Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Navigating Global Conflicts and US Politics: Insights from Joe Reagan
Join us as we traverse the volatile terrain of global conflicts and American politics with Joe Reagan from the Welcome Party. Unpack the complex Ukraine-Russian war, its ripple effects on international relations, and the potential influence on the Israel-Hamas conflict. We dive into the intricate details of the war, exploring its impact on both nations and the global community, while highlighting the critical role the US plays in showing support for Ukraine, a significant NATO ally.
In the final act of our discussion, we delve into the economic implications of political policies. Comparing the core values of both the Republican and Democratic parties, we evaluate how these principles shape our economy and employment landscape. We touch upon the transition to green energy and the potential for less dependence on OPEC. As we wrap up, we reflect on the qualifications required for elected officials and the irreplaceable value of electing true representatives of our values. So, join us and brace yourself for a thought-provoking episode filled with engaging exchanges and expert insights.
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Hello everyone and welcome to the All Things Military and Veteran Podcast. I'm your host, adam Gillard. This podcast is brought to you by the El Paso County, colorado Progressive Veterans. For today's podcast, I was able to speak with Joe Reagan from the Welcome Party. Me and Joe started talking about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and then that kind of evolves into some other conversations, like they usually do. But sit back and enjoy. It's a good conversation with Joe Reagan from the Welcome Party, so joining me now is Joe Reagan from the Welcome Party.
Speaker 1:Joe, thanks for joining me. Well, thanks for having me on, adam. Yeah, it's always a pleasure getting to talk to you. You've earned such a great experience and breath of knowledge to any topic that we've had. Today. I wanted to focus on the Ukraine and Russian war, and it's falling out of favor with the media with the Israel and Hamas conflict going on right now, but it's still something that drives a lot of our policymakers' decisions, and so it's something that we still need to make sure that we're talking about and having a good idea of what's going on. So, before we get started on how it's affecting us here in the US and our policy and things like that, let's talk about how it's going with the Ukrainians. Joe, what's your thoughts on where the war stands right now?
Speaker 2:Well, it seems like we're kind of reaching to a stalemate point. If you look at where the Ukrainians have been talking about where they need to be, we're starting to run into ammo supply issues. On the Russians' front, it seems as if they're running into manpower issues. So both sides are starting to run into the issues that you would expect with a long-term campaign like this. That it seems to have exceeded what Vladimir Putin believed was going to be what he probably thought was going to be a short campaign. That's now really lengthened things and put a strain on both nations' militaries to provide that.
Speaker 2:It would appear on the home front that there is a little bit more pushback from the Russian side. There's been some protests within Russia surrounding draftees, surrounding the deployments, surrounding the challenges facing Russian military families, so there is some pressure occurring in Russia to bring this thing to a close. From a more tactical perspective, obviously, going into the winter months, you'll continue to see more of these drone strikes, the artillery strikes, but any large-scale attack or counter-offensive that we saw over the summer is probably done for the time being. Many, many analysts have identified the fact that the Ukrainian counter-offensive probably did not achieve everything it wanted to, but that's not to say that it wasn't necessarily still a success and that it was able to push back the Russians and really challenge the assumptions that the Russian military was having as to their ability to take and maintain terrain within Ukraine.
Speaker 1:You talk about the drone attacks A lot of the drone attacks going on right now. They're projecting that it's just the Russians trying to waste ammunition for the Ukrainian, just trying to get them to waste all of their defense systems. So that feeds right into other countries' support for Ukraine. Has support been dying down worldwide? I hear locally that less people are supporting us, giving money to the Ukraine efforts. Is that a worldwide sentiment or is that more localized here?
Speaker 2:I think it's more localized here and I think you have seen the connection made between Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war as well. In Europe you don't see those connections necessarily. I think the Europeans are still very, very aware of the fact that our actions in Ukraine directly impact the security of Eastern Europe. Our new NATO allies along the former Soviet-Block countries still see what happens in Ukraine as really defining their long-term security and they're looking to the US for that leadership to understand how committed is the US to the region? How committed is US? And I think the challenge here for us is the rest of the world sees Ukraine as an indicator as to how strongly the US wants to support NATO.
