The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 407 - Welfare For the Upper Class

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the show, everybody. Congratulations on getting to the weekend alive.

00:00:04.300 We're hunkering down for some snow this weekend around these parts,

00:00:07.780 and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the familiar parenting ritual,

00:00:13.200 which every parent is familiar with, where, you know, you spend 75 minutes getting the kids

00:00:17.480 bundled up in their 19 different layers, and you get the boots on and everything else,

00:00:22.440 and invariably you're always missing like one glove and one hat, and then you go looking for

00:00:26.520 it, and someone has to wear mismatched gloves, and they start crying about that because they want

00:00:30.640 gloves that match, but then they're upset because the hat is too cold or too itchy or whatever,

00:00:36.740 and then you get them all bundled up, all padded, you know, like they're a glass vase that you're

00:00:41.120 about to ship FedEx across the country. And then, of course, one of them has to pee as soon as you

00:00:46.180 get them bundled. So you get them unbundled, and they pee, and then you get them re-bundled,

00:00:49.500 and then you go outside. And as soon as you get outside, one of them takes the gloves off and

00:00:55.480 starts crying because their hands are cold, and then another one falls face first,

00:00:59.400 face planting in the snow, and starts crying because of that, and you're laughing because

00:01:02.540 it's kind of funny. And then you sled for maybe 92 seconds before everybody wants to go inside

00:01:08.340 because they're bored and they're cold. And then now you're yelling at them like,

00:01:11.720 no, you're gonna have fun. We are having fun. Get down here and make a snow angel. This is fun.

00:01:17.460 This is family time. Have fun, damn it. But, and now everyone's crying, including yourself,

00:01:22.540 and so you go back inside, and you take off all the clothes, and then you do it again two hours

00:01:27.940 later. But at least your wife gets the picture of the 45 seconds, the 45-second period where

00:01:35.900 everybody was momentarily happy. Your wife gets the picture of that and puts it on Facebook

00:01:41.340 with a caption like, snow day with the fam. And then the good thing is that every other parent

00:01:47.060 can see the picture and can get angry at their own kids for ruining the snow day,

00:01:50.940 and wondering why their kids can't be more like your kids who, according to photographic

00:01:54.980 evidence, are apparently angels. So it's a lot of fun, though, honestly, and I am looking

00:02:01.320 forward to it. So I want to start with this, just because it annoys me, and that's how I decide

00:02:09.220 what I talk about on the show, if you haven't noticed. There's a story on npr.com right now

00:02:14.740 with the headline, canceling student debt is easier than it sounds. Wow, easier than it sounds,

00:02:20.880 great. Senator Elizabeth Warren has pledged to cancel up to $50,000 of debt for 95% of student

00:02:28.780 loan borrowers if she is elected president. Reading from the article now. Senator Bernie Sanders has

00:02:34.940 proposed an even more generous plan if he's elected. Generous is one way, but it's very easy. I don't know

00:02:40.720 if I would use the word generous when someone comes up with a plan that doesn't involve their

00:02:47.000 own money. It's very easy to be generous with other people's money. That's very generous.

00:02:53.000 It's like if Jim comes up to me and asks if he can steal money from Bob, and I say, yeah, sure,

00:03:00.300 go ahead. Is that me being generous? Or is that me just not giving a crap about Bob?

00:03:06.980 Both are, the article says, both are bold, controversial pitches that would have a hard

00:03:13.520 time making it through a divided Congress. But on Tuesday, Warren announced that she would use a

00:03:18.920 little-known shortcut and wouldn't need Congress. As president, she says she would cancel the debts

00:03:23.860 of tens of millions of student borrowers all on her own. It turns out she's probably right.

00:03:30.300 Warren wrote in the statement, our country's experiment with debt finance education went terribly

00:03:34.660 wrong. Instead of getting ahead, millions of student loan borrowers are barely treading water.

00:03:40.500 I mean, I don't know if we can say it went horribly wrong when the problem is that people took out loans

00:03:44.920 and are now expected to repay them. I don't know if that's necessarily things going wrong. I agree we

00:03:51.560 have a problem, and there's an issue here, but I don't know if you can say it went wrong.

00:03:57.700 This is very similar. Democrats do this a lot with things. So it's very similar to when somebody

00:04:03.880 talks about accidentally getting pregnant. Something went wrong, and I ended up pregnant.

00:04:09.780 No, nothing went wrong. It actually went exactly right. Actually, the sexual act that you participated

00:04:14.500 in, it did exactly what it's sort of supposed to do. So when you take out a loan, and you sign on the

00:04:20.800 dotted line, and then the person who gave you the loan comes back and says, we want that money now,

00:04:26.640 you can't say, what? Something's gone wrong here. Something's gone terribly wrong.

00:04:32.920 Back to the article. About 43 million student borrowers owe the government $1.5 trillion,

00:04:37.700 and until now, the department has only offered student loan forgiveness or cancellation to borrowers

00:04:46.600 to meet certain criteria. But the plan, anyway, I'll summarize the rest of it, and I can read the

00:04:54.900 whole thing. Warren says that there might be some sort of loophole that she can use where she could

00:05:01.420 just, on her own, stroke of the pen as a president, get rid of a lot of that debt. But at the very end,

00:05:10.860 we get a question offered by Adam Looney of the Urban Brookings Tax Policy Center. It says that

00:05:17.800 Warren's plan would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the bottom 20% of borrowers by income

00:05:23.520 reaping just 4% of the savings. As such, Looney asks, why are those who went to college more deserving

00:05:29.400 of aid than those who didn't? That's a good question. And we'll get back to that question in a

00:05:35.320 second. But here's another question. Why are we using the phrase student loan cancellation or

00:05:42.060 student loan forgiveness? See, that's not really what's being proposed. We're not talking about

00:05:47.000 cancellation. We're talking about transfer. The debt will be transferred from the people who took the

00:05:53.400 loan out to people who did not. That's what this is. And that's the word we should be using.

