Taxing Cory Booker's Patience

30:15But based on what you're saying, I do think it's a natural question, which is through your office you said, and it's just one person, but it's part of a large group of, I think, people that have this point of view, that you wouldn't say go on like Hassan Piker's stream because he's said some heinous and stupid shit in the past. But to me, like given, you know, this is what I want to understand, like to me, I would expect you'd be like chomping at the bit to say, you know what, of course I'm going to go there because I want to represent this point of view in a place that doesn't normally hear it.

30:43And I want to talk about the ways in which I think some of the things he said are offensive the same way you might want to go confront somebody on Fox News or you've met with, you know, talked to Newt Gingrich. And he said crazy shit in the past, too. So like maybe part of the way out of this is for someone like you to go to those spaces, even if there have been things that are offensive to people. Yeah. So first of all, somehow we're having a much more deeper and personal conversation than I thought. So I'm going to be very candid with you. Ha ha. Gotcha. Gotcha. But in a very good way. I always want to talk to you about deep things.

31:15No, I appreciate that. And that's why I appreciate you, frankly. So here's the candor. I had no idea who this person was until a few days ago. I really, I never heard their name. That's going around, I think, yeah. And I still haven't heard him speak even. I haven't heard anything he's done. The man sitting over there is my comms director. It's almost as if there's a bunch of focus on one random streamer and it's not really the right way to have a big debate. Yeah. That's my point. Like, so my comms director said to me, oh, you're getting asked this question, would you go on the show? And I'm like, well, who is this person?

31:46And all he did, the totality of this person he gave me. Right there, that guy. I don't want, he's not on camera, so I don't feel like I'm implicating him. The totality of what he did to me was show me four or five of the most outrageous things. And they're pretty outrageous. They are. I said, okay, well, whoa. Right. Let's give whatever you saw officially coming out of my office. So here's a couple things. And I have this experience. I don't want to say daily. My wife experienced it last night in the airport as somebody was wanting to take a moment as I come off this very long flight to scream at me.

32:14I always tell people, give me a Mother's Day card, please, because I get called you mother often. And it's from people on wings of both parties. It would really be a Father's Day card in that sense. But calling me a mother. Well, you're not the mother. Oh, you're right. I never thought about that analysis here. Any kind of card would do, I think. I appreciate that. All kinds of mothers have sex. If you think about it. I think that my wife wants to come back here often. Suddenly she likes you. My point is the first rule of mental. Actually, this is not my first rule of mental health. I have a number of them.

32:49I really want all your listeners to like, this is a very good rule for mental health, first and foremost. You do not have to attend every argument you're invited to. Okay. And pick and choose because sincerely I meet with thousands of people from town halls to round tables and the like. And I want to be very thoughtful about how I apply my energy. And so whether it was this extraordinary woman who brought me together a few weeks ago with Palestinian leaders from my state to have a direct, very candid conversation to meeting with Republicans in my state who are straight up think I have horns before we sit down.

33:34I choose often to try to sit down with people on the other side of the aisle or on the other side of ideological bridges to try to remind them that we have common humanity. one of my favorite um experiences in the senate and and you'll appreciate this was with jim inhoff if you remember the man who brought a snowball the senator who brought a snowball um uh to the senate floor bill bradley gave me this advice uh he gave me three rules of three things i should abide by if i'm going to be a really good senator and one of them was you go towards the you just don't shoot till you're in the paint no yeah no um sadly he can't help my very average basketball abilities, but meet with every one of your Republican colleagues, go out to dinner with them, get to know them as human beings.

34:21And when I got down there, I went on this wild odyssey, but Inhofe I couldn't get a meeting with, so I go into his office for Bible study. And there's a brand of Christianity, I'm sure he abides by that is very different than the deep Christian faith, very different than the faith I have. And so I go into his office and immediately my implicit biases are surprised because i did not expect to see this elder white um uh right-wing conservative on his altar is is one of his main shelves he had a picture of him in an affection embrace with a black girl and i didn't call my my elder senators back then by their first names i just said mr chairman sir who dat and and he tells me this story about them adopting a a young child out of a very, very difficult circumstance.

35:14I was moved by it, didn't expect it. Months later, I'm on the Senate floor angry and pouting in the back because there's a big education bill going through that's being managed by a great Tennessee Republican who ran for president multiple times, Lamar Alexander.

