PROAct | Michael Patrick Leahy

Americans for Prosperity’s Grant Henry Fired Up on Infrastructure Calls to Sign Notaroadsbill.com’s Petition

Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Grassroots Director of Americans for Prosperity-Tennessee Grant Henry and Mayor Andy Ogles to the studio to discuss the current undefined infrastructure spending with a blank check.

Leahy: In studio with us right now is Grant Henry, the grassroots director for Americans for Prosperity of Tennessee. And he’s joining the mayor of Maury County, Andy Ogles. Good morning, Andy.

Ogles: Good morning. How are you?

Leahy: I’m great. And, Grant, I’m looking at this story: Treasury Secretary Warns of ‘Rapid’ Inflation This Year, and it reminds me of something. This is what the Treasury Secretary is doing.

But it looks to me like the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is taking a page from Speaker Pelosi, who said in 2010 about the Obamacare bill: You have to pass it before you can learn what’s in it.

Henry: Yes. Isn’t that amazing? Let me explain where we are now. So federal officials have been pressed to speak on rising inflation after data was released earlier this week that showed the all items indexed increased five point four percent over the last 12 months.

The biggest spike since the 2008 financial crisis. That’s from The Tennessee Star Report of the headline of which Michael Patrick Leahy just read. Now, on top of all of that, you would think one of the reasons why we have this increased inflation going right now is the ridiculous amount of just printing pure money.

I get it. We’re in the era of a Fiat currency, but nevertheless, can we have some sense of rational approach?

Leahy: You used the term there – shows that you studied economics.

Henry: Just this much, though. (Chuckles)

Ogles: A little bit is more than most.

Leahy: For those listening, he put his fingers together and just showed about an inch or so. But I think it’s more than that, because of Fiat currency.

Now, Let’s just talk about what Fiat currency means. It’s the opposite of a gold standard, right? Because with a gold standard, money can be converted to a valuable commodity like gold.

But with a Fiat currency, it is by Fiat. In other words, just make it up. Am I right?

Henry: Just make it up. It’s not based on anything more.

Leahy: And what does that lead to?

Henry: Well, obviously, inflation leading to hyperinflation.

Leahy: Can you say Weimar Republic Germany 1920?

Henry: Once you see it.

Leahy: You had to take all your Deutschmarks in a wheelbarrow to buy a loaf of bread back then.

Henry: Once you see other rich people buying land instead of other things, that’s when you know you got a problem. But anyway, here’s the yahoo headline:

$3.5 Trillion Dollar Reconciliation Bill to Include the Proact Undoing State Right to Work Loss. So on top of all this ridiculous inflation we have going on, there’s been a new proposal: $3.5 trillion spending bill.

Leahy: Is it so-called infrastructure.

Henry: In big quotes here.

Leahy: Or is it the kitchen sink.

Henry: So it’s what Grover Norquist says. Infrastructure. It’s a French word for everything that means everything but roads and bridges.

Okay, that’s what infrastructure means. This part of the infrastructure spending, if you call it that, revises components of President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

It increases taxes that would worsen our already devastated economy, hurting the working class. It implements elements of the Pro Act, which will remove right-to-work laws like here in Tennessee.

Leahy: Not only that, I particularly despise the Pro Act because they’re trying to do to the country what California did to the gig economy.

Henry: Yes.

Leahy: Which is ridiculous, because, in essence, they’re outlawing a kind of employer-worker relationship called an independent contractor agreement.

That’s what they’re trying to do. Every Lyft driver, for instance, every Uber driver, they’re an independent contractor. And apparently, you can’t do that anymore in California.

They want to take how they ruined California, and they want to ruin the rest of the country. I’m not buying it.

Henry: No, I hear you. And it’s not just that. It’s gonna implement different elements of a Green New Deal. It will give the government more control over our health care, not to mention the trillions of dollars of unrelated, unnecessary, and ineffective government spending programs.

