The Real Cost Of Gas

Gas is expensive, but the part that really makes people furious is the feeling that the system is built to take more and explain less. We start with Pennsylvania’s sky-high gas tax and quickly get into the bigger question: when politicians collect billions, why do roads, services, and everyday life still feel like you’re falling behind? From state budgets that outspend real revenue to taxes stacked on top of taxes, we talk about what this looks like for the working person trying to live, drive, and raise a family. 

Mike Tremont joins me with an economist’s lens and a liberty-minded edge. We break down why borrowing is not “free money,” how debt becomes a burden on future generations, and how inflation acts like a hidden tax that quietly reduces purchasing power. We also argue through tariffs and trade policy: can tariffs bring manufacturing back, what happens when unemployment is already low, and why tariff revenue can’t realistically replace today’s federal income tax without shrinking government. 

Then we go global and get blunt about foreign aid, overseas spending, NATO, and why funding everybody doesn’t mean anybody respects you. We connect foreign policy back to energy and prices, including why the Keystone Pipeline debate still matters for refining and energy independence. We close with a practical path forward: the Republican Liberty Caucus, what it stands for, and why building local chapters is where real political leverage lives. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s fed up with runaway spending, and leave a review with one policy you’d cut first.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Hey everybody, this is John Marietta, and you're back to my radio show slash podcast. I want to thank everybody for tuning in. I really appreciate it. If you want to become a sponsor, just jump on in and get a hold of me. Uh, there's lots of ways to get a hold of me. Uh, but uh go to uh johnmarietta.com, be the easiest way, or go to Marietta Broadcasting, and uh we're moving forward, forward, forward. I I want to thank uh all the people that are listening, and it's it it really humbles me when I see the the amount of views I'm getting. And I'm trying to we're trying to keep this thing going. And uh uh don't

Welcome, Sponsors, And A Verse

SPEAKER_01 1:30

forget, uh, we're gonna starting next week, we're gonna try to do uh three uh short segments every uh Monday, Wednesday, Sunday. Uh it's gonna be called uh Coffee with the Hillbilly, and we're gonna talk about some of the local issues. We're gonna also talk about some of the uh issues that are going around a nation. I want to start out with this though today. Sleep of a laboring laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. Uh, that's ecclesiastics, and I just wanted to throw that out because I always like to start out everything with a Bible verse. I have Mike uh Mont with me today. Uh, he's been an economist uh in President Bush's uh administration. Um, and uh we're gonna let him uh introduce himself a little bit. Go ahead, Mike. Tell us a little bit about John.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

It's great to be with you again. Uh and I'm sorry that you've gone to a video format. Uh, I am not the charm and good looks guest, so you know I'm I'm one of those guys who is built for radio, but it's great to be with you. Congratulations on such a uh fun video format, and I'm looking forward to talking about whatever you in Pennsylvania's want to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Well, one of the things, go ahead. I I I've been told that you wrote a book, and uh you're gonna it's you're gonna debut it July 9th. I have that right.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So we have a big announcement coming on July 9th. I'm gonna be announcing a very innovative uh campaign, an unprecedented campaign. Uh, this is a national Republican campaign that's never been tried before. I'm not announcing that I'm running for president. You don't have to worry about that. But it's gonna be uh a lot of fun, and I would join everyone

Freedom Fest And The July 9 Plan

SPEAKER_00 3:26

to uh pay a little bit of attention uh to what the next couple of years are gonna be like once we announce this bad boy. We're gonna be announcing it at Freedom Fest July 9 in Vegas. If anyone wants to attend, reach out to me. I can get you a discount on attending. And uh and and I would hope for a conversation there. I'll be on the main stage making the announcement. We're gonna have a breakout session talking about the campaign. I'll be exhibiting there. Freedom Fest is one of those things that's uh a lot of fun. So maybe some of your listeners and viewers will will join us there.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Well, see, uh, listeners and uh people watching in. Uh he he he's doing his best to tempt me. I can tell. Look at that face, he's grinning, he's cheesing like a chessy cat. Uh, but yeah, yeah, he he's doing his best to tempt me. I told him I didn't know if I could fly to Vegas, but then he told me that there was a lot of yellow airplanes that maybe I'd be able to afford to buy one and fly out myself. So we'll see how that works out.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, I don't know if you can fly one of those, but it it you know, things are so automated that these days, John. I think you and I ought to be able to figure it out. You and I have done a lot harder things and figure out how to fly an old airplane.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