Speaker 2:And domestically, because Republicans have done a really tragic tie Ukraine-aid with Israel-aid that has really challenged that narrative, because that's again that the conversation that's happening here in the United States.
Speaker 2:The two issues obviously are very, very, very different.
Speaker 2:So not only does that muddle the policy waters, because I think it's important, but obviously going into the election season that's going to define a lot of what these candidates are talking about.
Speaker 2:Are we going to pursue more of an isolationist strategy that you see that's pretty much dominating the Republican Party right now, or will you see more of the internationalist and support of the allies component? How that plays out in Congress, of course, we'll find out January because as we go into the, you know, with this new CR that's gone into effect, you'll see going into January having the budget conversations and really trying to hash this thing out. And I think Republicans want to use the foreign aid funding for both Israel and Ukraine as a bargaining chip because it's really the only thing that they have left, so that the only people that suffer from that is, in the short term, the Ukrainians in the Israelis. But in the long term it's going to have a huge impact on American credibility abroad. If you look historically, when Americans turn into isolationism, that generally means bad things for the world and it's going to be kind of terrifying when you look at.
Speaker 2:you know there were serious isolationist streaks in 1960. And then in 1918, we entered World War I and lost a million people. Then same thing in the 1930s with the German, when the Nazis started to make moves in Eastern Europe. You know US didn't want to get involved and then ultimately couldn't avoid getting sucked into World War II and of course that was a massive, just loss of life. So I think these are the types of indicators that we need to be looking for and trying to make sure that we're keeping those things aligned.
Speaker 1:But we talked a little bit earlier about the. They're in a stalemate right now. Things are kind of slowing down Now. They've had this huge blizzard come ripping through. It's a 100-year blizzard. I think all Russian ships had to go back to port. There's a minefield that's broken open, so I'm sure there's going to be some casualties there. Now they got mines just untrackable mines, or whatever in the Black Sea. But when it comes to these harsh winners, who is that going to favor more when it comes to supply lines and beating up the restock and get ready for a spring offensive?
Speaker 2:I would say in general, it's going to be as long as the lines remain intact. I mean, both sides appear to have a solid supply chains, obviously with Ukraine being in their own territory and defending their territory. I would say that that would give them the advantage because the means of production for them are right there in those communities. The Russians are operating off of slightly elongated lines. You talk about port facilities, you talk about Crimea, you talk about some of these other strategic areas where the Russians have moved in and have a little bit of a longer supply line. That could definitely create challenges as they try and maintain that. But because these lines and that's probably one of the short-term goals of Ukraine would be can they cut off any portion of the troops?
Speaker 2:If you look at portions of southwest or southeastern Ukraine not quite Crimea, but in that general area there are areas where the offensive did have the opportunity to really get close to closing off some of these supply lines, where it could make challenges to certain isolated Russian units slightly more challenging. It could be interesting to play out. If we look at last winter, you didn't see a whole lot of movement. I think the expectation would be that you'd see both sides hunker down and make this more into a weight. Really wait for weather to improve. I mean, this is a tank in artillery war, so mobility is a challenge. Mobility is especially challenging in winters, like we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 1:You've mentioned the tank in mobility war. Did you see the news? Their tank factory got hit recently by a drone strike the Russian's tank factory, which is the furthest behind line strike of the war. Ukraine intelligence actually claimed it too. They actually took credit for it.
Speaker 2:That's smart. I mean, that's exactly what you have to be doing during this time period is not just focusing all your efforts on the front, but really trying to expand that and look into what are those strategic targets that exist that you can't strike. The Ukrainians have shown a tremendous amount of resiliency and innovation in their ability to take non-traditional assets and use those as weapons. If you look at some of the drones the Europeans are making, these are not necessarily a expensive drone, so a lot of this is fairly inexpensive. It's, dare I say, hand-made, homemade. So they're leveraging some elements of almost the insurgent handbook to be able to maintain the supplies that they have.
