GLENN: Hopefully we'll have Mike Lee on with us for a second. He has a tax proposal that he's working on. We'll talk to him about it.
STU: There's some ridiculous things going on, arguments against the tax bill. And there are arguments against it. Good ones, in that, it's not as good as it should be. It's not as bold as it should be. Mike Lee is trying to do some things to it, that may help depending on your perspective. But some of the arguments against it, are also unfair. National Review has four of them that they feature today. People are calling it a middle class tax hike. This is an interesting thing. Because what they're trying to do with this is play with the numbers.
Tax policy center analysis on the Senate bill reveals that three-quarters of all families would get a tax cut. Twelve percent will see a tax increase, and they're concentrated around the rich. Now, to me, that's annoying because no one should be getting any increase. But the idea it's a middle class tax cut, you're seeing that on Facebook. You're seeing that on mainstream media. The average middle income family would receive a tax cut of approximately $850 through 2025. Now, what they're doing is, they're looking at the year 2027, and they're seeing lots of tax increases in that year.
The Senate bill is structured to make these middle class tax cuts expire in 2025. They do this for a dumb budgeting gimmick. The idea is, in 2025, no one is going to say, well, we should raise taxes on the middle class. No one will want to take that position, so they'll all keep the tax cuts. That's risky. I don't like it. But even if you say that they don't extend them, what you would have is a 7,000-dollar tax cut in the earlier years, followed by a 100-dollar annual tax increase later.
GLENN: I'll take it.
STU: It's still a big cut over time, they're just focusing on --
GLENN: No one is going to do it at that time anyway.
Mike Lee is with us. Senator Mike Lee, how are you, sir?
MIKE: Doing great, Glenn. Good to be with you.
GLENN: Can you help us make sense and heads or tails of the tax plan and tell us what's going to happen. And I want to talk about, you and Rubio have gotten together. And you're asking exactly, what?
MIKE: We're asking to make the child tax credit more meaningful to everyone that works and everyone who pays taxes. What we want is a tax credit. People can take advantage of up to 13.3 percent of their earnings. This is a tax -- payroll tax is something that almost every American worker pays. And our tax system fails to take into account what we call the parent tax penalty. Our child tax credit proposal, would address that.
Now, Glenn, I've been accused justifiably in the past of being really poor on your show. Talking about this proposal subjects me to that accusation.
GLENN: No. We're going to let you go. It's just that you get turned on by numbers and clauses in the Constitution, that most people don't --
MIKE: Don't we all?
GLENN: No, we don't. But I appreciate that in a senator.
MIKE: Well, thank you. And I appreciate the chance to come over and talk about it. Because it's really important.
Look, America's working moms and dads contribute to our senior entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare twice, once as they pay their taxes and a second time to incur the cost of child rearing.
Because of the pay-as-you-go nature of Social Security and Medicare, working parents are contributing to Social Security and Medicare twice. By increasing the child tax credit and making it refundable, up to 15.3 percent of earnings, what we're doing is we're making sure we provide necessary tax relief to offset this penalty.
GLENN: Mike, is this going to pass?
MIKE: It will. And we'll make sure. Look, it will pass because it has to pass. And I'm not sure what form the tax bill is going to pass. But it's going to pass. I and my Republican colleagues in the Senate are going to make sure.
STU: Mike, they were talking about potentially as an offset to an increase child tax credit of having to increase the -- the proposed corporate tax. So it was 20 percent. They're talking about 21, 22 percent. Is that going to be necessary to do the changes you're talking about?
MIKE: This is one method of paying for it. We're not necessarily wedded to that method of paying for it. We're open to other suggestions. I'd love to leave the corporate rate at 20 percent rather than 22.
But as of right now, we got to keep in mind, that as President Trump himself explained to us at lunch the other day, 70 percent of tax relief in this bill is for corporations, leaving 30 percent of the bill for individuals.
This is one way of shifting more of that relief to individuals, especially to America's most important entrepreneurial class of investors, that is America's parents.
GLENN: Do you believe that America's corporations feel comfortable enough in investing that money in -- in capital expenditures or investment and employees, or are they just going to roll those tax savings into the market?
MIKE: I think they will invest in a lot of things that will create jobs. That's why I'm pleased of corporate tax relief. The corporate tax itself is kind of a devious thing because it disguises the cost of government. People think taxes on corporations don't cost workers any money. They do.
In fact, according to some economists, it may well be that half or so of corporate taxes end up coming out of workers wages. In any event, we know that taxing corporations would slow economic activity. And that affects everyone, including America's middle class taxpayers.
