Stephen Moore's Unwavering Faith In Free Market Principles 56:43

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Well, welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for allowing us and sharing part of your time to join us. I really do appreciate it. I think you're really going to enjoy this. We're going to talk about the news, and then, of course, we're going to highlight the stupid, because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

No shortage of material there. And then we're going to sit down with Steve Moore. Steve's actually going to join me. We get to sit side by side. You've seen him on Fox News. You've seen him all over the place because Steve is one of the smartest, brightest minds on the economy, on the budget, on our debt deficit. Just a fascinating guy, always full of energy. I mean, never, Steve Moore never lacks for energy. That's for sure.

But he's one of the most important thinkers about how do we spend this federal money out there and has been ringing the alarm bells for a long, long time about the massive federal spending that has been going on at the federal government. It's just so out of control. So we're going to learn a lot more about Steve and

his growing up and how he, how Steve Moore became Steve Moore really is what we're going to be talking about. And maybe we'll highlight some of the problems that this country is facing, but I think you're really going to enjoy that. But let's talk about a few things in the news. And these happened a little while ago, but again, I'd like to reflect on them and then come back and then talk about them a little bit and

You know, at Stanford, you had this federal judge, Kyle Duncan, invited to address students at Stanford. I don't know if you've seen the video. Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. But one of the most rude audiences that you can possibly imagine is

Even the diversity person from Stanford was there in the front row. You can see her kind of chuckling at some of the remarks that were being made. And then she did this approximately six-minute introduction talking about how wrong and how

how wrong he was on so many things. And that's just, I'm being soft and nice by saying that. And he was just shouted down to the point that he left and wasn't able to give his full remarks. Now, there is a room for dissent in this country. But I find it ironic that the people who continually preach diversity, that preach inclusion,

are usually the first ones in line to suppress free speech and to suppress people's ability to express a viewpoint. And here you have a distinguished federal judge talking to a law school that's supposedly one of the most prestigious in the country, but it really does make you wonder, are they really that prestigious anymore?

The Wall Street Journal wrote an op-ed about this, what they call the heckler's veto, and that part of free speech is listening to that speech that probably makes you the most uncomfortable. Now, I don't think people should have to sit through lewd speech. I don't think there are certain things that they should have to listen to, but they can always turn the channel. They could always not show up. They could always walk away.

But to heckle somebody who is there as a federal judge talking about the law and our future and his view on Americanism, why is it that conservative viewpoints, people that believe in religion, people that believe in fiscal discipline, people who believe in some of the social issues that maybe the other side doesn't, they shouldn't just be canceled and shut down.

Now, Stanford has tried to claw this back over the last few weeks, and hopefully they learned a lesson. But I worry that we have a whole other generation of entitled people, young people, who haven't learned the value of work. They haven't learned the value of respect. They haven't learned the value of...

how to treat other people. They've been buried in social media, and I don't want to give a sweeping generalization that disparages an entire generation, but what I'm saying is there are too many people

who have this sense of entitlement and immediacy that, you know, delayed gratification, hard work, these are not principles that they're necessarily taught, that wokeism has taken over. And it's just a deep concern, and I'm glad to see this Stanford issue continue to play out because I think it is something that we all must address.

Other thing that's in the news that caught my attention here, because I think this is a bigger, broader problem. I tell you, I've spent a lot of time with law enforcement. The men and women who put their lives on the line to come to the aid of people who need it and need it right away is just unbelievable. The dispatchers who take those calls and deal with a frantic situation, life or death situation,

and do so in a calm, collective manner to pass that information to officers or fire departments or ambulances that are in response to make sure that the hospital is prepared. Those people are just amazing because they may be sitting around twiddling their thumbs and then all of a sudden something horrific happens and they have to deal with it in a calm, cool, collective manner. And sometimes...

Try to teach somebody how to do CPR or get somebody breathing again over the phone. Talk about pressure. I love these people. But there is a Texas couple that expressed outrage. They saw this over on FoxNews.com that evidently that more than once the Austin Police Department there in Texas said,

took more than two hours, two hours to respond to 911 calls about a vehicle that was hit head-on by an alleged drunk driver. Now, the allegation is that in those subsequent two hours, the people that were supposedly intoxicated, that they were able to dry out a little bit and that that was a concern.

That the response rate, now this is, again, one of the consequences when you degrade and you have so many police officers leave because this community, the political leaders don't support the police department.

And it's just something that I think is going to continue to play out and it has to be addressed because people who are committing these crimes should be held accountable. But if you have a two hour response time to get somebody involved in a collision, a head on collision with supposedly somebody who might have been intoxicated,

But maybe they weren't. Maybe they weren't. You never will know because it took so long for the law enforcement to get there and to address the situation. The last thing I wanted to mention in the news, it's kind of a fun thing. There's this weight meter, I call it. And the weight meter is who's going to run for president and who's not going to run for president. And usually...

You can tell if somebody's going to run for president or not by who's losing weight and who's gaining weight. And so Pierce Morgan from Fox News was able to sit down with Governor Ron DeSantis and ask him about his weight loss.