00:05:59.480 Student loan transfer. So the only problem, of course, for advocates of this idea is that student

00:06:07.460 loan transfer sounds unjust and kind of crazy. I mean, it sounds crazy when you put it that way,

00:06:14.160 right, to say that, okay, we're going to take the loan from people who took out the loan and force

00:06:18.180 someone who didn't take out the loan to pay it. That sounds crazy. And that's because it is.

00:06:23.700 Now, of course, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren have both claimed that they can transfer the whole

00:06:33.100 burden to the ultra wealthy and they'll make the so-called ultra wealthy pay for it. The issue with

00:06:38.000 that, first of all, of course, is that I'm not dumb enough to believe that it's only going to be the

00:06:42.500 so-called ultra wealthy carrying the burden here because it never works out that way. It never has

00:06:47.780 in the past. That's the first problem. The second is that the ultra wealthy are not any more

00:06:54.460 responsible for a stranger student debt than I am. I know maybe it's not popular to care that much

00:07:00.540 about the ultra wealthy, but, you know, the reason I don't want to have to pay back someone else's

00:07:05.900 student loans is because I didn't take out the loan. Why should I have to pay it? It's not my loan.

00:07:11.220 And, you know, if I had a hundred million dollars in the bank, I would feel the same way.

00:07:18.540 Yes, I could, I could quote afford it more, but why should I have to do that?

00:07:25.140 Any more than I should have to, you know, it's why should I, I didn't take out the loan. It would,

00:07:31.820 it would be my same argument. See my argument right now for why I as a non-millionaire should not

00:07:39.600 have to pay back other people's student loans. My argument is not that I can't afford it.

00:07:45.080 My argument is it's not my loan. So I shouldn't have to.

00:07:53.700 And that argument doesn't change no matter how much money I have or don't have.

00:07:58.480 But now Warren is talking about erasing debt with a stroke of a pen all on her own. Again,

00:08:04.120 though, if you think that's going to be free, I mean, if she can even legally do it, which I don't at

00:08:09.240 all think she can, but if you think the federal government is just going to eat that trillion

00:08:14.260 dollar loss and not raise taxes to, to, to compensate for it, then I don't know what to

00:08:19.380 tell you. I really don't know what to tell you. That's, that is, that is several steps beyond

00:08:25.620 merely gullible. If you think the government, the federal government is just going to say,

00:08:30.080 all right, nevermind. You don't have to pay back a trillion dollars. Well, yeah, yeah, no,

00:08:32.760 no, no big deal. No big deal. We don't need it. When has the federal government ever said that?

00:08:38.280 You think the IRS has ever said that to somebody who owes them taxes?

00:08:44.540 You think the IRS is going to say, you know what? You know what? Forget it. Actually, nevermind.

00:08:48.640 It's okay. No, no, it's fine. It really is fine. That doesn't work that way. It does not work that

00:08:54.340 way with the government. It has never worked that way with any government ever. That's not how

00:08:59.280 governments function. So again, what we're talking about here, one way or another, is the transfer of

00:09:04.640 debt, taking the debt away from the people who signed on the dotted line and agreed to it and

00:09:10.080 putting it on the shoulders of people who weren't in that meeting, didn't sign that document and

00:09:16.700 haven't reaped the benefits of it. Now, here's another thing to consider about this student loan

00:09:23.560 forgiveness stuff. And, uh, going, uh, going back to going back to the question that was posed at the

00:09:29.540 end of the NPR article, because it's hard for me to see this every time I hear about student loan

00:09:35.180 forgiveness, it's hard for me to see it as anything other than welfare for the upper class. That's what

00:09:40.560 it appears to be. Um, because it's not like college graduates are the only ones with debt that they're

00:09:48.680 dealing with. It's not like they're the only ones who have large monthly payments they have to make.

00:09:54.200 The only difference is that college graduates tend to come from higher social classes and they have

00:09:59.440 higher future income earning potential, if not higher income right now, which many of them do.

00:10:06.540 So here's my point. If we're talking about waving a magic wand and erasing debt, if that's actually

00:10:13.560 possible to do, which it isn't, but if it is, if it were in this, in this hypothetical situation

00:10:18.940 and we have that magic wand or Elizabeth Warren has that magic wand, why not wave it in the direction

00:10:24.900 of lower class or poorer people, you know, raise it, uh, wave it in the direction of, of blue collar

00:10:33.520 workers and middle and lower class people. There's a trillion dollars or so worth of collective,

00:10:40.360 um, outstanding student debt, $1.5 trillion. Okay. And we're told we can get rid of that.

00:10:47.000 Well, there's also a trillion or so dollars worth of outstanding car loan debt.

00:10:52.180 Now, not everybody has or needs a degree, but most people have and need a car,

00:10:57.380 especially middle class and blue collar workers, because they're less likely to work in this,

00:11:01.700 to live in the city where you can get away with not having a car. Um, they're going to be out in

00:11:06.580 rural areas or in the suburbs where they're commuting to work.

00:11:10.940 And most of them are paying three or $400 a month, uh, for, for their car to pay off their

00:11:15.960 car loan. And that's an enormous burden for most people, all of the economic benefits of releasing

00:11:22.180 people of their student loan payments. And this is the argument we hear that, well, think about the,

00:11:26.900 the economic boom of, um, telling people that they don't have to pay back their student loan debt.

00:11:31.660 Now they've got all this extra money that they can go and spend on something else,

00:11:34.860 which is already a problem, by the way, we won't get into, but you know, it's a, there's a fundamental

00:11:40.060 problem with this consumer driven economy where, where it's not like we're saying, Oh, you know,

00:11:45.780 we could free them of the debt and then they could save the money for the future. No, no,

00:11:51.040 we don't want them to do that. We want them to go and spend it. So it's, you know, they're going

00:11:55.060 to end up just as broke as they were before. We need you to go out and just buy more stuff

00:12:00.360 rather than wasting your money to pay back your student loan debt, waste it on something else,

00:12:06.020 waste it on consumer electronics or something like that, you know, go on a shopping spree.