Speaker 2:That's the challenge for the Americans and the Europeans what is the production capability across NATO to keep those arms flowing into Ukraine? We've provided fighter jets, we've got tanks, but it's artillery shells that really have been the make or break component of this conflict so far, at least as it would seem. So those are the things that we have to look at, because, while there are stores of these things, at some point somebody does have to make a decision. We're going to start producing more of this in order to ensure that we have the necessary ammunition to support the Ukrainians, without necessarily compromising either our own or our European allies' supply.
Speaker 1:So, with Russia focused on Ukraine. They still have greater desires in the area and their neighbors are recognizing that too. And then they just closed their final border with Poland recently. The tensions with other nations around there are they gearing up or are they starting to militarize their borders with Russia also?
Speaker 2:You know, it's interesting that we're having this conversation the day that Henry Kissinger died, because one of the last observations that he made about the Ukraine conflict was that, while you could see this and it's fairly easy to view this as the Russians trying to regain their empire, this is Putin trying to rebuild the old Soviet state. It's also an indication of severe weakness, and we see that in a number of different things. Within Russia, public opinion is not great now. It's repressed, so that makes it a little bit more challenging. But there are issues with the Russian economy, there are issues with Russian growth, there's issues with the domestic issues. So these are all challenges facing the Russians. So the question is is Vladimir Putin going to open another front? And the answer is all indicators say that he doesn't have the resources to do so. That doesn't mean he won't. It doesn't mean it's going to be disastrous, but it doesn't appear like that would be something that he would want to do.
Speaker 2:I think he's also very aware and this is the challenge for US policy makers and European policy makers at the same time because how we support Ukraine ultimately shows the strength of NATO, and that is what's really why, and that resonates not just within Russia, but within China as well, and that's another component that we often don't talk about is with Xi Jinping and his recent efforts to come back to the United States and meet with President Biden.
Speaker 2:How do the Chinese play into this as well? And that's kind of that. In the side of all, the whole world is watching how we support Ukraine, because that defines how we're going to also support places like Taiwan, and I think initially both the Russians and the Chinese probably believed that NATO had lost its influence and that the NATO alliance wouldn't come to the defense of Ukraine, and that support, having now lasted two years, does show the strength and relevancy of the alliance. If Republican policy makers continue to push back on that and say that it's not worthy to invest in, that's going to cause not only our own NATO allies to question whether the US is truly committed, but it's also going to show the rest of the world that the United States isn't committed to those types of alliances, which will hurt us in the long run in many, many ways.
Speaker 1:So that's why, from the policy perspective, from the policy stance, this is really so important that we're able to provide that support to Ukraine With the it's been said recently that Vladimir Putin wants to wait until after our election to really kind of concede anything or kind of make his next big strategic moves. To me that kind of sniffs of like the Iran-Contra type stuff where it concerns me that somebody like another foreign power is saying that he's tying so much of his policy to our like out front, like that, and who's going to cater to that, and then that really concerns me. What are your thoughts on him, the reports being that he's tying it so closely to our election?
Speaker 2:Well, what would you do if you were in his position? You think, look at what both parties are, look at the presidential candidates and what they're proposing, and it's not really difficult to see that any Republican candidate has a more sympathetic view of Russia than the Democratic candidate, and so it would seem like that's not even a conspiracy. That's an observation that you can make by reading the Washington Post anymore. You can see that the Republican policy does tend to favor the Russians. If Donald Trump or any Republican is elected to be President of the United States, then it is likely that they will cater to Vladimir Putin and what he wants, and give him more favorable terms than what the Democrats will provide him with.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's just being pushed pretty hardly by the Democrats? That that's the bottom line right there, they will favor their policies, will favor Russian interests more. Do Democrats do a good enough job pushing that message?
Speaker 2:No, of course they don't. The Democrats are doing a horrible job messaging everything.