Now, here we are to where Michael Patrick Leahy said a second ago, remember the days of Nancy Pelosi telling us that we need to just pass the bill to see what’s in it?

That’s not any different than what we have anymore now. Now, I am not kidding y’all. When I say just yesterday, Chuck Schumer moved forward and intends to fill cloture to set up a procedural vote tomorrow or Thursday for a so-called bipartisan infrastructure framework bill on a bill that has not even been written yet – That is where we are. They’re going to move forward voting on a bill that has yet to be written.

Leahy: It’s a blank page.

Henry: I don’t know what it is.

Leahy: By the way, Andy, is that how they do it down in Maury County with blank pages?

Ogles: No, but I’ve got a house that I’d like to sell. Would you please just hand me a signed check, and then I’ll fill in the details later.

Henry: That’s exactly right. It looks like senators who argue that they shouldn’t vote on bills they haven’t read should be outraged right now that they’re being forced to vote on a bill that doesn’t even exist.

And look, one of the things we do at Americans for Prosperity is not just complaining about the current state of affairs, but we love to give y’all ways to take action.

So let me tell you now if you go to notaroadsbill.com, Notaroadsbill.com, you can sign a petition. It’s an email that will be sent directly to your legislators at the federal level.

Your House member and both the senators as well. It is the Senate side that we need to support on – Notaroadsbill.com. Sign that petition right now.

Send that ledger to your legislator. I would even say flood the voicemails. Flood these Senator switchboards right now. I have their numbers in front of me. If Michael Patrick Leahy would give me permission to say them.

Leahy: Oh, let me ask him. Yes, he has permission. (Laughs)

Henry: Here it is. 2-0-2-4-1-0-2-6-8-5. That’s 2-0-2-4-1-0-2-6-8-5. That is the Senate switchboard number. Call your senators right now.

Tell them, don’t vote for this ridiculous spending package. Tell your legislators on social media posts. Tag their handles in the post as well. Look, go to notaroadsbill.com and put that on your social media post and tag the legislators.

We need all the support we can get. And there are ways we can bring attention to this, like preserving federal infrastructure dollars for targeted construction projects of a national priority.

We can unleash private investment in infrastructure assets. We can return power and responsibility to the states wherever possible.

We can overhaul the regulatory and permitting system to modernize infrastructure reviews and reduced project costs. We can even eliminate costly and unfair labor restrictions.

But, what is going on right now? This asinine notion of spending $3.5 trillion dollars and pushing forward a bill for something that has yet to be written.

I don’t have the words for it technically. Honestly, I do not have the words for it. Senator Bill Hagerty told us this: ‘They’re throwing around trillions of dollars like it’s simply monopoly money when really what it’s doing is taxing Americans’ hard-earned paychecks.’

Leahy: Here’s one good thing about having Grant Henry in the studio. It doesn’t matter that we have bad coffee or stale coffee. He doesn’t need coffee. He comes in energized.

Ogles: I’ll tell you what. He’s fired up. I’m just like sitting here doing my phone.

Leahy: Feeling the energy. We got power coming from Grant Henry right now!

Ogles: He’s on a roll.

Leahy: He’s on a roll, brother!

Ogles: Amen.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.

Director of Policy for Beacon Impact, Ron Shultis Discusses Why the PROAct Is Bad

Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the Director of Policy for Beacon Impact Ron Shultis to the newsmakers line to weigh in on the PRO Act bill, occupational licensing, and the pushback it’s receiving from Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee with her new bill.

Leahy: We are joined now on the newsmaker line by Ron Shultis Director of Policy for Beacon Impact. Welcome, Ron.

Shultis: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Leahy: Tell us what’s the difference between Beacon Impact and the Beacon Center of Tennessee?

Shultis: Sure. Beacon Impact is our sister advocacy arm of the Beacon Center of Tennessee, which is the state free-market think tank here located in Nashville. Under Beacon Impact is where we do all of our advocacy on bills and trying to support free-market legislation.

Leahy: I think that the Beacon Center is a 501 (c) (3) and Beacon Impact is a 501 (c) (4)?

