7/9/26: Mitch McConnell Still Missing, Abdul Vs Stevens Debate, Senior Property Tax Breaks

24:55Or Frederick Engels. You're exactly right. So, yeah, I have a total defense here of Abdul, of Roe. You know, every time the Roe trading figures come out, it's like, bro, it's his wife. It's not him sitting around doing this. He's like, what is he going to do? Is he going to tell her what to do? You can't be doing that. It's her money. He's literally trying to pass federal legislation. Right, to stop his wife from trading.

25:21So, you do what you need. If it's your money, keep doing what you need to do. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

25:54We'll give you our takes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements. We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field, court, track, and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, or you're just getting into the game, there's a seat for you right here. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.

26:31Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Shawn Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast.

27:10There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me. It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

27:53I don't know with anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. I'm my lover. Oh, that's incredible. Yeah, the telenovela. You're the only person I know that loves the yellow starburst. It's lemonade. There's no one missing you. Like you say, I'd like to collaborate with this person. This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You also saw him say in the clip that if he really wanted to get rich, he would have become a surgeon rather than a public health official.

28:33And that was his, he was the public health official for the state of Michigan. Um, he's, he was widely credited as having done a good job. That's been his, his kind of his calling card in, in the campaign. Uh, but that means he also has never been a practicing physician. Um, Mehdi, the right wing has been beating him up on that. Haley Stevens' consultants have been beating him up on that. I don't quite think that one lands. Mehdi went back and forth with him a little bit on that. Let's roll D5. You got attacked by your rivals for calling yourself a physician, not just a doctor, even though you don't have a valid state medical license in New York or Michigan, which apparently is what you need legally to call yourself a physician.

29:12Do you wish you'd just stuck to calling yourself a doctor, which you are to avoid all of this controversy and attacks on your physician status you know at the end of the day is not about whether or not i'm a physician or a doctor the question is can you see a doctor it's not about my education it's about whether or not your kid gets a good education so i'm just not spending time but people would say it's also about did you tell the truth well i would say that i was the health director for the city of detroit and i've done more to provide more people health care or eliminate their medical debt than most doctors have done in their practice career i don't know how i feel so was it detroit i said statewide i thought it So it looks like full tuition scholarship to the University of Michigan Medical School.

29:48Did two years. Then he led the mission. Then went on to receive an MD. Yeah, did that. In 2014, he completed an MD at Columbia University. So he has an MD, but he did not. He also went to Oxford. Yeah, it looks like he did. Oh, he did a Rhodes Scholarship. A Rhodes Scholarship, too. So he's very highly educated. We'll give it to him. The guy's got the credentials. But he is not a doctor. He is a doctor. He's an MD. The doctors are going to give up your ears to me. He's an MD, but he's not a board-certified physician because he didn't do residency or he didn't complete residency. Remember, this was a controversy with the Surgeon General woman who withdrew, Casey Means, because she also never completed residency.

30:34And she was going to be – these are the types of doctors. Another Rhodes Scholar, no doubt. Doctors get very upset about these types of things. I get it. You all worked very, very hard. Um, you know, just zooming out a little bit and looking at the polling before we go to the property tax stuff, Ryan, what is your PhD in public health at Oxford? That makes sense. But then also the MD. What is your so many credentials? What is your take here about these types of attacks on Al Sayed? Because I mean, we shouldn't we shouldn't misrepresent it like they are tied virtually in the polls, right? It does seem to be a battle between the old and the young Al Sayed's favorables with young people are astronomical.

31:12So he's got a lot of the activists on his side and he's trying to do some more crossover appeal with old people, which we'll talk about in a second. He wants to win. It turns out he wants to win. He wants to win. But just before we do our fun segment about property tax, like what's your read on the race as it stands now? Like, how do you think she came out of the debate? Especially look, he's he he got some great hits on her. But these clips have been really boosted by the Republican. That's why we're showing it to you. These Madi Hassan clips. They're all over social media and Michigan, the Haley Stevens campaign as well, who are really using them to attack El-Syad's credibility.