But, anyways, we'll get back to that at another time. Um, there's there's lots of things I like to talk about. One of the one of the things that um and I and you're from Virginia and um and all over, uh, but um in Pennsylvania here we have we have a tremendous gas tax, and it and it really it really infuriates me that uh our politicians and our political people have uh just used it. It's uh I mean they've used it, abused it, and it's turned into the turned into a tax. Is there is there a real high gas tax in uh uh Virginia right now?

SPEAKER_00 5:20

John, any tax is a high tax

Pennsylvania Gas Tax And Misused Funds

SPEAKER_00 5:23

to me, okay? I don't know if you've heard this before. In the Libertarian Party, we used to have a saying. We used to say taxation is theft. And the reason we used to say this, do you know the reason why this expression exists? It's because taxation is theft. All right, so when someone tells me, oh, you know, we're doing pretty good, our gas tax is only like two cents, that's a lot of money if it's your two cents, right? If it's my two cents, that's two cents too much. So our gas tax is a lot lower than, for example, California, but uh California, they pay something like 75 cents or something on a gallon of gas, just actually tax.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Actually, our gas tax is we we Pennsylvania's number one in the nation right now.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, that's we're 58.7 cents per gallon.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

That's too much. That's too much by about 58.7 cents.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, so so every time before that first drop hits the bottom of your empty tank, you're gonna pay you're paying the state of Pennsylvania 58.7 percent.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Now we can presume that that money goes to something useful, but I don't know that all of the money goes to something useful. I mean, we all agree that you know we need roads and they need to be maintained, right? And the theory is that this gas tax goes into uh a state fund and that is used to maintain the the roads. The problem is that these numbers are all over the place, they're not even across states, which makes you wonder why are some states like Pennsylvania so expensive? And why do these numbers change all the time? Why is it the politicians can't make up their mind? Why is it that this money is actually siphoned off in so many cases and used for other dopey things?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

One of the one of the things I can tell you that happens here is and it's gonna happen in the state of Pennsylvania, they just passed a bloated budget. Of course, that isn't nothing new.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Uh they yeah, yeah, that doesn't exactly make front page.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, so but uh one of the things that they've done is they've overran the amount of money that they're gonna collect by seven billion dollars. So the taxes that are in place now are can only support a budget of approximately 49 billion dollars, right? And and we're talking about this like we're going to McDonald's and supersizing our French fries, but I mean let's be real.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Right, you're supersizing how much you're gonna spend.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

But there but our budget is uh 56 and a half billion. So we're almost seven billion dollars behind before we get started. We tax in Pennsylvania, we tax, we tax you when you die, we tax you when you when you go to the we the only thing that we don't tax as of yet is clothing and food.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