I'm not saying I have any special inside information. I'm just saying if those that are losing weight are likely candidates for the presidency, Ron DeSantis is on that list because he's lost weight. He said he's lost the weight by cutting out sugar and doing some better exercise. Now, the guy was a college athlete. I don't know if you knew that, but Governor DeSantis, back when he was just Ron DeSantis, played baseball at Yale and was a pretty good catcher back in the day.

But he said he's doing a better job of cutting out sugar, that his wife's helping him with that. But look who's lost weight. Mike Pompeo lost weight. Ron DeSantis lost weight.

Trey Gowdy's gained weight, so there's no reason to think that he is actually going to be running for president given how porky he's become lately. So you can tell who's running just by where they are on the weight scale. That's my take on it. All right, let's bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. ♪

I saw this on Twitter. CWB Chicago, their Twitter feed, and I love the way they frame this. Smart, giving a car dealership a fake driver's license before you carjack their salesman on a test drive. Not smart, putting your real driver's license picture on the fake ID. So evidently what happened is they...

They've created this fake idea with this driver's license and picture, but he used the same picture. Maybe that wasn't so smart. Anyway, they tried to supposedly, the allegation is steal this Land Rover, but they were able to capture him pretty quickly. Not the smartest criminal we've ever heard of. All right. And then the other one are Biden gaffes. They're probably better if we just play the audio, but when you read the text of them,

They almost illuminate the problem, the challenge. I mean, it's beyond comical at this point. They're just downright stupid. But I'm worried that it's a symptom of the cognitive decline of our current president. One of the quotes that he said was that he likes babies better than people. Likes babies better than people. Oh, my gosh. Mr. President, come on.

And on gun control, he said he wants to keep guns away from, quote, domestic political advisors. I don't know what the president's talking about, but that was the quote, domestic political advisors. Ah, Mr. President, you are bringing on the stupid yet again. Let's bring in our first guest. I'm thrilled to sit down with him. So let's talk to Steve Moore.

Like I said, we're thrilled to have Steve Moore joining us in person. Usually we do these on the phone. It's a phone of friend. But not sure that you would pick up the phone if I called. So I'm glad to do this in person. Thanks for joining us. Jason, great to see you. And we've known each other a long time. Yeah, we have. And good to be here in the Fox studios. Well, look, I've watched in awe because your mastery of numbers and the economy and the

federal government and everything is just, you know, it really is impressive. But I want to kind of, before we get into the problems of today, I want to get back to how Steve became Steve. And so let's go back to, start with like, I was born in, and like, I really want to go way, way back, you know, brothers, sisters, life, what was it like growing up? Yeah. So, uh,

I grew up outside of the Chicago area in the Chicago suburbs. I was born in 1960 and have four brothers and sisters. We're an Irish Catholic family. And by the way, when I was growing up, there were families in my neighborhood. You think five today is like five kids. That's a big family. No, no. There were kids. This family has eight kids and the Dwyers have nine kids and –

Those were the days of big families. But I grew up in that Chicago area. When I was in high school, I practically grew up in Wrigley Field because we used to play hooky. Did you ever see the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Ferris Bueller goes up to watch the Cubs in Wrigley Field and the truancy officer is chasing him around. That was us in high school. But I still have a great love for Chicago. It really –

pains me, Jason, to see how liberalism has just destroyed that great city. It used to be the city that works, and now it's the city that doesn't work. So I still have great affection for the city, and I really hope that it doesn't die. So how far outside of the city were you? I grew up in the North Shore area of Chicago, so we used to jump on the L. Remember, the back

then, you know, I'm a little older than you think because I'm 63. Back then, the Wrigley Field did not have lights. So all the games were played in the afternoon. So we would jump on the L and we'd, you

You know, go and watch those games. And, you know, grew up a Bears fan and Blackhawks fan and still am to this day, even though I haven't lived in Chicago for 30 years. Did you play sports growing up at all? Yeah, I love sports. I mean, I'm not great. I was a tennis player. I loved basketball, but I'm 5'9 1⁄2". It's hard to be a great basketball player. But my family, we grew up, you know, sports all the time. What did your parents do? All the time.

Pardon? What did your parents do? So my dad was a businessman. He was an international businessman, and he was quite successful in building his small business. And we used to...

Laff, where's dad? You know, he was gone half the time, you know, traveling on that business and built it up. And I always get so angry, by the way, when people, I think of somebody like my dad who really did spend his whole life building that business from scratch and it became successful, a multimillion dollar business. And then when he dies, wait a minute, the government's going to take half of it away from him?

I've always hated the state tax. And by the way, I never wanted my dad's money. I was blessed with great parents, but I didn't want my dad's money. But I don't want the government to take it. I don't want the government to take away someone's whole lifetime. You spend a whole lifetime paying taxes, then you die and you have to pay another tax. So that was my dad. And my mom, by the way, was a championship golfer. Really? She was a fantastic golfer. She won 11 club championships and

Uh, so my one regret, Jason, is that, you know, we live next to a golf course, so I could have played golf.

anytime I wanted to. And now as you get older, you play golf and I wish I played more golf and less basketball because my golf game stinks. Yeah. I mean, golf and tennis are really kind of the two sports you can play the rest of your life. I like pickleball. I'm in the pickleball. That's even more popular now than tennis. Oh, I love it. It's so fun. So now you're going to school.

