 Well thanks for having me. I'll try to go through what I consider to be the major issues going on in Washington right now. Some of those are specifically of interest to the business community. Some are not. And obviously there are issues right now that have bubbled at the top that I wouldn't have guessed at the beginning of the biennium. We are where we are. First issue I'll talk about is the Ukraine. I think it's a scary situation. I maybe think it's scarier than the average person in Washington feels. I think after it happened, you know, we can debate why it happened, you know, could we have done more in advance. We would have looked as a stronger country with the invasion taking place. I think after it happened I think we got a look at how things are going to happen at the end and how this is going to wind up. I think whenever a war takes place eventually there's a treaty. You know, everybody sits down and says this is the end of it. I think in particular and something that's not been talked about, this war is particularly damaging not only to Ukraine but even to a degree in Russia because we're dealing with two countries who have a problem of a lack of young people. Okay. Ukraine according to the internet of the hundred largest countries in the world has the second lowest birth rate. Russia also has a low birth rate is being is emptying out. I was on the border about a year ago in San Diego and at that time San Diego is only one of ten regions on the border. San Diego, we were talking about one month here but when I was down there in that one month the second most common nationality crossing into the United States was Russian so obviously a lot of people are leaving Russia. In any event I think people have to hope for the benefit of all the troops who are being killed, all the civilians who are being killed that eventually there is an end down there and I'm not exactly convinced at this point that the Biden administration is looking towards an end here. We have done a lot to help Ukraine. I have voted to help Ukraine a great deal with billions and billions of dollars and that is one of the reasons why Ukraine is doing very well and it's very important for the world that Ukraine is doing well because we don't want to establish the precedent that you can get what you want in this country by having a full-scale invasion. I can't think of anything like this. I guess for a while China invaded Vietnam and you had the Iraq-Iran war but certainly this is the most horrible thing that's happened in Europe in 80 years and right now Ukraine is doing well. We continue to support them. They'll continue to do well but like I said I think the sooner it ends the better I think the longer it drags on the more difficult it is for people to reach a peace agreement right because more people have died and you're you're more obligated to get something for the work that you've done. But in any event it is a major problem and so far as I can weigh in and with Washington I point out that we have to be somehow working our way towards towards the end here. It will also affect our budget next time because like I said we have sent a lot of our our armaments I guess you'd call it to Ukraine and we're going to have to make that up. Second thing I want to point out is Taiwan one of the reasons why it's important Ukraine do well is because we are backing Ukraine and we don't want to establish the precedent when the United States kind of guarantees the borders of a country that we will not go to bat there. And Taiwan again a scary situation I met with a Taiwanese consulate about a month ago maybe it's the third or fourth time since I had this job that I met with them. Normally it's I think more upbeat than it is now which concerns me a little bit. They're stated concern and I don't know every American would consider it a concern but the Chinese stated concern is that when Richard Nixon went to China in I think it was 1973-1974 in there he made it clear he felt there was one China and even though there were clearly two governments over different parts of China there was one China and apparently for the Chinese that's very important the mainland Chinese. The new government in Taiwan and by new I mean they've been off it on the last 20 years more and more talks about two China's it seems that China is very upset about that they claim the George Bush in around 2004 when this was going on it made it clear that for the United States there were there was one Chinese government even though obviously two different countries ran China. I think over a period of time those countries had to in a way been getting closer to each other. I toured Taiwan when I was in the state Senate in I think it was 2006-2007 and at that time you couldn't even fly from Taiwan to to China. I mean it was really more hostility you had to go through Thailand or go through Vietnam or somewhere if you wanted to go from Taiwan to mainland China. Since that time business activity has greatly increased and on the face of it you would think the relationship between the two countries should be closer than ever but right now it's not and quite frankly Taiwan is a very very important country as far as the world economy is concerned and I believe at least what we're being told that the United States would would stand behind Taiwan no matter what. I mentioned both Russia and Taiwan as being significant because of both those countries have nuclear weapons. Both those countries have the capacity to really really have a major major war if we would get involved with either one and hopefully this latest situation with Taiwan will pass. Next issue that I think is just grave significance to the country is the border. I'm going to start out by giving you some numbers. A lot of times you hear Republicans are talking heads on the news talk about the border. I don't think they are giving accurate numbers because they rattle off the numbers of the people who show up on the southern border. To this day single adults who show up on the southern border are turned around and sent back. I always think when you the number that you want to hear is the number of people who are coming here not the number of people who are turned back and instead they give you the number of people who show up at the southern border. So I will give you some numbers of the people who come here and stay here. Two marches ago March of 2020 about 11,000 people entered the United States from the southern border and stayed here. 11,000. A year ago in March that number was 63,000. So that's a dramatic increase. This March that number was 153,000. So you can see the number of people there is really skyrocketing up. It bothers me when Secretary Mayorkas gets on TV and says he inherited a mess. Wait a minute. You know 11,000 people is probably still too