So here's what here's what the problem is you don't tax it directly, no, but it but for clothing and food to get to the store to get processed to get manufactured takes a lot of energy, and that is taxed out the YU.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, and and you're and you're exactly right. Um so here here's where we're at with this. And I I I just you ran your house and you ran you ran probably ran a couple businesses in your life. If you realized that you were gonna budget for your business and the business was gonna only you you anticipated only to do well, let's put it in round numbers, a hundred thousand dollars worth of revenue that year. You didn't budget it, you didn't uh budget to spend a hundred and fifty uh thousand dollars that year. And this is where we're at, and it doesn't seem like they even blink an eye when they do these things. I I I I maybe I'm wrong about this, but it doesn't seem like they even care about the working person that's that goes to work, uh, works all day, pays their taxes, pays their pays their taxes on on what they've made, and the the county takes their one percent here in in our part of in our counties, and uh state takes their their percentage, and then you got property tax, you got school taxes, and and it I think about this, and I it's not funny, but I laugh about it. But John Adams started a war over a tax on tea. So where are we at?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Where I mean you know, well, you're right. First of all, you're right, they don't give a damn, and they don't give a damn for a couple of different reasons. One is, of course, that they figure they can tell the working man that we're not taxing you as much as we're taxing someone else, and that's supposed to make you, you know, in some sense feel better. The other thing that they do is they borrow the money, tell you you're not gonna have to repay it, in effect. You're not gonna have to repay it. Someone will repay it in the future, and you're not supposed to care about that because you're not supposed to care about your children or

Borrowing, Inflation, And Future Generations

SPEAKER_00 10:42

your grandchildren, which is weird. I think that's always been a real ethical problem for politicians. This idea that borrowing the money is something that you can convince, uh you can try to convince, right, voters that doesn't affect them. It's gonna be repaid in future generations, so don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

And and when they borrow money to make up for the budget, they don't they're they're they're they're saying that's not a tax, but it is a tax because you're eventually going to have to repay it.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Somebody's got to repay the form of interest, you can repay it in the form of refinancing, you can pay it bit by bit, but all of that money eventually gets repaid one way or another. At the federal level, a lot of the debt eventually gets turned into money when the Federal Reserve buys the debt and then just creates more money and taxes us in the form of inflation. States don't have the ability to do that, but they do continue to borrow money over and over again and leaving your children and your grandchildren with a tab. John, the reason politicians don't care is because it's one of those issues on which Republicans and Democrats largely agree, which is spending enormous amounts of money. They may not always agree on exactly how to spend that money, most of the spending they do agree on. But because they agree on spending so much money, there's nothing to differentiate the politicians. And the only thing they want to talk about is what differentiates them, right? The only thing that's useful to a politician is divisiveness. So there's no incentive for them to, you know, say, well, we're different from the Republicans, we're different from the Democrats. As long as everybody just keeps agreeing to spend tons of money, they can just keep rolling along and try to convince voters don't worry about it. Look at all the great stuff we're giving you with this money.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, look at all the great stuff they're giving us.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Uh that you're paying for.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah, but yeah, we're paying for it, but I mean, it's yeah, uh yeah. Uh it's never going to be Christmas. I'm I'm telling you, that's just how I feel about it. So I don't know if that's a good saying.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Uh as we used to say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Now that doesn't mean we don't want a free lunch, but uh the saying is true. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

So if we keep on doing what we're doing, we keep on going the way we are, uh no matter what we are, and we are, I mean, let's let's face it, um I I I really believe that uh that the tariffs, um I'm I'm a fan of the tariffs, but because I feel like that if we impose enough tariffs on people that maybe somebody will get off their backside and build whatever industry that that particular country makes, and maybe we can make widgets here instead of making them over there. Um, that's that's my theory on

Tariffs, Jobs, And Limits Of Revenue

SPEAKER_01 13:56

the on the tariffs.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Well, that is how it's supposed to work. The problem is that we're already at four percent unemployment. You know, we don't have the manpower to build new industries, you know, out of uh whole cloth. It would mean giving up other jobs. So what the object of the game is is to build those jobs, build those industries, those businesses that are the most efficient, that are going to make us the most money and let other people in other countries build those businesses and industries and jobs that that don't pay as much. So that's the that's the one thing that I worry about. The other problem is that tariffs don't raise enough money to offset the income tax. There's just not enough there.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