Speaker 1:The focus is policy.
Speaker 2:Well, this is a great example. So welcome party. We've been doing a bunch of polling here in El Paso County and trying to get people's views on things. I sat through a fascinating conversation yesterday talking about Bidenomics and why Bidenomics is failing. So the employment rate in the United States is something like it's somewhere around 3 percent so don't quote me on these numbers, but I'm using these examples. So 3 percent unemployment rate is pretty good. Everything the Democratic Party is talking about, everything Bidenomics is talking about, is talking about jobs. If you ask a voter what they care about, it's not jobs, because most of us are employed. We're worried about prices, exactly cost of living.
Speaker 1:As soon as you said that that is my first, I was like it's cost of living.
Speaker 2:I don't want to pivot the conversation because I want to keep it on Ukraine, but the common theme here is that the Democrats are talking about things that don't matter to voters, and because of that, they're not getting credit for the policy successes that they're having Right At the end of the day. Inflation is down, prices are actually down, gas prices are down.
Speaker 1:I was shocked at how low my gas price the other day.
Speaker 2:But US oil production is up. So all of these things that everyone's saying, well, biden's crushing the oil industry, well, oil's cranking up more than they have in years. They've had more favorable terms to pump. So and those are the kitchen table issues that some of our polling has uncovered it's saying listen, the Democrats are having huge policy successes on these issues that are important to Americans, but they're not talking about them, and that extends to foreign policy as well, and that's another example of no, the Democrats are not doing a great job of really talking about the issues that are impacting foreign policy and how these things like Ukraine, like Taiwan, like Israel, Hamas, how this actually is going to impact the worldview, and why it's important that the US gets involved in these areas, and how the US is going to get involved with these areas.
Speaker 2:Right, if you remember, think back to 2008, during the vice presidential debate, and at the time, the candidate for vice president, joe Biden, had talked about that. He has a decades-long relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, and this is something that could be a tremendous asset to us. If you want to talk about control, wherever you stand on this, right, the one relationship that's really going to drive this is going to be the relationship between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, and so how do we leverage it? Why are we not talking about that? Why are we not talking about this decades-long relationship and saying, listen, if Donald Trump comes in, benjamin Netanyahu does not like him? He originally did, but then he came back and said the only thing that they did was they moved the embassy to Jerusalem and other than that. The United States government under Donald Trump was no friend to Israel. And we don't talk about these things. Oh, yeah, not at all. Yeah, yep. So I think we need to be having more open conversations about these threats and be aggressive with these concepts of listen.
Speaker 2:Republicans want to cut foreign aid, and that is going to mean that it might not be this year, it might not be next year, but let me tell you, if you have a kid in eighth grade, I'd be worried. If Republicans get elected, I would be very worried, because those are the kids that will face the impact of not getting involved in Ukraine today. But that's that. Those are the types of policy things that we need to be talking about. This is where guys like Jake Sullivan should be out in front of the media every day, and it's screaming from the top of their lungs that it is the Democrats that are serious about national security. It is the Democrats that are serious about defense. The Republicans do not have a serious platform on anything and it shows and they're damaging. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:So how do you get that out there, though? Because, I mean, people have selected their sources of media already. Right, he could stand up there and say that all day. That's going to get very little airplay on Fox News, and that's the biggest market there is. How do you get the message out to the folks that just don't tune into things like that, and the algorithm is so set against you now. So, like your Facebook ads, all the same things.
Speaker 2:You know it's building those trusted voices across the aisle Again a strength of Joe Biden. He's worked across the aisle for decades in the Senate. He's very, very well versed, as many friends on both Republican and Democratic side. This is the opportunity to engage with moderate Republicans. Right, the welcome party exists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, we're trying to expand the reach of the Democratic Party, but at the same time we see that there's a large cohort of Republicans that no longer fit in the Republican Party, because the Republican Party has gone so far to the right that they don't even represent conservative values anymore.
