Welcome back to The Deep Dive. And before we
jump into all the serious political business,
we do want to start today by sending our really
heartfelt Happy Veterans Day to all veterans.
And to the civilians whose support made their
service possible. Thank you. Absolutely. Now,
let's pivot hard to Washington because our stack
of sources today is, it's a high -stakes snapshot
of these pressure points. We're looking at some
severe legislative gridlock, a domestic economy
that is causing real pain for voters, and a crucial
Supreme Court decision that I think went... largely
unnoticed. You really did. Our mission is to
take you through the, well, the minefield Speaker
Johnson is currently navigating and some of the
truly baffling economic proposals coming out
of the White House. That's a perfect framing.
We're tracking three major dynamics for you today.
First, the return of the House and the immediate
serious legislative threats to the Speaker's
tenure. Right. Second, this widening chasm between
the administration's focus on foreign policy
and the pain voters are feeling over cost of
living issues. The kitchen table issues. Exactly.
And the policy vacuum that's trying to fill that
gap. And third, the surprising and legally significant
stability that the Supreme Court just afforded
to same -sex marriage. Okay, let's unpack this,
starting with the House. Our sources feature
that classic 1974 headline, you know, referencing
Elton John, the bitch is back. A classic. And
it really reflects this highly anticipated and
in many circles dreaded return to the House after
what, nearly seven weeks of recess? Yes, seven
weeks. And the immediate pressure point is that
the Senate passed a temporary budget bill. Now
the House has to approve it or we're looking
at a shutdown. So the speaker is facing multiple
crises all at once. before the week is even out.
Oh, absolutely. And the first one is just pure
logistics. In political circles, they often call
it white flight. Right. Votes are scheduled for
this afternoon, but it's genuinely unclear if
all the Republican members can even get back
to D .C. in time. You're kidding. Just getting
there is a problem. It is. Especially for those
from rural areas who rely on these, you know,
limited service regional airports. The lingering
government funding issues have complicated things
like air traffic controller staffing. So there
are just fewer flights. So once they are physically
present, then they have to face the legislative
bomb threat. Precisely. Today, Johnson must swear
in the new representative -elect from Arizona,
Adelita Grialva. Okay. And the moment she's sworn
in, She will find Thomas Massey's discharge petition.
And that's the mechanism that forces a vote,
right? It forces a vote. In this case, on a spending
issue that the former president absolutely does
not want. Our sources indicate Trump is already
prepared to blame Johnson personally if that
petition succeeds. Wow. So that's immediate political
dynamite he has to handle. Day one. Day one.
Let's pivot to the political calculus of the
Obamacare subsidies. A Senate bill is likely
coming to restore those subsidies, which lapsed.
So. Johnson has to decide whether to even bring
that bill to a vote. Why is this so dangerous
for him? It's a textbook, damned if you do, damned
if you don't situation. On one side, you have
your swing district Republicans and they are
panicking. They know they're going to get crushed.
They know they will suffer devastating losses
in 2026 if they're seen as the one stripping
subsidies from middle class voters. They're absolutely
ready to sign a discharge petition themselves
to force a vote if Johnson stalls. But if he
does allow the vote, he immediately makes his
base furious. Who is he risking everything with
there? Two incredibly powerful factions. First.
Donald Trump. He wants the subsidies killed,
sees it as a step towards dismantling the ACA,
and second, the House Freedom Caucus. They are,
you know, ideologically opposed to this kind
of spending. If Johnson lets the bill pass, they
could file that motion to vacate and threaten
his job all over again. But if he kills the bill,
he's looking at a long -term electoral disaster.
Exactly. He's just delaying the inevitable bad
decision until March or April, when political
fear might finally force his hand. And all this
is happening while the clock is ticking on the
actual federal budget for FY 2025 -26, which
is due January 30th. And many in his own party
won't even agree to a simple continuing resolution.
Which, just for our listeners, is just a short
-term stopgap measure to keep the lights on.