00:12:14.600 But if that's the argument for, for so-called forgiving student loan debt, then I could make

00:12:21.600 the exact same argument for forgiving, um, car, car loan debt. And again, a car is a practical item

00:12:31.200 that people actually need. Unlike a liberal arts degree, which in so many cases ultimately is

00:12:38.380 useless. There are a lot of people who are sitting around, um, essentially with their, with their,

00:12:46.100 with their college degree, basically stashed in the garage, not using it. Um, there aren't a lot

00:12:53.500 of people who have a, who have their car stashed away and aren't using it unless they live in the

00:12:57.520 city. But most people, they, they have a car and they use it every day. They need it.

00:13:04.480 Point being, why favor wealthier people who bought a worthless thing over poorer people who bought a

00:13:12.700 unnecessary thing. What kind of system is that? Is that justice? Is that fairness?

00:13:20.020 We're going to say we need to forgive their debt because they're wealthier and they didn't need the

00:13:24.880 thing they bought. What? How does that make any sense? How about credit card debt? Again, around a

00:13:32.080 trillion dollars outstanding, um, uh, credit card debt in this country. Again, massive economic benefits

00:13:37.760 from freeing people of that burden. Again, that is a debt shared by middle and lower class people.

00:13:45.900 Again, it's a, you know, credit card is, I'm not going to call it a necessary item, technically

00:13:50.820 speaking, but it's certainly useful for a lot of people. And it proves more useful than a college

00:13:56.960 degree, which in so many cases is, is not useful at all. Uh, this would be, you know, not welfare for

00:14:05.760 the upper class. This would be more of an egalitarian welfare for people all across the social spectrum.

00:14:13.380 Now you might say, well, where does this end? Cancel car debt, cancel credit card debt, cancel

00:14:20.680 student loan debt, cancel mortgage debt. We didn't even talk about that yet. You could say, where does

00:14:26.720 it end? And where does this money come from? And how does this work? And how can you just absolve

00:14:32.820 everyone of all of their financial commitments? And what about the institutions that issued these

00:14:38.180 loans? I know it's not popular to stick up for them these days and, uh, it's, it's much more fun

00:14:42.780 to demonize them and maybe they deserve to be demonized in so many cases. But the fact is, um,

00:14:48.180 it, you know, how is it fair or just to just come in after the fact, after these loans have been agreed

00:14:53.740 to and, and the, the forms have been filled out and to just make it and to nullify all of these

00:14:59.240 agreements that were made. Yes, exactly. See that objection that anyone would have to canceling

00:15:08.640 car loan payments and credit card payments and mortgages. I, I agree. Where does it end?

00:15:16.020 That's a very good question. You see, if you're arguing for, for, for, uh, forgiving student loan debt,

00:15:22.420 you can either admit that the middle and lower classes deserve some relief too, and then say,

00:15:30.400 sure, let's forgive all of that debt also. But then you run into the problem of the sheer insanity

00:15:35.840 of this picture. It becomes so large and so vast and we're just forgiving all the debt.

00:15:41.440 And that's a problem. Or you can say, which appears to be what most people are saying,

00:15:45.820 if not directly, this is the answer. The answer appears to be, well, no, this should be an isolated,

00:15:52.220 one-time special thing. Uh, and, and, and we're going to do it for college graduates,

00:15:58.160 but then you have to explain why college graduates in the upper class should be the beneficiaries of

00:16:03.900 the isolated one-time special thing. Why not the lower class? If we are going to do it as a one-time

00:16:08.980 thing for one group of people, why not make it for the, for the car payment or the credit card or

00:16:17.400 mortgage? Now there, the outstanding collective debt is, I think, more like eight trillion rather

00:16:22.800 than one. But hey, if you can, I mean, a trillion dollars is already an astronomical amount that

00:16:28.780 nobody can even wrap their heads around. So if you can wave a wand and forgive a trillion dollars,

00:16:33.900 you could, why can't you forgive eight trillion? If you can forgive a trillion, you can literally

00:16:38.200 forgive any amount. You could forgive a quadrillion, who cares at that point?

00:16:42.060 Um, keep in mind again, that college graduates will statistically make more money. Not only that,

00:16:51.720 but they're, they're also moving into blue collar territory and increasingly taking jobs from blue,

00:16:56.980 from blue collar people, despite the fact that the jobs that they're taking don't actually

00:17:01.360 necessitate a college degree. So they're taking more money. They're taking jobs. They're reaping the

00:17:08.260 benefits of an education that these working class people either, either weren't able to attain or

00:17:13.020 chose not to for the sake of being financially wise and prudent. And yet they, the college graduates get

00:17:18.760 the handout. That doesn't make any sense. See, this is the problem that, um, compassion from the

00:17:29.320 government is always, is always a double-edged sword. There's always a loser. Um, there are always

00:17:38.960 many losers in the end. In fact, it always ends up that you create more losers than you had before.

00:17:47.080 And so by canceling student loan debt, you've created a lot of losers in that situation.

00:17:52.740 All the working class people. Um, and then not to mention all of the college graduates who already

00:18:01.700 paid off their debt and made the financial sacrifices. All the people who could have gone

00:18:07.840 to college, but chose not to because they didn't want to pay for it. And they did what they thought

00:18:11.800 was the financially smart thing. All of the people who went to a less expensive college than they could

00:18:18.700 have and got a less, um, you know, a less valuable degree than they could have gotten because they

00:18:26.720 didn't want to have that debt on their shoulders. Only to later find out that, oh, they might as well

00:18:31.580 have done it because they didn't have to pay it back anyway. You've made losers out of all of them.

00:18:37.980 All for the sake of making this one group of people into winners.