Speaker 2:And so I know a lot of more progressive Democrats might say well, joe Biden is a moderate, like he's not doing anything that we want him to do. Well, that might be true if you're a progressive Democrat, but in terms of the broader policy content, he's accomplishing quite a bit. And if he does, he's able to do that, and I think I had a call earlier with some folks from the American first caucus earlier today, and that was one of the things that came up. It's now the time for a third party, because the party's gotten so polarized on both sides. Do they even represent what the typical American believes in? And the answer is no. We don't need a third party right now, because if Donald Trump gets elected again, it's going to be a disaster, a complete disaster, and I wish we could do it at different levels.
Speaker 1:Not at the presidential level I wouldn't want a third party candidate, but down ballots. I think it'd be nice if we could get more support for down ballot third party candidates.
Speaker 2:Well, and this is where I think problem solver caucus America first or not America first caucus some of these moderate groups that are out there that work the bipartisan middle ground. Just because we have a two party system does not mean we have a multi-party dynamic, because when you really dig into it, the Democratic Party is two, maybe three party different parties. The Republicans are probably like six different parties and but those they're just like. You see, in European parliament there's a lot of policy areas where there's there can be agreement, and it's highlighting those areas where you now have right. Is Joe Biden the one deliver the message that American foreign policy that we're doing, that support for Ukraine, is incredibly important for national security? Is he the one that should be on Fox News talking about that? Well, he's the president. So yes, but it should also be you know who is. Who is the responsible Republican that can speak up and say you know, hey, what the administration is doing is correct and this is the right solution.
Speaker 2:And there are those Republicans that are out there. And it's been the biggest concern for me, as someone that has voted for both Democrats and Republicans, is that it would appear that Republicans have adopted this moral cowardice and unwillingness to speak up, and you've got guys like Mitt Romney who might be one of those voices that can speak up in moderation and say listen. You know I don't agree with Joe Biden with everything, but this is important and this is being done right. And so that's where we need, especially from from from congressional leaders, from from the Senate leaders, to really amplify this bipartisan component of saying listen. It needs to go back to the old way of national. You know, politics ends at seashore, and when we talk about national security issues abroad, we need to have a United Front in these things, because there is a right and wrong answer, and right now the Republicans are advocating for the wrong answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've seen, you know a few Republicans stand up. You know Liz Cheney, and then you know she got, you know, punished for that. Is there any indications that you know in the next election cycle that the Republicans might swing back towards the middle, or are they just going to keep keep pushing these extreme candidates further and further to the right?
Speaker 2:It's a great question. When you look at polling, it tells us that there should be a better chance. So and I'll stick to El Paso County because we've done a lot of polling here If you look at El Paso County as far as polling goes, there should be a good chance that the right Democrat could really succeed here. When you look at what Mayor, mayor Yemmy was able to pull off with his campaign like he pulled together a bunch of different groups that were kind of tired with what was happening and had and found electoral success there's those pockets that exist and the greatest challenge that we face on either side whether you're a moderate Republican or moderate Democrat is you need to convince this group of people that has it in their mind, that has, that has bought into this, this lie, that voting for one party or the other is going to destroy something. Voting for a Republican is not in El Paso County, is not going to destroy the country. Voting for Doug Lamborn could destroy the country. You know if you're and if you're a Republican, you know voting for whoever our local AOC stand in might be probably not the right person to vote for, but there are Democrats in this community that align with the values of this community and it's finding those people. So I think there's a way, I think it's going to, and that's one of the reasons why Welcome Party has gotten so involved so early. Right, that's why I'm out there all the time engaging with people to have these conversations when we're still, you know, over 350 days from from election, because it's going to take a long time to get out there and convince some of these moderates to say, listen, you don't belong to the Republican Party anymore. You think you do, but you don't Look at what Doug Lamborn did.
