OVER TAXED OVER WORKED AND SICK OF IT

🚛 The Trucker’s Radio Podcast | The Great Awakening

In this episode, we take a hard look at what many drivers and working Americans are calling “The Great Awakening” — a growing frustration with taxation, government accountability, and what’s really happening behind the scenes.

From the road to real life, this conversation dives into the pressure that everyday workers are feeling — higher taxes, rising costs, and serious questions about where the money is going.

We also get into a topic that’s been quietly circulating through the trucking industry — concerns about CDL standards, enforcement, and reports of fraudulent licensing practices that could be affecting safety, jobs, and the integrity of the industry.

This is real talk from people who’ve lived it:
• The reality of taxes on working-class Americans
• Why more people are starting to question the system
• Concerns around accountability and transparency
• CDL issues, industry standards, and safety concerns
• What drivers are seeing every day out on the road

No spin. No filters. Just honest conversation about what’s changing — and why people are speaking up.

If you’re out here working, paying in, and trying to make sense of it all… this episode is for you.

📩 Email the show: thetruckersradiopd@gmail.com
🌐 Website: https://thetruckersradiopodcast.com
📖 Book – Silence of Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXXXXXXX

Transcript

Dolores 0:00

Engines running. Miles ahead. And the truth riding shotgun. This… is where the real stories live. From the highways of America to the heart of what’s really going on behind the scenes this is more than just trucking. This is real life, real pressure, and real truth from the road. Welcome to The Trucker’s Radio Podcast… powered by Sabren Group LLC. Where we talk trucking, politics, the economy, and the issues that impact the men and women who keep this country moving. No filters. No corporate spin. Just raw, uncut conversation from behind the wheel. Now… here’s your host Stacey Yearout. Welcome to the Truckers Radio podcast. We got Sammy on here right now. We going talk a little bit about politics, a little bit about taxes, a little bit about everything about trucking, whatever else we figure out, we can talk about. So what's going on with you, Sammy?

Speaker 2 0:54

I'm just staring out the window another day. Another day in the office.

Speaker 0:59

No, I heard that. I heard that. That's for sure. Yeah, we was, what about you? Oh, man, just, we just going over some different things, and got all the taxes took care of for the year, and that's always a hurtful thing. I think it ought to be illegal to be taxed on all the stuff that we're taxed on. That's for damn sure. I mean, if you really look at, if you look at a lot of the taxes, you're taxed on not just what you earn. I mean, it, it, it is ridiculous. Let's say I go out and I pay cash $120,000 for a piece of property. Now I've, I've definitely had to have paid taxes on that money when I earned it. And let's say in 10 years that that property's worth $500,000. Now they're going to tax me on $500,000 property tax. Now I never sold that house. I didn't make a profit on that house. And by no way, shape, or form has that house made me any money and any kinda upgrades that I've done to that house, I've paid. Four outta my own pocket. And not to mention that I, I've paid the taxes on the materials that I bought and the people that I paid to upgrade that property. Just so, but the city or the state can turn around and charge me more taxes on it so they can upgrade their profit margin. If you ask me that, that's kinda ass backwards. You know what I mean? What, what's the problem there? I don't understand. Why is it property tax makes absolutely no sense. And to me, I think that's one of the biggest problems is property tax with our economy. People could afford to buy a house. And then you tack, I mean, just for instance, like your house, you pay X amount of dollars for your house. How much property tax makes up your house payment?

Speaker 2 3:25

About 5,000 a year.

Speaker 3:27

Know, that's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 3:28

A little over.

Speaker 3:29

That's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 3:30

It's robbery. You try to retire and you're living on a certain income or that you have 401k pension or whatever. Then you gotta worry about paying that, right. That's complete robbery. The whole system's just designed for, it just seems like it's just designed for us to fail. It just be modern day slaves.

Speaker 3:46

Yeah. That,

Speaker 2 3:46

and that's how I feel,

Speaker 3:48

we're, and I think we all kind of play around in the modern world with investments and things in the stock market, but you know. Let's say I bought up say, a hundred stock in Tesla. Let's say I sit on it for a year and it's made 20 grand, but I gotta pay taxes on that, what they call unrealized gain. Then I mean what, okay, when if I sell that stock and purchase another stock, what I made on profit, I have to show that as income, even though I invested it right back into another stock, I still, every sale is a new profit margin. Even though I may put it in something else and lose it all, I still gotta pay taxes on this money. I had a friend of mine., He got himself in a mess. He got in on that game stock. Hell, I think he made around $250,000 on that game stock. I mean, he was pretty heavily invested in that. And man, when it tore a loose few years ago, man, he made some big bucks on it and he damn near lost everything he had trying to pay the taxes on it. He never, he forgot about the taxes on it, so hell, he ended up having to pay like 40% taxes on all that. Geez. Yeah. I mean, it is like, can we not be a okay to just be a why can't we get a leg up? Everybody that's in charge of the taxation and everybody that is in charge of taking taxes from us. Is it just me? But they all got Learjets or what? Where in the fuck's my learjet at? You know all the people that is in charge of all of us, so to speak. So they think they do. They all riding around in limos, living in mansions and riding on Lear jets and yachts. We don't have none of that.