31:46So I'm curious what you think. I don't – I mean with enough money, everything makes something of a dent. And I didn't think that was a great answer. It doesn't – it was – he had this canned line, it doesn't matter about my education. It matters about your kids' education. It seems squirrely. It's like if you went if you have a Ph.D. and an M.D. and you were your Rhodes Scholar and went to Oxford and University of Michigan Medical School. Go ahead and say that, like, because they're going to imply like people are going to take away from that. Oh, he didn't even go to medical school. Right. It's like if you went to medical school and got a Ph.D.

32:18in public health and were the city of Detroit's public health director. What are we talking about? You're obviously a doctor here. um but it's you know now it's a head-to-head match um and she's going to be able to outspend him through super PAC support significantly from united democracy project APAC super PAC um plus you know the entire kind of world that doesn't want to see el-sayed el-sayed's politics dominate they're trying to use platner against him which yes that's that's very much been happening because they share some of the same ideology. Well, no. No, it's because he has the same type of online supporters.

32:55And actually, that's the next thing I wanted to put up. Can we put up this NBC thing? I sent it to the chat. This was really fascinating. So the latest hit, according to this NBC news article, which is about inside the slugfest of the Senate primary, is Haley Stevens' campaign wants to paint El Syed, quote, as a sexist podcast, bro, because he's appeared on a show like ours. I think, didn't he campaign with Hassan Piker? Yeah, he did. Right, so it's things like that where they want to use the podcast bro image of MAGA from 2024 to basically smear him and say, oh, he's one of these online bro, you know, in this sphere.

33:38So Democrats in a year have gone from, we need our own Joe Rogan because we need to reach out to men, to he has been on podcasts. Yes, and podcasts are bad. Podcasts are bad. All of them. Yeah. He's a podcast pro, and therefore he needs to be rejected. That is a victory that spells defeat, if I've ever heard it. It's a cynical take. Well, I don't know, because it seems to me. It's just spelled defeat long term. Fair. Absolutely. It seems to me that whoever wins this is probably going to win. I mean, Mike Rogers, like, I'm sorry. You're cooked in a wave election year. Trump. Where Trump. Trump, I mean, Michigan is what I would say is one of his least strong states that he's won.

34:20He won it twice. First time 2016, it's like 10 ,000 votes. Second time around, or sorry, third time around, I forget exactly how much he won. It wasn't a lot. Like in terms of the margin, like he won Pennsylvania, I believe, more than he won by Michigan. Michigan is a tough, tough place for Donald Trump. And so then if you factor in a way. Less than 100 ,000 votes. There you go. Less than 100K votes. I mean, it's just not a lot of votes. 80 ,000. in michigan so if you've got and and elissa slatkin was also able to win at the same time so there's split ticket already and that's in a republican wave election right so win behind his back he won by with the way behind his back he barely wins you know that election if gaza doesn't happen or if kamala does a bet does a better job she potentially wins michigan oh just if those people can come out to vote no question all those people are going to come out to vote for the democrat i think no matter what so then it's a big question of like okay so i don't know if dearborn come out for hailey stevens no but i don't think i don't think she'll need it as much as Kamala did just because of the way that things are this time around.

35:18So it's a very high, very high stakes primary. It really is. And I think the CNN stuff, the CNN manufacturer, whatever you want to call it, I'm not alleging anything. But it allowed her to blunt the most damaging attack on her. See, lately, I have, and I say this with no morality or anything, I admire the Democratic establishment, so it's fun. Because they've taken so many L's recently in all of these DSA elections. They're like, okay, we can no longer run on Israel itself. So what we need to do is manufacture other issues, like Me Too with Plattner here. Not manufacture, as in they're paying her or anything.