00:18:41.480 That doesn't seem just to me. And the objection about, well, what about the people who paid off

00:18:50.960 their loans already? You know, this is, this is often waved off by the people who advocate for

00:18:55.460 student loan forgiveness. I don't know how you can wave it off. That's a serious problem here

00:19:00.660 because there, there are a lot of people in this country who have, who, who made a lot of financial

00:19:06.740 sacrifices in order to pay back their student loans. And there's a lot of things that they

00:19:12.920 could have done and wanted to do, but didn't do such as buy a nicer house, buy a second car,

00:19:20.100 so on and so forth. They could have done those things. They didn't do them because they were

00:19:24.880 being financially responsible and paying back their debts. And now you're going to swoop in after the

00:19:29.760 fact and say, oh, you know, you wasted, that was all a big waste. You have wasted your life.

00:19:34.380 You know, you have wasted years and years of your life largely structured around making decisions

00:19:40.420 and sacrifices so that you could pay back all your debts. You didn't have to do that. You're

00:19:44.640 a sucker. You're a total sucker, loser. If you can't see the problem with, with, with that, then

00:19:52.740 again, I don't know what to tell you. It's like you're too obtuse to have a conversation with. That

00:19:58.700 is a huge problem. And it seems to me that if we're going to say you don't have to pay back the

00:20:06.040 debt, then on that same basis and with the same logic, we need to be giving refunds to all the

00:20:12.120 people who did pay back their debts. I don't know how you can get around that. If you have student

00:20:19.780 debt that you signed on for, and now you are entitled to it being forgiven, then yeah, I think

00:20:26.360 everyone who paid it back is entitled to a refund for the same reason. So you run into all those

00:20:34.720 problems. And these are the same kinds of problems that you would run into if you decided

00:20:38.300 to forgive all the car payment debt. You know, there's a lot of problems there. And one of

00:20:47.620 them being among, among the many problems, one of them being, you know, what about that?

00:20:53.700 There are, there are people who, who go out and buy expensive cars that they can't afford

00:20:58.760 because they just want to look cool and they want to have the latest and greatest thing,

00:21:04.100 even though they can't afford it. And they drive that thing around. And then there are other people

00:21:07.700 who make smart decisions and make sacrifices and buy cars that are not as nice and end up needing,

00:21:14.400 maybe a little bit more upkeep. But in the end, it's, it's, it's something that they can afford.

00:21:18.600 And now you're going to come in and, and, and, uh, issue a blanket forgiveness to all these people.

00:21:26.300 Well, how is that fair? Because the people who made bad decisions benefit you're, you're, you're,

00:21:34.320 you're vindicating their bad decisions.

00:21:36.040 You know, there are, I don't know if you've ever gone shopping for a pickup truck, but I've, my wife

00:21:43.900 and I have recently been talking about getting a pickup truck. And, um, it's always the first time

00:21:49.040 you, you know, you go online and start looking up how much a pickup truck actually costs. There's

00:21:53.560 always a little bit of a sticker shock because you think, well, when you think, what is the most,

00:21:57.680 what's the, what's the quintessential blue collar vehicle? You immediately think pickup truck. And so

00:22:02.300 you're thinking, oh, well, pickup trucks are affordable. Well, you go and you look, new pickup

00:22:06.100 trucks are easily 50, $60,000. And you think to yourself, who's buying this? This is, this is,

00:22:13.280 you know, these are, this is not, these aren't vehicles that are targeted for millionaires.

00:22:17.280 These are vehicles targeted for blue collar people. And of course, I think a lot of people just say,

00:22:23.380 okay, well, I got to get something used. I'm going to go and I'm going to buy a pickup truck.

00:22:26.880 That's a 2004 model with 150,000 miles on it. And, you know, if you take care of it,

00:22:31.760 you could probably get it three, 300,000 miles. And so it's still worth the investment.

00:22:36.040 Yet there are people who make stupid decisions and they go out. And even though they're, they're

00:22:42.120 not making nearly enough money to afford it, they go out and buy a $60,000 pickup truck.

00:22:47.280 Should the government come in and just say, oh, what, you know what, you forget it. You don't

00:22:51.540 have to pay it back. You can keep the truck too. And well, all these other people that bought

00:22:58.020 cars that are not as nice. Now they're thinking, whoa, what do I get a nice car too?

00:23:01.560 I could have got the nice car if I knew you were going to do this. See, it's the same

00:23:06.460 exact problem with the same sort of problem with college loans. So that's why I'm, you

00:23:12.600 know, I am not really advocating that we forgive auto loans or, or credit card loans or mortgages

00:23:19.260 or student loans. I'm just saying, if you're making that argument, if you're getting into

00:23:23.720 that world and you're, and you're, you're in, if we're in that realm now, then I think

00:23:30.300 there's a better argument to be made for forgiving student, the loans of people who are in the

00:23:35.720 lower social classes. But my solution for anyone who says, oh, well, what's your solution to

00:23:41.300 this? My, my solution is very simple. I say, we don't forgive anybody's loans. And it's not

00:23:49.060 like that's easy for me to say, I have loans I'm paying back too. So I'm in the same boat.

00:23:53.660 Everybody else is in. Okay. But I say, don't forgive my loans. Um, I'm paying, I'm paying

00:24:01.080 off my wife's student loans. I've got car loans. I've got a mortgage. I've got credit card debt.

00:24:05.100 I've got all that. Like most people do. What I'm saying is no, don't, don't forgive that.

00:24:09.460 These are, these are financial commitments that we made. I can pay them back. I'm an adult.

00:24:14.440 I can do it. I will do it. Don't forgive mine. Don't forgive anybody's. The solution is going

00:24:21.260 forward. If we're going to stop the bleeding going forward, people have to make better decisions.

00:24:31.200 That's the solution. Um, when it comes to car loans, if you're being killed by your car loan,

00:24:39.000 well, maybe you shouldn't have bought the $45,000 brand new car. Maybe you shouldn't have done

00:24:44.300 that. Maybe you should have gone for the $17,000 used model. And when it comes to student

00:24:51.320 loans, as I've been saying for years, there are a lot of people who are going to college,

00:24:58.980 who are in college right now, who are about to go to college or who already went, who do

00:25:04.700 not need to go. They don't need it. And so that's the solution. It's, it's, it's very simple.