much but when you've gone from 11,000 to 153,000 the mess has happened now. There are a variety of reasons for it. One of the major reasons is President Biden got rid of the migrant protection protocol which basically said that if you're coming to this country and are going to ask for asylum you're going to wait in Mexico until you have a hearing. As soon as they said you would come to the United States pending your hearing the number of people coming here just shot way up. I have been at the border must be eight times now. I was most recently there two weeks ago. To a certain extent I go to the border more often because in so far as I have a title in Washington it's the ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Government Oversight Committee in any event. It deals with the border and I think it's especially important for me to monitor what's going on down there. I have to really go down there to find out what's going on because you have to talk to the border patrol yourself like so many other places in life. If you talk to the boss you get the political answer. If you talk to the border patrol you get the real answer. But in any event last time I was down there about two and a half weeks ago now we were on a path where people coming asking for asylum south of Yuma, Arizona. Maybe the path was about as wide as one of these tables here. There were two clumps of 70 to 80 people crossing with sizable numbers from different countries in each clump. Countries that were represented there not just one or two people. Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Cuba, India, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan. So in other words the whole world is coming here. Why are they all coming here? To a certain extent they are being of one thing we got the greatest country in the world whatever you know our president says and everybody around the globe no matter what their ethnic background realizes they'd be better off coming here. But part of it is right now across the southern border you pay the Mexican drug cartels and the border patrol tells me something that I question but they tell it to me and every time I'm down there they tell it to me. They feel the cartels right now are making more money bringing people over here than they are bringing drugs. The amount it costs to come here varies dramatically from country to country and how elaborate of a trip you want to take. In Haiti which is a very poor country maybe you can come here because they'll take a lot of people at once and only cost you two or three thousand dollars. I'm told Mexicans are paying about five thousand Central Americans or South Americans more than the nine to twelve thousand dollar category Asians easily could be twenty thousand. I'm told it costs more than that if you're coming here from China. I have yet to see someone from China come here and all the times I've been there but I'm told they're coming here. So in any event if the cartels are making money the more people they bring here they will reach out and find more people to come here. We have been told that there are TV ads in Central America now is the time to come to the United States and of course they will publicize the numbers of the people crossing here and say now is the time to come here. I don't know when it's going to end because common sense will tell you you look at all the countries of the world who wouldn't rather come here right. I mean you think of all the countries you can mine for more people India Bangladesh being to Indonesia China I mean it's just unlimited and I think as long as the cartels are going to make nine or ten thousand bucks a person or twenty thousand bucks a person they will continue to recruit more and more and more people coming here. So a very scary thing for the country and something that has to be tackled. Last Friday I I met with the new head of the border patrol a guy named Chris Magnus it was a private meeting but I will tell you I couldn't have been less impressed with him. He had previously been chief of police in three American cities but when the border patrol had asked for his help as far as you know getting people who they were trying to arrest or ICE was asking his help he would refuse help. He it's very apparent that he feels despite the fact that we swear in 830 or a few years ago 830,000 new citizens a year that is still too difficult to come here and obviously if you're in charge of the border patrol and your underlying attitude is it's too difficult to come here you're maybe not the one who should have that job and if you're not helpful to the to the border patrol or ICE before you get the job you also maybe shouldn't have the job. One of the problems we have at the southern border is like everywhere else in the world we're trying to hire new people and if this is the guy who's the head of the agency are you going to want to work for a guy who's you know really I would argue is not all in on having an effect the border patrol so it's a problem I think it was a huge mistake to have Chris Magnus there but you know another thing we have to deal with to give you an example of why we need more border patrol agents when you hire to work for the border patrol you want to you want to guard the border right that's the type of job you want to do because so many people are coming here and are being led in that the border patrol has to process right now at least in that region when you report for work in the morning 70% of them are not on the border they're doing paperwork by the time their eight hour shift is over 90% of them are doing paperwork okay if they aren't on the border I'll digress for a second here there are two large groups of people coming here there are people who are going to ask for asylum they want to find the border patrol you know they know the drill I want asylum okay you know we'll send you with catholic social services they'll find you somewhere in the country to go and you're in america waiting for your hearing which might be three or four years down the line the other group of people is what the border patrol refers to as gotaways they are not looking for the border patrol maybe they have criminal records in the past maybe they want to sneak drugs in whatever these are the people who are just looking to come across and trying to avoid the border patrol as more and more members of the border patrol are doing paperwork less and less members are are guarding the border I mentioned there were about 11,000 people coming in three marches ago at that time almost all those people were gotaways but you're still looking under 10,000 gotaways five six months ago the border patrol estimated 30,000 gotaways more recently they think it's up to 60,000 and the reason being obvious the border patrol is not able to guard the border