35:37And there's a delicate balance that often is in the Senate, no amendments. Let's just get this bill through. And I think my amendment's important because the worst educational – some of the worst educational outcomes in our country are for kids that are homeless or kids that are in foster systems. And I wanted to do something to create what I thought was better assurances that they would get the educational services that they deserve. Long story short is I see Inhofe come in. As I'm sitting in the balcony, I remember that story. And I walk down there and I say, sir, I know you have a particular concern for kids from disadvantaged circumstances.

36:11He says, can I tell you about my amendment? And would you co-sponsor it? I just swung for the fences. And he gave me the Senate version of no, which is I'll think about it. Let me talk to my staff. And I said, OK. And I walked back to my back row where I was sitting back then and still am. And I look up and he's like his GPS coordinates are off. He's walking right into the Dem section and walking right up to me. And he goes, Corey, we're in. And I go, what do you mean you're in? And he said, I'll co-sponsor your amendment. and then he walks off quickly. And I was sat there stunned and then I look up and I see Chuck Grassley on the floor and I went over to him and I made my case and as soon as he saw that Inhofe was on, he said to me, not that I'll talk to my staff, he goes, I'm on it too.

36:53Long story short is I went to Lamar after getting all of these people supporting it that you would not expect and look at him, he laughs and he says, Corey, this will get on the bill and it's the law of the land now. And that was the one that banned the trans athletes from swimming? No, it was not. No, I'm kidding. I'm sorry. It's not appropriate, Sean. No, it's – look, if there's anything, as a guy who's now written two books, one called United, one called Stan. So together, Stan's United. Oh, boy. All right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But when I was mayor of the city of Newark and I wanted to get shit done, the way I would tell my staff is that uncommon coalitions create uncommon results.

37:33and the best if everybody in your coalition agrees with you on every everything then your coalition is not big enough and we right now have this ability to want to eviscerate others if they don't use the language we want them to use if they don't agree with us on everything and there is no way the most complicated problems in this country and in this world will be solved If you can't find ways of bringing people together to do the hard work of finding common ground and finding common cause, even if it's not everything, can we move this forward? And the last example I'll give is just guns in America.

38:13I'm not sure if there's been many senators who've been more affected by gun violence. clearly mark kelly is one um but a guy who knows lots of people who've been murdered in newark and people i cared about deeply uh i feel a sense of urgency and and and i wanted to solve problems not simply um moralize about them and found out that only one shooting in my city in all the years i was mayor was done by somebody who bought a gun legally and i know ak's and other automatic weapons, which I have strong feelings on, but the handguns that flow into communities like mine. And then I find out through polling that most gun owners, most NRA members agree on universal background checks, but yet we can't pass that legislation.

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41:06do you think there's something about yeah about gun violence mass shootings galvanize people's attention but the majority of people who are killed by guns are killed by first of all they're dying by suicide yes uh and they're being killed in sort of more like kind of quotidian mayhem that doesn't get as much attention or empathy Which would also, I think, lead to challenging some of Democrats' own priors about the best way to kind of address gun violence, including around sort of, you know, mental health and a few other issues that aren't specifically related to guns. Do you think that we've like attended to mass shootings as a culture more than we have to the actual sort of more common ways of dying by guns?