00:25:15.120 Only people who actually need to go to college should go. There are some jobs where it is

00:25:21.760 definitely actually necessary to have that additional education. A lot of other jobs

00:25:28.420 where it isn't necessary at all. And then there are jobs in between where it's only artificially

00:25:32.700 necessary, where the, the market has created an artificial need for a college degree, like all

00:25:40.220 these blue collar jobs where college graduates are coming in and taking those jobs. You don't

00:25:44.380 really need a college education for that. And the education that these people have is irrelevant

00:25:48.040 to the job, but employers are saying, well, you know, everybody has a degree, so we might as well

00:25:53.460 require it. It's lazy and stupid on the part of employers, but this is what they're doing.

00:25:59.940 And it makes it easier for them because they don't want to have to actually, you know, put any thought

00:26:04.260 into who they hire. And so they come up with these, with these, you know, with this checklist

00:26:09.460 for, for who they're going to allow in the door and who they're going to take seriously.

00:26:16.220 And they, you know, they, they throw the college degree on there because they figure, yeah, you know,

00:26:19.620 most everyone has one anyway. And if you don't have one, I don't care about you.

00:26:22.800 Are they ruling out a lot of very qualified, very skilled people who would be a great benefit

00:26:30.840 to their company? Yes, they are, but this is what they do. I think the solution is to get away from

00:26:37.020 that. And if you saw a massive decrease in the number of people who go to college,

00:26:44.600 then this artificial need that's been created for a college degree in the marketplace will start to

00:26:51.440 dissipate. But this is a long-term solution. It's not a magic wand. It's not a switch that

00:26:58.280 we're flipping magically. And it requires people to be responsible and make sacrifices. And so,

00:27:03.500 of course, this is a solution nobody wants to talk about. Or even if you're going to go to college,

00:27:10.220 there's no reason why you need to, right out of high school, jump into the four-year institution.

00:27:17.300 You could take a couple of years, you could save up some money, and then you can go to a

00:27:21.340 community college and transfer the credits over to a four-year institution after two years.

00:27:24.720 And cut your price, cut your costs in half, if not more than that.

00:27:29.320 For almost everyone who goes to college, there's no real reason not to do that. And the only reason

00:27:34.380 why most kids don't want to do that is because they want to go to the four-year institution where

00:27:38.060 their friends are going, and they want to party that whole time. And now we're supposed to pay for

00:27:43.420 that? Because you wanted to go party? I mean, you could have paid a lot less, but you wanted to pay

00:27:49.340 more so that you could party? And your parents went along with that because what? I don't know.

00:27:55.420 They didn't want the embarrassment of their kid in a community college. They wanted to brag to

00:27:59.320 their friends about their kid being, you know, in the four-year institution right out of high school.

00:28:03.000 And now the rest of us have to pay for that nonsense? No.

00:28:05.380 I mean, that's the dirty little secret here that isn't much of a secret.

00:28:14.120 Why is it? As I said, there is just no real reason why kids need to come out of high school and go

00:28:21.860 right into a four-year institution. There's no good reason for that. The only reason why most kids want

00:28:29.120 that and why most families want that, well, for the kids is because they want to party.

00:28:33.480 And for the parents, it's because of the social factor. They, you know, they don't want, they'd be

00:28:37.380 embarrassed if their kids didn't go right to college. That's the reality. And I think we need to talk

00:28:45.320 about that when we're painting all these people as victims. We need to remember why they made some of

00:28:49.460 these choices. Um, all right, moving on briefly. This is, uh, so this is, this is the kind of, um,

00:28:59.880 this is kind of related to what we talked about yesterday with the child-free Reddit thread.

00:29:05.120 Yesterday, there was a, um, there was also a conversation on social media about how to talk

00:29:11.160 to kids about abortion. And a woman named Renee Bracey Sherman offered up this nugget on Twitter.

00:29:17.620 She says, I've talked to my five-year-old niece about my work and, uh, and abortion in an age

00:29:24.220 appropriate way. She understands that kids are a handful and sometimes people don't want to be

00:29:29.760 pregnant. She gets it because it's quite simple. A little background, by the way, on Ms. Sherman.

00:29:36.560 She is a reproductive justice advocate, big scare quotes around reproductive justice, by the way.

00:29:43.660 And, uh, here's the bio she offers on her website. And I promise you, I'm not making this

00:29:47.580 up. Renee Bracey Sherman is the Beyonce of abortion storytelling. She's a Chicago born Midwest raised

00:29:56.700 activist, writer, and reproductive justice activist, activist committed to the visibility

00:30:00.460 and representation of people who have had abortions in the media and pop culture. She is among the most

00:30:05.100 vital voices in the United States, elevating the conversation about abortion experiences

00:30:08.660 and using creative and innovative strategies to shift the conversation, centering people of color

00:30:13.240 and, um, other marginalized identities. Her work is so influential that the right-wing website Twitchy

00:30:18.940 recognizes her as the queen of all abortions. So she's a proud of that. She's proud of being the

00:30:24.700 queen of all abortions. By the way, um, Renee, that was an insult. You're not, that's not, it's not a

00:30:30.000 compliment, but the, the Beyonce of abortion storytelling. Imagine dreaming up that description for

00:30:37.420 yourself and then proudly typing it and posting it on your website. And I'm not even sure what it

00:30:44.700 means because Beyonce is not exactly revered for her storytelling abilities. When you think about

00:30:50.040 Beyonce, you don't think to yourself, wow, great storyteller. No, you think this is someone revered

00:30:56.960 because she can dance and lip sync and she's attractive. That's, that's pretty much it. Um, but in any

00:31:04.560 event, Renee thinks, uh, she's really good at talking about abortion and, um, it's apparently

00:31:08.980 literally what she does for a living. And this is what she comes up with. She comes up with telling

00:31:14.020 a five-year-old that abortion is okay because kids are a handful. This is, this is, this is what,

00:31:24.020 this is her genius. The abortion storytelling genius. This is what she goes with. And it goes to show,

00:31:32.900 um, ironically, her attempt to explain it to a child, her attempt to sanitize it for a child

00:31:39.760 only proves exactly why abortion is so grotesque and evil because it really can't be sanitized.