GLENN: Is McCain going to stick with you guys? I saw a story yesterday afternoon. Looks like McCain is at it again was the headline. Is McCain --
MIKE: Yeah. I saw that story too. It gives me nightmares, had nightmares ever since that fateful night in July when he left his thumb hanging in suspended animation, leaving us in -- turned the thumb down. Want to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Look, I think he'll vote with us at the end of the day. Even if he doesn't, we can lose him and still pass the thing without him.
STU: Mike, I'm glad you're talking about the payroll tax. I think it's something that conservatives don't get fired up enough about.
Here's a tax that is a regressive tax, meaning that people on the poor end of the scale pay more than people on the high end of the income scale, which is something I can't believe any progressive ever defends. But they seem to defend it. And not only it locks us into this -- this idea, and a lot of conservatives, I think, fall for it, which is, these long-term giant programs that are supposedly funded through this, when in reality, it kind of all goes into a big pot anyway. These big programs are owed to us because of this separate tax. We don't look at any other giant program the way we look at these entitlement programs. And I think it's a real problem. Is there any hope of attacking this payroll tax even more boldly?
MIKE: Well, I think you made the point well. And this leads to a point I've been meaning to use in messaging with this, which is the best way to understand the Rubio/Lee amendment is that it basically provides a tax cut with respect to payroll taxes. And for some of the reasons you identified. We have to focus on this more than we do. And just as importantly, a related point is that the people who would benefit most acutely from the Rubio/Lee proposal would be those workers who are perhaps most at risk of falling out of the work force and choosing instead to go on welfare. You know, parents with young children, who are right at the edge economically of whether or not they're going to decide, make sense to continue working and instead stop and take welfare benefits. We want to keep them in the workforce. We want to give them plenty of opportunity to stay in the workforce so they can benefit themselves and their families so that they can get promotions, and continue to make more and be contributing members of society. This would incentivize them to do that remove some of the incentives for them to just go on welfare and SNAP.
GLENN: Mike, I want to switch gears with you, and then I'll let you go. You know, Matt Lauer was just let go. Garrison Keillor was just let go. And it's -- it's a little disturbing to me that, A, we're letting people go without any kind of real due process. It seems like this could get out of hand quickly, if we're not really careful. I mean, I'm glad bad guys are going away, and I want this to be solved, but it concerns me that there's no due process here.
However, the only ones that don't seem really affected by it are those in politics. You know, on the Republican side, Roy Moore and Donald Trump. On the liberal side, it's John Conyer and Al Franken.
They're not going anywhere. Does that concern you, Mike?
MIKE: Yeah. In politics, some things operate differently, quite tragically. The meaning of the word "politics," break it down to its Greek roots, poly, which means many, and ticks, which are blood-sucking parasites. A lot of what happens here.
Look, as to your first point about due process, in the case of Matt Lauer, for instance, look, he was fired by a private, for-profit corporation. I assume he was an at-will employee, or if he wasn't an at-will employee, that he had some kind of provision in his contract, allowing his employer to take this action when they did this.
So speaking literally, in constitutional terms, that means there isn't a due process issue. Due process in the lowercase sense of the word, I assume that NBC, being well-represented by capable attorneys, made sure that they dotted their i's and crossed their t's and that they made sure the facts were adequately substantiated before taking this step. Firing someone who holds public office is a little bit different because normally, in most circumstances, to fire them, you have to wait until the next election.
But I suspect that there will be a whole lot of people getting fired by their voters as these things continue to come out.
GLENN: You believe there's more to come out, Mike? You've been there a while.
MIKE: Sadly, I come to suspect that there are. I've been saddened and surprised by some of the horrible things that have been happening. And it seems to arise in circumstances where men will do really bad things in circumstances where they think they can get away with it. There aren't enough reasons that they see not to do it. And it's tragic. It should not be that way.
GLENN: Which makes --
MIKE: But we've seen that -- news entertainment, media entertainment, and government and politics. And it's really sad.
GLENN: And it makes me a little nervous that if the people don't vote those people out, if they decide that it doesn't matter, we're going to end up with some of the worst people in the world, even worse than we have now in Washington, showing up, because you'll literally be able to get away with anything.
MIKE: Yeah. I think that's right. And that would be an absolutely unacceptable outcome. Fortunately, Glenn, I don't think that will happen for two independent reasons. First, I think a lot of people are going to take themselves out of contention. Perhaps most or all of those people who are in government right now, who are subject to these accusations are going to decide, it's time to hang it up. Secondly, I really don't think their voters are going to put up with it. This is unacceptable. They shouldn't elect people who will do awful things like this.
