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[Music] hello everyone and thank you for tuning

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in to the liberty report with me today is co-hosts chris rossini chris welcome to the program great to be with you dr paul very good

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and chris we have a very special guest today he's been on our program once or twice before but he's one of our favorites and he's holding the fort for us

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doing his best up in washington and somebody asked me once and well today in an interview how did you how did you manage to stay in the swamp

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but uh thomas massey is with us and he's an optimist so he'll he'll probably have a better answer than i did how he manages the swamp but before we go into that thomas uh but

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we want to welcome you to the program and uh delighted to have you back well thanks for having me on ron people ask me how i hang in there

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and i say i hang in there like a hair and a biscuit there you go which is says nothing redeeming about myself i said it was

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self-deprecating once and trey gowdy told me no it's unsanitary but i think it it sort of depicts the tenacity that you got to have to hang

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into the congress well you're doing well but uh your attitude helps you you know coming across with a little bit

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of optimism and not being dire is a good good practice so we like that but you know we want to talk about uh how you plan to

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balance the budget next month and uh they're going to tell it you're going to get to fix the budget and solve all our spending problems but before that there's another little problem floating

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around uh from my viewpoint unnecessarily and that has to do with the coronavirus and the and the lockdown and what this means but

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tell us a little bit about how you handle this what you think of lockdown how does it affect you personally what has it done to your people in the district what's it like in congress but you know

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you don't have to give us all the details on that because we we can spend a lot of time but just give us an idea of what you think is going on and how you handle it

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well um i just learned a week or two ago that i have the antibodies and yeah and so then we had my wife tested

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and because we thought well if i've got them she has to have them and sure enough she has the antibodies wow and so it turns out we've both already had

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covid and gotten over it likely in january i was very sick from january 3rd to january 7th and then my wife was sick

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about a week after that and that's the only time we've had any symptoms i i got the actual titer of my antibodies and it says that my level is 960

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and 320 is considered significant enough to donate plasma if if you were able to so

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i've got a strong level of antibodies i believe i had it in january and i feel somewhat ridiculous for being of afraid to the degree that i was

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uh for the last six months i mean it's always good to wash your hands and take precautions even in a you know normal scenario but

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uh i really feel kind of silly now and uh i i would just think i would like for us to know uh more about this virus

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because the fear of the unknown is the worst thing and my my whole take on this is that we need fewer lockdowns

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fewer restrictions on liberty and just protect the nursing homes because even in kentucky over half the the fatalities or deaths from this virus

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have been in nursing homes so let's work on the things that we can prevent or possibly prevent and then everybody else needs to get back to

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normal here in kentucky they've delayed our schools again they're not going to have in-person um learning for a few more months so i think it's really

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sad for the children too well i i just hope this makes you exempt from any compulsory uh vaccination in a couple months you

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know they're rushing it through they want to they want to test it on people so with that uh immunity that you have developed more naturally may turn out to be a very good

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benefit for you so that that is uh that's a one advantage that you might have well you know um he can stick a needle in me over my cold

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dead body um you know if i take it it'll be voluntarily i've never had a flu shot but i have taken other vaccines when i travel

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overseas i estimate that the risk of contracting the virus overseas may be greater than the risk of any complication for the vaccine so i

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took it but with other vaccines i don't take them and it should be everybody's choice going forward in my opinion well what what's the reaction in the district

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are the people if you had to guess where the polls are in your district would most people say oh this is very important and i'm glad they're making us wear a mask because

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that's protecting us or are some people getting a little bit annoyed with it and i would rather go back to school the goodwill of the people in the

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kentucky's fourth district is wearing finn the governor has really overplayed his hand uh they've shut down school sports this

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fall and that may that may be the straw that breaks the camp's back so now that that's good now

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um i want to uh really get over into the subject of uh how we're going to balance our budget which is a a daydream or a nightmare or

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whatever uh chris uh do you have a question about our monetary system or this budget uh for the congressman yes great to

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speak with you congressman you know i want to point out the heroic deed that you did several months ago standing on principle

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against the stimulus bailouts and you were exactly right it was a major rip-off and while washington did not like it your constituents did and we did and