41:51Yeah, I think it's absolutely a problem. Look, I'm proud of the bill that I got a chance to write some of the section, the first one in 30 years we got passed on guns that for me, my part was the community violence intervention money and getting a lot of that into communities like mine in New Jersey that really helped to stop the kind of violence we see in Camden and Newark and Patterson-Passaic. i'm i i i know what captures people's attention and and often it's frustrating to me like i just watched this documentary about black jewish relations and when goodman cheney and schwarner died i was i never knew this before i saw the documentary how ferociously noble the white wives were of the jewish men that died with uh uh uh with cheney um that they were saying when they were dredging for their bodies and they were doing this massive search they found black body after black body after black body that had been murdered and thrown into that river but it never got national attention and these i remember one interview with this woman was very that you would not be paying attention to this yet another black person being murdered unless there were white people being murdered as well and so i will still remember in my life uh i think the the most like broken one of the most broken i've ever felt in my life was after a murder in my neighborhood i tried in vain to stop this kid from bleeding to death and i was so shaken by it i still don't remember how i got home and but as i'm wiping this kids i just lost my first mayoral race it seemed like forever till i get a chance again i felt like i failed uh so many people who believe that i could bring an end to this level of violence and i had never felt this level of anger before as i sat there and tried to wipe this kid's blood off my hands and my anger was at our nation for this um uh the obscenity of indifference towards the constant death of people in my that didn't even make the newspapers anymore and so look i i feel this frustration now globally and locally like getting people to even mention sudan on a podcast is seems almost impossible uh uh uh to talk about american weapons they're being used in this in this in this uh humanitarian crisis i feel that at home still uh that we still live in a nation we joke now more than ever about marijuana but there's still thousands of marijuana possession arrests in america disproportionately black and brown people um i feel this this discord that are that our political politics and the issues we debate and don't don't truly keep centered uh the people who are really struggling um while we debate uh in the unfinished business of america and i feel like we're losing we are actually losing what my parents generation handed me when my my dad's generation 95 percent did better if you were if you were going to be born poor on the planet earth even poor and black like my father in a segregated town this was the best country because it had the best social mobility in that generation um uh pell grants covered uh the majority of cop the deal worked and it was the deal still remember democrats kept majorities through the tip o 'neill years from fdr through tip o 'neill because most of america believed in the deal and believed the democrats we're fighting for them my gender and by the way i'm god bless my father's generation they're now leaving the political stage last baby boomer president last baby boomer heads of the senate my generation and your generation um we've seen the collapsing of the deal we've seen all that fdr sort of did now collapsing i i'm you know this i'm plant-based and our food systems now controlled by like four or five companies uh meatpacking the famous book by upton sinclair the jungle which exposed all the horrors of the meatpacking industry um and created changes for a while for a few decades those were middle class jobs now it's more uh corporately concentrated than it was back then and the same kind of dangers are popping up so i could keep going through you are not the bargain this is how bad the bargain is and how much other countries are out americaning us we're no longer the best country to be born poor classist england it's better to be born there if your sole goal is to make it into out of the bottom quintile yeah but then you're still english at the end of it uh i i guess my point is is our politics and the divides that define them are failing americans and if there's anything that's going to save not the Democratic Party, screw parties for a second.

46:48If there's anything going to save the promise of America, it has got to be a renewal of that deal, a redemption of that deal, and a different kind of thinking, not just about our problems, but how we think about each other. And that's the urgency of this moment. We can argue ourselves to death. And meanwhile, this country and the people who are really getting screwed right now are going to continue to hurt unless we figure out a way to get ourselves out of this. And I would be wrong if I did not tell you one of the reasons why we're stuck is because of the outsized poisonous influence of money in politics.

47:30And this is why I don't understand what's happening right now in the Democratic Party. People are talking about a pack but why aren't we talking about all packs why aren't we talking about the fact that all of the money flowing into our politics right now is destructive and anti-democratic especially because it's so few people who are fueling the billions of dollars remember all the money spent on donald trump's campaign 10 people spent 44 of it but it's not just their problem we are have a big money problem on our side as well. Ten years ago, I think it was about, that I was one of the first people in Congress to say no corporate PAC money.

48:11At the end of last year, I said enough. I don't want to start asking. I want to say no more issue area PACs as well. I think that the fact that I can sit down, I'm on the ad committee, and we have oversight of crypto. And as I'm negotiating, because I think the crypto markets need structure And so I'm at the good faith negotiations at the table with Barrasso and his team. And Veronica, another person that's here is off camera. She knows this phone call that came in. But while we're negotiating the details of this bill, that industry puts together, I think it's$175 million pack where they're willing to drop 10, 20, 30, 40 million against people.

48:54And I think that it was so grotesque that you got a call where somebody from that industry tried to apologize. What was the exact words? Yeah, we don't want you to think this is a threat. We want you to know it is. Yeah. So in terms of addressing some of the deeper issues, you proposed the Keeping Your Pay Act. And I wanted to ask you about it because I think it's insane and I want you to convince me why I'm wrong. No federal income tax on the first$75 ,000 of people's earnings. Sounds good. You'll pay for it by raising the corporate tax rate, top marginal rate, and closing the carried interest loop.

49:28And other things. And other things. Stepped up basis. I can go through all those things. There's a few other pay-fors and a few other ways in which increased child tax credit, a few other things. Here's my question about it. If you believe the majority of Americans shouldn't be paying income tax. Shouldn't be paying income tax on their first$75 ,000 of household earnings. Which would mean the majority of Americans wouldn't pay income tax. Which mean the majority of Americans would not pay income tax, yes. Does that suggest that right now people are not getting the value from their taxes that they ought to be getting?