Shultis: That is correct.

Leahy: One of the bills that you’re talking about is the PRO Act. Tell us what it is and tell us why it’s bad.

Shultis: Sure. So this is one of the many terrible bills going through Congress right now. It’s already past the House. It’s sitting in the Senate. Essentially what it does is it will totally set back our economy in the midst of while we’re having shortages and all kinds of things by doing a couple of items that totally tip the balance in favor of large labor unions.

The first thing that it does is it abolishes the state right to work laws, which essentially would mean if you don’t want to join the union, you would be forced to pay union dues or you could be fired. Currently, in a right-to-work state like Tennessee, it’s your choice whether or not you choose to join the union or not and pay union dues.

So it protects the worker on both ends. If this were to pass, that would no longer be the case. If you chose not to join a union, you would have to force the pay dues whether you choose to or not, or you could be fired. Another thing it could do is totally sit back our gig economy by implementing California is what’s called their ABC Test, which makes it much harder for somebody to work as a gig worker.

Which if you think about, for example, last year during all the lockdowns and shutdowns when so many people had to work as, for example, an Instacart delivering groceries or Uber, that becomes much more difficult. And what that does is it nationalizes what California did, which is obviously never a good thing with their ABC Test. And that’s just a couple of things that it does.

Leahy: That bill is working so well for California. Not. What a disaster that is.

Shultis: Right. Exactly. And when California passed it, you can go back and look into some of the liberal media articles in 2019 about all these writers for liberal publications and Vox complaining and realizing that then they were fired because they were freelance writers.

And then once that passed while living in California, they had to become an employee. And then that place where they would contract with had to let them go.

So they had to add all kinds of exemptions for freelance writers, DJs for weddings, and all that because so many people rose up in arms against it. But the national version, the PRO Act, doesn’t have those extensions. So it’s even worse than what California did.

Leahy: Now here we have a newly elected state representative U.S. Representative named Representative Harshbarger. And she introduced a bill that basically is designed to push back against this kind of stuff. Tell us about that bill.

Shultis: That’s right. She introduced a bill that we’re supportive of. And what it does there are these new grants that the federal government created and states can apply for these grants. But the problem is that sometimes the federal government incentivizes states to adopt bad occupational licensing, which is essentially the government’s permission to do a job.

Well, if you want to get these grants, then you may have to create a new occupational license, which makes it harder for a Tennessean to get that job, which is kind of the exact opposite of the point of these grants. And so what she did is introduced a bill called the Freedom to Work Act, which directs the federal government to review its policies around the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act grants and say, are we incentivizing states to adopt these unnecessary licenses and repeal those rules and incentives in the system?

And then also, it requires a report to Congress to look for better ways to do so. And when states apply for these funds, they would have to show, how their state like here in Tennessee and how we are working to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers to get a job.

For example, here in Tennessee, we require a government license to do over 100 low-income occupations. In recent years, we’ve gotten rid of some. We used to require a license to shampoo hair, something most of us do every day. It used to require 300 hours of schooling to learn how to shampoo hair as an example.

And so what we could do is show how we remove those barriers, making it easier for people to get to work or get a job, start a business, and qualify for those funds.

Now in a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, that bill introduced by Representative Harshberger from the First Congressional District of Tennessee. That bill’s going to go nowhere, isn’t it?

Shultis: You would think so. But hopefully, this has one issue around occupational licensing that has gotten some bipartisan support. For example, both the Obama administration and the Trump administration, through the Department of Commerce, have told the state to look at these and peel back some of these requirements.

So hopefully that this is something that both our Democrat House and Senate will take a look at as something that can be, yey, these funds are supposed to make it easier for people to get jobs and how the federal government incentivizing states to make it harder. So hopefully this is something that we’ll get.

Leahy: But, you know, I doubt that there’s a single Democrat co-sponsor of this bill is there?

Shultis: Not that I’m aware of it.

Listen to the full second hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.