Grover Norquist - Should Kids Get Government Investment Accounts?

The government is launching investment accounts for millions of American children, complete with potential seed money and private matches. 

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, joins the program to break down how these accounts work and whether they’re the right approach for the next generation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to Lawrence, Larson Joe. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm glad to get to your phone calls and emails. I wanted to look I was looking forward to talking to Grover Norquist, who is president of Americans for Tax Reform, about tax accounts, the Trump accounts that are the seed accounts for an awful lot of American uh kids. But Grover, I wanted to start with something else first because I just got word that uh Trump's labor secretary has just tendered her resignation, which I think came uh I think later than I thought it would, because I think she's had considerable problems. Uh, you know, both she and her husband have had considerable problems in her job working for Donald Trump, and it seems her focus uh has not been on the job, and so now it sounds like she's going out the door. Welcome back to the program, Grover. Any way to say why Trump seems to sometimes have a tough time with the picks that he's made to run various agencies?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Well, the problem with the labor department was that there are some people, uh staff around President Trump, who think that the way to communicate with working men and women is not to treat them like adults and talk to them, but to go through labor union bosses and go to the labor union bosses and say, Could you talk to the working people and tell them that we're okay? And then the boss goes and tells the people the union guy goes and says, be sure and vote Democrat, and the Teamsters give almost 100% of their money to the Democrats. Uh and somehow, you know, some Republicans go, oh, we should, you know, uh give power to union bosses over workers. No, that's not what you do. Republicans used to do this with Jesse Jackson. We can't talk to African Americans. We have to talk to the intermediary. Because why? Why not treat people like people and talk to them? And by the way, nine 90% of Americans don't work for a union, okay? In the private sector, it's more than 90%. Don't want a union. Why would you go through union bosses to talk to workers who've decided not to pay union dues and don't want to be told what to do and and what you know how to organize your life? So uh they picked the most union bond-friendly person they could find who had other problems.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Well, and she not only had the other problems, but when she was in the U.S. Congress, she's from my neck of the woods. She's a former member of Congress. She backed legislation that no real conservative would have backed that was very, very union friendly. And I'm not union friendly. I mean, if somebody wants to belong to a union, go right ahead. But I I'm not a big fan of them. And so when she got the job, I thought, why in the world are they picking somebody who's so pro-union to represent a conservative president uh as head of uh labor?

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Well, again, because there are some staffers around the president who don't know what the middle class looks like, don't know anybody who's a working person, and and thinks that they're eight space people from Mars and they have to talk to them through a translator. I mean, of course, now mind you, the union bosses tell you that all day. I will tell you what the Teamsters think. Do you remember Daylist the jerk head of the Teamsters who hates freedom and hates the Republican Party and gives almost all the money they steal from workers to Democrats and Democrat left-wing causes? And yet he was he spoke at the Republican convention and spit on all the Republicans, and people acted as if that was that's our outreach. The Teamsters did an internal poll, and it was reported in the press, that it was 6040 for Trump. What did the Teamster Union bosses did? Oh, they didn't endorse anyone. That's not your friend. That's someone who's mocking you. The president and his the president should be livid at his staff who are too stupid to understand they're being used.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

There are plenty of people out there who would make a great labor secretary. I don't have any personal politic personal political fa favors, but uh favorites, but uh Lori Chavez Dreamer was not one of them. Let me spend at least uh a moment uh talking about the Trump accounts. And I want to know from your point of view as head of Americans for tax reform, is the right way to do this by funding some seed money into these things from the government? And if so, why is this a proper function of government to start these seed accounts for kids?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Um yes and no. Uh what they've done is they've set up these accounts that people can put money into uh and not be taxed on it. The the establishment press is only paying attention because there's a gov it's a government program for four years. For the four years of Trump's second term, so last year, this year, the next two years. If you have a child, um uh during those four years, the federal government will take$1,000 and put it into your child's account. And most people, that's as much as they know about it because that's all the press talks about. Yep. However, your child has to only be under 18, and you can put$5,000 uh into it for every child. Your company can put matching funds uh into your account. Uh a uh an Indian tribe, tribal unit or a state can put unlimited funds in if they wanted to. Uh our friends in the foundation business, uh the gentleman and his wife who uh runs Dell. Uh oh, Michael Dell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

They said we're putting six and a quarter billion into it.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

That's that will start 25 million accounts. Now, again, this is not people who are born this year. There's so much focus on if you had, well, I don't have any children this year, you know. Never mind this shift. In the last 18 years, did you have one? Checking, checking all the rooms of the house. Okay. Uh in the last 18 years, everyone you can put money into. This is gonna revolutionize the world because you're gonna have 10-year-olds and 12-year-olds and 15-year-olds in junior high school and high school comparing not, you know, not scores in some sort of uh computer game, but but how much money they've been saving. And they're gonna learn more about the economy by the time they're 18 and can vote than most Democratic congressmen.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

No, it does sound like a good program from that standpoint, as long as the majority of the money that's given into it is given by private donors, by moms and dads, by aunts and uncles, uh, and and people like Michael Dell, as opposed to the United States government, because that's the part that made me feel a little squeamish, Grover.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yes, and to this is the least uh government, most private sector project line that they've come up with uh in a long time. It really did just get everybody's attention. And now this is something that the private sector can take over. And it will change the world. We at Americans for Tax Reform, we did some polling a number of years ago. Uh if you own$5,000 worth of stock or more,$5,000 or more, makes 20% more Republican, less Democrat. Owning stock makes you smarter about the economy.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Now imagine this, Grover. If you could get these kids to look at this and say, this is how I got to my success, to be able to go to school later on, to start a business later on, to have other endeavors later on, then that that seems like a tremendous uh leg up for those people. That is Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform. We'll be back in a moment. I'll get to your phone calls and emails at 866-A Lars. That's 866-439-5277. Send your emails to talk at LarsLarson.com. And you're listening to the Radio Northwest Network.