It is a true legislative minefield. It is. Moving
on. The gridlock we just discussed in Congress
Johnson's inability to unify the right, it seems
to be mirrored by a policy vacuum in the administration.
That's a great way to put it. Our sources cite
this fascinating dynamic. Despite his history
as the businessman president, the focus is so
heavy on foreign policy, tariffs, global conflicts,
while these kitchen table issues just get worse.
And the evidence of voter pain is palpable. I
mean, these aren't abstract inflation numbers.
True. These are line item costs you see every
day. Coffee prices, for instance, jumped from
seven to over nine dollars a pound since January.
They've seen that. And a McDonald's combo meal
is now fifteen dollars. $15. Steak is up from
under $12 to over $14 a pound. This is real financial
strain, and voters are noticing that nobody at
the top is talking about it. And White House
insiders anonymously told Politico that everyone
is trying to pressure the president to shift
focus back to cost of living issues. Which he
has avoided discussing publicly for months. And
the critiques from conservatives are not holding
back. They're brutal. I saw that. It's not just
the public tension with, say, Marjorie Taylor
Greene over things like health care and SNIP
funding. No. The more serious critique came from
Sean Davis, the co -founder of The Federalist.
He published this, this scathing rebuke arguing
the GOP has, and I'm quoting here, no accomplishments,
no plans, and no vision. Wow. And he specifically
noted that young people are locked out of the
economy and can't own homes. When foundational
conservative voices are saying that, it signals
a major internal crisis. Which leads us directly
to the three economic ideas recently proposed
to fill this policy gap. They are. Well, they're
unique. Let's start with the Obamacare replacement.
Health care savings accounts. potentially subsidized
by the government. Okay, but if the goal is to
make people feel better about health care costs,
wouldn't a government -subsidized HSA at least
be a political win, even if the math is a little
off? You'd think so. But only if you ignore both
the math and the politics. The main critique
is that HSAs are fundamentally regressive. Meaning
they help the wealthy. They overwhelmingly benefit
people who have the extra cash flow to contribute
in the first place and get the tax benefits.
Then the math gets even worse. The government
spends about $100 billion a year on Obamacare
subsidies. OK. But non -covered health care expenses
for Americans run about $500 billion annually.
That $100 billion doesn't even make a dent. So
politically, the Freedom Caucus screams about
the cost and Democrats scream about it being
regressive. It's dead on arrival. Just completely
dead. OK, next up, 50 -year mortgages. The idea
is simple, right? Spread out the payments to
lower the monthly bill. And this is where the
profound lack of financial understanding really
reveals itself. The reduction in the monthly
payment is just marginal. For an average $400
,000 house, extending the loan from 30 to 50
years only cuts the payment by about $233 a month.
That's not enough to make a real difference for
a first -time buyer. Not when you're facing a
7 % interest rate. Not at all. And what happens
to the total cost? That's the part that blew
me away in the source material. The total cost
nearly doubles. A 30 -year mortgage might have,
say, $350 ,000 in interest. Right. A 50 -year
loan? especially with a higher risk -based rate,
could easily cost the borrower $700, maybe even
$900 ,000 in total interest. That's insane. Plus,
the homeowner builds no meaningful equity for
decades. You're basically tied to this debt well
into your retirement years. And crucially, they're
not backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Yeah.
Banks won't touch them. So you save about five
bucks a week, but you're ensuring you'll be paying
off your own debt when your grandkids are in
college. That's a good way to put it. Yes. The
third idea, the $2 ,000 tariff dividends, checks
for all Americans funded by tariff revenue, is
the final piece of this puzzle. Which of course
are mostly paid by American consumers and businesses,
not foreign governments. Correct. And that economic
fallacy highlights the core math problem. The
U .S. has collected roughly $200 billion in tariff
revenue. The cost of giving every adult $2 ,000
is somewhere between $300 and $350 billion. So
the math fails instantly. Instantly. On top of
that, he's also promised to use that same $200
billion to fund the HSAs and reduce the national
debt. You can't spend the same money three times.