so people come here you also hear stories last time it was down I met with sheriffs of some of the counties on the border and they had scary situations in which more and more people are coming here they become bolder when they come here there was a time where you run away and avoid confrontation with the border patrol now they're more likely to fight or even shoot at the border patrol which obviously makes it a scarier job so a real mess on the border I don't know how our country can survive with 153,000 people a month you are familiar right now a court case prevented it but President Biden his administration wanted to change the rules for coming here so we would no longer turn around people because of the covid threat if he would have gotten his way and again I question this number but the border patrol tells me it could have been over 15,000 additional people a day coming here in part because a lot more people would come here from Central America and Mexico and in part because the publicity of so many people crossing the border would bring more and more people from all around the world one other thing I want to point out one of the things Chris Magnus is wildly apart from where his own agents are is why people are coming here Chris Magnus and some of these the Biden administration says we have all these starving people from around the world who are desperate to come to the United States the border patrol tells us that a lot of these people are not by their native country standards poor they're just people who would be better off in the United States which is largely to say the whole world right for example Brazil's economy is down right now the time I was here before this and the region I was at a lot of people coming here from Brazil they were not the poor people I can't tell the difference between wealthy clothes and not wealthy clothes but the border patrol can't tell the difference it tells me whether you look at the shoes whether you look at the purses whether you look at the clothes you are not getting the poorest people they estimate to me 90 to 95 percent of the people coming here have cell phones which again is you know to me not destitute but a lot of them are Cubans who have left Cuba which of course is a horrible communist country but have already moved to places like Colombia or Chile now that they know they can get to the United States even though they are safe and secure and living well in Venezuela or living well in Chile they say well I hear the United States is open why don't I go to the United States so we are not necessarily getting poor destitute people we're just getting people to say hey why don't I come to the United States so that's what's going on down there and I think other than what's going on in the Ukraine it's the biggest crisis facing America because we cannot have that many people like I said about 800 over 800,000 people in many years are sworn in as new American citizens it is not impossible to get here I don't think we have to take the whole world we are going to get another huge increase in the number of people coming here from Ukraine some of those people will go back to Ukraine but some of those people will stay here as well they're anticipating getting another 80,000 people from Ukraine in as I understood it in the San Diego area or through that border to be spread around the country and at least the border patrol feels most of those people are not going to go back whatever you hear okay next big issue one of the real problems I have with the Biden administration is he pushes this narrative that America is so racist all the time you know right out of the chute in his inaugural speech I might have this up by one I think he used the word racism three or four times in white supremacy once I think America is just a great country okay you look right here in Sheboygan and a test as to how Eurocentric we are would be the mong who've come here and of course I show up in mong events and meet these folks almost all of them are living the American dream nevertheless with the Biden administration it's racism racism all day long they sometimes were struck down on how they respond to this in the courts there was a program designed to help restaurants with the COVID and it was supposed to be led off with again restaurant tours who were not white males eventually that was struck down in court although by then the money was largely gone same thing a program to get rid of loans to farmers again you know this kind of dividing people by race which I think inevitably leads to divisiveness and of course you have a bureaucracy that goes along with this in order to justify their jobs they'll talk about how racist America is and how we have to view people racially not long after president Biden took office Tammy Duckworth who's a senator from Illinois and she was involved in this along with a senator from Hawaii who joined joined forces right now the Senate is 50-50 so every vote is important when president Biden appoints a new cabinet member new judge what have you she publicly said she was not going to vote to confirm any more of president Biden's appointees unless if they were white males unless they were gay so here you have a U.S. senator from a major state Illinois and that's her stated stated thing and president Biden obviously has to pay attention because he needs all 50 of his votes woman from Hawaii joined her in that they met with president Biden they backed off but who knows what type of promises they got I mean how ridiculous it is to say in order to fill an important job with the administration we're not going to take any heterosexual white guys I mean but but that is kind of the attitude we're getting in in Washington I think it's incredibly divisive I think it's incredibly wrong I talk about it because the public's got to know what we're dealing with here and you know I think it results in a lot of sometimes good people not getting the job you know I mentioned what I thought of the head of the new board of patrol would he got the job if he wasn't gay I don't know um next thing a lot of things are not going to get done in congress because of the filibuster rule in the senate to my frustration when I first got to congress I had thought you know we have the house we have the senate we have the presidency when president trump got elected now we're going to do a lot of things there are ways to get around it on some issues but not all issues the filibuster rule requires 60 people to in essence be on board to pass something in the senate because we're at 50-50 right now it means either the republicans or the democrats can stop bills from passing but I want to give you two example of bills that have come out of the house that if it weren't for the filibuster rule would pass the senate and I think both