50:00Like we all I want to hire. I want a more progressive income tax. I want a more progressive tax system. I want the rich to pay more. I want corporations to pay more. But don't we want to live in a society where everyone says, you know what? No, nobody likes taxes. Everyone would like their taxes to be lower. But I benefit from the highways. I benefit from having the best military in the world. I benefit from having a TSA. I benefit from what our government does for us. And I believe in government as a Democrat. And so therefore, we're all gonna pay our share into the tax system. So let me address it in a few ways.

50:32So first of all, I'm glad you kept saying income tax because you and I pay a lot of federal taxes that are not income taxes. Payroll tax, there's gas tax, a lot of places pay taxes. And those are very regressive. Yeah. So understand that poor people are paying a lot more than wealthy people when it comes to most federal taxes. That's the first point. So we're just now talking about income tax, but you're stipulating that we're all paying into the common kitty, even if we don't pay income tax. Well, and as of right now, the current standard deduction is what, around$30 ,000 for a family, but payroll taxes kick in in dollar one.

51:09So this is a tax cut that you're proposing that doesn't hit people that are making the least. It actually hits people making more between say above 75 no because then you're ignoring the massive increase in the ctc and the eitc okay so this cuts child poverty in half this cuts the overall poverty rate and i've seen different estimates by people who run the numbers from 10 percent uh to greater so this is a massive boost to the people that live in neighborhoods like the one i live in um um where if you sit down with a woman single mom one young kid makes sixty thousand dollars a year she'll get almost six thousand dollars of their own income so before we talk about the analysis that you did i just wanted to let you know, because I've done this in focus groups, sitting down, not focus groups, political focus groups, kitchen tables, around the kitchen table, and just asking real Americans what this would mean for their lives.

51:57And literally having people, when they do the little calculator on my website, start tearing up because they're treading water. They're barely staying afloat. And$6 ,000 to them is a difference between them making their rent payment and keeping up with all these costs. So when I talk to intellectuals like us, I get one response. When I talk to Americans - Seeing there's an intellectual behind me. All right. I don't mean to be - You know I'm not insulting. I have such respect for you. I'm just saying to you, when I sit down with real Americans who are really struggling right now, I've talked to families that make$100 ,000 a year and are not keeping up with the cost of their healthcare and childcare.

52:35So I just want you to know that if you and I were to go out in the streets right now, just with our little calculator and ask people, it'd be wildly So you're asking now the philosophical question of shouldn't people on their first$75 ,000 pay? And I will tell you this. We, and I'm including us, who are progressive people, we have tolerated in America the top tax level grifting off of the rest because they pay an effective tax rate lower than a teacher or a firefighter or the people that are soldiers who are fighting right now in Iran. So think about the absurdity of this. The tax avoidance that's built into our system, you stipulate that.

53:14So why have we been okay with, and you and I have not been, but we are not as outraged as all that I'm getting about a tax plan that suddenly lets people enjoy what the wealthiest have enjoyed because they've built into the system. And let me tell you things that we defend. I will defend the mortgage interest deduction. But did you know most of that tax expenditure is enjoyed by the top 20 %? Well, this is the I know what you'll defend the mortgage interest deduction because you'll have you're from an expensive state like New Jersey, where a lot of people benefit from you defend the SALT deduction, which is just a way of saying that people in rich states should pay for less of their local government and have it be subsidized from people from states that have less local government.

53:52All of these are ways around. So I agree. People are really struggling. Health care costs are insane. Education costs are insane. Gas prices are really high. There's not enough opportunity. Like incomes have been flat. Housing has become a massive crisis in so many places where the jobs are. okay, those are the real problems. Yes. So you're looking, you're basically saying, and so we're going to zero out your taxes, which a lot of people would be a huge relief for them. But it doesn't address the underlying problem, which we've built an economy in which it's there, that people are not making enough to get by.

54:21And so I'm telling you right now, because you are a good political thinker and strategist, I'm telling you right now, you have the Senate, the House, and the White House. And you've got six months to redeem the Democratic Party. I say you need big, bold ideas that people feel right away and that make sense to people. And I'm going to try my best over the next coming months to be one of those people that starts putting out the big ideas, swinging for the fences that show we're creating a new deal in America, that we're creating something that could redeem the dream for America that you don't believe anymore because half the country doesn't.