When did you find out that you had sort of this penchant for numbers? Like you understood numbers better than maybe your classmates did. Well, I was your basic C student. Actually, you know, this is one of my pet peeves. And, you know, I was hyperactive. I don't know about you, Jason. When I was in – I had a hard time sitting through –

class. You know, I was like bouncing off the walls. They would have given me Ritalin back then. But so I didn't, I never really started taking school seriously until I got to be about 16 or 17 years old. You know, was it just too easy for you? It wasn't easy for me. I just didn't have any interest in it. You know, I wanted to be, you know, hitting the baseball and, you know, that kind of thing. But I've always been anti-authoritarian to

In other words, I don't want people telling me what to do. I believe in live and let live. And that's been my overall philosophy. I'm very libertarian. If what I do is not hurting you or not hurting your property, then you don't have any business telling me what I should do. That's a very basic American principle. Yeah. If you're not impeding on somebody else's American dream, then yeah. Exactly. And so I always hated...

rules and regulations. It was embedded in my DNA. And then out of high school, when I got to college, University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. I don't know if you've ever been there, Jason, but it's a brick in a cornfield. And then I started taking school and academics seriously. And I really dug in. So when you get there, did you know that you were going to kind of go down the road?

So I'll tell you this. It's a really kind of – it is so interesting as I look back on my life. And I've really been blessed. Great parents, great neighborhood, great family. And it seemed like every time I reached a fork at the road, something good – it was almost like – and I'm not saying that to brag. I'm just saying I feel blessed. Right, right. That –

These opportunities came. So when I was a junior in college, you know, like most 20 year olds, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. And I met a professor who changed my life. And that professor was a man by the name of Julian Simon. And I don't know if you know who Julian Simon was, Jason, but Julian was. Well, how old are you?

My birthday, just had the birthday, 56. Okay, so you're a little bit younger than I am. I grew up in the era of like the mid-70s and early 70s when...

It was all doom and gloom. The world was coming to an end. The world's going to be overpopulated. Paul Ehrlich was the most famous academic of that age. And he wrote a famous book called The Population Bomb that the world was soon, we're all going to live this Malthusian subsistence level existence. And we're running out of oil, running out of food, we're running out of everything.

And we got to stop procreating, you know, and that's what everybody believed. And Julian Simon came along and I met him just by chance. And he wrote a very famous book called The Ultimate Resource. Do you know what the ultimate resource is? No. The human mind. Yeah. Because all that we have, all innovation, all business, all the resources that we have really derived from human ingenuity. And

And Julian basically proved that, no, we're not running out of oil, gas, coal because human ingenuity and new ways of finding things and doing things always improve faster than – especially in a free enterprise system. And he blew the – and he made a very famous bet with Paul Ehrlich.

who was the number one scientist of the day, saying, I'll bet you in 10 years the price of all these natural resources is going to fall, not rise. And it became very famous. It was Julian Simon versus Paul Ehrlich. And he even said to Paul Ehrlich, you can choose whatever five resources you want.

And I'll bet you in 10 years' time, they'll be cheaper. By the way, if something is cheaper, that means it's more abundant. If you're running out of something and price rises, if it becomes more abundant, then it's price falls. So they made this famous bet. It was covered on the New York Times front page story. And sure enough, 10 years later –

Not only did the composite index of those five resources fall in price, but every one of them fell. And that made Julian really famous because he had beaten this famous professor who had been a bestselling author. And Julian was really – what happened was Julian –

Ronald Reagan loved Julian's ideas because we believe in the people are assets, not liabilities. We are net creators of resources as human beings. We always leave every generation or at least hopefully better off. And so Julian got a job at the Heritage Foundation to expose these myths about –

you know, human beings causing all this pollution and stuff. And that's how I got to heritage. And that's how I got my start in, in politics. And I've, I've been really lucky in my life because I think of my mentors and I'm in like so blessed. I mean, Julian Simon, who was, you know, they should have a statue of Julian. And then I knew I, I,

Milton Friedman kind of took me under his wing. Milton was a big libertarian too, obviously. And I had been doing some work at Cato Institute. So Milton Friedman and I became really good friends. Now, at that time, he was in his late 80s. So he was getting up there in age. But, you know, I still think about it. But what a great mentor. I mean, yeah.

It doesn't get much better than that, does it? Yeah. And then I think- I like watching his old videos. Those are great. Some of these videos from like the 60s where he starts talking about inflation and what causes inflation and don't let anybody fool you that only government creates inflation. Yeah.