GLENN: Senator Mike Lee, thank you very much. Good luck.
The media wants you to believe that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is trying to bulldoze Yellowstone and turn national parks into strip malls — that he’s calling for a reckless fire sale of America’s natural beauty to line developers’ pockets. That narrative is dishonest. It’s fearmongering, and, by the way, it’s wrong.
Here’s what’s really happening.
The federal government currently owns 640 million acres of land — nearly 28% of all land in the United States. To put that into perspective, that’s more territory than France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom combined.
Most of this land is west of the Mississippi River. That’s not a coincidence. In the American West, federal ownership isn’t just a bureaucratic technicality — it’s a stranglehold. States are suffocated. Locals are treated as tenants. Opportunities are choked off.
Meanwhile, people living east of the Mississippi — in places like Kentucky, Georgia, or Pennsylvania — might not even realize how little land their own states truly control. But the same policies that are plaguing the West could come for them next.
Lee isn’t proposing to auction off Yellowstone or pave over Yosemite. He’s talking about 3 million acres — that’s less than half of 1% of the federal estate. And this land isn’t your family’s favorite hiking trail. It’s remote, hard to access, and often mismanaged.
Why was it mismanaged in the first place? Because the federal government is a terrible landlord.
Consider Yellowstone again. It’s home to the last remaining herd of genetically pure American bison — animals that haven’t been crossbred with cattle. Ranchers, myself included, would love the chance to help restore these majestic creatures on private land. But the federal government won’t allow it.
So what do they do when the herd gets too big?
They kill them. Bulldoze them into mass graves. That’s not conservation. That’s bureaucratic malpractice.
And don’t even get me started on bald eagles — majestic symbols of American freedom and a federally protected endangered species, now regularly slaughtered by wind turbines. I have pictures of piles of dead bald eagles. Where’s the outrage?
Some argue that states can’t afford to manage this land themselves. But if the states can’t afford it, how can Washington? We’re $35 trillion in debt. Entitlements are strained, infrastructure is crumbling, and the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and National Park Service are billions of dollars behind in basic maintenance. Roads, firebreaks, and trails are falling apart.
The Biden administration quietly embraced something called the “30 by 30” initiative, a plan to lock up 30% of all U.S. land and water under federal “conservation” by 2030. The real goal is 50% by 2050.
That entails half of the country being taken away from you, controlled not by the people who live there but by technocrats in D.C.
You think that won’t affect your ability to hunt, fish, graze cattle, or cut timber? Think again. It won’t be conservatives who stop you from building a cabin, raising cattle, or teaching your grandkids how to shoot a rifle. It’ll be the same radical environmentalists who treat land as sacred — unless it’s your truck, your deer stand, or your back yard.
Moreover, the U.S. Treasury is considering putting federally owned land on the national balance sheet, listing your parks, forests, and hunting grounds as collateral.
What happens if America defaults on its debt?
David McNew / Stringer | Getty Images
Do you think our creditors won’t come calling? Imagine explaining to your kids that the lake you used to fish in is now under foreign ownership, that the forest you hunted in belongs to China.
This is not hypothetical. This is the logical conclusion of treating land like a piggy bank.
There’s a better way — and it’s the American way.
Let the people who live near the land steward it. Let ranchers, farmers, sportsmen, and local conservationists do what they’ve done for generations.
Did you know that 75% of America’s wetlands are on private land? Or that the most successful wildlife recoveries — whitetail deer, ducks, wild turkeys — didn’t come from Washington but from partnerships between private landowners and groups like Ducks Unlimited?
Private stewardship works. It’s local. It’s accountable. It’s incentivized. When you break it, you fix it. When you profit from the land, you protect it.
This is not about selling out. It’s about buying in — to freedom, to responsibility, to the principle of constitutional self-governance.
So when you hear the pundits cry foul over 3 million acres of federal land, remember: We don’t need Washington to protect our land. We need Washington to get out of the way.
Because this isn’t just about land. It’s about liberty. And once liberty is lost, it doesn’t come back easily.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
For all of the Left’s insane panic over having six supposedly conservative justices on the court, the decisions have been much more of a mixed bag. But thank God – sincerely – there was a seismic win for common sense at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s a win for American children, parents, and for truth itself.