00:31:48.240 This is one of those things. There really is no way to explain it to a child that doesn't sound

00:31:53.380 horrible. This is the best that this person could do, who does it for a living,

00:31:57.780 talks about abortion for a living. This is the best she could do. And this, we, it's okay to kill

00:32:05.360 kids because they're a handful. Think about that. Think about how traumatic that is to a child. Think

00:32:12.240 about how the child who hears that is going to interpret it. What she's being told literally is

00:32:17.940 that if a kid is a handful, you can kill them. So it's not hard to think of, of how a five-year-old

00:32:25.400 is going to very logically and justifiably connect those dots and think, well, wait, you know,

00:32:33.620 what about when I'm a handful? Does that mean you can kill me?

00:32:36.900 But there is a, there's a certain honesty to it as well, which I was surprised by

00:32:43.440 because Renee here is basically admitting that, you know, the real reason people get abortions

00:32:50.260 most of the time is that kids are a hassle and an inconvenience and it's easier to kill them

00:32:56.060 than care for them. That's what she's admitting. And we know that's the case.

00:32:59.920 But when you say it like that and you just put it out there in the open,

00:33:06.580 suddenly it doesn't look so sanitary anymore. All right, let's go to emails,

00:33:12.180 mattwalshow at gmail.com, mattwalshow at gmail.com. This is from Bobby says, Matt,

00:33:17.880 I was hoping you could rule on something. The other day I was walking down the aisle of the grocery

00:33:21.980 store when a woman I was passing by dropped her purse and the contents of said purse spilled all over

00:33:27.140 the place. Now I was right there. So they literally spilled right at my feet, but I had a moment of

00:33:33.380 social panic because on one hand I wanted to help her pick it up. But on the other hand, you never know

00:33:38.040 what a woman has in her purse. And I thought she might not want me to pick it up because it might be

00:33:41.520 personal slash embarrassing. I mean, what if I bend down to help her? And the first thing I grab is a

00:33:46.060 tampon, for example. So, um, what I ended up doing was pretending I didn't notice. And I just walked right by

00:33:51.920 felt like a total jerk about it, but do you understand my reasoning or will I be executed for

00:33:57.000 this infraction under your malevolent rule? Well, Bobby, I'm going to exonerate you of all

00:34:03.120 wrongdoing, uh, proving yet again that I am just and merciful. Here's my approach in life in general.

00:34:10.140 And by the way, I appreciate the fact that you are someone who way over analyzes little sort of

00:34:18.320 meaningless, uh, interactions like that, because I'm, I'm exactly the same way. And you're able to,

00:34:23.600 in a split second, you're able to run through this entire complicated web of logic and then make a

00:34:31.000 decision. Whereas I think most people who aren't like us, probably most people just, you know,

00:34:35.460 they, either they pick down, they, they bend down and pick it up or they don't, but I don't think

00:34:39.840 much about it. That's how normal people are, but you're not normal. Neither am I. And that's okay.

00:34:44.620 Um, here's my approach in general in life, especially social situations, always err on the

00:34:53.060 side of leaving people alone. If you have to err on one side of the other, err on the side of leaving

00:35:00.260 people alone. So if it's a, if it's a toss up and you think it might be awkward for her to help,

00:35:05.800 or it might be awkward for her. If you help, then don't. Um, just like, if you think it might

00:35:12.840 be awkward or intrusive to strike up small talk with somebody in an elevator, if it kind of looks

00:35:17.860 like they wouldn't be interested in it, or they want you to leave them alone, then leave them alone.

00:35:23.020 If you're going to hold the door open for somebody and you notice that there may be too many paces away.

00:35:28.460 And so if you hold the door open, it'll be that awkward thing where they have to jog to catch up.

00:35:32.300 And they really would have preferred if you just walk through and not put them in this situation.

00:35:35.920 If it looks like it might be that, then just keep going. Don't hold the door.

00:35:41.580 Um, because the, the, the, the minor and momentary annoyance they might feel about being ignored by

00:35:47.820 you is lesser than the annoyance bordering on panic. They'll feel when they are imposed upon

00:35:53.340 socially in an unwanted way. So that's my, um, that's my ruling on that. Now keep in mind,

00:36:00.000 you're getting this advice from an antisocial recluse who would be perfectly happy living in

00:36:05.280 the wilderness and never coming in contact with any other people aside from his family

00:36:09.300 for the rest of his life. So, you know, that's the perspective I'm coming from here.

00:36:14.640 But on the other hand, you also know, of course, that I have never been wrong

00:36:18.380 about anything ever in my life. So you also have to weigh that with deciding

00:36:23.240 whether to trust me or not. This is from Lucas says, bruh, your, your, your young person slang

00:36:29.560 is dead ass lit fam. Me and my young person friends were all like this dude gets us. Then

00:36:35.300 we skateboarded to the arcade in our JNCO jeans. Uh, thank you Lucas for that. Uh, but, uh, bruh,

00:36:42.060 I, I dead ass suspect that you aren't really a young person fam. Reason being you didn't mention

00:36:47.260 your No Fear t-shirt or your Game Boy or the Limp Bizkit CD in your Discman. So you're way out of

00:36:55.420 touch, bruh. Um, from Matt says, you don't strike me as an Eminem fan, but did you happen to hear any

00:37:03.600 of the new songs on his surprise album? People on social media are going nuts for it. I did listen

00:37:09.200 to a couple of them. Um, really bad, honestly. That's my, my honest opinion. Horrible beats,

00:37:15.000 corny lyrics. Um, a flow that sounds like rock, you know, rack, uh, rock rap from 1998. Speaking of

00:37:23.240 Limp Bizkit. And I just don't think the guy has the ability to be speaking of being a storyteller.