would fundamentally change America and I I'm going to talk about some bills I'm dealing with on a bipartisan basis on a personal level I get along with the democrats all the way back was when I was in the state legislature when I introduced the bill I try to get a democrat lead on it as well we probably pass 10 or 11 bills every week that I'm back on a bipartisan basis virtually unanimously so do we get along with the democrats I guess in that regard we work with them on individual bills but I'm going to point out there's some things that there are fundamental differences between the parties and the filibuster rule is the only thing preventing them from passing right now one of them is an elections law bill okay the democrats want to get rid of photo ID everywhere in the country I don't know that that would survive the supreme court but in my opinion as somebody who was here when we passed photo ID in in the state of Wisconsin it's a very important law you need photo ID for you know like going to the drug store for stuff getting on an airplane but all of a sudden we can't have it to vote I think it would make it make cheating very very easy in future elections also in that elections bill they want to have universal mail mail ballots I don't like absentee mail ballots I've never liked them when I was in the state legislature I fought them at the time I mean they're necessary for some people who aren't around but when you have an absentee ballot you never know who really filled that out and you don't know if somebody was looking over their shoulder telling them how to fill it out right when I go into vote in the old-fashioned way we know it's Glenn growth and filling that out and maybe somebody talked to me five minutes before I went in there but at least you know if I married my wife doesn't know how I filled it out for sure so it really is a close ballot I think so that's the way it should be but the democrat their goal is to have more and more of these absentee ballots in Arizona very close a state last time over 80 percent of the ballots were absentee which to me is just a scary thing because it just invites invites abuse but the filibuster is the only thing that is keeping that from becoming law if and we've got two democrats who are in favor of keeping the filibuster mansion from uh west virginia and cinema from Arizona so you know if we had a couple republicans I have a heart attack tomorrow those things would also become law kind of a dangerous thing the other bill that I think would fundamentally change america is something called the pro act uh the pro act is an act in which you can file to have a union election with eight days advance notice I mean obviously that would turn around turn upside down any company who has to deal with eight days notice in that bill you have to turn over the email address the home address and the phone number of every one of your employees and the vote can be an open vote in which everybody can see how you're voting so obviously that to me a very unfair scary law which would again fundamentally change the american economy uh the only thing preventing that bill from passing is the filibuster rule other things that I am working on of relevance uh well first of all another issue I should touch on inflation in my opinion of what's going on with inflation inflation is caused to me by a rapid increase in the monetary supply monetary supply it's kind of a boring topic but I was looking at a graph which I thought was illuminating I am old enough to remember the inflation of the 1970s at that time the money supply was going up or m2 which is one measure the money supply was going up seven or eight percent it's not going up more than 30 percent I mean the amount of spending and the amount of money that the Fed is in essence printing is very high uh and right now the response of the majority party in congress is to spend more they recently proposed the budget for the calendar year or for the fiscal year beginning october 1st in that budget they anticipate income or growth in revenues to be around four percent they anticipate the increase in non defense discretionary spending being 12 percent so you know again the plan for the future increasing spending a lot more rapidly than tax receipts you know just a a big problem and as I mentioned in ukraine we have spent I think a lot of money on armaments those are going to have to be replaced so that will be expensive as well I mean we've I've been led to believe a lot of the very expensive things that we have we've really run them down and we have to replace them okay so that's a little bit about inflation when I tour factories around here and some of these people you know wonder can we can we slow down the inflation I always ask them what the cost of their metals are because we need metals and so many of the factories around here up again and again four or five hundred percent well I mean if your cost of metals is going up four or five hundred percent how can you with a straight face say that you know we're going to get inflation under control real problem the last time we got under control was the 1980s that was under Ronald Reagan and it took really a really a huge economic slowdown to do it so quite a problem I'll give you one more anecdote on the inflation I blame the Federal Reserve for this when the COVID first hit we had a meeting with both then treasurer's secretary minutian as well as Powell from the Federal Reserve we were encouraged at the time to spend as much as we could because of the COVID their attitude which I think was a little bit reckless was that we didn't want to repeat a 2009 where there wasn't enough money in the system so Congress spent as much money as you can wherever you could spend it we don't care where you spend it just spend a lot of it and I asked him I said you know are you worried about inflation which you would think you know when you begin to spend bills in the trillions of dollars and we were told inflation is not going to happen when you have a a recession meaning the COVID situation and if it does we know how to handle it just kind of really breezy it's going to be hard to stop this inflation and I blame in addition to Congress spending too much in addition to when the Democrats took over they should have been putting on the brakes but instead hit the accelerator I think the the the opinion of the Federal Reserve assuming they told the Democrats the same thing they told us is part of the problem other things that I am working on I am on three committees right now I get along with all three of my committee chairs who are I will say by Democrat standards somewhat reasonable but they do have a different view of the world it wasn't till I got to Madison years ago that I understood the the importance of party and when you hear