The mostly conservative justices stood tall in this case, while Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson predictably dissented. This isn’t just Tennessee’s victory – 20 other red states that have similar bans can now breathe easier, knowing they can protect vulnerable children from these sick, experimental, life-altering procedures.
Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, saying Tennessee’s law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. It’s rooted in a very simple truth that common sense Americans get: kids cannot consent to permanent damage. The science backs this up – Norway, Finland, and the UK have all sounded alarms about the lack of evidence for so-called “gender-affirming care.” The Trump administration’s recent HHS report shredded the activist claims that these treatments help kids’ mental health. Nothing about this is “healthcare.” It is absolute harm.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court saw through it this time. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett nailed it: gender identity is not some fixed, immutable trait like race or sex. Detransitioners are speaking out, regretting the surgeries and hormones they were rushed into as teens. WPATH – the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the supposed experts on this, knew that kids cannot fully grasp this decision, and their own leaked documents prove that they knew it. But they pushed operations and treatments on kids anyway.
This decision is about protecting the innocent from a dangerous ideology that denies biology and reality. Tennessee’s Attorney General calls this a “landmark victory in defense of America’s children.” He’s right. This time at least, the Supreme Court refused to let judicial activism steal our kids’ futures. Now every state needs to follow Tennessee’s lead on this, and maybe the tide will continue to turn.
I sat in front of the television this weekend, watching the glittering spectacle of corporate media do what it does best: tell me not to believe my lying eyes.
According to the polished news anchors, what I was witnessing in Los Angeles was “mostly peaceful protests.” They said it with all the earnest gravitas of someone reading a bedtime story, while behind them the streets looked like a deleted scene from “Mad Max.” Federal agents dodged concrete slabs as if it were an Olympic sport. A man in a Che Guevara crop top tried to set a police car on fire. Dumpster fires lit the night sky like some sort of postapocalyptic luau.
But sure, it was peaceful. Tear gas clouds and Molotov cocktails are apparently the incense and candles of this new civic religion.
The media expects us to play along — to nod solemnly while cities burn and to call it “activism.”
Let’s call this what it is: delusion.
If the Titanic “mostly floated” and the Hindenburg “mostly flew,” then yes, the latest L.A. riots are “mostly peaceful.” But history tends to care about those tiny details at the end — like icebergs and explosions.
The coverage was full of phrases like “spontaneous,” “grassroots,” and “organic,” as if these protests materialized from thin air. But many of the signs and banners looked like they’d been run off at ComradesKinkos.com — crisp print jobs with slogans promoting socialism, communism, and various anti-American regimes. Palestinian flags waved beside banners from Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and El Salvador. It was like someone looted a United Nations souvenir shop and turned it into a revolution starter pack.
And guess who funded it? You did.
According to at least one report, much of this so-called spontaneous rage fest was paid for with your tax dollars. Tens of millions of dollars from the Biden administration ensured your paycheck funded Trotsky cosplayers chucking firebombs at local coffee shops.
The same aging radicals from the 1970s — now armed with tenure, pensions, and book deals — are cheering from the sidelines, waxing poetic about how burning a squad car is “liberation.” These are the same folks who once wore tie-dye and flew to help guerrilla fighters and now applaud chaos under the banner of “progress.”
This is not progress. It is not protest. It’s certainly not justice or peace.
It’s an attempt to dismantle the American system — and if you dare say that out loud, you’re labeled a bigot, a fascist, or, worst of all, someone who notices reality.
And what sparked this taxpayer-funded riot? Enforcement against illegal immigrants — many of whom, according to official arrest records, are repeat violent offenders. These are not the “dreamers” or the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These are criminals with long, violent rap sheets — allowed to remain free by a broken system that prioritizes ideology over public safety.
Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg | Getty Images
This is what people are rioting over — not the mistreatment of the innocent, but the arrest of the guilty. And in California, that’s apparently a cause for outrage.
The average American, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, is supposed to worry they’ll be next. But unless you’re in the habit of assaulting people, smuggling, or firing guns into people’s homes, you probably don’t have much to fear.
Still, if you suggest that violent criminals should be deported or imprisoned, you’re painted as the extremist.
This is what happens when a culture loses its grip on reality. We begin to call arson “art,” lawlessness “liberation,” and criminals “community members.” We burn the good and excuse the evil — all while the media insists it’s just “vibes.”
But it’s not just vibes. It’s violence, paid for by you, endorsed by your elected officials, and whitewashed by newsrooms with more concern for hair and lighting than for truth.
This isn’t activism. This is anarchism. And Democratic politicians are fueling the flame.
This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.