55:02They're working harder than their parents are making less. And so this, of all the ideas, and again, we have a few more big ideas we're rolling out, but this is basic. It's simple. I get it. And finally, working class people can keep more of their paycheck. You can tell me, Democratic Party, you want to nibble around the edges, but you're going to let my family, I'm one of those families making the low six figures. I got two kids and you're going to tell me I can keep$10 ,000 more of my money. Well, I'm telling you right now, that goes so much farther than you trying to give me some alphabet soup things that the Democratic Party is going to try to do.

55:38My grandfather, who was a Republican, became a New Deal Democrat because of the big, bold ideas like Social Security that was going to actually end poverty. And we now know it hasn't because we haven't done the right thing by Social Security, but end poverty for a generation of elder people in our country. The Democratic Party needs big, bold ideas again. And this one is simple that everybody can understand. And if you don't, go on the website, put your earnings in and see how much more money you have. And you still pay federal taxes and you still. You pay your payroll taxes. You pay your Medicare taxes.

56:16You pay that. You pay that. That's I get that. I guess like I'm just sort of is it like I agree. I'm sure it's popular to tell everybody that you're not going to pay taxes anymore. Like, I think that you're right. I don't know how big of an idea is. You're just raising the standard deduction. You and I should be precise with our words. You are paying federal taxes. Well, this is what I would say. You're not paying taxes anymore. So I think it's definitely a bold idea to raise the standard deduction to$70 ,000. But you're leaving in place, say, like the payroll system that comes off of people's first dollar, right?

56:48That everybody - Right, which we should change. You and I both know. We should – the higher, higher income earners who pay a much lower percentage of their income, we should be affecting that as well if we're going to make Social Security more solvent and there. We should increase Social Security for people who live off of their Social Security checks like a lot of people do and live in poverty. I'm still a progressive that believes we need to have a common sense tax system that actually benefits working people in America. I am telling you, if you and I, and you've seen this data, looking at working people in America, most of them feel like they're being screwed, that the deal isn't working, and that they are seeing more and more of their paycheck go out and less of the resources they need to make sure their family can eat and pay for prescription drugs and do more.

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59:10Before we get back to my conversation with Senator Booker. Become a friend of the pod. Go to crooked.com slash friends and sign up to become a subscriber. It helps build this pro-democracy, independent media company. You get ad-free episodes. You get episodes that are just for subscribers like Pod Save America Only Friends and Polar Coaster, where Dan breaks down the latest polls in a really helpful way. You also can become part of the community online in the Discord. You can subscribe wherever you get your content. We're all over the place, but go to crooked.com slash friends and sign up. It is the best way you can support what we're doing here.

59:42Thank you. It's also something that's good for you. It's good. We're doing it for you too. So sign up. Crooked.com slash friends. Now back to Senator Cory Booker.

59:54Well, more and more people's paychecks are going towards the daily cost of living, not to the government, right? We just passed, Trump's big, beautiful bill did increase the child tax credit, right? Yeah, but a little bit. I'm just, I'm gonna be, I'm getting out of the rhetoric and into the facts. Yeah, thank you. And to me, okay. I want to have a simple progressive tax code and a government that works and functions and delivers value for people. Yes, yes. And I don't see how creating a$5 trillion hole that you're gonna - No, can I challenge you on this? I want to challenge you on this. Challenge me.

1:00:25You are comfortable with the richest of the richest getting, because to say cause a$5 trillion hole is not fair. Not fair to who? Because it's not a$5 trillion hole if you're paying it by unrigging the taxes. My understanding is that even if you raise the top rates, even if you close the carried interest loophole, I am for every progressive. I am for every pay for you having this. I want to do every pay for you having this. But if I were saying, all right, I've got a few trillion dollars and I'm going to try to give to people in tax relief. The income tax, because of the standard deduction, it's not going to the people that are paying the payroll tax.

1:01:01There's a lot of people that make very little money that will not benefit very much from this bill. Yes. No, you're wrong. If you're expanding the CTC and if you're expanding the EITC, I'm sorry to talk to acronyms to your audience. The earned income tax credit and the child tax credit. Yes. If you're expanding those significantly, you're going to make sure that – and by the way, we expand it to teenagers who work who don't get the EITC and to our elders at work who don't get the EITC. So even if you're somebody that has part-time earnings, you are going to benefit now from the EITC. ITC. So trust me, we designed this so that we are cutting poverty in America and making work pay.