00:37:28.180 I don't think he has the ability to, uh, to tell stories through song like he used to. And which is,

00:37:34.480 which is, um, sort of interesting when you see these artists who just lose their touch almost

00:37:41.520 overnight and then they don't have it anymore. And I think that's what happened to him a long

00:37:46.320 time ago. Um, from Joel says, Matt, I'm glad you, uh, you came across the vile, disgusting Reddit post

00:37:56.200 of the girl boasting about murdering her twins. You also stated this is representative of the pro

00:38:01.520 abortion movement. I agree a hundred percent. This is exactly why pro-lifers need to stop using the

00:38:06.980 nonsensical women are victims to line. Women who get abortions are not victims. They are

00:38:11.460 murderers. They do in fact know exactly what they're doing. And very often they're excited to

00:38:16.060 do it. They aren't victims. They're orchestrating a conspiracy to commit murder against their

00:38:19.940 children. Women who get abortions deserve to be prosecuted as murderers. Well, Joel, I don't

00:38:25.340 think you're right about that. Um, I think in many cases you have desperate, often poor,

00:38:33.140 often very young women who go into these abortion clinics and they're scared. They, and they have no

00:38:39.540 one to turn to, uh, their family doesn't, you know, either doesn't care or is, is pressuring them

00:38:45.600 often to, to, to get the abortion. And the, the, the, the father, uh, in many cases is also

00:38:51.700 pressuring in that direction. Um, and so the clinics take advantage of them and, and take advantage of

00:38:57.900 their fear and convince them that, that, um, they have no choice. You know, ironically, we're told

00:39:03.500 this is the pro-choice movement, but the abortion industry survives on the message that you have no

00:39:12.140 choice. The last thing they want a woman to do is realize that it's a choice, you see, which is why

00:39:19.180 on their way into the clinic, if there's, um, if there are pro-life, uh, there's a pro-life vigil

00:39:25.460 outside and there's a sidewalk counselor trying to hand the woman literature, telling her about her

00:39:31.240 other options, the abortion clinic is going to send out escorts, they call them to sort of be, um,

00:39:37.980 the lead blocker, you know, on the way into the door to, to stop, uh, the woman from even seeing

00:39:43.720 the literature. Now, if this was really about choice, the abortion clinic would say, yeah,

00:39:48.660 read the literature. The abortion clinic would say, you know, before you do this, there's a,

00:39:54.660 there's a pregnancy resource center right down the street, go talk to them also, you know,

00:39:59.820 explore that option. Have you thought about adoption? If that's, if it was about choice,

00:40:05.180 the abortion clinics would be doing that, but they don't.

00:40:10.380 That's why, you know, Planned Parenthood, they do 300 plus thousand abortions every year,

00:40:16.960 and they give out maybe a couple thousand adoption referrals just so they can say they did it.

00:40:22.140 Um, and that's how they, that's how they operate. So they're going to, um, exploit the woman,

00:40:31.600 try to convince her that she has no choice, and they're going to profit off of the decision

00:40:37.680 while she has to live the rest of her life with regret.

00:40:40.500 I think that's how it very often works. And in those cases, while the woman is obviously still

00:40:46.740 responsible for her own decisions, she's not completely morally exonerated. She is nonetheless

00:40:53.520 a victim. And I put the lion's share of the blame on the snakes in the clinics, the vultures who are

00:41:00.860 circling around these desperate poor women waiting to pounce. Now, of course, you do sometimes have

00:41:08.300 women like the one in that Reddit post I shared yesterday who are cavalier about it and spiteful

00:41:12.980 and frankly repulsive in their indifference to their children, but I think they're a minority,

00:41:18.820 a definite minority. I mean, you, you said, um, your, what was your phrase exactly? You said

00:41:23.440 very often they're excited to do it. That's, I can guarantee you that's not the case.

00:41:28.740 That is not very often the case. That is maybe the case sometimes in a minority of situations,

00:41:35.920 like the one that we, um, that I shared yesterday. My point yesterday is that the Reddit thread is a

00:41:44.200 reflection of the attitude of the pro-abortion movement and the industry. You know, the, the,

00:41:51.000 the abortion industry tries to instill and inculcate this attitude in the culture and in women.

00:41:57.180 And as you said yourself, I said, it's representative of the movement. I didn't say

00:42:04.000 that this woman's attitude is representative of most women's attitudes when they go in to get

00:42:08.780 abortions, because I don't think it is. Um, most of the women who go in to get abortions are not in

00:42:14.580 the pro-abortion movement. They are the ones who the movement targets and preys upon and exploits

00:42:21.960 and profits off of, and yes, victimizes.

00:42:28.700 So that's why I put most of the blame on the abortion clinics and the abortion industry.

00:42:35.160 And we talk about when we get into discussion of, well, if abortion was illegal, um, you know,

00:42:40.680 how are we going to enforce it? Are you going to start putting people in jail? Well, I would start

00:42:44.360 by jailing the abortionists. That's my opinion. This is from, let's see if we have time for one

00:42:55.760 more. Uh, this is from JR says, hello, Matthew. How dare you call me Matthew? Nobody calls me that

00:43:05.840 yesterday on your show. You mentioned the importance of listening to people with different worldviews.

00:43:10.360 Uh, well, I talked about that. That was a few days ago. You said on that end, you read a Sam Harris

00:43:15.420 book. I've recently realized that I'm living in a bubble of my own making and would like to break

00:43:20.400 out of it and engage with different ideas. Like you talked about, do you have any other book

00:43:24.780 recommendations written by people who are not Christian slash conservative? I'm trying to put a

00:43:29.040 reading list together. Yeah, I do think it's important to, uh, to read widely, uh, not just from

00:43:36.620 within your own worldview, but outside of it as well. Now what you're talking about, I don't,

00:43:41.340 are you asking for books written by people who are directly confronting and trying to disprove

00:43:47.640 your worldview or just by people who are, you know, from a different worldview, but aren't necessarily

00:43:53.540 directly confronting you because that's two different things. So, uh, Sam Harris obviously is

00:43:57.980 somebody who, you know, I talked about the book about free will that he wrote. Um, very, very small

00:44:03.020 book. Now that obviously is, if you're a Christian conservative, assuming you're not a Calvinist,

00:44:08.620 he's directly confronting you and presenting arguments against your view. And I do think it's

00:44:15.180 good and healthy and necessary for us to read that stuff and interact with it, engage with it,

00:44:21.540 think about it, um, so that we can be critical thinkers and, um, we can actually know what the

00:44:27.800 opposing arguments are. We can't rely on, and I think everybody does this. Everyone's inclined

00:44:32.840 to do this much, much of the time. I can't speak. We are inclined to, you know, we'll say that,

00:44:42.320 oh yeah, we've listened to the opposing arguments, but mostly we listen to people in our own camp,

00:44:49.400 tell us what the opposing arguments are. What we are less inclined to do is actually go over to

00:44:56.160 another camp and find the smartest person and say to him or her, tell me what your argument is.