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anybody that loves liberty did the thing about uh welfare stimulus bailouts is they're very easy to give but very hard to take away and with the

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economy and the shape that it's in with so many businesses that are not going to come back in the millions tens of millions unemployed you know there are people on the left that i'm sure you're

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aware of that want a universal basic income is it possible that we could be stumbling into such a disastrous policy unwillingly with the republican

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administration but that you know perhaps someday the democrats could implement well i think unwittingly a lot of republicans signed up for

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universal basic income the democrats were pushing for two thousand dollars a month but under the bailout package they actually got 2 400 dollars a month because if you

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didn't work you received 600 a week and so that was 2400 a month you had that universal basic income and the minimum wage if you think

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about 600 divided by 40 hours even before you consider state unemployment there was a 15 uh

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minimum wage people and people wouldn't go back to work because they could make more at home if you know if in a lot of cases the state

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unemployment plus the federal unemployment put them at about 20 minimum wage and it was devastating to small businesses here as you said

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a lot of them are not going to reopen you know i've seen some of these economic reports recently and if you're in the business of

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repairing broken windows you're in one of the bright spots of the economy for those who uh are fans of the broken window fallacy

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for instance uh they point to new housing starts and say look at this 22 percent up the new housing starts

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but those are the people who are fleeing the cities that are going to collapse because they have no tax base the productive citizens are getting out of there

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because of social unrest and also because of the increased chance that you'll catch a virus in the city so you can point to little things like that

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you know at the sporting goods store people stand and wait for the truck to show up so they can buy a kayak or fishing tackle now and so they're doing great because a lot

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of people are out of work or can't go to their fitness center but all that fitness equipment and those fitness centers is basically going to rot into the ground as the governors

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keep the economy shut down so what i'm saying is you can find little bright spots in the economy but and particularly because there was a 1200

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injection of cash to to nearly everybody in the united states i know several multi-millionaires who received the 1200

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checks in fact i know a norwegian citizen who hasn't lived in the united states since 1974 who got a 1200 check mail to oslo norway

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by virtue of the fact that in the 60s and 70s he worked in the united states and paid income tax so yeah we've injected we've temporarily

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injected some artificial money into the economy and so it looks good right now but it ain't good and there are going to be ramifications

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yeah that that's for sure and thomas you know that i've been interested in the monetary issue for a long long time and people now are talking about well when's the inflation coming when's

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the inflation coming and i have a chart that is very dramatic that shows where the inflation is and i have a slightly different opinion about

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measurement of inflation and that is i look towards the federal reserve and what they're doing with the money supply and this chart shows that the money supply is soaring in this last

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six months or so because of all the spending and all the bailouts and and all that they're doing and it's rising now at historic rates

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of uh 20 per year and that means that the only way you can keep that going is by expanding that because it becomes an addiction that's

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what's happening right now so there's tremendous inflation other people argue well inflation is uh the cpi well it is

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it that is a result of the inflation the other is the real problem is increasing this the money supply diluting the value of the money and

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that's that's what we're looking at now so is there i i see it in congress that they have a new caucus come out the congressional sound money caucus

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i hope that's encouraging but at the same time there's this modern monetary theory which is very much engaged right now so uh what what do you what do you see

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uh you know in the future for this do you think that i do anticipate that you'll ever see uh a reduction in net spending

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in our government no there's not going to be any reduction until people quit loaning us money at which point we'll probably just start

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printing it and so i think it's a good idea that uh my colleague warren davidson started the sound money caucus he and i have been commuting back and

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forth between dc i give him a ride in my car now since the airline options have been limited and so he's told me about that caucus it

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sounds like a good idea i haven't joined it yet because the the government is ruining our own money and we need to have other alternatives

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in order to have a functioning economy and to your point on inflation yes the money supply has gone up dramatically but something else has also

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happened that's going to exacerbate inflation production of appliances and automobiles stalled for a few months and so the

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pipeline of goods in the economy has been uh severely restricted and so now you've got you've got more money chasing fewer

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goods and that's going to exacerbate inflation too right chris congressman uh i'm sure