on election night that this party has the majority or that party here has the majority it's not just they can win on a vote if everybody sticks together if you have the majority you determine the speaker in the House of Representatives and right now the speaker who the Democrats vote for is Nancy Pelosi from San Francisco and she determines what comes to the floor so they say you know why don't we vote on your vote or why are you ineffective in getting this thing moving everything every bill that I introduce if it's going to pass Nancy Pelosi has to say we'll put it on the floor if you are the majority party you also determine the committee chairman of all the committees and most of the work is done in committee so I'm on three committees education and labor budget and government oversight every one of those committees has a chairman who nice guy nice gal but uh they're the ones who determine what what um what bills we're going to vote out of committee and they're going to determine what the topic areas are when we have a committee hearing at all so uh very important who is majority party in the education and labor committee I do what I can and I think I'm having some success here though major bills have not passed in pushing what I'll call skills-based education I think both for the good of students and for the good of the economy we want as large degree as possible people who get or are educated past high school to have that education lead to a job I think we are better than we were a couple years ago but we're still not where we should be that is like I said it's good for the economy and also we do not want students sitting out there with 30 or 40 or 50 thousand dollars in debt and not able to pay it off I mean that's just a tragedy I think to this day not unusual to see people going to the trade schools see people going to the tech schools who already have a four-year degree but that four-year degree was not leading to a family supporting job I do think all universities ought to take a look at themselves and say that if there are majors out there that would lead to a well paying job you want to be able to go through that university and get that major if you are capable of completing the work okay I met the other night with a couple people from the UW alumni here if anybody went to Madison by the way join your local UW alumni club but you know I emphasized in so far so people who showed up from Madison where I felt to a degree they were dropping the ball two areas in which we need more people nursing I mean you talk to any medical facility nursing home hospital whatever they need new nurses but at at university like Madison which is tough to get in you know taking kids who are very successful in high school the vast the majority of people who would like a nursing degree are not able to get into the nursing school now I know a lot of those people could complete the curriculum but the UW who's decided for whatever reason maybe it's harder to find professors in the field in nursing that we're going to have people who would be capable in nurses getting a degree in communication arts well that's not good for our medical systems and it's not good for the individuals getting the degree same thing with regard to engineering okay and you got to remember Madison is getting some really sharp people there but again a fraction of the people who would be willing to get an engineering degree are getting an engineering degree it can still be an exclusive school but to me you want to treat your students well and you want to treat American industry well and if American industry needs more engineers and we have kids going to Madison where sharp enough to get an engineering degree hire more engineering professors and get it done and I think that's true across the board I think in so far as we continue to give out student loans or give out Pell grants to students we ought to to a degree try to force the universities to steer people towards jobs next thing along those lines whatever you tour a business number one complaint is what we can't find anybody to work I have a bill that should move but might not just nipping it nipping it part of the problem there right now if you retire and get Social Security if you make more say Chet Gerlach here um if you if you at least told me you're retired if he if he if he misses misses working um when you when you make more than 19 000 a year uh you begin to dig into your Social Security so you have a situation in which somebody wants to still work they say I'm getting x number of hours and all of a sudden they make 19 000 they say I gotta stop working there's no point in me working they're just taking away my Social Security all the time um I think that number should be raised to at least 29 000 dollars uh you would get some more hours of out of those older people which would make a minor debt in the huge shortage of people we have working at this time next thing to talk about in homeland security we have a disinformation board it's just scary out of my mind what's going on in Washington and the degree to which I think people um it seems like they're pushing our country towards a different sort of government we have no business hiring people to uh give the government's view on what is true or not true whether it's about the Ukraine whether it's about the covid whether it's about anything under the sun we have gotten a long ways in this country with the first amendment um freedom of speech and the idea that people are out there saying or implying that the government has to do something when people's speech doesn't go with the pro-government or government approved narrative it's just scary it's so many union type of stuff and it shows to me that they have some really really really questionable people in the Biden administration who wonder what type of government they're leading us towards because we have no no no business having a disinformation board um what are we at here we've been talking for about 35 minutes should we open it up for questions or should I tell you other things too I'll tell you some other things too and then and we'll open it up okay there are some things I disagree with my republican colleagues on uh and we're on some bills that I was hoping uh would move a little bit right now um you see these payday loan stores around Sheboy you know the cash store and that sort of thing these are more and more of a national thing right now because people are getting stuff online people wind up paying interest rates of 300 400 percent uh I have a bill out there actually I'm working with a guy by the name of Chewie Garcia Democrat from Chicago to try to lower those maximum interest rates the bill is not going to move and I don't like to question anybody's uh the reason why they're doing what they're doing