Speaker 2 6:05

My mom and I were talking about this. She was talking about, how her generation growing up, how they had a lot more balls and how my generation, they don't know whether they wanna be a prairie one minute or whatever, you know what I mean? Like they don't know what they are. They got all these mental problems, whatever. And she's like, we just need some people with some balls that just all of us get together and say, fuck this no more. No more of this stuff. We don't need this anymore. And all of us stand together. But we, but we got a bunch of people that don't, that don't have that kind of, they're not like that anymore. So of course they're just gonna keep running over us if we allow it. Things are gonna keep getting higher and things are gonna keep, happening the way they're going. I don't, I mean, it just keeps getting, that seems like it's getting worse and worse and worse and worse, but maybe it'll turn around.

Speaker 6:52

Oh yeah, without a doubt, man. I mean, it damn sure getting worse. 'cause I mean it's, I'm not making any more money. Are you? I mean, no fuel five $6 a gallon and hell out in California. Damn near $10 a gallon if it ain't already. I mean, it is just ridiculous. I mean, where does the working man get a break? We're taxed when we make the money. We're taxed when we spend the money. We're taxed on every single thing we buy with the damn money. Property houses. Cars, I mean, I live in Kentucky. Hell, they tax the shit out of us every year on our cars. We have to pay the assessed sales tax or value of the car every year. Just like you do your home on a car. Like come on man. I just bought my wife a new car. The damn tax on that car was almost two grand, for a tax title license it was $2,000. I mean, do you think maybe we would spend more money if we didn't have to spend that kind money out in taxes? You think we would rotate that out in the economy? We need to bring back the days where the American had a savings account. I bet eight outta 10 people you look at right now today don't have shit for savings account. Most people are lucky if they live day to, or week to week, day to day. Payday to payday. Yep. But once upon a time in America, most everybody had a savings account. They had money to save. They wasn't robbing Peter to pay Paul. And I think that's kind of the ploy is they're going to take and take and take until you're living either on the street or you learn to live with less so they can have more. And that's one of my hot buttons right there. I'm gonna, I've been preaching on this fraud. And it's not just, the fraud in Minnesota, it's not just the fraud in a lot of the other states and the government. I mean, and it's just like that lady that, that senator or governor, whatever, that lady is up in Maine. She's wanting to take the tax payer's money to fund the fraudulent programs that got cut during Doge. I mean, I, and you did understand what I just said. I wasn't, wow. Yeah. She's wanting to take the tax payer's money to fund the fraudulent cuts in her state that let that sink in just a minute. The problem with this is people like her because if she's willing to take the taxpayer's money to fund those fraudulent programs, look what? What do you say? I bet she gets a kickback. You think so? Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 10:01

She does.

Speaker 10:01

Because if she wasn't losing money, it's like all the other crooked politicians. Yeah. If she wasn't losing money. Why wouldn't she not be worried about it? Why would she not be on your side? Not the fraudulent side? And that's the part that just kills me. And the billions. And now there's a big movement right now. I was reading up on it the other day and listening to a couple of different shows there. They were talking about there's a big movement across the United States right now. People are refusing to pay their income tax. And some people are going in and actually just checking tax exempt on their, for their withdrawal, on their paychecks. And people are just saying, look, we're tired of the fraud. We are not paying taxes until the fraud is done, until we're, and, and they got a point. Because if you've lost, what was it? 13, 9, 10, 12? Hell, I don't know. One billion's worse than 10. I mean, it's, it is like if they lost that many billion dollars and they didn't know it, I think that's a pretty good sign that we're paying too many taxes. Yeah. They're a little overwhelmed with money. If they did not miss that money, if they said, if you think that fraudulent case was bad right there with that omar and Waltz, if they, if you think the fraud with Omar and Waltz was bad, wait until you look at the fraud in the Autism centers, they said it's even worse than the daycare centers, that these people are going around a, a lot of the different fraudulent people that come over here from other countries and setting up these fraudulent centers for autistic people. And they're getting all this government funded company money. And they said that it's even worse than the child fraud. And guess what? Minnesota's not the only state they're finding this in. They're keeping a they're really keeping a, a really, really tightlipped on this. If the shoe fits, they're gonna have to wear it. They created this and they, they've allowed it. And I think that's why if you look at all the people that's pissed off, you Chuck Schumers and AOCs and Omars and if you look at all the people that's pissed off, you've gotta enter their cookie jar. Doge got into their cookie jar. They had a, building they were discussing in one of the conversations that was in Dallas. They paid, I don't know how many, like $400 million for this building 20 years ago. And they were consistently every month sending this building, like $1.2 million for operating cost within the government. But there was not one chair, one desk, nothing in this building. And it was empty. Didn't have any damn thing in it, but they were just sending it money every month, like $1.3 million every month for the last 20 years.

Speaker 3 13:25

Wow.