35:59I'm just saying they're certainly using it to great effect to get him out of the race and to take over the entire system. And then here, they're like, oh, well, what we do is we get Bebe to attack her and then they use that as evidence that she's, you know, middle road or whatever. That may be enough, you know, for some boomers who are out there who are largely, it seems, to be her constituency. If you're a boomer watching, Abdul El-Sayed wants to cut your property taxes. Yeah, don't do it, Ryan. Don't do it. We are not stooping to that level. All right, let's get to property tax. What's up, fam?

36:34I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. We'll give you our takes, our debates, and probably a few disagreements.

37:05We'll talk to athletes, celebrate big moments, and get into what's happening on and off the field, court, track, and beyond. Because we're not just interested in what happened, we're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. So if you're already a fan, or you're just getting into the game, there's a seat for you right here. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. Okay, if you know me, you know this. I'm always searching for inspiration, for support, and useful tools to help maximize joy.

37:45So this podcast lets us uncover all of that together. We're going to have these meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges that she never saw coming. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Olympic champ Shawn Johnson revealed why she had no choice but to be a gymnast. There was something about gymnastics that was intoxicating to me.

38:20It's given me a belief that we all have one of those treasures inside of us. We just have to find it. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:36My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On a bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to Suite 305, where the group chat comes to life. What up, ****? It's like a way to say, hello, friend, hello, best friend, hello, sister. What up, ****? Look, I've never heard of anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. I'm my love. Oh, oh, oh. Punch, that's incredible. The movie. You're the only person I know that loves a yellow starburst. It's lemonade. There's no one missing you, like you say, I'd like to collaborate with this person.

39:22This is Sweet 305. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, as Ryan alluded to in one of the most disappointing, disgusting, craven, repulsive statements ever uttered by an American politician, here is Abdul El-Sayed, who clearly wants to win, who says he wants to freeze senior property taxes. Let's take a listen. I think we need to be freezing property tax for seniors. If you paid off your home at some point, we can't expect you to keep up with property taxes that are going up. Now, how do we pay for that?

40:03Well, again, if we tax billionaires their wealth, if we were to invest in the Department of Education so that we're paying centrally for public schools in an equitable way, there are a lot of opportunities for us to lift the burden off of seniors who've done their job. They've worked extra hard. They deserve a dignified retirement. And we've got to be thinking about how to offer them that. They deserve a dignified retirement. They deserve a federal bailout of Michigan schools, and we're just going to pay for it with these fancy billionaire taxes. And look, I'm not some guy who's anti-wealth tax or anything.

40:36I don't particularly care. Screw ultra-rich people, whatever. Use it as punitive care. That's all fine. But ultimately, this is about bailing out seniors and a false premise, which is if you've paid off your home, you deserve to live there forever. This is a literal violation of the American dream and specifically of the housing mechanics and the way that it all works, Ryan, because, first of all, it presumes that if you've paid off the house, that means you should no longer have to pay for any public services whatsoever from the roads to the police to the fire department when we actually know that old people are disproportionately using them.

41:11Also, property tax, the vast majority of that funding goes to local education. Now, his presumption here that the federal government should bail out the state of Michigan and all of their localities actually is a conservative nightmare. And even if anybody cares about localities, it means that the feds will have near total control over what you can and can't do in your schools. One of the best things about America, specifically our education system, if you want to say, is that if you live somewhere, let's say you disagree with something that's happening in your school. because you pay in, you actually can change it.

41:43You really can. We saw this with anti-woke or even woke, if you want whatever you want to do. COVID mass, parents actually got mad. And in some cases they won. They beat the system whenever it came to a showdown. If it's all up to the feds, you have no power whatsoever, right? And then just let's talk about the housing mechanics part because this is the part that really bugs me. And I'll be callous, I don't care because I'm not a politician, which is if you are a senior and you pay off your home, and then you no longer have to have any property tax, there is no market incentive to sell. You will never sell, which means that these neighborhoods will not turn over.