but I don't think it's going to come out of financial services and these organizations have put a lot of money into the campaigns of people who are on that committee so at least I'm costing a lot of money there uh we had a um in a related sort of thing we had something called the true lender bill which passed under president or was an administrative rule that passed under president trump before he left office uh in states that have use of real laws um they were allowing banks to do very little but claim that they were the actual lender on some high interest products um to get to get around the use real laws in other states I don't like what president trump did there I'm a big fan of his but uh I stuck with the democrats in overturning that rule so you couldn't in essence have banks in other states pretend they were the lender instead of the high interest rate um true lender in my opinion the true lender um so some of the other things that are going on around there uh other bills that might pass uh if you're familiar with air america was and the mong would be familiar with what it was during the vietnam war the cia flew missions over laos in particular dropping off supplies to our allies there sometimes picking people up uh they were not treated as well as or I don't feel were treated as well as the people who fought for the united states during the vietnam even though many of them died were engaged in very risky missions were trying to get them benefits more similar to that of the official members of the military when air america flew because it was a cia airline it was secret they they remove the markings the american markings from the from the aircraft that were flying over there and uh like I said a lot of people risked their lives a lot of people died and I don't think they've really ever received the uh recognition that they should have um we were recently asked to be the republican lead by a democrat congressman from california setting up a board at least making suggestions as to how we can get more v a medical staff in more rural areas v a is everybody else sometimes the harder time getting people who um in the medical fields to go to work in rural areas and I I was glad that he he reached out to me and thought i was somebody who could help me get republicans and make this a bipartisan effort so there's a little bit now we want to be able to answer some of the questions sure did anybody have parties they want to pick up sorry quiet group today okay first question what career path did you initially want to take when in undergrad um I thought about this my dad was a lawyer uh and I guess when your dad does a job you always kind of considered as well so when I was an undergrad I consider I felt I was going to wind up going to law school um I got an accounting degree I passed the cpa exam but when I got the accounting degree it was never with a desire to be an accountant it was just something to do on the way to getting a law degree I think accounting degree by the way is a good thing um another area in which they cut people off in Madison is a small fraction of people who want to go to business school get in I would advise young people if you want to get a business degree at least when I was there first of all you got the business degree and then you looked for kind of I guess I'll call it a sub major like some people who did financial services or something I think you should shoot for an accounting degree as well so for any young people listening at home don't if you go to for business school give it a kicker and get that accounting accounting degree as well the accounting field will be thanking you because we need more cpas also what were the most important factors or things that helped you throughout your career or careers well in so far as I'm a successful congressman or before that state legislator um I think the fact that as a lawyer I dealt with the government in a variety capacities I did probate in a state planning I did some real estate work I did some tax work and I think it allowed me to see how the practical impact of bills I think sometimes both on a federal and state level people introduce bills that sound good but as a practical matter are going to lack common sense and be a problem for people and I think the fact that I spent 10 years of my life as a practicing lawyer made me much better at being a legislator. You shared with the group that you've spent a fair amount of time at the border have you developed any proposals in order to improve upon our present system of allowing refugees to legally enter our country and help with our country's workforce needs and if not when do you plan to do so? I have co-sponsored bills leading to what I'll call merit-based immigration and we are the envy of the world so we should be able to get the best from around the world. I'm not saying necessarily a PhD but everybody who comes here should be coming here legally and so far as we can monitor people it shouldn't be people with a criminal criminal background we want people who can assimilate here and live the American dream as quickly as possible and I think in the future that's what we we should want to do people sometimes say why haven't we had why don't we have immigration law reform right now I don't mean to be partisan here but whatever immigration bill passes it has to be a bill that's taken seriously which means there has to be a component of enforcement there right now under President Biden to a lesser degree under President Obama it's clear their heart was not enforcing the law so whatever bill passes right now part of it is we've got to obey those laws and right now President Biden has not shown that he would obey the laws I'm sure he would sign a bill saying let's get more people in this country legally but we also have to say there's a limit in the number of people we want to have coming here and I'm not sure his heart would be enforcing that limit which is a real problem because every immigration bill is going to have to go through the filibuster in the senate any big change in immigration therefore is going to require both republican and democrat votes and I think it is so important that it's not going to do it but the president Biden show that he wants to enforce the current law and right now you look at his new border patrol chief you look at his homeland security secretary and you look at the number of people flooding across the border and if you'd reach a compromise on a new bill with him well the part of that bill that says we're going to enforce the current law he isn't showing he can do that okay right now in this country we have I guess what in the United in Wisconsin is called badger care we have I think a generous health insurance for people who do not have health insurance otherwise as a matter of