Speaker 13:27

And nobody could ever really explain where the money,, they've bounced the money off into some offshore accounts and like, really? It, it is so much fraud. And they milk up all of our money. And don't get me wrong, I'm all about being a team player and growing an infrastructure. I realize that we have to have a certain amount of taxes to grow the infrastructure, to support our military, to support our police officers and fire people. And, first responders of all kinds. I'm all for that. But I think the American people in this push to stop paying taxes and everything and property taxes is, they're saying, we're tired of the fraud. We're tired of the fraud. We're tired of you stealing our money because it, we don't I guess it's just like, we're not born into this world owing taxes. These are parts of rules and things that they've made up over the years to collect and everybody throws into. A pool to keep the roads up, the bridges up, all that. But the problem is, is we're being overtaxed. We're taxed on every single thing we do everything we own. And you see it, I see it. And we're still driving on shit roads. They will patch these roads up the cheapest way they can. They will patch up the bridges the cheapest way they can. I've seen that bridge down there at Lake Charles, Louisiana. If you go under that bridge where them trucks goes across that bridge, you watch the concrete fall off that bridge, it'll pepper you with the concrete dust coming off that bridge. I mean, dang it, it's unreal. They don't give a shit. They just simply are milking the system and just simply they're putting a bandaid on whatever needs to be fixed until it just can't be ignored anymore. We're not creating more jobs, we're pushing jobs out to other countries, but, for years we pushed jobs out to other countries 'cause of a nafta I think that was brought in by the Clinton presidency administration there. And, then we didn't collect the tariffs. We paid tariffs. We was actually paying tariffs to other countries, but they didn't wanna pay us tariffs. So naturally a lot of our companies, they're like, well, shit, we're gonna move over there and we can get slave labor, sweat camps, and everything. As in China, indeed, and India and Pakistan, wherever they could get Mexico. Then they were going to get it done for pennies on the dollar and then we're gonna bring it back here and we're gonna stick a big price tag on it. But no, we didn't pay no tariffs to bring it back here. That was a free ride. Now why would you think that's okay? Why would you think that's okay to take the American people's jobs to another country and you build the product and then you bring it back here and put a big price tag on it for the American people to buy? Help me make that make sense? Yeah. That's not, alright. Yeah. Help me make that make sense. Yeah. Don't make any sense. It just makes absolutely no sense. None. None whatsoever. But we've done it for years and I think right now we're going through what we're calling the Great Awakening. It is not about whether you voted blue, it ain't about whether you voted red or you just didn't vote at all. The American people, at least for the most part, is awake the fuck up. They're waking up and saying, Hey, this ain't right. And all the fraud that's been exposed and all the things that's been covered up for years and years and years, you know, and the people's getting mad, they're getting tired. They are, they're blowing

Speaker 2 17:59

And I think that's the reason why you hear all these conspiracies like I heard this the other day. I watched it, I saw online that somebody said that, I don't know if it's true or not, but these farmers and people were catching like, these big boxes of ticks like that have been being released across the United States that's supposedly carrying Lyme disease to get. Get people sick and you hear about the trim, trim what is it, trim or chem trails. Chem trails. They're spraying, right? You always hear about different viruses. It could be because they're just trying to let you know,, we're starting to wake up, like you said. And they don't like that. So they wanna keep, try to kill us off. And there's all kinds of conspiracies going around, whether that's true or not, but we know they're doing it to our food system. Poisoning us that way.

Speaker 18:44

Yeah. Without a doubt. And the thing about it's is this, it's un, well, I ain't gonna say unbelievable, that it'd probably be really hard to even wrap your mind around what's really truly being done. I, I don't know that we would believe what's really truly being done if they told us. 'cause I think there's so many things. That has been done to the American people that we don't even realize, that we don't even understand and wouldn't even have a clue and can't even think that warped, there, there's a whole lot of, and everybody, if you ever notice, when you, when you say something people don't like or you start getting enough attention on a topic that they don't want exposed, the government is famous for destroying you as a person. Yeah. They will destroy you. They will constantly, I mean, they will absolutely destroy you. The IRS will be knocking on your door. They'll be auditing you. They will just, I mean, the thing about this is, they talk about, we live in a free country. Yeah, we do. But how free is it? It's kinda like an old story. Look at Canice Owen. Yeah. Look at all of 'em coming after her. Exactly. Look at, look at, Alex Jones. Man, they have just absolutely just raped and pillaged him. Not that I'm a great, huge fan of Alex Jones. I think he gets a little out there sometimes, but, who's to say the guy's wrong? I don't know. He may not be. And like I said, it it, I don't even know that we could wrap our mind around what's really going on in this world. So who's to say that man's even wrong? I don't know. I don't know if he is or ain. I mean, I'll listen to him on occasion, but I mean, there's a lot of truth to these conspiracies that they, everybody, and yeah, that seemed to be for years on end, that was the going thing. When somebody hit a nerve, you're a conspiracy theorist, or that's just a conspiracy theorist. That's just a conspiracy. Everything can't just be a conspiracy. They have some damn truth to a lot of things that people bring to attention. Most people in general, they wanna go about their everyday life. They wanna bury their head in the sand and pretend like all this shit ain't happening until they can't ignore it anymore. And then they have to pay attention to it. And that generally happens when people's pocketbook starts getting affected. When people starts, oh shit, how am I gonna pay the electric bill? Oh shit, how am I going to pay my rent? Because I'm taxed 50, 40, 50% of everything I make, man, I had to pay the taxes on my car to get my license renewed. Now, I can't pay, I can't buy groceries this week. That's what gets people's attention, and I think that's where a lot of the stuff is. The inflation has been so bad under the Biden administration and has continued, with the Trump administration, and I don't think that he controls the inflation, but I do feel like we, we created the inflation. We got Mike in here on it. How you doing, Mike?