He did. And he was the one who said, you know, inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods. And he was right about that. And I remember one of my – this is kind of a cool thing, Jason, too, that I used to call Milton because at the end of his life, he was at the Hoover Institute at Stanford. So he lived in San Francisco. And, of course, his famous book, as you know, I'm sure you read it, was called Free to Choose. And that became a mega bestseller and it was – everybody should read Free to Choose. When I'd call him up and I'd say, hey, you know –

Milton, I'm going to be in San Francisco with you and Rose Friedman, his wife, who's the co-author of a lot of his great books. Would you guys like to have dinner? And most of the time he'd say, sure. And so it was so cool. Like four or five of us would get together. We'd just sit there and talk to Milton Friedman for two hours. Here's my thing, Jason. I'm so –

I wish I had taken like a tape recorder and recorded those discussions because he was just so, he's a fountain of wisdom. And by the way, Rose Friedman was to the right of Milton. Oh, really? That's how hardcore she was. So that was cool. And then my, you know, another mentor that I had, and again, I'm just so lucky in my life, was Bill Buckley, William Buckley. And Buckley was just,

Oh, my God. I mean, how did you meet him? Through National Review. National Review. You know, and he likes the stuff I was writing on economics. And I started – well, you and I did that cruise, remember? Yes. Was it Media Research Center that sponsored that through Alaska, which was fun. But I used to do all the time these National Review cruises. And Buckley used to come on those cruises. And, you know, you could just go up and talk to him. And, I mean, Buckley was one of the –

most brilliant people I ever met. And he used to write me little notes. And that was back when people would actually write notes, not just email. And it just made me be like four or five sentences, but it was like poetry. Everything that guy wrote, he was the most command of the English language. Well, his distinctive voice and the cadence. I mean, if you've heard it, you can hear it in your head now. Exactly. It's just...

So that was cool. So I've had good mentors and people who've really taught me a lot. Good. I can't think of a better set of mentors along the way.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Steve Moore right after this. Pull up a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy. And me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy, as we share our perspective on the discussions happening at kitchen tables across America. Download From the Kitchen Table, The Duffys, at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you download podcasts.

Like, what made you so conservative? Because a lot of kids grow up, right? And they have some liberal tendencies. And it's usually later in life when they kind of, you know, get married and get a paycheck that they start getting. But you were a little bit more in your core. So, as I mentioned, I grew up, my formative years were in the 1970s.

You're a little bit, your parents, yours probably more like the 80s. But the 70s was a disaster for the country.

I mean, it was like a mini depression. I remember, you know, you think inflation is bad now? I mean, we had 11, 12% inflation back then. You couldn't get a job anywhere. There were no jobs. You know, it was just an awful economy. I mean, we had Nixon, Ford and Carter that the, that whole period was just so God awful. And I remember thinking like, what's wrong with our country? It just felt like things were getting worse every day. And, uh,

I realized that it was the failure of the welfare state, just this massive growth of government that started under LBJ and then Nixon and Ford and Carter and worse and worse and worse. I mean, by the way, that period from 1970 to 1980, the stock market lost everything.

Half its value adjusted for inflation. I mean, one of the most ferocious bear markets. So you could just almost feel every day the malaise. Remember Jimmy Carter gave a very famous speech about the malaise. And that's how everybody felt. And I just felt like the wheels were coming off and there was something wrong with America. So in other words, what I'm saying is I saw firsthand because I lived through it, the failure of big government.

And then, of course, the first politician I got interested in was Ronald Reagan. And like so many people, I'll never forget being in my college dorm room in like October of 1980. And there was this very, very famous debate between Carter and Reagan. And at the time, I had not been –

You know, I didn't I didn't really pay that much attention to politicians. But I watched this debate and everything that was said at that era about Reagan. He's a warmonger. You know, we're going to have a nuclear war if Reagan is president. He only cares about rich people, all of these things. So that's what I thought about Reagan, because that's all I had heard about him. Well, I watched that debate and I had an epiphany.

And it was a famous debate. And I remember thinking, I agree with everything he just said. Everything he said, I agree on. Maybe I'm a Republican. And so that really changed my – Did you ever meet Reagan? Oh, yeah. I met him twice. And he –

was larger than life, had a great, great, great sense of humor. And I just really adored the guy. And, you know, he just restored the faith in America, right? I mean, among all his other virtues. I mean, the change from when Reagan came into office when we were in a depression and

And how great things were over that. By the first year and a half under Reagan was a tough period. It took a long time for his policies to really kick in. But boy, when they kicked in, we just had the biggest boom ever. So my early recollections, and I'm not paying a lot of attention to politics, but my dad had this little...

rule of our J. Fitz household. That is when my younger brother, Alex, and I got- How many brothers and sisters do you have? So I have a younger brother, Alex. I have an older half brother, but my younger brother and Alex, you know, I really grew up together. And dad, every day when I'd get there for breakfast, he would make breakfast for us. He would, the only thing we were allowed to do is look at the newspaper. Yeah.

And so first it started with the funnies and then, you know, it started getting into the sports page, learned to read a box score. But then I'd read the whole, you know, really look through the paper and they,

So I had a sense of the news and we would watch 60 Minutes on Sundays. We did all that. But actually back then, 60 Minutes wasn't so bad. But now it's terrible. The whole Patty Hearst thing I remember watching. It's like, oh my goodness, that scares me. And Charles Manson stuff was going on. But I remember how bad it was.

We were a well-to-do family, but it was bad. My dad, I think, had a 10 or 11 percent mortgage on the house, he later told me. But Reagan instilled this confidence, this peace through strength, this kind of commanding confidence that...