Speaker 2:Look at the other day. Right, he had a. You know, doug Lamborn's senior advisor, you know, signed on to a and the and the the El Paso County GOP committee signed off on a letter asking the district attorney to prosecute people for for books. Right, right, using, talking about using the justice system as a weapon. Right, doug Lamborn's office is advocating to use the DA to prosecute teachers and educators and parents because of the books that they're putting in front of kids, right? Does that align with anyone's values? I'm sure it does some people, but I would say that you know, walking around the neighborhood and I know plenty of Democrats and Republicans. I don't think that'll answer most people's values. So if you believe in book banning, yeah, go ahead. Vote for Doug Lamborn. But if you want someone that actually believes in things, there's better people out there, much better people out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen that thing that they endorsed for the DA. It was such a small snippets of all these stories and things like that that they put into that to justify the banning or trying to ban these books and things like that.
Speaker 2:You know what one of them was. You know what one of them was. This is a great example. One of those books was a oh, I can't remember the title of it, but it's about a young kid who is in a Japanese internment camp and he and his dad decide that they want to start a baseball league because they want to remind everyone that, even though they're in this internment camp, that they are Americans and baseball is American as you can get, and even though they're in this situation, they are going to show their American pride. Think about that story for a second. They want to remove that, do you? Yeah, that's what they want. Banned, do you want? Do you have any issue with your kid reading about baseball and loving America so much that you want to play baseball in an internment camp?
Speaker 2:Yeah that is and it reminded me of so. You know, I've worked with a bunch of different veterans groups and a couple of years ago worked to get the. It was the only all women, all black unit to deploy during World War II. It was called the eight, eight, triple six or six, triple eight sorry, six, triple eight.
Speaker 2:And spoke with one of the surviving members and she said something that was absolutely amazing to me. And she said she goes. We signed up because we wanted to show how much we loved our country even though our country didn't love us. And I thought that was such a powerful statement on so many different levels, because it talks about that's true patriotism, right, that's true patriotism. These women signed up to serve in World War II because they loved this country, even though they didn't have full rights at the time, and it's because of them that amazing things happen. And those are the types of books that Republicans are trying to ban and that, and to me, I guess that that is the antithesis of the values represented by the vast majority of people living in Elbato County.
Speaker 1:So I can almost guarantee you there's going to be a book inside that library about Daniel Inouye, the senator from Hawaii. He was in an internment camp, became a leader over in the European theater, has arm blown off in combat like ragged his guys to get back into the fight and everything like an absolute American hero. But yeah, it's the same thing though from a Japanese internment camp he still felt that patriotic duty to come through and then continue to serve. He was Hawaii's first representative and then into the Senate and as a legend. You can take that book out of the library.
Speaker 2:And it's because of weakness, right, it's pure weakness and cowardice, because Republicans are afraid to admit that the US has made mistakes. Right, who hasn't made a mistake? And granted, the US has made some pretty big mistakes over the years, but generally speaking, I don't know. I've traveled the world and I got to say the US is pretty darn good. Right, we got our flaws. I've yet to find someplace better.
Speaker 1:I was in Munich in 2008, and the Obama election was going on things like that and the German European crowd there was chanting for Obama. There's still that hope out there that we're going to have a leader that's going to take us and help us do better and do things better for the world. It was a weird contrast going from the George Bush era into that Obama era and seeing the hope that having a good leader provides for the rest of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely right, and that's why these elections are so important and other things we've been working on. It's the Colorado District 5. Congressional election was one of the least expensive races in the state of Colorado, and David Torres had us pulled 40% of the vote at 19 cents per vote. And, to put that into perspective, in the CD3, lauren Bobart and Adam Frisch, that race was averaging over $30 per vote. Holy cow, that's the most expensive, right? Yeah? And I think that for this reason, you're talking about resources and how you amplify the message of what's really going on. Right, david Torres got his message out there and was able to attract 40% of voters to say, yeah, I want someone other than Doug Lambert, and he did that with nothing. Nothing.