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you're aware of monetary history that fiat money always fails it has a perfect record of failure and uh i even know from my own family my

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polish grandparents during the war they threw cash into the fireplace that's how worthless it was and uh you know we've seen why i'm our

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germany and i always thought to myself why didn't they just stop printing what why couldn't they stop themselves you know when we look today we almost see that kind of mentality in

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action that it's just print the money now the polish did not have a worldwide currency like the dollar so we don't have to worry about throwing our money in the fireplace yet but the

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same economics apply to our situation what do you think of the mentality of the congress that you see around you do they really think that you can just counterfeit money

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forever they certainly do now i mean we've added four trillion dollars to the to the debt that's like a six-month deficit

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just for these uh coveted relief packages think about this take uh 400 or 4.35 trillion dollars and

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divide it by 435 congressional districts that's 10 billion dollars per congressional district that we have spent that needs to come

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back out of that congressional district i can't find 10 billion dollars of money that's been delivered to my congressional district but i know that 10 billion has to come

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out of my congressional district in order to pay that back let's look at it a different way use the number three trillion of spending here recently by republicans by

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the way they're just willingly and and gladly uh printing and borrowing this money three trillion dollars divided by three thousand counties

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that's a billion dollars per county that's that's what we're on the hook for now and this isn't this the predominance of this cash

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hasn't gone to the middle class or uh low income it's gone to the upper echelons of society to prop up the stock

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market in fact i've said the 1200 is the cheese in the trap and this is a socialistic or or actually more of a cronyism trap

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the reason they didn't care that 1.4 billion dollars of those checks went to dead people is because they went to their estates and they were able to their heirs were able

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to cash them and spend them in many cases and some of it was direct deposit they weren't they didn't care about the people they just wanted the money in the

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economy so that they could prop up the stock market for longer uh thomas on on your colleagues republicans or democrats or

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leadership or whatever do you ever sense that subtly they have more respect for an individual like yourself than

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they ever want to admit they almost have to hide it do you suspect do you receive some of this there was a times when i uh you know i wasn't cooperating with

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leadership and i think you're in a similar situation but always sense and thought maybe i was just a dreamer that there was some respect for our views i was wondering if you've ever

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experienced that and uh how many other people in the congress subtly you know

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really agree with what you're saying but they just sort of throw up their hands and they feel overwhelmed they're not just overwhelmed they're afraid um

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and i've had colleagues tell me that like the really honest ones we had one individual stood up in our gop conference in front of

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you know 150 other republicans and said we all should have been standing with thomas on march 27th he said but frankly i was afraid

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and uh he said i'm embarrassed i wasn't standing with him but i was afraid and i think that's sort of the sentiment they were a lot of people were afraid uh

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afraid of public opinion afraid of being blamed if something you know bad happened but the reality is something bad happened

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here's the other thing ron uh on march 27th the reason i stood up for the constitution by the way it wasn't just about this bill it's about whether you can pass

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bills with nobody being there with your leadership telling you to stay home they're they're actively when they're telling you to stay home that they're

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going to pass a 2 trillion dollar bill they're subverting the constitution and i felt a few days before that that our country was really at the brink and we were

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about to go over the brink and my greatest fear is what motivated me ron this this is my farm behind me i was afraid

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that maybe 10 years from now when the world's gone to hell i'd be back on this farm like remembering that there was a day

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that i could do something and i didn't do anything you'd have to have me on suicide watch 10 years from now if i hadn't done it so it wasn't really about being brave as

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much as it was being afraid of living with myself if i didn't do it you know and having to live with myself for the rest of my life right uh chris

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yes i have one last question for the congressman uh whenever there is an economic downturn it's a knee-jerk reaction capitalism always gets the blame

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and on this show we try to point out the difference between real free market capitalism and the government corporation marriage cronyism that we have and you know it's

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it's been a part of our country since the beginning it was championed by alexander hamilton and then later lincoln and fdr and many presidents after and it's a

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bipartisan deal both parties are involved in this corporatism on this show we say we need a big divorce in this country