Jimmy Carter, bless his heart, just did not have. But it was later in life, you know, when I learned to read and write, that I recognized that, gosh, I'm actually a conservative. And Ronald Reagan, I had a chance to meet him and spent two days as he kind of spent some time in Utah. Now, was that after? Yeah, it was after. It was in 1991. But, boy, I was just like, I just...

really agree with him and his whole approach to life and philosophy and everything else. It really was impactful for me. Let me just say something about this because you're hitting an important point. Reagan was about love of country among other things. And one of the things I find really, really disturbing about this latest generation, and it's not their fault, it's our fault, but

We need in this country a new patriotism. I really believe. I totally agree. This is – I think that should be really part of the republican message that this is the greatest country on earth. As Reagan – I love reading Reagan's speeches because they're just all these kernels of wisdom in them. And he had great speechwriters but he also wrote a lot of – on his note cards, he'd write a lot of them himself.

tear down this wall, came from Reagan. His advisors didn't want him to say it, and he did. But anyway, I think it was in his – I think it might have been his inauguration speech, but he said –

that it is divine providence that has put America here as a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world. And that, I believe that. I believe that it is divine providence that we're here, that God had a special message and mission for this country. And it sickens me to see, do we have stains in our past? Of course we do. We're human beings. We're not, you know,

You know, Jim Crow laws and slavery and, you know, the treatment of the Indians. Of course, yeah, those were horrible things. But the kids today are just learning about the horrors of America and not the greatness of America. And it's just – they're not – you know, if you look at the polls, if the polls are accurate –

There is not – they don't think that America is a special place, young people. And the reason they don't is because that's what their schools have taught them. Yeah. And it's sickening. What country has their kids in school and the teachers telling them how bad their country is? No one else does that.

So along the way, you're taught and mentored by some of the best out there. You become a really important voice in expressing the challenges and putting into context. I love it when you're out there with some liberal Democrat and get to debate them a little bit because you have this mastery of the numbers that they can't just fake their way through. You can call their bluff on it.

- You know, I have fun, let me just interrupt you for one second. You know, I had fun, well, it was kind of fun. After Trump got elected,

I decided not to go into the White House with him because Larry Kudlow and I had worked as kind of advisors. And I thought I could probably have more influence with him if I don't work for him rather than if I do. So I'd go over and see him maybe once a month or every two months in the Oval Office. But I could tell him what – because I didn't work for him. I could tell him what I wanted, whatever I wanted to. But what I was going to say about this is that Trump also had that.

love for America. And there's, look, in terms of their personalities, they were very different in their style. But I've always said that Trump and Reagan had a lot of similarities. And one of them was love of country. The second was they were always, both Reagan and Trump, it's so ironic, both of them were always underestimated by their political opponents. So when Reagan was running for president, the left was

rolling over laughing. Bedtime for Bonzo. Exactly. Oh, this is a great B actor. He's going to be president. Oh, that's never going to happen. Same thing they said about Trump. Uh,

And the third thing is... But at least, you know, Reagan had been governor of California, right? You would think that would count for something, right? It's hard to believe, isn't it, that California had a governor like Ronald Reagan? I mean, think about California today. I watched one of these old, old television shows, and they're joking about how conservative California is. And you look back on that, and you just think... What happened? Yeah, what happened? It went off the rails. But anyway, yeah, but they do have some similarities. They do. But...

You know, your voice in that. What do you think, Steve? What do you think? Oh, I'm sorry. What I was going to say. I've kind of lost my train of thought. So after Trump won, CNN came a calling and they offered me this big contract to go over to CNN because they it turned out they didn't have any. You know, they thought Hillary was going to win. So all of a sudden they needed to. So, you know, it pained me because I love Fox and I had a Fox contract. OK, I'm going to give this a try. So for two years I was over at CNN.

And first of all, people forget that – do you know what they talked about every single night for the first two years of Trump's presidency? The Russia collusion hoax. Oh, yeah. Every single night. I mean not – sometimes. That was the whole story for two years, which tells you a lot about the media. They spent two years on a completely falsified story. It just annoys me. Look, Trump is not perfect by any means. I cringe sometimes with his – what he says and some of his antics. Right.

But has there ever been a president in modern time has been more mistreated by the media than Donald Trump? Oh, they have given him a political enema like nobody else. And then they were so wrong. I mean, they've been trying to get this guy since the moment he descended on that golden escalator. Right.

And on false information. I mean, just bogus information. All the people who said, I've seen it firsthand. I mean, I wish they'd be called out, called to the carpet. I haven't seen a whole lot of apologies, though, over at CNN. Yeah. Why don't instead of, you know, filing for his arrest, why don't they just apologize? But in any case, when I would do these CNN interviews, it would I'm not exaggerating. It would be me and four liberals. So it would be one against four. And the good thing is they don't.

They don't know anything. So it was like it was not a fair fight because, you know, I knew what I was talking about. And all they were doing was reading off of their, you know, you know how the left is. They just read off of their scripts that, you know, these groups. So I'll never forget one of my favorite moments was when Trump, one of Trump's greatest decisions was pulling the United States out of that anti-America Paris climate accord.