Speaker 3 22:33

Hey, how's it going?

Speaker 22:34

All right, we got Sammy on here.

Speaker 3 22:36

Hey Sam. Hey. How's it going, man? Time to talk.

Speaker 22:40

Yeah,

Speaker 3 22:41

everything been good? Yeah. Cell phone still works, so I'm making money.

Speaker 22:47

Yeah, that's that's what we were just talking about. We were on a rant of inflation and how most Americans just want to bury their head in the sand until they can't afford to bury their head in the sand. They gotta pay attention. And I think that's kind of what we're going through right now is this great awakening the American people is really, truly starting to wake up and say, we've had enough and a OCI seen an article, a little video clip that this, Hey, I can't even. I can't even call this woman by her name. I just gotta call her a OC. 'cause I may feel like I might lose some brain cells if I call her whole name out. I mean, Jesus Christ. I mean, I really would like to think this is an act. I, I'm gonna give her the benefit of the day. I hope she, this is an act. But she said the other day that the Republicans was trying to rig the election by not allowing the illegal immigrants to vote. And yeah, I said that right, that the Republicans was trying to rig the election, but not allowing the illegal immigrants to vote. Let that sink in there, and now they're trying to redistrict all these damn plays. They done that Virginia redistrict. Where they got all the, any possibility of carrying a red state in Virginia. It's like really? I mean, they're, they're so slick and then they sit back and say, the Republicans is trying to rig the election. Are you serious? I'm so sick of the, the fraud, whether it be money, elections. I mean, I think we've all kinda lost our faith in the election system. We've all kinda lost our faith in the, the financial taxation in this country. Like I said earlier, if they went missing what, how many billion dollars in Minnesota and didn't even realize it was gone, I think that's a pretty good indicator that we're paying too many taxes when you go missing. Several, several billion dollars.

Speaker 3 25:13

Well, they knew it was gone.

Speaker 25:15

Yeah, they did.

Speaker 3 25:16

They knew it.

Speaker 25:17

Yeah, I know, but I'm just trying to give 'em,

Speaker 3 25:20

there's no, there's no coincidence in politics and government when it comes to money. Not a coincidence.

Speaker 25:27

Well, I guarantee you the, the IRS knew it was spent, it was gone. IRS wouldn't have missed what, nine, $10 billion if that was you or me. We'd never slid that under the radar. L We'd lucky to get a $10 meal ticket across the, something that we don't have receipt for.

Speaker 3 25:50

Be under the jail.

Speaker 25:51

Yeah, exactly. And that's just, I think the American bill was just flat ass tired of the way this country's been robbing us blind. They're taking all of our money. They just, they send it to foreign countries, supplying how many other countries, weapons and, military. We got military bases all over the world trying to protect everybody. I mean, what, who are we anyway? I mean, does that really our obligation? We've been paying how many millions and billions and trillions of dollars, however much it was into the, the United Nations, and then they basically gave us the big middle finger when we needed to use one of our bases. It wouldn't even let us land on our own basis. I'm like, ain't no wonder, Trump wants to pull out of it. I wouldn't pay another dollar into it. That's our tax money there. I mean, why are we in a deficit? Why are we in such a deficit? Well maybe start looking around. Fire Doge back up again. You'll find some more of it.

Speaker 3 26:57

You think these cameras would've been put in these trucks not had that influx of all them illegals driving around.

Speaker 27:03

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 27:04

Created a whole industry.

Speaker 27:05

Well, and the long thing, I think a lot of that there that they've done there is they've come here and they've just ran what little bit of trucking in the ground that we once had. We still had a little bit of a foothold of, the good old days of trucking to a degree. And when they started infusion, the infusion of the illegal driver into the trucking industry. Then that pretty well everything went to shit. I mean, I, I, I'm telling you what, I watched the guy, well, I see it every day. I'm sitting there like, how in the hell do these guys make it through the day? I stopped over at the, at a, at a pilot there real quick. I had to do a 30 minute break, so I kind of pulled off to the side. I didn't wanna sit in the fuel aisle or anything. I pulled off the side and fixed me a little something to eat real quick. I was sitting there watching this guy trying to back in and he had some country flag. I don't know what country it was hanging up in his window of his thing. So he was obviously not from America and. I sat there, watch him hit this dude's truck like three times, and then tried to drive off this dude chased his ass down and it's like, and then he was arguing with the guy. I didn't do that. I heard him, I was gonna crack the window a little bit. He's tried to tell him that. No, it was already there. It was already like that. I don't know what you're talking about. No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't me. No, no, no, no, no. And that dude's like about to whoop his ass over his truck. So then finally he's over there calling his boss. I guess reporting the accident, getting the insurance information. It's like, wow. I mean, and the guy was trying to back in. It's like, what the hell are you doing? It was like, he was just trying to back at a, not even a, a, a pivot. He was just trying to back into the side of the dude's hood. It's like, when you got a tail swing on that 53 foot trailer, you gotta, you gotta pivot that something, but out in a parking lot a little bit, you can't start in between two trucks with the tandems all the way up under the trailer. You going to tear something up? That ain't the way that works. You gotta compensate for that. You gotta spin that out in the parking lot a little bit.