Speaker 2:If we dedicate the resources to really get the voice out for what the Democrats are doing, not just locally, but statewide and nationally, these are things that really are more aligned with the values than anything the Republicans are doing. Republicans talk about freedom of religion. They're not doing freedom of religion. They're imparting their religion on others. Republicans talk about being pro-life. They're not pro-life. Again, they're trying to impart their beliefs on others. If they were really pro-life, they'd be doing the pro-family policies that the Democrats are trying to instill so that women never have to make those types of choices. But if they have to, it's available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and now we have studies, even up in Denver, about education programs to prevent things, you know, teen pregnancies, so they're still fighting the funding for that, though, and I think that's the piece we pushed out. Cool, you didn't want to do it 10 years ago, but now we have some more data and it's proven that education is the way to treat young women, to make sure that they know what the resources are, and everything like that, and it cuts down on all of this. Yeah, but not funny things like that. It just always kind of blows my mind. You did talk about getting messaging out, and we talked a little bit about trying to reach the Republican side. The moderate Republicans, even within the Democratic Party, like you touched on. You, have a wide breadth of thoughts, which is awesome, which is what we want, right, but how do we pull all these different groups within our own party in order to, you know, put together strong candidates and support strong candidates, so that you know we're not wasting resources?
Speaker 2:Well, it all comes down to what do we really stand for and what are our values? What is it? As if, when we think and I always think back to my grandfather when he talked about you know it was the Republicans that gave me my job, but the Democrats that gave me my rights and right, it's those types of simple statements, because that fundamentally hasn't changed. Right? If you guys set every policy issue, what Republicans are looking for is, at best, they're trying to support big business, big business leaders trickle down economics, all these things that we've experimented with, and these are the types of states that just don't work, and it's proven. It does not work.
Speaker 2:And the Democrats on the other side have continued to stand up for individual liberties, true, individual liberties, tried to stand up for workers, and we've seen those policies right. So go back to policies that are succeeding right now that no one's talking about, right. And so, for inflation, wages are starting to go up, right. So we're starting to see that wage gap decrease, which is the first time it's happened in like decades. Right, that's a success, because if you are a working class family, it might not necessarily feel like it, but your stance is actually improving because the Democrats have bought those policies to do that, you know.
Speaker 1:And which one specifically drove that.
Speaker 2:Well, it's really entirely, yeah, Well, and we could have an entire conversation around the economics of how you, you know, how do these things happen? Because, you know, through the pandemic, inflation was driven by pandemic spending, right, and so through the day, right, how do we measure inflation? You know, government spending is a huge component of that, and so when government is spending in a deficit, that is the number one thing that's going to drive inflation, because you're literally pumping money into the economy and it's accounted for. So it's not like you're just printing money and letting it run, like there's an accounting for that, but that's driving that. And so if you had asked me in 2019 what's going on, and I would have told you, right, so there was fundamental issues in the labor market that existed from a number of different reasons. Right, there was a labor shortage, wages were not aligning properly, there was a steals gap in many different industries, and then the pandemic happened and that exaggerated, like all of these things, and we're lucky it didn't fall apart, right? So it's crazy that it sounds credit to the Trump administration for opening up the purse and spending a whole bunch of money and flooding the market in order to prevent the economy from really collapsing, however you look at that and you know that that's going to drive inflation over the period. So what was missing from that was how do you balance that safety net? How do you balance that additional government spending with what was necessary to prevent the inflation? The Fed is doing okay with it, all right, but that's independent right. That's not a political decision. The Fed makes that decision independently. So, at the national level, you know, increasing subsidies for certain industries really spreading out, like the president was down in Pueblo the other day talking about, you know, the world's largest windmill builder down there, right, these are. You know these are creating manufacturing jobs back in communities that you know used to be working somewhere else and still have the infrastructure in place to have large industry like that, but that large industry has drived up. So, by investing in new jobs and using the existing workforce, retraining the workforce, investing in your workforce, investing in your workers, you know that's enabling these new jobs to come in. That you know it's going to grow right, that's the end of the thing and this is.