It it seems like at one time in our country we did that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Um that's because the you're right. That's because the government was so damn small by comparison to what it is now. Yeah, that's the problem, is that the government has gotten so big and so expensive, right? That there's just no way to pay for it outside of a tax on, in effect, everything. You know, you need to tax everybody's income in order to keep this federal government going. And now, of course, the the government wants even more money. We're talking about, by the way, I'm sure you saw we're we're talking about an extra billion dollars for the uh for the ballroom at the White House, which will be done in 2030 or 2032 or something, because apparently we need uh enhanced security for the president and survivability. And we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps as much as a half a trillion for new war efforts. So, you know, this is money that doesn't add anything to our economy, it's just you know stuff that we have to do.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Well, I'm uh I'm I'm of the theory that we've spent too much money in Germany.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Um got that right.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Uh we spent too much money in Japan.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Got that right, and England and France and Africa in the Middle East, in Israel. Do you know we have given billions of dollars collectively? We've given money to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the government of Israel, Egypt, Morocco, and all these people hate our guts.

Foreign Spending And NATO Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 16:38

So it's not like this money is buying us what I think our government thought it was buying us.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah, uh, and and what what what what's crazy about it, we've we funded both sides.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Absolutely. If there were a third side, we would probably fund that too. Well, uh I think we fund everybody, John. We fund everybody.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

And and we're trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. Looks like we're gonna we're approaching 40 trillion. Um getting close.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

We're getting close. Depends on how you define it. If you include everything, I think we're at 39 these days.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

But it it it does. I uh we we gotta we gotta think about we gotta think about taking care of our own.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

And um, I think President Trump is right about reducing our footprint in in Europe. You may have seen that he's talking about pulling out not a large number of troops. I wish it were much larger, but he's talking about pulling out some troops from Germany, possibly pulling out troops from Italy. I wish this were not being done so intemperately. You know, it's being done because people are mad at each other. I don't think that leads to the best outcomes, but this is something that not only the president has believed in for a long time, but I think a lot of us have believed for a long time that we spend way too much money supporting European defense. And the truth of the matter is that at this point, NATO is dead. NATO is absolutely bygone dead, stick a fork in it, it's all but buried. No European nation should expect that the US government is gonna bail them out at this point. Every European government now needs to realize that the United States may or may not bail you out if it were to really hit the fan, but it's gonna be based on our interests, not based on NATO.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I uh I I I think we think I think about the fuel uh all the time, the oil um and how we needed to we needed uh I I feel we needed to develop the Keystone Pipeline. I really that was my thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

I agree, I agree. That was a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Um the shell the shell oil that we would have got from there would have would have been was almost mixing perfectly for with the oil that we had here, and it was perfect to refine, and our refineries were set up for that, and now this is where the problem is uh we don't have the heavy oil to refine the refined to mix with our oil because it's not coming from the Middle East.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Um, yeah, that pipeline looks like a really good idea now, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Well, but between the two of us, I know that we did we we there was probably not one thing that we agreed on with the past administration. Uh, we might have been able to find something. He he did like ice cream. Um, but anyways, uh he liked ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

He did not like the idea of allowing Spirit Airlines to make up decisions for itself like grown-ass adults and merge with Jet

Keystone Pipeline And Energy Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Blue. They said no to that. And now look, you know, where we are. Spirit was correct, they were in a tough spot, and now airplanes are for sale. You and I are gonna buy one, we're gonna fly to Vegas.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Uh uh, yeah. Well, okay. Well, we don't need to start that rumor because uh but but yeah, okay, we we might end up in Vegas before this is over with. I know you want me to come, but uh um we'll see how this unfolds. The other thing that I really want to hit on today, uh, I don't we've we've done 20 minutes here, and uh two of us have uh grown somewhat of a repertoire between us. I believe that the Republican Liberty Caucus is going is gonna be the movement that we have to get behind. And I know that you've been behind us, so I I really want you to explain to people what this is about.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

I appreciate that. I agree with you, by the way. The Republican Liberty Caucus is is an old caucus, started in the 90s, was begun by a bunch of liberty-minded Republicans. It is a small piece of the Republican Party, right? It is not outside of the Republican Party, it's a part of the Republican Party. The idea of the Republican Liberty Caucus is to support liberty-minded candidates, liberty-minded proposals moving through state houses, moving through Congress and the Senate. The Republican Liberty Caucus was a much bigger deal, maybe a decade ago. I think a lot of folks will remember Ron Paul and the Ron Paul era.