Speaker 3 29:31

You said compensate to one of these guys. They'd say California.

Speaker 29:35

Yeah, California. Yeah. California. Compensate. Fortification over

29:42

there.

Speaker 3 29:42

Yeah.

Speaker 29:44

Yeah, that's, well, I just see where they, they pulled, what was it, 40 the hell, was it 40 or 70? 70. 73 million or billion dollars out of New York's budget.

Speaker 3 29:59

73 million, 72 million. They said it was 53% of people, foreigners were, CDLs were illegal. So every other one illegal,

Speaker 30:12

right,

Speaker 3 30:13

that they issued.

Speaker 30:14

Oh, it was, is, is, New York lost nearly $74 million. Trump yanked 73 million funding from New York fulfilling to vet the foreign truck drivers. And it is just, and that, that's just the New York that ain't including all the, the shit, and, and that he yanked away from California. It's like, wow. I mean, they're, they're definitely tightening up the, the reins, but they brought these people over here and they give 'em all these fraudulent CDLs and they ran our industry into the ground to where. The shippers and the brokers all think it's okay to pay you $2 a mile when fuel's at eight, $9 a damn gallon or $6 a gallon or they don't care. They're used to getting it done. I mean, you watch these guys run up and down for 71 75 with Amazon. You know how many of them guys are pulling em? Amazon trailer I see sat on the side of the road with steer tires blow out. That's because they're running for nothing and they're running their steer tires into the threads, the wires and they're bla steer tire blows 'cause they can't afford to buy a tire. I don't even think they even know what a tire is. Be real honest. I don't even know if they know what a pre-trip is, what a tire is. I I, there again, I'm at a loss of words. I know one damn thing. Ohio, DOT loves this shit outta Amazon. Oh, they, they'll roast their ass right up. They put their order in real quick at Amazon. Pull that thumb bitch off the side of the road. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Amazon Corporate just to see how many Amazon trucks are put outta surface during this DOT blitz this year across the country. I mean, right now I that one Western Express is about neck and neck with ignorance now

Speaker 2 32:30

wouldn't work for Western Express, Stacy?

Speaker 32:32

Well, I ain't saying one way or the other, but I see some pretty stupid shit out of some of their drivers. Yeah. I don't know about

Speaker 3 32:40

all that.

Speaker 32:43

That's, that's some ugly words. That's some ugly words there.

Speaker 3 32:48

I saw a Swift driver today driving 70 over here in Colorado. He had his foot up on the dash and the cell phone in hand doing 42 miles an hour in a 75.

Speaker 33:01

Hmm. Well,

Speaker 3 33:03

like, it was nothing. Did

Speaker 33:04

you see, did you check with him and see what kind of fuel mileage you was getting?

Speaker 3 33:09

I kind of said that he, maybe he was at the I don't care state, like whatever happens, happens. I'm, I'm there and I, I don't care, and

Speaker 33:17

Yeah, you go across 70 and you don't know what you're doing, man. You're going to be in some shit. Get, come across the wrong part through there. I don't know, man. I mean, these guys just, I, I've never seen people drive the way they drive today. And they run right up on people's rear end flashing their lights running off the side of the road. Get outta my way. It is like, come on dude, you driving an 18 wheeler commercial vehicle? I mean, and we're, we're pulling some New York shit. New York City shit move like that in 18. What? Come on, man. What is that? I don't, I mean, and you wonder why, I watched the dude, one of them, he, he was pulling I don't even know what trailer it was. There were several people on the side of the road. He would not move. He stayed right on that white line and didn't I, I don't even know that he ever realized they were anybody on the side of the road. I'm surprised he didn't hit him. And, and then, you go on down the road there and he's, he's riding up on somebody's rear. That drives me nuts. I'm sorry, but tailgating somebody that is just a, they, they're no excuse for that. None. There are no excuse for that whatsoever. You never used to see stuff like that years ago, and they infused the illegal driver into the industry. I mean, the morals of this, this job went out the fucking window. It, it is just. I don't understand their throat out here to sink or swim. If they tear something up, just plausible deniability. I didn't do it. You didn't see it. I'm driving off. Oh, well. And that's just the way they do it.

Speaker 3 35:16

I don't agree with, I think a lot of it has to do with the attitude that is formed from the way we're treated. But it's kind of like, where did you start from? Did you have any Im morals when you came to this business, if you didn't, then that's what you have. People that don't do anything, don't earn nothing, and they want it all. Right. And if they don't get it, you go down the road and act like exactly that. And it's. I don't know if it's ever gonna recover. I don't know if there's any good enough, good enough dri good drivers left to overwhelm what's happening out there right now. I don't know if there's enough.

