Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Huge, Transformative Victory: Invest America 401k Accounts for Every Newborn Child in America

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Huge, Transformative Victory: Invest America 401k Accounts for Every Newborn Child in America · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome.
0:01
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Sentater, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with
0:04
Speaker 2: You and Center.
0:05
Speaker 1: This is one of those shows and I just want to.
0:07
Speaker 2: Tell everybody please take this show and share it wherever
0:12
Speaker 2: you can on social media, because this is one of
0:15
Speaker 2: those shows that could have a massive impact on this country,
0:19
Speaker 2: dealing with a really important issue and an idea that
0:24
Speaker 2: is becoming very close to reality that could fundamentally change
0:28
Speaker 2: his country for every single child that's born.
0:31
Speaker 3: Well, Ben, that is exactly right. This week was a
0:34
Speaker 3: momentace week. It was a momenace week in Washington and
0:37
Speaker 3: in the country. So this week the House Ways and
0:39
Speaker 3: Means Committee, which is the tax writing committee in the House,
0:43
Speaker 3: rolled out their Reconciliation Bill, and I will tell you
0:46
Speaker 3: in that bill there were four major victories of bills
0:49
Speaker 3: that I've introduced that I'm leading on that are all
0:53
Speaker 3: included in the House Reconciliation Bill. Number one, they included
0:58
Speaker 3: my legislation on no tax on tip. No tax on
1:00
Speaker 3: tips is a president It is a promise President Trump made.
1:04
Speaker 3: It is a powerful policy that benefits every waiter and
1:08
Speaker 3: waitress and taxicab driver and bartender and barber and hairstylist.
1:14
Speaker 3: And nail salon, beautician, everyone who operates on tips. It
1:22
Speaker 3: is a policy that benefits the working men and women
1:25
Speaker 3: of America, and we the Republican Party, is a blue
1:28
Speaker 3: collar party. So that is in the bill. Number two.
1:32
Speaker 3: I've been leading the fight to open up significant electromagnetic
1:37
Speaker 3: spectrum to auction to the private sector, six hundred megahertz's spectrum.
1:42
Speaker 3: When we do that, that will produce billions of dollars
1:45
Speaker 3: of new investment and hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
1:49
Speaker 3: That is in the House bill. They've taken my pipeline
1:52
Speaker 3: language included in there. Number three, school choice, The House
1:58
Speaker 3: included a version of my school choice bill that is
2:01
Speaker 3: scholarship tax credits for contributions for scholarship granting organizations in
2:07
Speaker 3: the state that, if it is passed, will be the
2:11
Speaker 3: most significant federal school choice legislation ever passed in history.
2:16
Speaker 3: And Monday's podcast. If you didn't listen to Monday's podcast,
2:20
Speaker 3: I did a deep dive on that idea. I thought
2:23
Speaker 3: it was going to come this week, and so I
2:25
Speaker 3: laid out how we had the opportunity to win the
2:27
Speaker 3: most significant victory for school choice of our lifetimes. The
2:32
Speaker 3: House included it that's a huge victory. But the fourth,
2:36
Speaker 3: which is going to be the topic of this podcast,
2:39
Speaker 3: is legislation I've introduced called invest America. Invest America is
2:43
Speaker 3: basically four to oh one k's for kids. It is
2:47
Speaker 3: creating investment accounts for kids, and it is seating it
2:50
Speaker 3: with one thousand dollars and allowing contributions to let every
2:54
Speaker 3: newborn child in America accumulate resources. We're going to break
2:58
Speaker 3: that down because that is in the House bill. They
3:01
Speaker 3: call it the MAGA account, but it is. It is
3:04
Speaker 3: my statutory language, and I got to say, when we
3:08
Speaker 3: enact that language, President Trump enthusiastically supports it. When we
3:12
Speaker 3: enact that language, it is going to have a profound
3:15
Speaker 3: impact on this country, not just this year or next year,
3:19
Speaker 3: but ten, twenty, thirty, forty fifty years from now. I'm
3:23
Speaker 3: really excited. We're going to explain to you all about
3:26
Speaker 3: what that proposal is and how it's going to make
3:28
Speaker 3: a difference in your family, for your kids.
3:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's awesome and it's something that again I'll say it,
3:34
Speaker 2: make sure you listen to show and share it, even
3:37
Speaker 2: with people that don't traditionally listen to political podcasts, because
3:40
Speaker 2: this is not really that political. It's actually about the
3:43
Speaker 2: future of this country and can have a huge impact
3:46
Speaker 2: on every child that is born. I want to talk
3:48
Speaker 2: to you for just a moment though, about what's happening
3:51
Speaker 2: right now in Israel. Do you know, just like here
3:54
Speaker 2: in the US, Israel has their own Independence Day in
3:57
Speaker 2: case you missed it this year, Israel's independence was a
4:00
Speaker 2: few days ago on May first. But for the people
4:04
Speaker 2: of Israel, freedom is nothing more than a daily struggle
4:07
Speaker 2: just to survive. There is no real peace, only tear,
4:11
Speaker 2: no joy, just suffering. The Israeli government recognizes the International
4:16
Speaker 2: Fellowship of Christians and Jews for ongoing help to make
4:20
Speaker 2: sure the elderly, the sick, the wounded soldiers, and the
4:24
Speaker 2: impoverished families don't fall through the cracks. And that is
4:27
Speaker 2: where your gift to the Fellowship today will provide life
4:31
Speaker 2: saving aid, medicine, hearty meals, safety, and comfort. I believe
4:37
Speaker 2: that when you bless the people of Israel, we unlock
4:39
Speaker 2: God's blessings in our own lives as well. So show
4:43
Speaker 2: your support for Israel's independence by making a life saving
4:48
Speaker 2: gift today. You can call to make your gift eight
4:51
Speaker 2: eight eight four eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight
4:57
Speaker 2: four eight eight four to three two five. You can
5:01
Speaker 2: also go online to IFCJ dot org. That's if CJ
5:07
Speaker 2: dot org. All right, so Center, let's talk about the
5:10
Speaker 2: invest America.