42:21And you have seniors who occupy the vast majority of the housing stock who have no financial pressure whatsoever, who will stay in these new homes, who will then not turn them over to the next generation. People say it's unfair because the property tax has gone up. The tax only goes up. if the house value goes up too. And so if you did not pull yourself up by your bootstraps, maybe, and do enough saving over the course of your life, and you didn't plan for your property tax, why does that mean you get to hold a financially appreciable asset, pay nothing to be able to maintain it, receive all city services, give nothing back to your community, and hold up all of the housing stock that there is?

43:05This is slopulism. That's what it is. It's a cynical way to win older voters who are not currently voting or supporting Abdul al-Sayed. That's what it's all about. And people are like, oh, why do you care so much about this? It would be funny if it weren't literally sweeping the nation, which I'll prove to you all. There is now between California, Florida, which is about to abolish property tax, and Texas, which is just on the exemption, you will have nearly 100 million Americans by this time living next year, in a boomer-reich system where they occupy all the housing stock. They don't pay as much as you or I do if we own a home for a property tax, and they are depleting the system, meanwhile, demanding Social Security, where they say they have fixed income, which is literally cost, which literally goes up by inflation.

43:58When is the last time you got an inflation-adjusted raise? If you're under 65, when's the last time you got an inflation-adjusted raise. In fact, you almost certainly got a decrease because the wages have not kept up inflation since 1970 or whatever. So they get inflation adjusted raise. You get nothing and you get less services and you have to pay more in taxes. So I'm off my soapbox. You go. The other thing that elderly homeowners would do with this property tax abatement, and you could theoretically write in the legislation to try to preempt this, But what they would do is move out, go somewhere else, and then rent this property that they now don't have to pay property tax on and then just collect the rental income on it.

44:42So what it does is it takes more housing stock off of the market, which drives up home prices and just makes it harder for people who don't own a home yet to buy one because they aren't selling it. Because think about it. If you sell it to somebody younger, that younger person now has to pay property taxes. If they wanted to rent it, the amount of profit they would make by renting it is reduced by the amount of property tax they have. You don't have to pay the property tax. So your incentive then to rent it and then just go somewhere else and buy another one that you also don't have to pay property tax on goes up.

45:21Well, they'll claim all kinds of nonsense about primary home and all this. to get around this. But look, even in the primary home case - You could Airbnb it and live there for six months. I'm sorry. Because you're traveling to the Danube. Right, because I will say what nobody else wants to, which is sometimes you will have to sell. If your property has gone up from$170 ,000 to$2 million and you're drowning in property, then sell the home, move into a million-dollar house, take the profit, you can keep your property tax forever. Oh, and by the way, somebody else can buy that home and maybe raise their family in it.

45:51The most heartbreaking thing is in localities across this nation. The neighborhood I grew up in is a good example. Full of kids, no longer full of kids. Why? Everybody still lives there, right? Same people still live there. Kids are grown and gone. Guess what? Kids, they all live in another neighborhood now. It was a nice neighborhood. I liked it there. And this is happening across the nation. You got elementary schools closing because the fertility rate is down. And because in a lot of the traditional suburbs, nobody wants to leave. The rich people, rich boomers are all staying there. And then people who are in families, they got nothing.

46:18They're either in the rent-air class or they got to go somewhere else and try and do something. And look, you could say, well, oh, that's just the market reality. And the boomers are always coming back to me. It's like, well, we had 15 % interest rates. I'm like, and same question I always ask, what was the wage thing? What was the price to income ratio? What was the price to income ratio? It is like two or 300 % more than it was even 25 years ago compared to the current median home price. And that's 485 ,000 today is the median home price. But that factors in all of these lower cost of living areas.

46:49And if you were living in a medium or high costs. We talked about San Francisco in our last show. It's 1.7 million. That's an extreme example. I get it. But in many higher cost of living areas, we're talking about millions of dollars, literally millions of dollars. And that's why the average first-time home buyer is anywhere between 37 and 45, and that the average buyer of a home today is age 50, right? It's because they're the only people with the cash to be able to do so. So that's ultimately what Abdul is trying to set in. Let's put E2 up here on the screen. I took this from his website. And this is, again, it's the worst possible thing.