Speaker 35:58

Well, a lot of it's in the training and what one, one guy passes on to the next and not everybody gets the training that other guy gets. And it's, there's only so many good trainers to go around. I mean, these companies, they put these guys out there for six months experience and here you go, train him. And we've seen that years and I mean, I've trained for years on and off and I mean, I really enjoyed, I took a lot of pride in training and. You were not just training somebody how to drive a truck. You were teaching somebody how to provide a living for their family and their self and how to protect the lives of the people that are amongst every day on the highway. And I've seen several times that I would go to the company and say, Hey, this guy ain't going to get it. It ain't nothing personal. He just can't drive. He's going to kill somebody. And I've told him that language and they will put 'em out in a truck. Anyway, I've seen it done. They'll override my opinion time and time again, which not don't train. I haven't trained in years now, but I really used to enjoy training. I did. I tell, I think in my career, I think I trained probably on and off 13 years. And I've helped numerous amounts of people, when they're struggling, helped 'em get on their feet, teach 'em how to be on their operators. I mean, and I still do do that, I do the consulting. I don't have a lot of openings for that, but I have some. But for the most part, I just enjoy helping people. And that was one of the things I enjoyed with training was knowing I put a guy out there that I'd feel comfortable driving alongside my family. And I always asked myself before I let a guy go, do I feel comfortable with this guy riding alongside my family? If that answer was no, I wasn't going to sign off on him. Company can do whatever the hell they want to, but I wasn't gonna sign off on him. And I always stuck to my guns with that. And I've, I've pissed a few companies off with that, but I'm sorry. Right's right and wrong is wrong. And I think that's where you really lose a lot of the respect out here on the highway, because when you don't earn that CDL and you don't have to fight for it, you don't have to worry whether you pass that test or you, you're going to fail this road test or you can't get through this backing course and you can't get through the training course with a trainer out over the road for three weeks, four weeks, six weeks. If you don't have to live through that period of doubt that you may not make it, that you better learn, you better put your, your your best hat on. You have no respect for the industry because easy come, easy go. They don't give a shit. They, they put false names. You ever notice, And it's just not, it's not cool at all because we got drivers that's worked our ass off out here to be a good driver and do good jobs, be safe out here on the road. And then you got these guys that come by and blowing it off for everybody, now you got DOT looking at me, you and everybody else because they're acting ignorant. I mean, they ain't a day goes by. I don't see some fatality accident, bad. It's just one of 'em things. I mean, you just see it all day every day.

Speaker 3 39:57

So it's something interesting today.

Speaker 39:59

What was that?

Speaker 3 39:59

So somebody must have clobbered a ram up there in the mountains of Colorado that Ram's head with the horns and all was sitting right on the shoulder of the

Speaker 40:12

road. Wow.

Speaker 3 40:13

Good. I never seen nothing like that.

Speaker 40:16

Hmm.

Speaker 3 40:17

A ram.

Speaker 40:19

Yeah. LA will see anything out there.

Speaker 2 40:21

Pull into my stop.

Speaker 40:22

Oh, okay. Have you ever been out through Colorado? Through the Rockies?

Speaker 2 40:26

Oh yeah, yeah. About that.

Speaker 40:30

It's, it is a, it is a pretty cool place. And, and all that, it's definitely beautiful country. Beautiful country. Probably one of my favorite places that, scenery wise, I don't think I could stomach living in Colorado for their, they got some pretty out there politics, they get pretty crazy on gun laws and stuff like that. I don't, I don't, I don't like living somewhere that I gotta worry about somebody telling me I can't own a gun or this or that, or, I'm a law abiding citizen. If I wanna own a gun, I'm gonna own a gun. But, they got some weird takes on things. Friend of mine, his aunt lives out in Colorado. And they were building a cabin. They, him and her or her and her husband retired. They did pretty well for theirself. Anyway, they retired pretty well. They built 'em a nice cabin and everything off grid, set up their solar panels and they had a well drilled the state of Colorado, literally. And this ain't no joke. They literally come in and put a meter on their, well that they paid to have drilled and charged them for the water. They pulled out of it. I mean, that is no joke. That literally happened. It's like, wow. And you, and you people keep voting for that shit. Yeah. I don't know about all that. But you know, back to what we were talking about earlier with the taxes and everything, do you know how much more money we would have in circulation if we didn't have to pay federal income tax and we didn't have to pay property tax? I mean, I'd be okay with paying a fair amount of, I mean, I'm not saying jack it up to 40% 'cause that's ridiculous, but I mean, I'd be okay with paying a fair sales tax just across the board. Leave our money alone. Don't tax us on our money. I mean, maybe take out Medicare and Social Security, but federal income tax, I think that's horse shit. If they would quit taking that out of a man's check. Of course they're gonna take social security, they're gonna take Medicare. They got a, a few little things there they're going to keep taking out of and state income tax. I think that needs to be another thing that they need to do away with because these states get all kind of government funding and everything else and they, what happened to the damn lottery, how the lottery was supposed to fund the schools and all this, and then they turn around and charge you out to asks on school tax for your property, on your property tax and everything else you do, where did all that money go? All that tax money off the, the lottery. They told us that this was going to support our school system and everything else when they, wanted us to allow them to bring the lottery in, where'd that money go? That's, I, I guarantee they'll spread out amongst some politicians' pockets somewhere, but. yeah, I mean, it's just one of 'em things. I'm just like, we're just tax tax. Like when I lived in Nashville, ain't no state tax down there. You didn't have the car property tax like you do. Like here, you, you paid, I think it's 50, 60, 80 bucks.