1:01:43And why is that person, that working class person who makes a nurse and a cop who make$100 ,000 a year, why do we say they're making too much money? They're struggling right now. I don't say they're making too much money. Right. And so this is not that they're making too much money, but that we shouldn't be looking to benefit people across the income scale. And so what I'm simply saying is that it doesn't cost anything if you are taking away all of these tax avoidance schemes of the largest corporations and you use it to fund this, then it costs nothing. It's just stopping the people at the top who have been benefiting from a rigged system and finally letting the people in our country who are working have the benefits of this democracy.

1:02:26because right now all the benefits are accruing to the wealthiest who are seeing compound gains like they've never seen before. When are working people in America going to get their fair deal? And so, and you think the only, the way to get to a fair deal is people pay payroll tax, but they pay no income tax. So the payroll tax is four things. It's for social security, it's for Medicare. I'm just trying to understand it. They pay for social security, Medicare, but the money you pay in income taxes is for everything else that the government does. And you're saying that people that make under a certain amount of money just aren't receiving enough benefits from that value.

1:03:01And so what I'm asking is a guy who would defend the standard deduction we have right now, maybe you want to raise it to 55. Maybe you want to raise it to 65. Why are you okay with a large percentage of Americans that don't pay – very large percentage of Americans don't pay federal income taxes now either? And so if you're comfortable with that, why aren't you comfortable with moving it up a little bit more and giving relief to those people as well? I guess my view of it is that I actually am not uncomfortable with doing that. I worry that what we're signaling is we have lost the ability to make an argument that government provides a basic good that we all share and that collectively we all pay into this income tax and we hate it and it stinks.

1:03:44but we're building an economy in which people have opportunities and and we are going to be so careful with your money because it's everyone's money that we are going to have a government that works for people so you so these are not contrary arguments and i'll add one more thing which is a system in which people are paying income tax payroll tax uh paying into all these different buckets in which people that make under 40k pay a higher percentage of their taxes uh than people making a billion dollars is a stupid system the answer is to just zero out the income tax which doesn't hit the people making paying payroll tax on their first dollar, but build a better system from the ground up in which we can look at it and say in a graduated way, this is a progressive income tax system that is fair across the world.

1:04:23But my friend, why are you the tyranny of the or? I am the liberation of the and. I believe in government. I'm a former mayor. When we made shit work in Newark, when we went from filling potholes from months to literally hours, when we made people who are paying their parking ticket not to come to City Hall and wait on long lines, when we made somebody who wants to put an addition on their house so they can rent it out. I love making things work. We have a government. I'm sorry, Donald Trump has his knack for pointing out the right problems but coming up with disastrous solutions. Do you want to talk about the need for a more efficient, more effective government that lowers the friction points for Americans that make them frustrated?

1:05:05Hell, just paying taxes in America is a testimony to corporate corruption because there's a handful of corporations every time you want to make it easier. They come in because these tax fines are taxing. So what I'm saying to you is this is one idea of a suite of ideas that the Democratic Party, I believe, needs to get on board of. And, yes, one of them is redeeming government. This idea of the Reagan era, government bad. No, bad government is bad. Stupid government bad. But this idea that we pool our collective resources and provide real services from high-speed rail to quality to world-class education to childcare for everybody in our country that they can have affordable childcare, these are things I passionately believe in.

1:05:53And I'm telling you, we got to think bigger that we can do this, give taxpayers in the country a break, let them have what the richest of the richest had for a little while and still find ways to do the other things. There was this, again, in my book, this wonderful woman named Marissa Broger, who's my speech writer, who came to help me on this book. She finds this quote one day. She goes, I'm going to read you this. And I said, what? It's from a chaplain in the Civil War who says, are we a nation or have we a government? It gave me chills because less and less we're thinking we're a nation where we do have common cause.

1:06:31And we're looking at government is just, hey, I have no loyalty to this thing, government. I think government is bad. And the right has so demonized this idea that, I'm sorry, public schools are one of the greatest inventions in democracy. That's government. Having roads and bridges that actually work and are efficient and effective that can fuel commerce, that's government. Hell, keeping me safe every day from toxins and chemicals in my food, that's government. And we should celebrate that. But it's hard to do that unless the first part of this conversation we were having is we get back to seeing that we have something in common as a nation, that we are people that have an obligation, that our very founders, as imperfect as they were, said that we have to pledge to each other.