fact one could say given the low or non-existent copays that people are even better off with the insurance for the poor than people who have insurance from their job I think also right now our safety net for people who are perceived to be poor is generous okay we can go through the programs in addition to the health care the food assistance the tuition assistance the housing assistance on each one of these I think frequently people on the assistance are even better often people without assistance so I don't think we need huge increases in say food stamps on housing right now a lot of the low income housing in this country is what they call chapter 42 or section 42 housing which is governed through the Internal Revenue Service developers who build these houses or build this housing they are reimbursed overwhelmingly from the government so you have very wealthy property developers in essence getting free apartments which are new so right off the bat they are because they are new better than people who aren't eligible for those apartments and because the government is paying there's a time value of money but paying 80 or 90 of the cost of the of the buildings they again are why not make them as nice as possible and again we have a situation in which the poor people have nicer apartments than the not poor people so I think section 42 is very generous right now I think it's corporate welfare to a degree and that very wealthy people are getting almost I'll give you an example on on this which is when people talk about more housing for the for the poor there's a guy I know who builds apartments that are not low income housing because the government pays for so much of the low income housing apartments he is outbidding I mean the section 42 guys are outbidding the guy who's building an apartment not for the poor because the government is paying for so much of the land so we right now I think have in general a generous system we can look and see if people are falling through the gaps on that system people always see there's a shortage of low income housing although when I talk to people who run the low income housing and I ask where the people are who are getting off the waiting list some of those people are living with their parents well you know to me if you're living with your parents you have housing but right now you know they move into independent housing which but we have a right now a generous safety net and we can look on a case by case level of people sliding through it but if you look overall housing, food, health medical care, job training uh daycare I mean all those things in a way uh there there's a strong safety net with all of them question do you believe that women have a constitutional right to use contraception for children to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant? yeah I want to I want to say something about that last issue though too um right now many of these safety net programs um they disappear if you work harder and they disappear if you get married so right now our safety net programs are designed to quite frankly discourage marriage and discourage work which is to me a problem with those programs and both proposed legislation and things that have been done administratively in the last year and a half increase the incentives for both those things and um you know I love all parents I think parents in every situation can succeed wildly in raising their kids but I will point out right now our system seems to be designed uh kind of as a against marriage against work system now uh I don't think you know there might be some commentators in an effort to scare people who are going to say that you know birth control is going to disappear it's not going to disappear and I don't know anybody who has even proposed doing such a thing so I I think it's a a talking point without merit next question about the um the latest infrastructure bill was there any particular reason why you didn't vote for the latest bipartisan infrastructure bill which would bring billions of dollars to Wisconsin for such things as roads bridges high-speed internet and safe drinking water all of which are fabricated in this state and county well um a lot of when you think of infrastructure to me you think of roads and bridges and that was a tiny fraction of this bill we know we have an inflation problem in this country and the major reason we have an inflation problem in this country is we're spending too much money so you have to be I think very careful I mentioned that the next budget proposed by President Biden without a separate infrastructure bill was over a 12 increase on non-defense discretionary spending so this is something above that uh if we're going to have a infrastructure bill above that it ought to be all for infrastructure it shouldn't be we'll call it an infrastructure bill because a relatively small percentage of it is in what we referred to as historically uh infrastructure I'll also point out that um the state legislature right now is in a a good position as far as money set aside and uh in general everything is done more efficiently if it's done by the state as opposed to the federal government so you're you're not getting anywhere near bang for the buck for every say million dollars spent if it comes through the feds as opposed to the state but but right now that infrastructure bill they call it an infrastructure bill because infrastructure is popular they don't tell you a relatively small percentage of that bill that uh is going for infrastructure best question I have here and then if there's anyone else that maybe wants to chime in they're welcome to uh what was it like to be in the capital on January 6th and do you have any idea what the cost to repair the capital has been after? I don't have an updated thing there I can tell you uh at the time because COVID was already around we were not all on the floor okay it was not a situation where they anticipated us sitting right up against each other so I don't know the number of congressmen who were not in the capital at the time I am guessing it's over half I was in my office at the time watching it on tv with everybody else I can tell you that night we were back on the floor and voting by midnight uh when I came in that night there were there was uh a couple like glass things that were broken or you know you could tell they had to put something over them but overall I felt things were back to normal say within 12 hours after it happened and you know obviously a tragedy obviously a lot of people were resting or paying a price for it um I never felt that something like that was going to happen again after that night and at least I think it was you know secure a few hours after it began by a few hours I don't know five or six or seven hours and I felt when I was voting