Speaker 3 44:02

I had a vent going. My a p was going up for a second.

Speaker 44:06

Okay. Yeah. It was something that was loud as hell there. That's right. But I mean, when I lived in na, Nashville, Davison County, they didn't have state tax, but we pay I think 9.25% sales tax. I'm alright with that because everyone's taxed accordingly. Even the guy that's making a million dollars a year, he goes out and buys him in a new yacht. Well, he's gonna pay fucking sales tax. He's gonna pay the sales tax just like I do. They go down and buy a Mazda, right? He's gonna pay sales tax on that when he buys it. The guy that's can't afford to buy a all that, you know what? He ain't gonna pay a whole lot of tax. I think it sets the, the play field a little, a little more level. And if you look at they was, I think in 2019, I was kind of researching that 61% of the male workforce in this country worked under the table that did not pay in taxes. 61%. Let that sink in there just a second, that 61% of the male workforce worked under the table or did not pay in taxes. So. That kind of goes to show you, if you charge the taxes, say 9.25% sales tax, that man's gotta live. He's gotta eat, he's gotta, he's gotta do his thing. So you're going to collect taxes from this guy, whether he pays in taxes or not, because they're not going to be any taxes to pay in other than what he buys. And I think that's where they should collect their taxes. Because even with the foreign people that come over here that don't pay taxes, well guess what? If you're gonna buy something, you're gonna pay tax on it. They kind of nip a whole lot of that in the butt. You can work under the table all you want, you're still gonna pay taxes on it, sales tax, and you're not gonna get away from that. So if that was the way that was done, I think you would. Get away from a lot of the tax evasion. 'cause you're gonna be trapped. If you're gonna live, you're going to per, you're going to buy, you're gonna go to the restaurants, you're going to go to the grocery store, you're going to go buy a new car. Well guess what? You're going to pay taxes now. I mean now I think it DeWine up here in Ohio, he's threatening 40% sales tax and everything else. These people, if they vote this in, if they, they push for this no property tax. And they just said, well that's fine. We'll vote you out. And there was another one said the other day, well, we can't fund all of our, our people. And they said, well that's kind of the idea. We're gonna get rid of them too. If we didn't have all this big government and all the people that claim they're doing this and doing that for us, not, I mean, it is part of this down, well, we don't really need to pay in so many taxes now, do we? And I think another thing that gripes my ass too. Is, you can go into the Senate or you serve some sort of a government office, you get a, you get a, you get paid for the rest of your life. What, what is that? I mean, what, what do we owe somebody that, do they pay? Do they pay a military guy served in the army or do they pay him the rest of his life

Speaker 3 47:43

And when people are sitting there saying he lies and that's what your reward is.

Speaker 47:50

Oh yeah,

Speaker 3 47:50

see, like you mentioned earlier, she gets to have that for the rest of her life or spewing all that, stirring people up.

Speaker 47:57

They got served for five years to qualify 'em, and then they, they draw that big part of that salary. I definitely, I think that taxes is de,, they just are off the chain with it. Absolutely. And I think a lot of this has stemmed from over the years. The more they frauded. The more fraud that was taking place. And the more they robbed, the more they figured out ways to tax more money. it's a shame that we can take care of foreign countries. We can send millions of dollars to some other country, and we can sit here and we can come up missing billions of dollars in certain cities across America for daycare and let along the fraudulent with the autism care, we can send millions of dollars to an empty building, but we let our American people live on the street, live under bridges and on the river. Ways and

Speaker 3 49:10

veterans look at our veterans.

Speaker 49:11

Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't even that, that was part of that, the veterans, I personally, I don't think that a veteran should ever live on the street or ever be faced with that. He should always have an option. He should always have some sort of a healthcare. But one of the biggest things, I mean, that I see in the veterans is their, where they really drop the ball with the veterans is mental health. Because a lot of them guys come back, dude, they ain't right. We have so many, if anybody

Speaker 3 49:42

deserves lifetime healthcare, it's them.