1:07:16Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Well, we know the sacred honor's going because we hate each other. We know the fortune's going because we have people that live this life as I can collect as much dollars as possible. So my bank account is big as possible before I die. And then hell, I'm not paying taxes on that. I'm just gonna give it to my people. So I - I guess I just don't understand. Isn't that all an argument for saying, hey, if we're gonna have a country together, if Democrats are gonna say to people, the only fair income tax rate for you is zero. No. But I'm just, I'm listening to what you're saying and I'm following the logic of it.

1:07:49I want, I like, look, I think we should have a single payer healthcare system. That's going to require everybody paying into taxes instead of paying insurance. We, to me, the question is, are people getting value out of their tax dollars? And right. And you would say no. And I'm saying. No, no, I would not say no. I, look, I will do this again. And I've done it before. I always tell people when I was running for mayor in Newark, if you vote for me, I'm going to ask for more from you than any elected leader has ever asked from you. because there's no way we're going to turn around Newark. There's no way we're going to do impossible things unless everybody is pitching in.

1:08:21And I hate it. I hate that George Bush, when we, for the first time ever in American history, he took our country to war and said, I'm giving you a tax break. It was the first time we didn't collectively invest in our national effort, which you and I would disagree that it was an unworthy war. But I hate that. I hate that we don't feel like we're all in on making America work. The minor difference we're having right now is where the standard deduction should be, right where it is, or to give relief to people, to a generation of folks. Millennials do not believe they can pay rent. And so what I'm simply saying is, give more people the same break for the last 40 years that we've given the wealthiest of the wealthy.

1:09:10Give them a chance to invest in savings. Hey, there's this 529 vehicle. That's bullshit too in the sense that I believe in 529s, but they're overwhelmingly used. When I asked this family, groups around the table, anybody have any money to invest? And nobody did. Why can't we just say to the next generations as the baby boomers start to leave the stage, you know what, millennials, we're going to let you keep more of your money. You're still going to have obligations. This is still a nation. This is a country. In fact, we demand more patriotism, not your flag pin, not your song. What real patriotism is, is a quiet devotion to this country.

1:09:45And you show that by your devotion to your fellow woman and man, by your neighbor. We need to revive that sense of patriotism where we are all in. And where that standard deduction line is right now, the tax code's written for the wealthiest. Let the Democratic Party say, you know what? We're going to give you a break, finally. We're going to create a new deal with a rigged tax code. It's not rigged anymore for the wealthy. It's fair for you. And we're going to do that by letting you keep more of your money. It doesn't mean that we're not going to ask you to pay any taxes. When you buy a beer, this is not a beer, but it looks like one from far away, we're going to have taxes on that.

1:10:20Hell. Regressive sales taxes. Yeah, my staff hates this example. But I'm like, when are we going to finally federally legalize marijuana and tax the shit out of it so that we can create more revenue streams? Now my weed's getting taxed. With alcohol. I'm sorry about taxing your weed, man. I think it's fine. But my point is, we are a nation of abundance. I don't have that much of it occasionally. We are a nation of great wealth. I won't feel it. Why are we thinking so narrowly? You're killing me here. We have so much wealth, but yet we have so many poor, struggling people. Yes, because the economy is fucked up and broken.

1:10:50We have massive structural problems. And your answer is to say the taxes are bad. And I'm saying fix the problem. Why are you telling me that's my singular answer? We must come together and share in our shared obligations, our blood, our fortune, our treasure. But if you're any income tax over zero for the majority of Americans is unfair. You're mischaracterizing again, and I love you. I sincerely do. It's not a singular idea. It has to be the end. And you're not saying it's temporary before we fix things. You're not saying it's, you're saying the new tax code will have these numbers in it. And I worry about what happens when we have go from having, when we have two anti-tax parties, because I worry about living in a society in which we don't allow conversations about trade-offs.