47:22On his website, he says, we will freeze follow the senior, not the property. The assessment freeze does not transfer on sale or death. When the home changes hands, it will reassess at market value. This preserves local tax-based integrity over time. So as I write, if a senior sells the property to an under 65 person, they will then be hit with a property tax reassessment to current market value. Now, here's why I think it's sick, because people took this the wrong way, saying, well, anytime somebody sells a house that they get reassessed market value. You're right. But the freezing of a property tax means that there's no appreciation or incentive to sell.

47:58This is what happened with California in Proposition 13. It is exactly why California's housing market is as messed up as it is today. There is no incentive for people who bought between the 1980s and the 1990s at very, very low values who have frozen property tax or stepladder increases to sell, even though their homes have appreciated in some cases by two, three, four, 500, even a thousand percent in places like Santa Monica. So what do you do? What you have to do is it means that the younger buyer has to have more cash on hand and budget at a much higher price than the senior who gets to live there, which locks the housing stock up forever.

48:39It has destroyed the California housing market. Now, this would be a proposition because Abdul, frankly, he's running for United States Senate. So he wants to do this nationally. All right. I mean, technically he doesn't have the authority, but somebody could preempt that type of behavior. And I just want to show you all what happens when states start doing this stuff. Let's go to the next one. This is from Florida. Just happened yesterday. All right. So Tampa, the city of Tampa, how many years now you and I've been hearing, Oh, all these families are moving to Florida. It's such a great place to live.

49:11It's cheap and they don't have to wear masks and you have all this freedom. Well, here's the part of the freedom that you're all about to have. So in Florida, counties are now preparing for the total elimination of property tax or a phase reduction. Hillsborough County, that's where Tampa is. Here's what they write. A lengthy list of possible responses to the elimination will include eliminating or reducing county services like parks and aging services, closing underused facilities, and increasing or adding new assessments such as higher fuel tax and more park fees. So that means, Ryan, you got four kids.

49:44I assume you live at that park because it's nothing else to do, right? It's easy. It's free. Take them there. You let them run around, burn some energy. Kids just started walking. So we're in that phase right now. Now, every time you go though, pay up. You got to pay. Say, sorry, because these boomers over here, they don't want to pay property tax. You, when you take your kid to the park, you got to pay. All right. Fuel tax. You want to go somewhere and take your kid to the park? Sorry, it's going to cost you. All right. There's toll roads everywhere in Florida. So this is what happens. You got no income tax.

50:14You got no property tax now. Where's the money going to come from? It's going to come from somewhere. The Disney cruise surcharge is about to be$500 for every person who comes out of state. And for the people who live there, it's going to be hell. Should the fuel tax not apply to elderly people too? Sure. Why not? Oh, they drive less. So why? Oh, they don't use it. So this is what leads to this type of logic where elder people, when they were young, pay. To pay a different tax rate based on your age is crazy. Yes. Also, for the age cohort that has more wealth to pay less tax than the age cohort that has less wealth is completely insane.

50:55Right. The whole idea of treating people differently based on their age is un-American. Maybe unconstitutional. What about equal protection? Of course. what, you think they're going to have anyone? How can we even challenge it? And this is why, to show you about the sloppilism point, you can't even conceive how popular these things are. If you were to tell the two areas I get the most hate on, weed and this, actually, maybe more energy about this. I've received actual death threats over weed, but I'm waiting for my real death threats that are coming from just saying, hey, we shouldn't have unequal tax codes based on age.

51:29Let's put E4 up here. Take a look at the polling. This just happened yesterday. Two thirds of Florida voters support the property tax event. Of course. Two thirds. So you got the old state, you know, and they're all like, yeah, why not? Why should we have to pay? Screw them. I don't use the park anyways. Not my business. Not my problem. Schools, my kids are grown. Doesn't matter. Who cares about the next generation or my grandkids? Doesn't matter. That's how selfish they are, the people who support these types of things. And that's why Abdul is doing this. And that's why it's sickening. Because guys like him, they talk so big game about principles and all that.