Republican Liberty Caucus And Building Chapters

SPEAKER_00 21:45

And I think one of the things that the Republican Liberty Caucus has not done a very good job of is starting chapters in states. In other words, it's been fairly strong. Healthy at the national level, which is great, which is great, right? But it is a grassroots movement and has to do much better at building chapters in as many states as possible so that people can affect politics where it matters, which is more locally. State houses, what's going on in your county, what's going on in your town. So we've got about uh 15 states in which chapters are getting off the ground, just starting. We started one in Virginia. We're starting in 14 other places. We would like to start one in Pennsylvania. If there is someone out there listening and watching who would like to help me get a chapter off the ground in Pennsylvania, you reach out to me. You call me at uh at the phone number that John's going to post. You can email me at mike at miketermont.com, which is tricky, you'd have to spell it right. And I can tell you not only can we work together to get a chapter of the Republican Liberty Caucus off the ground, but I can throw in a yellow airplane that you can use to fly to Vegas to see our big announcement on July 9th. That's as good, and I can get you a discount at Freedom Fest. That's as good a deal as you're gonna get. And by the way, John, just to just to put a pin in it, what the caucus is all about is what we used to call the basics. You know, as a long-term Republican myself, I started working for Republican politicians in 1992. The the caucus is all about fiscal conservatism, constitutionalism, supporting free markets. It's about a less militaristically interventionist foreign policy, it's about protecting your medical freedom. It's the basics. And so if you're a long-term Republican, this ought to be your jam. If you're liberty-minded, this ought to be your jam. If you're a constitutionalist, welcome home to the Republican Liberty Caucus.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Oh, um, Mike, um, is there anything else you'd like to say today, or anything else we like we need to hit on just a little bit before we call it a day?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Those are the basics. Uh, check it out at miktremont.com. By the way, we have a book out. It's called Broken, all about American Politics. It's called American Politics, How It's Driving Civil Unrest, Financial Collapse, and War. You can check it out on my website, miktremont.com. That's a collection of essays written by much smarter and better looking and charming people than me. I am only the editor, but it's a fantastic collection of the smartest thinking about modern politics and where we're going.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah, and I I I think I think politics is changing. Um, I'm not gonna tell you it's changing for the better, but I I think there is a change on the horizon. I can see, like you say, the grassroots people, the uh patriot troops are growing, growing, growing. A lot of people are gonna they they don't see that. And but I I can tell you, I do. I see it in the state of Pennsylvania. I see how people were being affected, and I think we need to get behind some of these things and do do what we have to do to uh promote them and stay and stand our ground. I mean, it's just like I said, uh John, or not John Adams, but Samuel Adams

The Book “Broken” And Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 26:02

started a war over a three percent T tax, or not three percent, but over a T tax. And we need we need to really think about what we're doing right now because we're being taxed at a rate of that's about hmm, I want to say 44% of our money.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

All all in uh for a lot of folks it is around that, and we should not be we should not be we should not be tolerating that.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, and and absolutely uh and tolerance is can be an evil thing if but uh anyways, we'll get back, we'll get you back on here and uh we'll forward fast, I'm sure. And uh I'm I'm glad you was able to stop in and talk to us today, and we're gonna keep moving forward. So thank you so much for coming in. God bless you, and stay the course, my friend, and keep your powder dry.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

God bless you, John. It's great to be with you.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Okay, take care.