicans can't hold that. And if the can come through on me. Do you think this is a misuse? Would this be perceived as a misuse of the budget reconciliation process, as is the filibuster is misused? If we're going to solve America's needs, if we're going to respond to the country's needs, which are dire. No, I mean, Biden's trying to find every way he can, and making all efforts across all options. One of the things that you're pointing out that he seems to be doing, which is kind of curious, but is that he's maybe building this package based on the olden days, like the Eisenhower major highway program. And remember, we had all these highways because we all did pay for it, but Eisenhower was responsible for that. And now it looks like Biden is doing that same kind of thing, so America builds its stuff, right? And then we figure out how to pay for it. But it looks like maybe with the new roles for corporate America, this will stimulate some rethinking of how all that works. Plus, in listening to the Yellen and the other economic people, and I'm no economic person, but this doesn't necessarily come back on us. First of all, like I had thought would happen with Biden, it's like the shuttle's been sitting out on, you know, that tower eight, waiting for the countdown, and now finally Biden's in and things are happening. And now that shuttle's starting to turn on all that smoke and rise for America. And so this this is seems to be what's happening. And we can pay for as I don't I think AOC is a little bit fringy. But the point is that it's not just taxes that all this gets paid for. We have debt. We have the 30 year Treasury bond. We've got the most desirable debt in the entire world. They're all dying to get in here to have it. The Chinese almost about 30 year bonds. And so when this happens, that's how we pay for this, a big portion. Yeah, but you're, you're, you're, you're basically putting the country in debt to a point where the country is no longer in charge of its own destiny. You're, you're borrowers of our debt. They now start to push us around and tell us, this is how it's going to go. And if you don't like it, we won't renew our, our 30 year Treasury purchases of the United States. All threat, all through the Biden, the Trump thing. Okay, I kept saying, you know, the Chinese do have their hand in our pocketbook. All they ever had to do was take it, say, we're done. And the next morning, all of us are out of money. All of us, you and me, no money. Okay. So I never understood. If he understood what what a control factor there is for that. But nevertheless, this is an accept. This is the way countries manage to. All right, well, let me ask you, is, is 2.3 trillion a bridge, no pun intended, a bridge too far? Is it too much? Or is it, is it, should it be more? Or is it, you know, should it be less? I'm just glad that it's large because that gives Biden a lot more maneuverability. Okay. So if Joe Manchin wants 25% for corporate, instead of 28, hey, yeah, let's go with that. You know, I mean, so I like that. Now, I don't know. I think the AOC thing, ultimately over four years, maybe we'll end up doing something like that. I mean, so that maybe that was her intention is the overarch issue, you know, of all that we need is hardly a me, a measly 2 trillion. Yeah, but you know, you could, you know, I understand negotiations, he asked more than what you wanted, what you expected, but at the same time, by throwing out land, just numbers, you damage your credibility as not being an honest player at the table. Well, it all depends, you know, I mean, it's that that is standard negotiate operating procedure. And we have to watch our inflation and we have to see how our debt sells, and how that we've got that those are all the things that yelling and folks there take care of, and look at how that works. So, I don't think anybody expects that the first offer is the best and final offer. That's a that's just a major principle of contracting, you know, you're always going to come in and work it over so I think that's an acceptable way to to approach it. Yeah, I don't know how much Biden's on what margin he's left for himself. But, you know, he's on a razor thin edge there but hopefully, hopefully, this, this new way of seeing the corporations come in and it doesn't look like Mitch, Mitch is going to be that influential on, you know, what he's saying, it's just so hypocritical and he's done nothing but use them, and they've paid him money and just been insane. So I mean, maybe we're going to get some transparency here on how these people have been operating and the Republican Party and not to the benefit of the nation and here we've got to do this stuff or we're going to not make it to. Okay, we want to be in. Yeah, right. Thank you. You know you bring up Mitch McConnell and corporations and Jay on this switch switch topics here. And I'm going to give you a kind of a long long winded question and that is going back to the Georgia's new voter laws that have been passed and signed into law by the governor. There's been a lot more corporations starting to take note of it and starting to speak out Bank of America Google Facebook, the MLB of course is left for the their games and delta air of course. So they're starting to jump on board this topic. Yet Mitch McConnell comes out and says, Hey, corporations. Get your nose out of politics. Now, if I'm the CEO of one of those corporations he's talking to, whether he mentions my name or not, I guess I could take that and extrapolate to say, All right, I'll get out of politics. I'm not donating anymore. Can this have a backlash on the GOP by, by this issue alone. Well, you know, as Winston said, they're supposed to enhance the wealth of their stockholders, anything that cuts their