Speaker 2:I had a conversation with some of the other day talking about oil markets and they were getting all upset. I said, well, listen, like, the sooner we move to green energy, then we're not going to be, you know, slave to OPEC, right? Because in the day OPEC knows how much it costs to drill here in the US and I got news for you the economics of how much it costs to pull a barrel out of Texas versus how much it costs to pull a barrel out of the Gulf is drastically different, and the Saudis know that, and the Saudis manipulate the prices to ensure that US oil producers aren't making the same profit that they are. You know that's the system that we need to build, that we need to break, and you can do it by pushing to green energy and you can do it when you encourage the workforce to do that as well. You know. So it's a it's a complex thing and Because it comes down to, you know, investing education, investing in workforce, investing in infrastructure, all these things, it all comes together to Dip, to build that, and a lot of it is.
Speaker 2:You know, some of it is government spending, some of it is encouraging private spending. Some of its public private spending. You know there's a number of tools and the inflation reduction act, you know, did a decent job. Is it perfect legislation? No, but, but it's. It's doing what it's supposed to be doing and it is addressing a lot, of, a lot of issues and allowing us to Start to make progress on On these things. We still haven't addressed housing, though. Right, that's another that's in it. You know, affordable housing is an issue that we haven't, we haven't really figured out yet. That one's a little bit more long-term because the housing markets always been a little freer. So you know, that's one that maybe policy is gonna be a lot more difficult to solve. Yeah, we see that here locally too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, so back to Russia and Ukraine, man, we went full circle. Well, you know, I see the time here and I really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule and talk to me. Um, so, always great insights with with everything. Thanks, joe, appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely no it's a great conversation and you know to do bring it full circle with the Ukraine Russia component right.
Speaker 2:So much of this is Connected, so many of these policies have an influence on different aspects of our lives that it's really difficult to Understand and it does require a lot of effort to dig into some of these things. You know, when we look to 2024, we're gonna need elected officials that are able to make difficult decisions and Communicate that back to to the majority of us that might not necessarily have the same insights and you know you look at speak the new speakers dance on a lot of these issues. There was a great observation that was made right as a, as a Just kind of a regular member of Congress, he did not have access to classified briefings. As speaker of the house, he has access to classified briefs, briefings, and you'd be surprised that after getting some of those classified briefings, his stand on Ukraine shifted pretty quick, because and that's where you know we need people that we can trust in these offices because they are gonna have access to information that the majority people won't.
Speaker 1:It kind of frustrates me that we're electing people that don't understand the complexity of the issue to begin with. Mm-hmm, like I think there needs to be a higher standard.
Speaker 2:Like I get the qualifications at the Constitution lays out, but we need to have a higher standard for our elected officials in general and that's on us right, that's on each and every, each and every one of us using our vote as an opportunity to say that this person does or does not represent my values. So, and I'll say it again, if you can look at Doug Lambert and say that that man represents my values and what I believe should be representing me, go ahead, vote for him. I'm willing to bet the majority people in El Paso County don't see that, and I think there's a lot of great candidates that are out there that yourself included. That you know certainly could, you know, be a much better representation of our community.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, and I agree, we definitely have a lot of good options out there, a lot of better options, you know as well. Thanks again for your time, joe, and yeah, we'll be in touch. Thanks, adam, and here's a quick word from our sponsors. The all things military and veteran podcast is proudly sponsored by native roots cannabis company. Colorado is leading locally grown and own dispensary chain. Native roots has been our largest donor since we were founded four years ago and we thank them for their sport. They have 20 locations in Colorado and native roots is ready to educate and serve recreational and medicinal patients alike. So thank you for listening to the all things military and veteran podcast. We can be found on over a dozen podcast apps, including Apple podcast, google podcast and Spotify. We hope you find our programs rewarding and informative. Please check us out on the web at e p ccpvorg. You can sign up for our newsletter there and feel free to drop us a line at info at e p ccpvorg. Thanks for listening. Hope you ever find out there.