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between governments and corporations what are your thoughts on that yeah well let's just use an example of the airlines for instance

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okay their they're capitalists the stockholders are capitalists uh while they're making money but then they want to socialize their losses or

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their risks so right now it's not like all those airplanes caught on fire or were destroyed in a storm all of that capital is still there and

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there there will be valid business models now they're going to be different going forward but what they need to do is go out in the market and raise more capital

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now they don't want to do that because it will dilute their stock and the stock you know uh is a representation of who's

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going to get the future profits from those investments so they're they don't you know they've been the benefactor of all the past profits what they don't want to give up

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is future profits by going back into the capital market and raising the funds that it's going to take to keep them afloat through this economic downturn so

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there's an example and so they've come to congress and they say we're too big to fail we're too important and and so you need to bail us out and i

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i kind of hate to pick on the airlines because you can see this in virtually every industry where they're coming with their hands out and saying you know

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help us out even the chamber of commerce okay is lobbying me now because they were left out of the bailouts the ppp

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and what i've told the chamber is commerce is help me fight for commerce instead of you guys getting in the welfare line because you're supposed to ostensibly

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represent capitalism and commerce help me fight our governor in his war against commerce but no they they're lobbying me so that

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they can get the bailouts it's almost like there's it's almost like the sense of corporate apathy where the corporations are like you know what let's just get what we can get from the

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government you know uh i think what uh chris has asked is very important because it has a political implication that's

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very important because you know in the depression in the 30s uh you know roosevelt ran as a conservative and pro gold standard and all that kind of stuff

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and then he did it exactly the opposite and the real blame uh the intellectuals that were advising roosevelt said well the problem was is all this

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capitalism that we had in in the 20s not the inflation by by the federal reserve but the capitalism and that gold standard they wouldn't let us print the money

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but it's almost very similar to that at a different stage uh and this is what i think chris is getting at is uh they're going to put more blame on

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on the principles that were pretty weak but i think the the separation of this and pointing out that it's too much money too much

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printing and the other thing that is hard to uh you know galvanizes with the people but but you pointed out uh thomas

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because of the airlines they they come it's the demand but just who who isn't on the demand now the individuals on the demand they're trying

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hard to prevent what happened after the uh housing bubble burst because the mortgage companies made out and the banks made out but people lost

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their homes but here we are back in this they're trying to but even these trillions you point out there's trillions and trillions of dollars already spent and it it

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isn't working and yet uh they're they're going to still say it opens up the door for those so-called marxists i mean those marxists you know

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they come along and see how much freedom fails and so all this capitalism what we need to change so i think this is the the

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big political issue but where can where can we get our help from our republican leadership and you you nailed it right on and

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hit right on the nail by saying to those of people coming why don't you come here for and ask us for your commerce freedom and maybe we would get somewhere so

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you're doing a good job on that well well listen uh hopefully my race my primary where i came out of it i won 82 percent of the

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vote against a well-funded uh establishment type republican who was backed by my colleagues in congress and the

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president came out against me because i didn't go along with the two trillion dollar package he wanted me thrown out of the party but we're on the other side of that

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and uh i think a lot of my colleagues to your point before ron who were scared now realize that you can stand up for the right thing

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and you can get re-elected not by a small margin but by an overwhelming margin and i hope the new crop of freshmen who are coming into congress can see that

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too there are eight members of congress who lost their primaries eight incumbents this is that hasn't happened since 1974

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so the the people are getting out there they're turning over the members of congress there'll be more turnover in the general election and i if anything i hope i can be a

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beacon to the freshmen who are coming in so when they have that moment of you know if i stand on principle is is that a foolhardy thing to do

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because i won't be coming back to congress no you can stand on principle and you can get re-elected okay uh thomas that's a good place for

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us to end because we have to move along but i think uh you can be assured a lot of people look to you as being a beacon for liberty so we thank you very much for that and

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we appreciate very much you being on the program today thanks ron and thanks for being the beacon for me that encouraged me to come to congress and

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join the fight very good and i want to listen to talk to our our viewers today and i appreciate their very much for tuning in

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today and please come back to the liberty report soon

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you