Right. Which was just an awful deal. And so we were on for about two hours and they were talking about how horrible – but they didn't have any idea what they were talking about. And I said, look, we get 75 percent of our energy from fossil fuels. We can be the world economic leader in energy production. And think of what that means for our country. And they were just – they were like talking about windmills and solar panels. And so it was just fun to see how –

Look, people say, oh, you know, these ideas are common sense, Jason. You don't have to have a Ph.D. in economics to understand how an economy works and how people function. You know, I forgot to mention my fourth mentor, maybe one of the most important, certainly one of the most important in my life now in terms of my career is Arthur Laffer.

And people used to laugh at Laffer. You know, oh my God, he doesn't know what he's talking about. The Reagan tax cuts will never work. Well, you know, he is another one who, I have great admiration for people who take on the conventional wisdom, like Julian Simon did and Laffer did, and they really changed the world. And so all I'm saying is, I don't feel like

The things I say are profound. They're just common sense. Where did it come from, Steve, that your ability to articulate it? Now, a lot of people are smart on numbers. They're brilliant on economics. But to try to get him to explain it in 30 seconds, that's a really hard skill set. I think the person who really had – that's where Laffer really – Laffer is a great – probably I'd say one of the two or three most –

famous economists in the world, wouldn't you? I mean, Arthur Laffer. - Yeah, I mean, clearly, what he did with Reagan, yeah. - And Reagan and Trump, and he's had a huge impact around the world. But Laffer is also a great communicator. And I realize from just being around Arthur,

If you really want to succeed in changing people's hearts and minds about these economic issues, you better learn how to communicate the ideas. You know, most – what's the old saying? You know, that economists are people who are good with numbers but don't have quite the personality of an accountant. So most economists are boring. I mean –

Amen to that. When most people – when I tell people I'm an economist, the first thing people say is, oh, I took an economics course in high school and I hated it because they make it so boring. And it's really – when you get into it, it's actually a very lively subject if you teach it the right way. If you teach it the right way and internalize it and –

My brother, Alex, he got his degree in economics and it served him so well. Everybody's not going to be an economist, but...

any basic principle in business and everything else, you can apply that skill set. What do you think you would have done if you hadn't got into it? So that's a really good story, too. So when I graduated, as I said, I was like literally a B and C student in grade school and high school. And so my mom used to always...

Kid me that I was in the pokey group. That's – it would be so politically incorrect now to have something called the pokey group. I was in the pokey group. Probably, yes. And so my mom would always say – she'd say, Stephen, you've done pretty well for a kid who was in the pokey group. Anyway –

So I remember – so I did – but in college, I became like an A student. I mean I became totally obsessed. It was like night and day. In fact, I was kind of – Well, you found your passion. Yeah. I became passionate about it. And so I got really good grades and I was studying business. I wanted to make a lot of money and I got – this was 1982. The very depths of the worst economy ever were even with a college graduate. You couldn't even find a job as a burger flipper. It was terrible back then.

back then. And I got the, but the most pri, one of the most prized jobs you could get was General Electric had a management training program that people went through that, you know, they were, you know, they became millionaires and, you know, I got a job offer from them and they offered me, I'll never forget this. They offered me a salary of $34,000. Now back in 1982, a $34,000 job was big money. - And coming out of school? Yeah, no kidding.

But then I remember talking to Julian Simon before I was leaving and I said, he said to me, what do you think you're going to do? I said, I got this incredible job offer with General Electric. He said, well, Steve, that's great. If you want to do that. But he said, I just got a job as a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. If you want to come to Washington with me, I'll pay you $1,000 a month. Now think about it, $34,000 or $12,000. Yeah, no kidding. So-

I thought, I'm really more interested in, and I made that decision. Sometimes you come in those words, and I've never really regretted it, and I think it was the right thing to do. But sometimes I do think, gosh, I'd be so rich today if I had done that program at GE. But no, I don't have any regrets about that. By the way, there's a lesson there for people. I always say, when I elect young people, do what you love.

Yeah. You know, do what you love because if you do it, what you love, you're going to be good at it. Yeah. No, that doesn't mean you can. I mean, I wanted to be a pro football quarterback. That wasn't going to happen. But I mean, too many people just go, well, this job pays more than that. No, get on the path that you want where you have the passion and you will, you know, probably. Especially when you're young and you have some flexibility, you can live on, you know.

Top ramen meals and, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And in my life, it's been these little instances like that that have changed the trajectory of my life along the way. And it's important to try something else. And yeah. And the other lesson is whatever you do, excel at it.

Yeah. If you're going to go do it, you might as well be the best there is. If you're going to do it, do it and be the best. I mean, and so... And usually, it's been my experience that you have to do the work before they actually give you the job that you want. Like people always say, hey, well, you know, if they would promote me and pay me this, then I would do that kind of level of work. And it's like, no, it doesn't work that way. Show me, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then it has to become to the point of, well, it's inevitable they're going to do it because they're so good at it. Yeah.