1:11:33We don't allow conversations about nuance. And then all of a sudden we've got one party that's against taxes for the rich, one party that's against taxes for the middle class. And then what happens? Right. And it's fun to be against taxes. Everybody fucking hates taxes. I hate taxes. I'm in favor of your proposal. I am not an anti - I love what you've called for as I think about it. I am not an anti-tax person. No, my brother, no. Okay. I am not. I'm an anti-working class people being screwed. Well, that's a fun way to say it. Stop in the name of love. Stop in the name of love. How can you tell me if I'm sitting here talking about all those other taxes we just talked about that people are going to have to pay.

1:12:10Why can't for the working class people? I am not anti-tax. I am pro working people keeping more of their money. And yeah, when you raise the standard deduction, there'll be some people that you seem to tolerate at where it is the standard deduction is now. But not complaining about that, why not give a little more relief to people who feel like the deal isn't made? And now I'm going to tell you something exciting. If we had five big ideas that we ran on as a party and then got into office, and I love President Biden. I partnered with him on the CHIPS Act and the infrastructure bill, but people in my neighborhood did not see those changes and didn't feel like it changed for them.

1:12:54Five big ideas that we in the first three months do, and everybody feels a real change in their lives. It's not just having more money in their pocket. It's like suddenly seeing billionaires not have influence on our politics because we banned the PACs that I've given up. We say nobody can take that. Everybody has got to have the same standard I put forward and I'm living on myself. No issue area PACs, no whatever. We kill Citizens United and the worst decision. Maybe that's another one of our bold ideas. We make everybody from a president won't be able to have crypto coins, a senator won't be able to trade stocks, and the highest court in the land won't have the the lowest ethics laws like they do right now where billionaires take them out on these fancy hunting trips and give them mobile homes.

1:13:37Wow, this Democratic Party made a change in my life immediately, in my family's life immediately, so we can actually pay our rent and have quality child care. And now they're showing us that finally, it's not going to be the moneyed interest that I'm fighting against every single day that are corrupting our politics, that are allowing corporate concentration and more. But wait a minute. They banned all that as well. What are you guys going to do for the third act? Imagine if we did big ideas like that right away and then turn to the country and say, we still have some problems to solve, like gun violence.

1:14:10We still have some problems to solve, like health care. And some of these things we may have to pay for. And why we have an economy. And why we have it. Now you've got deposits in the emotional bank account of a nation that has nothing left to give. How to increase worker leverage. Yes. How to build more housing. Yes. build high-speed rail, how to make an economy in which people have opportunity, even if they are paying taxes. And here's the big thing I really want to tell you. You pull off those first three or four things in, you're not only going to win back the loyalty of people that are tired of voting for Democrats and seeing nothing happen.

1:14:43You're going to start seeing people on the other side of the aisle say, wait a minute, you're now explaining to me how workers get screwed with things like non-compete clauses and labor laws. And I actually get you. I'm a factory worker that's voted Republican the last 20 years. And this guy's making sense. And I'm listening to him now because my life has gotten materially better. What I want for the Democratic Party is no more damn elections where one person gets 49.7 and the other person gets 49.3. We need a wave election. We need a generational renewal. We need people to begin to believe again that they have people in office.

1:15:22And it's not, you don't get that through talk. When I won in the city of Newark as a guy who had barely lived there back in 1998, I knew people, their vote for me wasn't that we believe in you. It's we're going to give you a shot to deliver for us. And when we get that shot, if we should get that shot again and have the trifecta, we better deliver and deliver big and bold like fdr did with our version in our generation of the new deal all right all right fine we'll do it okay senator cory booker thank you so much this was so much better than i thought it was gonna be wow because you you didn't hold back and i i appreciate you i've heard it once i've heard it a thousand times senator booker the book is stand 25 hours and you didn't poop your pants.

1:16:06I did not. We're circling the toilet now. You got to get him out of here. You guys got places to be. Thank you. I know. Honestly, thank you. It was a really good visit. Thank you to Senator Cory Booker for joining us. I'm glad we got to do that. It was a great freewheeling conversation. I appreciate that he was willing to give us the time and I appreciate you for listening. We will be back in your feeds with John, Tommy, and me with a new episode of Pod Save America on Tuesday. And other than that, I'll see you at the confirmation hearings for a freak. Trump puts up for Attorney General next. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.

1:16:49Also, please consider leaving us a review. That helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer Reed Cherlin is our executive editor Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis Matt DeGroat is our head of production Naomi Sengel is our executive assistant Thanks to our digital team Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Carol Pellaviv, David Tolles and Ryan Young Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East

1:17:33Terima kasih sudan.