bottom line is the problem. But as Stephanie said, you know that Mitch McConnell is a very picture of hypocrisy. When he gets there Rachel matter last night made that so clear. You know he's the one he's the one that you know is encouraging corporate contributions doing everything he can. And then he says the corporations stay out of politics. I think, I think his hypocrisy is being revealed. I mean no newscaster, no reporter is going to miss that point. He is a picture of hypocrisy. At the same time you know these, these guys why are these guys doing this. Well they're doing this to enhance their brand with the public. I suppose you could say they're doing it for the right thing but that's only one element. They're doing it because it gives them good press. And they're on a roll right now. Only the big ones that you hear about. I wonder about the medium sized ones and the smaller ones are they doing that too they may not have the, you know the financial cloud to make a difference and leave Georgia. Bottom bottom line is that this is the first time we have seen this as I recall, where a bunch of major national international corporations have taken a position. And I think it is, I love it that they do this. I love it because they care about the people or at least they do apparently their PR, you know firms are telling me they should take this position. And it will not be the last time. I think we've established a bit of a change in corporate culture here. And I'm so happy they got together and I want to continue to do this and stand up against McConnell. And I think they probably at least a lot of them will continue to do this. Well, let me ask that point. You know there's Craig manier. He's the CEO of Home Depot Home Depot is headquartered out of Atlanta. It's the largest employer in Georgia. Absolutely crickets from Home Depot absolute crickets and if you go on social media, there are louder and louder shouts for boycotting Home Depot products, stay out of the store. Does Craig manier listen to that, or what would motivate him. He's a staunch GOP supporter. He has been throughout the years throughout the Trump administration and the George Bush junior administration. We go to Winston's point about it's their job to provide you know the stockholders their bottom line. But if he's surrounded by everyone that has jumped on board, is the pressure going to be so great that he has no choice. Well, that's another effect of the of the ones who are, you know, supporting the voting rights act and criticizing Georgia. I mean they they they make it clear that Home Depot is crickets. They make it clear that Home Depot is not coming along. And that silence is deafening about Home Depot. And maybe it's just, you know, us guys here but I take that really seriously. You know there are alternatives to buying my hardware at Home Depot or somewhere else, knowing that him Winston Stephanie, I wouldn't buy anything at Home Depot. And furthermore, I'll tell you here now in public, I'm not going to buy anything at Home Depot. And I think I think right thinking Americans will hear the sound of those crickets and act accordingly. Those guys are definitely involved in politics, their GOP it goes, it goes beyond making contributions to McConnell and his friends. It means it means making a loud statement. They support what the legislature did in Georgia and that sucks. All right, well just as a side note, the story in Honolulu it's now referred to as numbers 1701 is the usually one two or three every year of the highest grossing sales store in the country. And just by the way, there happens to be a low store about three blocks away. So taking your point Jay and just making note that there are other options and by the way, our local city mail is just down the street from that too. Good point Jay. Winston, to the same point and the same topic. Should these, will we see more corporations jump on board? And if so, why do you think they're doing so? Well, you know, although they do have that their fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder wealth. They are also subject to pressures of their shareholders and we see shareholders initiatives come in and say. We want you to whatever switch to renewable energy or purchase eco credits or whatever or make sure that you have the boardroom filled with representational members of society that look like society. They may require diversity and inclusion initiatives. This may fall under this. This may fall under a mandate by the holders to be good corporate citizens in addition to maximizing their shareholder wealth. And in fact, it may be part of maximizing their shareholder wealth. So I think they probably look at all the calculus and they say, Hey, does taking a position on this increase our shareholder wealth. If so, yes, it does. Therefore, we will take that stand. You know, I mean, it's very hard to prove something. People are they are are you going to have shareholders go to the home people's meeting and say, Hey, you didn't take a stand on this and the stock fell 10% and there's a direct correlation there. It's hard to say that. One thing you have to look at Winston is it's not just today or this week, but what the analysts are saying right now. If they enhance their brand, and you and I and Tim and Stephanie remember that we're we're not going to be down on Home Depot for a week or two or three. We will remember this for the rest of our lives. That that is correct. And that's taken into the whole calculation of things. So I think at the end of the day, because of these pressures and because they don't want major league baseball or basketball or the NCAA or anybody else pulling out of there. And you saw you saw even Stacy Abrams said, please don't leave Georgia. We need you