- But don't be average. No matter what you're in. - Certainly don't want to strive to be average, that's for sure. - This is what was funny when I was working with, when I was chairman of the oversight committee in the House of Representatives, we had jurisdiction over the federal workforce. And there was this analysis we did. We wanted to find out how many federal workers got a bonus

And the justification was that the number was 70%. So 70% of the federal workers got a bonus. And I said, well, how do you justify that? Like, what's the return on investment? Why do you do it? And he said, well, we only give it to people who have an above-average income.

accomplishments. And I said, so 70% of the people are above average. That's what you're telling me. They didn't get it. They were like, really? So Jason, I was just so funny you should mention that because

One of my big projects right now is we're just trying to get school choice done in every state, including Utah, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. It's moving in that direction. But not as fast as we'd like. But so, as I mentioned, I'm from Chicago and it's it's painstaking to see what's happening in that country. But there was a.

that was recently done of all the, so only about one out of three kids in the public schools in Illinois is reading or writing or doing arithmetic at grade level proficiency, which is a total disgrace. It's child abuse, what's happening in these public schools. And so that's one statistic, keep in your mind. One out of three is performing a grade level proficiency, but 96% of the teachers are rated as good or great. Yeah.

How does that add up, right? They're doing such a great job. All right. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Steve Moore right after this.

We're talking with Steve Moore. But Steve, before we let you go, we got to give you some rapid questions. Okay. Just to kind of get to know you a little bit better. Strapping in my seat. Yes, he's strapped in, ladies and gentlemen. Things just kind of illuminate who you are a little bit. They're hard questions, though. I don't care how many briefings you've given a president. This is first concert you attended. Gosh. I think that would be... Oh, I saw...

Carole King. Carole King. That would be good. And I love Carole King. She has so many hits. She wrote the songbook of the 1970s. I mean, she's written so many. Oh, yeah. And it was just awesome. She's kind of a liberal activist on Capitol Hill. Don't tell me that because I love her music. But her music is- Is spectacular. So that was so fun. Totally. What was your high school mascot? The Indians. Very politically incorrect. The Newtru Indians. Are they still the Indians, do you think? Of course, they're not the Indians anymore. They're now the Trevians.

They're the what? Trevians. And I don't even know what a Trevian is. I was like, Trumpians? Really? No. And by the way, I went to University of Illinois. I mentioned that. And back then we had – our mascot was the – The fight in Illini, right? The fight in Illini. And there was a chief Illini-weck. And at halftime of the football and basketball games, there was this big to-do where a student would –

would win the war to be the chief of line awake and he would come out in full regalia full and he would dance like an Indian dance. And it was people would go crazy. I mean, it was like, Oh, people would whoop it up. And, and then he'd stand there in the middle of field and we'd sing the alma mater, you know, and it was very respectful.

And it was actually a celebration of our Indian heritage. And yet these idiot liberal activists got rid of Chief Illinois. So even like today, 30 years later, people are like, chief, chief, chief. They want chief to come out. And that was – remember Paul Simon, the liberal senator from Illinois? He was the one who said we got to get rid of Chief Illinois. So there were all these bumper stickers around my neighborhood that said –

Keep a line of wick, dump Simon. But it's sad that we get it. I think it's an honor. It's just it's done with respect. And by the way, it wasn't the Indian tribes that were against it. No, it was the liberal activists. Amen to that. It's such a anyway. So what was your first job when you when you not mom and dad saying, hey, Steve, take out the garbage. I mean, your very first job.

I'm going to get a paycheck from somebody else. I worked at a factory for, you know, where you'd fill orders, you know. Yeah. And it was like a mail order thing. So people would say, I want this, this, this, this. And what you do is you take a cart and you walk down the aisles and you're like, oh, this guy wants three of these, four of those. And then you put them in the boxes. And I think about that a lot because I think one of the really big mistakes we make with young people

Getting young people to work and get a job at the earliest possible age is a great thing. When I was at the Wall Street Journal, I was always struck. We'd meet. The people were very pinnacle of their professions. It was music, art, finance, business, da-da-da. And I'd always ask them at these ed board meetings,

How did you get your start? Where did you grow up? And I was always struck by how many of these really successful people grew up on a farm. Now, why is that interesting? Because if you work in a farm like my wife did, you're working at seven years old. You're cleaning out the stables. You know how to work. You work hard. Yeah. Exactly. And they got that work ethic. And the one thing I learned from working in that warehouse –

I don't want to work in a warehouse. I learned that at an early age. And so that really inspires you to. So I think, you know, in college, I think college kids, my solution to the college, you know, tuition crisis, every kid should work 15 or 20 hours a week and just pay for their own tuition. And by the way, the kids would be much better off if they did that.

Yeah, they ought to be like an apprentice. College being free is a terrible idea. Apprentice type wage. I think we do. I think we miss, you know, I started working when I was about 14 and kind of had to,

well, maybe fudge a little bit about my actual age because you're supposed to be 16. But, you know, back then... But you're tall, so you... They didn't care. They didn't, you know, and nobody was really checking, and my dad was good with it. And so we missed that opportunity to teach people the value of a dollar and to learn to work. For sure. It's sort of like when they...

I did this with each of our kids and they had to go get jobs and it didn't really matter how much they were making. - Exactly. - And then they bring home their paycheck and they're like, wait a sec, I calculated out my hours and I multiplied it and how come I got so much less? That's when you learn, oh, well these are called taxes and you have to pay them.