00:45:02.840 I want to hear it from you, not from someone over there. I think we need to start doing that.

00:45:08.300 And so I would recommend, yeah, Sam Harris. He also wrote a book, um, I have it in my stack over here.

00:45:15.620 Well, it's over there. Uh, the book I would, I would most recommend actually over, even over the

00:45:20.620 free will book is, uh, he wrote a book called The Moral Landscape. And that's his attempt to,

00:45:26.560 um, rebut the moral argument for God, which I think is one of the strongest arguments. It's also

00:45:33.400 the argument that atheists tend to struggle with the most. There are some very, there've been some

00:45:39.120 very brilliant, um, people on that side who were very good at presenting arguments, but that's one

00:45:47.500 that they, I don't think ever, Christopher Hitchens is a great example. You know, I've watched most of his

00:45:52.700 debates. I've read a couple of his books. He's obviously a brilliant guy, uh, a pleasure to

00:45:57.540 listen to just because he's so witty and insightful, even if I disagree with a lot of what he says, but

00:46:02.040 this, this is one that seemed to trip him up uncharacteristically. His, his, his effort to

00:46:09.340 rebut the moral argument for God was always embarrassingly, I think, um, weak. So Sam Harris

00:46:17.400 tries to really give it a go. And I, I think, obviously I disagree, but I think he, he does a,

00:46:23.240 he makes a valiant effort. Um, so I'd recommend reading that The Moral Landscape. Again, if you're

00:46:29.760 looking for, I mean, you could read any Dawkins, Hitchens, you know, any, any of those A.C.

00:46:34.300 Grayling. He wrote a book, uh, I forget what it's called, but something like The Case Against

00:46:41.380 God or something, you know, something simple like that. You can look up A.C. Grayling, but I think of

00:46:44.940 all the atheist books, um, that have been written in the last 20 years that are just sort of a general

00:46:51.360 case against religion. And I've read many of those books, if not most of them. Um, I think A.C.

00:46:57.940 Grayling's is probably the best because it's very concise and he goes through each argument and he

00:47:02.580 gives his response to it. And so I would recommend reading that as well. Now, if you're looking for

00:47:07.380 maybe books written by people who aren't Christian conservative, but also aren't necessarily arguing

00:47:13.380 against you all the time, um, then, you know, someone like Steven Pinker, I would recommend.

00:47:18.300 He wrote a book called The Language Instinct, which as a Christian conservative, there's lots in that

00:47:22.860 that you could easily agree with and be enlightened by. Um, but he's an atheist, I believe. Um,

00:47:29.060 but you know, he's, he's, he's not like a militant atheist trying to disprove you all the time,

00:47:33.740 but he's an interesting thinker at any rate. So that's somebody I would recommend, uh, Steven Pinker.

00:47:39.120 He's got other books too that are, that I think are worth reading. Uh, you know, who else said

00:47:43.320 Jonathan, Jonathan Haidt is another one, another interesting one. Um, even somebody like Douglas

00:47:49.480 Murray, I think, uh, he just wrote a book called The Madness of Crowds and certainly not a leftist,

00:47:57.000 but also certainly not a conservative Christian either. So he could be an interesting person to

00:48:02.600 read. No, personally, I just, I am very bored with,

00:48:09.120 with people who I'm, I'm very bored with an echo chamber. I'm very bored with people who

00:48:16.800 just give you talking points and the same old, same old kind of thing. So I'm, I'm, you know,

00:48:22.160 as a reader anyway, and as a listener, um, I'm interested in people who think on their own

00:48:29.260 and have their own thoughts and think outside the box as it were. So that's, that's what I'm,

00:48:34.680 that's what I'm looking for. Um, I don't need them to have the same worldview as me. In fact,

00:48:39.060 a lot of times I prefer if they don't, because I kind of, I, I know what my worldview is. I already

00:48:43.100 know that. I don't really need it repeated back to me. I'd like to hear how other people think and

00:48:49.840 how they sort through issues. Um, so I think it's good that you're doing the same. And so maybe those

00:48:54.100 are some names that you could start with. Uh, we will leave it there though. Everybody enjoy your

00:48:58.740 weekend, snow or no snow. And I'll talk to you on Monday. Godspeed. If you enjoyed this episode,

00:49:07.480 don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star

00:49:11.080 review and tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available on Apple podcasts, Spotify,

00:49:15.800 wherever you listen to podcasts. Also be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts,

00:49:19.960 including the Ben Shapiro show, Michael Knowles show, and the Andrew Klavan show. Thanks for listening.

00:49:24.400 The Matt Wall show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer, Jeremy Boring, senior

00:49:30.120 producer, Jonathan Hay, supervising producer, Mathis Glover, supervising producer, Robert Sterling,

00:49:35.700 technical producer, Austin Stevens, editor, Donovan Fowler, audio mixer, Robin Fenderson.

00:49:41.200 The Matt Wall show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:49:45.760 If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth, and you can still laugh at the

00:49:50.560 insanity filling our national news cycle, well, tune in to the Ben Shapiro show,

00:49:54.180 we'll get a whole lot of that and much more. See you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 17, 2020

Ep. 407 - Welfare For the Upper Class

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