here and keeping the pressure on, which I think was interesting too. So she said, we want to work with you guys to increase pressure to help our society be better. And so I think there's all these different factors playing in and it can be both better for the bottom line of the corporation to support these initiatives and be diverse and inclusive. And that actually is better for the bottom line. And I think most studies would prove that out. So, you know, these boards of directors have these decisions to make and sometimes are controlled by a bully or a major shareholder and that's the reality of the situation. Well, you know, it has national effect and actually it's having a positive national effect not only on guys like us, but the state of Kentucky Kentucky is entertaining and may already have passed a pro voting rights bill a pro voting that's news and I guess what that means is they've been reading the paper. But what is also very ironic about it is guess who is from Kentucky. Never mind. Who are the worst senators. No Quinsan is there whatsoever. Hey, you know, we're running out of time basically but unfortunately one of the topics I wanted to talk about today we'll have to just address it another time is the fact that Donald Trump's fundraising efforts has been splashed all over the newspaper. And these campaign organizations have had to refund back to their donors $122 million, because they donated once but the forces to be continued to draw from their credit cards and they're checking accounts and just sucked them dry. And now the donors complained, wait a minute, I didn't agree to that. I agreed to pay $990 not $8000. So this is happening all over the place, not just with a few donors but thousands of donors, and it's totaling up 122 million so maybe next week we get to talk about this one because once again, be a Trump University or his foundation is campaign organizations are on the move and scamming just like in the old days so last thoughts Stephanie you get to last thought here on stuff. I was just going to ask Lou was into that too so I mean that I wouldn't yeah, every but all of them have some problems that way and letting you slip into I'll be a regular donor instead of just this one time. Anyway, so yeah, that that was interesting but that just par for the course. I did want to say, finally that to just mentioned to you all that, and I think we all are discussing this and talk about it, is that there's a new paradigm. I mean, we're actually getting that I guess that's what I'm trying to say about that my satisfaction with how Biden is going so far, and that it is especially in the area of opening up the thinking about all of this I mean, you know, Obama, you know really rammed and rammed and rammed to work together with the Republicans, and he just got nowhere to the point where you think he just come running out of the White House. But Biden is doing things that probably having been informed from that like he's got those posters all up telling everybody who did what, which is something Obama never did get enough credit out there about who did what for the health care. Anyway, the point is that I think Biden may have something going here with cracking through the current era dime that's got us in this iron grip stalemate. And let's just see if he's going to continue to run with this ball or get, get better at it. Gonna have to get ready. Okay, thank you for those last comments. Thanks. Good words. Hey Jay, your last comments be about infrastructure or anything that suits your fancy. And returning to your point about how Trump scammed his public, you know it's done with little boxes, pre check boxes. That's the box in the middle of the boilerplate says I agree to give this for, you know, for the rest of my life. On a weekly basis, and they accelerated that you know first it was by the month and it was by the week and by the hour. And then they had to something called a money bomb. And a money bomb is another little a second little box that says, in addition to what I told you I was giving. $1,000. And people wouldn't see that. And they got ripped. And the Trump campaign and by the way the leftler and who the who was the other one who was running in Georgia running for the Senate. Those guys use this technique the same way they raised tons of money. And it's a GOP trick and yes Stephanie, the Democrats how to return refund money to they all they all do. But the amount of money that Trump collected was huge millions, million, and way tens of millions, because of these little boxes. And it's a scam and everybody knows it's a scam, and they refunded it but his is his is the bottom line. It's a tax or rather an interest free loan. So if you need the money to run your campaign for say six months. Yeah, you take the money you rip everybody off you use the money and later on, presumably after you've won the campaign, you refund the money. It's an old fashioned scam. Wow. New, a new light on an old subject. All right, thanks Jay Winston your last thoughts your last words. I don't just hearing his name made my brain right and I'm so glad we don't talk about him anymore. Honestly, we have so many important things to discuss. And him not being part of the conversation is so healthy for all of us. I mean he's there in the background. But at this point, I'm just grateful that that we moved on as a people and that we're moving on and God bless America and Joe Biden. Great words to end with. Thanks Winston. All right, well that's all the time we have for today's show. I want to thank Jay Fidel Winston Welch, Stephanie Dalton. Thank you for joining us on what now America. Join us next week Wednesday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Appichell your host, and we'll see you then. Aloha.