How do you like it now? How do you like big government now? What do I get for my taxes? Well, you know, and it's just enlightening that way. Do you have a pet growing up? Well, we always had dogs. We have a dog now and, you know, man's best friend. What kind of dog do you have? What's that? What kind of dog do you have? Always mutts.

Mutt? Oh, good for you. We had a mutt. Her name was Socks, and he was a great dog. But he was definitely a mutt, 100%. Our dog was named Boozer. Big one. He was a big-sized mutt, that's for certain. All right, so if you could invite one person over, just to...

Hey, guess what, family? We got a special guest tonight. Dead or alive, anybody in history, come over and visit with them. The Moore family and just break bread and have a discussion. Who would you pick? Oh, my God. That's a tough question.

I think John Lennon. Really? Yeah. I mean, I'm a huge, huge, massive Beatles fan. And if it's somebody alive, if I could meet anybody, it would be Paul McCartney, no question about it. Oh, Sir Paul McCartney? I would love... You know what? I just got... By the way, that's a very common answer to that question. No, no, Paul McCartney's just... Because 100 years from now, people will be listening to the Beatles music. I mean, it is timeless. The documentaries about how they wrote... Oh, God. I love it.

are just fascinating. And they really did change the world. They did. And, you know, the thing that's kind of cool about Paul McCartney in particular is he went through a four-year stage from around 1966 to 1970 when he wrote like 20 number one hit songs like Hey Jude, you know, Lawn and Wine and Road, da-da-da-da-da, just Get Back. And I find it really fascinating, genius, and how, you know, you go through this stage where

You just can't, you know, everything he wrote just became, and that's pretty true in almost every profession. People go through these, whether it's science or whatever about this scientific genius. I heard a great story about Paul McCartney and not to belabor this, but I just, my wife and I just were able to go see Donny Osmond.

In Vegas? Las Vegas. Yeah. Okay, was it good? Loved it. Okay, I love that. Absolutely loved it. Was it Donny and Marie or just Donny? No, it was just Donny. He has his own show there at Harris. And he has this about 12 minutes where I think he calls it...

rapography. And Julie and I were very fortunate. He invited us backstage and we got to visit for like 20 minutes with him. Oh, I don't want to characterize this political, but we got along just great. So we had a, uh, we had a really good discussion and I told him, I said, Donnie, that, that,

What he did over the last six decades was just absolutely phenomenal. And he raps it the whole time in a rap format. And it is, he did this, and then he did this, and he did this. It's unbelievable. But the funny thing about Paul McCartney, the tie here that sparked that memory is,

They asked Paul McCartney one time, is there anybody you want to meet? And he kind of, you know, didn't really, you know, he's pretty much met everybody he's wanted to meet. But they said, have you ever gotten somebody's autograph? And he tells this story I saw on video where he said,

I actually did get somebody's autograph and I was staying at a hotel. He was with his daughter and Donnie Osmond was in the hotel. And he said he did something that he doesn't like when people do it to him. But he said, I literally went up to his door, knocked on the door.

And said, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I would like to... Did you ask Donny Osmond about that? So when I was with Donny, I said, I heard this story from Paul McCartney. And I said, I mean, the idea that Paul McCartney knocked on your door. And he said, yeah, no, that really did happen. I wasn't expecting it. The door, you know, why are people knocking on my door? So I went and got it. He said, I was just wearing like...

you know, pants and a T-shirt. And his daughter is there and I signed this autograph. I said, well, did you get Paul McGartney's autograph? Yeah.

And he was sort of like, no, not really. But I just thought, all right, what an incredible talent. Anyway, all right, we got off beat a little bit here. A couple other real quick questions. Pineapple and pizza, yes or no? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't like the Hawaiian pizza. Good, good, good. Last question. Best advice you ever got? Um...

You know, I think it was from my dad who just – I had been going through a tough time and I'll never forget. He said, Steve, the most important thing is integrity.

That's true. That's good. Yeah. That's very poignant. I think that makes a lot of sense. And this was – he died about 10 years after, but he gave me the greatest compliment in life. He said, Steve, you have integrity, which meant a lot to me. It ties a lot. That ties it all together. Well, thanks for joining us. This was fun. I love working with you, interacting with you. And when you start speaking about the economy in numbers, I am, for one, am listening. Oh, my God. That's a nice compliment, too. I know millions are, and you're making –

having a huge impact on the way people think about things. And I think that's, you know, news breaks or somebody has this idea or introduces a budget. Part of what I love watching is how should I think about this? How should I view it? What are the most important points? And you have this job, this,

immense talent and being able to cut to the nub of the issue as to what's really important. Right to you, back to you, my friend. And, you know, your service in Congress and also, you know, what you're doing now with Fox News is, you know, educating a whole generation. Oh, I love it. I love doing it. Well, thanks for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. I appreciate it. Thank you. Now, thanks for joining us, giving us part of your time. Please rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. I think you'll like it. I think you'll enjoy it.

And I really do appreciate listening. I want to remind people that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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Will Kane. There's a lot of good stuff out there. So, again, hope you can like it. You can rate it. You can review it. And we'll be back with more next week. I hope you join us. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House. ♪

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