52:07And I'm sure it should take a lot of hits. But ultimately, they're politicians. He looks at his poll numbers. He wants to win. And this is overwhelmingly popular. And just in preparing for this segment, I found four different state and localities. Actually, five. Another one this morning. E5. Let's put it up here. This is from Boston. Michelle Wu. who is supposedly some lefty, great person. Mihir Michelle Wu signed city order to expand property relief for older homeowners. Okay? So, to provide relief for these older homeowners. Let's go to the next one. What do we find? Indiana. Indiana governor.

52:45Braun eyes property tax breaks for seniors and assessment changes. Quote, once you get to 65, maybe you ought to have some relief from your own government to not have property taxes after that. He said, so I'll be looking for enterprising legislators to see if they're hearing that too. The other thing I hear is once you've paid off your mortgage, why should you then have a fixed cost? Generally, that's going to be later in life. With a 25 to 30-year mortgage, you'll be approaching retirement. He says he doesn't want to starve local units of government, but said that those expenses shouldn't rise beyond what taxpayers can afford, and we can make up the revenue elsewhere.

53:21Let's go to the next one, shall we? Pennsylvania. Democrats. Pennsylvania House. It votes to fund property tax cuts for seniors by levying, targeting big tech companies. Now, I don't care about big tech companies. That's totally fine. Tax them. I don't give a shit. But what does this mean? Is you have a property tax cut. They will take that revenue and only make up for the property tax of seniors, not for any of the other younger homebuyers. And that's, you know, right now I'm just fighting for parity. But if I were really fighting, what would I say? Let's say the people who got the money. Cut the property tax for the first-time homebuyer.

53:56For the first-time homebuyer. Well, even means-tested. I don't care. All right? You know, that's fine. Of the three things, by the way, that I just read, only one of those was means-tested for lower-income seniors, which is Boston. Even then, I'm against it. Just because, yeah, I think it's unfair. It's like, why do you, what, lower-income single mom doesn't get a break, but lower-income senior gets a break? Which one do you think needs more of a break? If it is binary, ultimately, because they're government. I mean, you can Google in these states, Indiana, what have they done for a young family in the last three months?

54:28Nothing. Pennsylvania, same thing. Find me. Find me something, and I will read it here on the show. All the energy. And then finally, EA. Let's put it up here. Republicans. So this is bipartisan. Ohio lawmakers approve$350 million in property tax relief for seniors. So it's because they vote. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about. It's not just that they vote. It is definitely that they vote. it's also a function of the population decline. Absolutely. The number of people graduating high school has declined the last couple of years. And this is something we can project with certainty, basically, with immigration being the only variable, because we know who was born 18 years ago and who wasn't.

55:11And the population and the birth rate are going down. And as a result, the young people in the voter pool who participate at a much lower rate anyway are much fewer to begin with relative to the biggest generation. Now, the boomers are not going to be here forever, but they're going to be here for a long time. Right. Last one. I just I literally found this one this morning because a friend of mine overnight texted me this. Let's put it up here on the screen. One of the leading candidates for governor in South Dakota, his name is Toby Doden. He says let's figure out property tax. Guess what? South Dakota, they don't even have income tax, just like Florida.

55:46Who's going to pay? Where's the money coming from? It's South Dakota. Sales tax. They have a low sales tax already. Yeah. Where's it going to come from? From the people who drive through the state who go to Mount Rushmore? I mean, where is the money coming from? You're going to be driving your soybeans on dirt roads. Right. Exactly. So you read through and you're like, oh, OK, so how's he going to make up that? And he said, oh, maybe we'll do a luxury tax, a luxury goods tax. I'm like, OK, I'm fine with me. But ultimately what they write, because the South Dakota papers, you know, went through the proposal, it's not going to make up the 1.8 billion.