that night at one or two in the morning whenever it was um I felt you know back to normal so it it seems to me all the new shiny pennies that keep sliding across the table that you know we're looking at this that and the other thing the one thing that you haven't mentioned that that I'm sure you know was still a major problem is the opioids and yes coming into the country I should have mentioned that um and normally I do when I talk about the border in this country when I first got this job there were about 47,000 people who are dying of illegal drug overdoses every year by comparison 57,000 combat troops died in Vietnam over a 12-year period so you're almost at a point in 2014 where as many people die every year from illegal drug overdose is died in 12 years in Vietnam Congress passed a variety of bills more bills for treatment at that time we have gone from having 47,000 deaths to 110,000 deaths so we're right now about double the number of people dying every year from illegal drugs as we are in Vietnam I am appalled and we believe more drugs are flowing across easier than before because of the policies I talked about at the border okay when I talk about the border patrol having to spend all day doing paperwork right now even though we know more drugs are coming in the country than before way less are being confiscated at the border why are they being not confiscated at the border because we don't have border patrol agents even guard the border so things are getting worse I have a bill to lower the amount of fentanyl you need to get a mandatory minimum sentence if you are caught with fentanyl or selling fentanyl and I think I guess the two obvious things you do is you tighten up the border which they aren't doing anything all about and you crack down on people who are selling the fentanyl and right now you have this idea out there that we have too many people in prison or that it's a nonviolent crime or something 110,000 people dead I mean you know you ought to pay a price this should be war here we're killing 110,000 people a lot of this fentanyl is being manufactured in China nobody is standing up and fighting fighting them there it's a horrible thing and I I'm sorry I didn't mention it because you know I kind of give similar speeches to various different groups and it's it's usually part of talking about the border because that's where it's all coming in the small amount of fentanyl that will kill people it's just shocking it's dangerous for law enforcement to even deal with it one of the things I am going to try to do in the next budget is trying to get money for dogs they have drugs stepping dogs at the border they do a phenomenal job I mean to give you an example that we saw one time down there somebody had tried to sneak fentanyl in through a gas tank and of course a gas tank smells so much you'd figure well that's a smart way to get drugs here the dogs even smell the fentanyl in the gas tank with gasoline in it so I'm a big fan for more dogs because when you look at say even trucks coming across the border by San Diego they pull a given number randomly out or they suspect something but still the vast majority of vehicles are just going through there and if you look at it you can see why a lot of people live in San Diego working Tijuana working Tijuana I mean you can't you can't look at everything but I think more dogs down there would be a big step in the right direction uh education is important because I think a lot of people die of fentanyl poisoning who don't realize they're getting fentanyl right for whatever reason and I don't know what this reason is people put fentanyl in with heroin and I always thought heroin was the gold standard for dangerous drugs but fentanyl is wildly worse so you wind up dying a fentanyl over those we didn't even know you were taking fentanyl um I think Congress ought to be or the government ought to be publicizing of that a lot more as well I would hope because it's been in the paper that people are aware that when they're taking any illegal drugs fentanyl might be in there but it should be it should be more education anyway a thing that's frustrating for me on the heroin thing and I have talked to a few people who've taken heroin not a lot they all know somebody else who died of heroin poisoning okay like I talked to a guy who was in the jail at the request of his grandfather and uh talked to him and he could rattle off nice guy had a job got caught with heroin just because a couple of his buddies had it he used to take it so he took it one more time and somehow the police caught him but he could rattle off three or four people in his own life who died of heroin well I mean good grief that's a pretty strong education isn't it I can say my buddy's girlfriend died my drug like I had one son's Milwaukee he died I know some other guy who died well if you know three or four people who died of heroin why are you taking heroin but uh I do believe part of the problem is there is an unhappiness in society and I think that is one of the reasons why people take these drugs and it's a more difficult thing to get at but it's completely irrational why would anybody take heroin except for you're just so unhappy you say I could feel good for 30 minutes or something uh so it has to be more education they've got to begin to put these people in prison rather than this idea that putting anybody in prison is racist or whatever and uh they they really have to be more aggressive with the southern border because right now like I said despite the fact that we know that more heroin is coming across they are confiscating more fentanyl is coming across they are confiscating less fentanyl at the southern border about at time did anybody have any left question you spoke about the crisis in Ukraine potential issue with Taiwan what about North Korea um I don't mean to be partisan here uh one of the things I mentioned at the border it is one of many things that I think causes potential foreign adversaries to think the United States is weak I think Afghanistan did that I think normal countries don't let 150,000 people come in every month and I hope nothing happens there but I think you have the same concern it is one of the reasons why it is so important that Russia not win in Ukraine because that sends the message that we are allowing countries to be invaded and the United States loses uh you're right Iran same thing Iran developing nuclear weapons I mean you have all these countries I think that historically were kept at bay because there was no question the United States was number one and I think one of the reasons we had the invasion in Ukraine is is it was not as obvious the United States was number one and there is a concern in North Korea you're right for the same reason thank you so much congressman thank you