Speaker 49:45

Exactly. That right there. Most definitely, it, it's just unreal because a lot of them guys come back and they kill their self. They commit suicide. The veteran suicide population is off the chart and it's because as a country, we drop the ball when it comes to their healthcare. Their mental health, they, they can't get any help. I, I know a guy right now that, he's just kinda in and outta reality. And that's, he spent many years in, in the military. He's seen a lot of things he still to this day won't talk about. I know one particular thing he had to watch two of his buddies get beheaded, in real life that shit actually happened. He watched two of them get beheaded and they were guys he served in the military with since bootcamp. That, that dude, that, that would do some, jacked up things to a man's mind, that's for sure. But, it seems like we got our priorities in the wrong place, I understand people need help and we have a system for that. And one thing that really kinda crops my ass a little bit is when you take an elderly person they've paid in their whole life and then they have to pay for, what is this Medicare Part B, and then they're paying 40 and $50 copays and, and they, it is like, really? They got $10,000 deductibles? Well, what the hell have they been paying? I mean, what the hell do we pay in for? What do we pay? I mean, we're talking money. Two years ago, money for that. They said that 3% of the United States right now, 3% actually live long enough to draw their social security. Think about that now. Where in the hell's rest that money going? They use, they use that damn that they use that damn social security fund as a slush fund. It's exactly what they do. And they keep saying, oh, it is running out. It's running out. Oh, you're never going to be able to draw it, and honestly, if you look at what the hell you would draw, how you gonna live on that? How you gonna live on that? I mean, I make pretty daggone good money and I do pay you in taxes and I pay you in all that, my accountant, I mean, don't get me wrong, I do everything I can not to pay taxes, but I do pay in taxes on my wages. 'cause I don't wanna retire one of these days. And even at that, you ain't gonna draw that much two or $3,000 a month. That's a hell of a fall from Grace, ain't it? Considering what I'm used to making and the inflation. Gas, four or $5 a gallon diesel. It's just one of 'em things. I just don't see how they rationalize that, to make that make sense. You pay for 30 years of your life, social security and Medicare, and then they charge you for everything and then you, on top of that, you go into a hospital with Medicare or Medicare Part B or then you get subprime care. Most hospitals, they don't want to, they don't want to do anything outta the way 'cause they don't get paid shit. And heaven forbid if you go into a nursing home, then they're looking to, they're looking to take your house or your cars or anything. They can get to reimburse them. Well, well what about, whatcha you talking about? Reimburse them? My best friend the 35 years I had to, I had to. Take care of him here. Back last year he was dying of cancer and yeah, we were probably going to have to move him to a nursing facility 'cause we just didn't, we wasn't able to, to take care of him to the extent he needed, took care of. And they were literally on the phone trying to find him a bed at a nursing facility. And then on the other line was a lady that was calling, wanting to know did he have any assets? Did he own a home? Are they any savings accounts? Are they any kinda, and, and he just had turned 62 years old, never even got to draw his first check. Of social security. He was looking really forward to draw in his first check of social security and, and going down to part-time at work, not having to work 60, 70 hours a week. And he died before he got to draw his first check. From the time he was diagnosed with cancer terminal cancer, he lasted three weeks. He was ed up, didn't even know it. And that's just a perfect example. Never even got to draw his first check. Now where, where's all that money go? 3% of the American population actually gets to draw their social security or actually qualifies to draw their social security. That's where a lot of people don't understand. If you try to retire at 62 years old and say, like, you, you have a business and you make X amount of dollars, well you don't qualify. You don't get that much. They deduct, you can't make the 20, I think 22,000 a year I think is based on what you draw, but it's like, really? You worked out. You can't draw until you like, they're like 67 years old. You're full amount, most people's dead by then.

Speaker 3 55:10

Years ago you could just jump across the border and you'd have social security, the health card.

Speaker 55:15

We're definitely that. That's an episode I want to get into is how we're basically, we're, we're tricked into this financial wheel. This treadmill, all the billboards that you drive by, they all the newest car, the newest phones. The three, $400,000 houses and this and that, we're all tricked into thinking that that's what we gotta have. The newest, greatest, more expensive, the better. The, all the girls with the, the pocket books, it cost 1200, $2,000, does that make it a better pocketbook? No, I'd say probably it probably less quality than one you got at Goodwill. I mean, it's, it's just trained to stay on this financial treadmill. cause guess what, if we don't, big corporate and big pharma, and if we don't eat all the garbage, they've got out there for us to eat, we're not sick. They wouldn't make any money. That's why when you walk into a gas station everywhere, you look all around the counters, everything ain't nothing but candy, bars, sugar, everything that you should not even be putting in your body, but it's promoted in your face. You know who makes the money off? That right there, the medical and big pharma, they don't want you. Well, they don't want you to. I, it's a double edged sword if you eat right, 'cause then you might live long enough to draw your social security, then they might cost them a little bit of money then. I mean, they wanna make their money off of you like lab rats. And I mean, if you stop for half a minute and think about it, you're just a slave race. No matter what color you are, you're a slave race. And that's, we're on the treadmill, like I said the other day or a while ago. Just because you go to work every day don't mean you're going to prevail and, and be a millionaire. Seems like the guys that's in charge of the taxing and all the rules are only the one that gets the Lear Jets. The big houses in the Lear Jets we're just a slave race. They can't let you get up there. I wouldn't want a damn lee dead if they give it to me anyway. Maybe a cruise ship. I'd take one down. All right. We're going to call this a day for the Trucker's Radio podcast. I'll catch y'all back here next time around. Hang in there. We're still in the processes of moving and redoing a new studio and all that, so we're not really putting out a lot of episodes right now. But soon as we get situated, we're going to really be rolling out a lot of episodes and keeping up on everything. We got some new stuff coming out. We got a new website outs, new and improved, and we're soon to be working on a, store that'll be on the back of the website there with a lot of our merchandise and stuff. We're, we're still working that we got that into the works right now and hopefully getting geared up for the next years truck show. We're gonna be starting us, doing the booth and stuff at the truck shows here, probably next year. So looking forward to all that. I got a lot of good things in the works and we definitely ain't going anywhere, so don't lose faith in us. We here catch you on the flip side.

Dolores 58:42

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