56:17So where's it going to come from? Not a lot of luxury goods being purchased in South Dakota, it turns out. No offense, South Dakota. No offense whatsoever. It's a beautiful state. But it's like, you know, even in these states, and this is what I mean, it's sweeping the nation. You've got Florida, Texas, California, literally three out of the four most populous states. I'm sure New York, I haven't checked, I'm sure they have some sort of BS exemption that's already here, which is on the books. Now you've got the senator potential from Michigan who wants to enact this nationally. We're talking about trillions of dollars in bailouts if that were to become the policy of the United States or even the smaller states now.

56:52They're like, oh, let's hop on the bandwagon. Vivek Ramaswamy, Ohio. Guess what? He picked it up. Yeah, let's pay no sales tax. Everybody wants to win. Why not? They want to win. Win, win. As in win for the boomers, win for the politician. It's sickening. And last thing, last thing is I said, I don't even have this one here in the show, but I read this Wall Street Journal story last night and it was about schools. And as you just said, with population decline and fertility rate, you got all these schools were just rotting. Nobody's even using them. So they're now converting them into luxury senior housing.

57:25That's a monument. People say, don't you want them to move? Yes, you're right. Thank you for moving and for going to senior housing. You're right. But is that not emblematic of the problem that we have here? This is Japan. This is what it's all going to look like 20, 30 years from now, you know, the whole economy is going to be like this in terms of healthcare and aging services. We're already getting there. Uh, but 20, 30 years from now, that's what the whole thing is going to look like. My elementary school, uh, shout out to Wharton elementary school in Kent County, uh, is not a luxury condo yet, uh, but it is shut down.

57:55They wouldn't be able to sell luxury condos there. Uh, my middle school was called Chestertown middle school. It is now called Kent County middle school. In other words, it is the only middle school in the entire county my high school was called kent county high school it still exists it's like half the population wow that that it was before um and people say the seniors will say well we don't we don't use the schools you rely on the people who go to school for to to wait on you at the restaurants to to mow your lawn to you know to um for as for home home health aids for the society that produces the wealth.

58:37We live in a society, period. It's like the mean. Yes, you have to pay for the next generation. People are always like, oh, just because you had a kid and you want money now from the government. You exempt me. Put me in the legislation. I will get nothing. I don't want anything. It's for other people. You know? It's just, by the way, just check. College Hills Elementary, shout out, and College Station. Looks like it's still going. There we go. All right, we got something. But Texas is one of the few places you can probably buy a home because it's cheap, or at least, or cheaper. than it's overall nationally.

59:04It's sad, man. It really is sad. And it's sweeping the country, and you're just going to see more and more and more. This just showed you five examples, literally, from across the political spectrum, six actually, including Abdul El-Sayed. And it's just going to, it will continue to sweep the, I predict 2028, you will see mass freezing and or elimination of property tax in, I'm going to call half the states in the union, half the states in the union and probably the two thirds of the U S population, uh, in the next five years. As a politician, if you say no to this, you're dead. Your opponents can be like, well, I'm going to cut your property tax rates.

59:38People are like, all right, well, good. Sweet. You're not gonna do anything else. So at least I'll take that. It only works if we all fight back. All right. Thank you very much for having me, Ryan. It's been a lot of fun. Bro show. Chris will be back next week. Emily will be back as well. Emily will be back. Everything restored. Very convenient that they all traveled this week, isn't it? That's right. Sticking us with the Plattner situation. It's okay. That's fine. I stuck them with, I'm sure something bad happened whenever I was gone as well. Alright, we will see you guys tomorrow, Friday show.

1:00:07See you then. What's up fam? It's sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y 'all? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together. We're breaking down the biggest headlines, the viral moments, and the stories everyone's talking about across women's From game-changing performances to culture-shifting conversations, we'll give you our takes, our debates, and a few laughs along the way. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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