And Congress has to approve it anyway. It's not
a slush fund. Exactly. It's just not workable
policy. So while Washington obsesses over unworkable
ideas, the Supreme Court has quietly reinforced
a critical area of social law. Let's shift to
the judicial branch. The court denied cert in
Davis v. Ermold. Which means Kim Davis, the former
Kentucky clerk, lost her final bid to challenge
the 2015 Obergefell decision. The one that legalized
same -sex marriage nationwide. That's the one.
And the immediate consequence for her is severe.
She had to pay $100 ,000 in damages and $260
,000 in attorney's fees. And her case was always
Pretty weak, inherently weak because she didn't
just refuse to issue licenses herself. She dictated
policy for the whole office, preventing others
from doing their jobs. And the court basically
confirmed you can't undo an illegal act years
after the fact. So this denial, it signals a
broader legal sentiment that same sex marriage
is actually remarkably stable, especially compared
to the volatility around abortion after Roe v.
Way was overturned. That is the essential legal
takeaway for you, the listener. The widespread
reliance on Obergefell is the key stabilizing
factor here. Hundreds of thousands of couples
married in reliance on that ruling. Overturning
it now would open an absolute Pandora's box of
legal problems. Just think about it. What happens
to adoptions, property divisions, decades of
joint tax returns, social security survivor benefits?
So we have to connect this back to Dobbs. Why
was overturning Roe legally feasible, but overturning
Obergefell is not. Well, Justice Alito, in the
Dobbs opinion, expressly limited his ruling to
abortion. That was the price to get five votes.
Okay. And abortion is a finite event. It has
a beginning and an end. Roe also suffered, you
know, death by a thousand cuts over decades through
state regulations. Whereas marriage is. Marriage
is an ongoing state of being. And overturning
of Obergefell would be sudden, traumatic, and
create immediate unfixable chaos in the lives
of millions. The legal and social blowback the
court would face makes it highly unlikely. Even
with the current conservative majority. Even
with this majority. Finally, we need to note
a bit of congressional heist -keeping that actually
holds some real strategic meaning. The retirement
of Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman. A progressive
leader from New Jersey. Her departure highlights
a significant trend. We already have 46 House
retirements this cycle, 25 Democrats and 21 Republicans.
And the total number is about average, but the
significance is where they're coming from. Exactly.
The majority of retirements are from the Democrats,
the party that's actually predicted to take back
the House in 2027. So what does it mean when
the party expected to gain power is seeing more
retirements? It suggests this isn't about vulnerability.
It's about intentional change, a strategic passing
the baton. Many of these long -serving Democrats
are stepping aside to allow younger members to
gain seniority now. So they're positioning the
party for a deeper, more energized bench for
when they take the majority. It's strategic planning,
not fear of losing. We even saw a hint of this
in California. Nancy Pelosi's daughter Christine
chose to run for state Senate instead of her
mother's house seat. Avoiding those dynastic
undertones. And maybe recognizing that at age
60, she was sort of counter to this new youth
movement. The Democrats are actively working
to reshape their public face for the next decade.
So we've synthesized a Washington where Congress
is returning to face these unavoidable destructive
legislative crises. A presidential administration
is facing a crippling economic relevance problem
with nonsensical policy. And the judicial branch
is quietly affirming stability in a critical
social area. So what does this all mean? For
our final thought, we've laid out three wildly
problematic economic ideas coming from the top.
HSAs, 50 -year mortgages, and tariff dividends.
If these proposals are seen by policy experts
across the spectrum as mathematically or politically
impossible, What does that imply about the feasibility
of any grand, immediate federal fix for the financial
pain voters are feeling? That's a big question.
Does the federal government even have the tools
to solve the cost of living problem without creating
even larger structural issues down the road?
That is the question you, the listener, need
to consider as you process all this. A tough
question to chew on as we wrap up this deep dive.
Thank you for joining us.