5:11
Speaker 1: This idea.
5:13
Speaker 2: It is something you've actually been working on for quite
5:15
Speaker 2: some time. Plus you have a special guest joining us
5:18
Speaker 2: to explain it as well.
5:20
Speaker 4: Well.
5:20
Speaker 3: I'm very proud to welcome to Verdict Brad Gershner. Brad
5:23
Speaker 3: is a major Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He runs a hedge fund,
5:28
Speaker 3: Altimeter Capital, in Silicon Valley. He's been incredibly successful and
5:33
Speaker 3: he's become a really good friend over the past year.
5:36
Speaker 3: And he is calling in and joining Verdict from Riad,
5:39
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia. So he is there with the President, with
5:42
Speaker 3: David Sachs. He is on the trip. And I will
5:46
Speaker 3: tell you when we talked about the four victories in
5:49
Speaker 3: the House bill, the victory of invest America. I don't
5:54
Speaker 3: think there is any person who has worked harder to
5:57
Speaker 3: make this a reality than has. And I met Brad
6:02
Speaker 3: a little over a year ago. He and I have
6:04
Speaker 3: been working together on this since April of last year,
6:08
Speaker 3: and he has been working to build the business coalition
6:12
Speaker 3: behind Invest America and bringing together major CEOs, business leaders
6:17
Speaker 3: that see the incredible power of four oh one k's
6:23
Speaker 3: for every newborn in America. And so Brad from from
6:26
Speaker 3: Riod on the other side of the planet. And it
6:28
Speaker 3: is by the way, right now, Ben and I are
6:31
Speaker 3: doing this. It is eleven twenty six pm in d C.
6:35
Speaker 3: It is six twenty six in the morning in Riod,
6:37
Speaker 3: And so he got up to join us. Brad, Welcome
6:39
Speaker 3: to Verdict.
6:41
Speaker 4: Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Ben,
6:44
Speaker 4: good to connect and Senator Wow, just watching the launch
6:48
Speaker 4: of Invest America under your leadership. Today the Housewaves and
6:53
Speaker 4: Means Committee Jason Smith, the Speaker of the House, it's
6:56
Speaker 4: an exciting day, and I can tell you it's also
6:58
Speaker 4: an incredibly exciting day in Riat, Saudi Arabia. The US
7:03
Speaker 4: is back on its front foot. As you said, I'm
7:06
Speaker 4: traveling with David Sachs, who is spreading the accelerationists gospel
7:12
Speaker 4: of artificial intelligence. We want the world running on US
7:16
Speaker 4: compute on USAI, and so it's been it's been a
7:21
Speaker 4: really encouraging trip. But I'm thrilled to be here, thrilled
7:25
Speaker 4: to be on the Verdict. Because of best America I
7:27
Speaker 4: think can change the country. Yeah.
7:29
Speaker 3: Look, I fully agree, and I will say to our listeners.
7:32
Speaker 3: David Sachs is another incredibly successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He's
7:37
Speaker 3: been someone I've known for a long time. He's one
7:39
Speaker 3: of the hosts of the All In podcast, which is
7:42
Speaker 3: incredibly successful. And Brad runs in that circle as well.
7:47
Speaker 3: And David is serving in the White House right now
7:50
Speaker 3: as the President's Chief advisor on Artificial Intelligence and chief
7:54
Speaker 3: advisor and cryptocurrency, and so he's doing a great job.
7:57
Speaker 3: And he and Brad are are traveling to the Middle East,
8:00
Speaker 3: and just today they announced what a trillion dollars in
8:03
Speaker 3: new investments in the United States, and so it's really potent.
8:08
Speaker 4: Uh.
8:09
Speaker 3: But but let's let's do a deep dive into invest America. Now,
8:14
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, bet Ben, Do you know how I
8:17
Speaker 3: got to know Brad?
8:18
Speaker 1: How is that?
8:20
Speaker 4: So?
8:20
Speaker 3: Last spring, I'm sitting at a poker table in Vegas.
8:25
Speaker 3: It's about one in the morning.
8:27
Speaker 1: I'm already I'm already in on this story, and I'm.
8:30
Speaker 4: Every story starts with the poker table.
8:33
Speaker 1: That's right at one am in Vegas.
8:35
Speaker 3: Yes, and every every year I do a fundraiser in
8:39
Speaker 3: Vegas where we play poker. It's great fun. We usually
8:41
Speaker 3: play till three or four in the morning, and we
8:44
Speaker 3: get typically a number of poker pros who come and
8:47
Speaker 3: join us and play. And so last year I was
8:50
Speaker 3: playing with, among others, Phil Hellmuth, who who is one
8:53
Speaker 3: of the greatest poker players to ever live. If if
8:57
Speaker 3: Phil were on, he would say he is the greatest
8:59
Speaker 3: poker layer to ever live. And Brad, you know that's true,
9:04
Speaker 3: but but greatest. He's got a good argument. He's got
9:09
Speaker 3: he he has got fifteen bracelets, he's he's a World
9:12
Speaker 3: Series champion. And we're talking and we're sitting there talking
9:15
Speaker 3: and playing. And I played with Phil a number of times,
9:18
Speaker 3: and he says, hey, do you know Brad gerstro I said, no,
9:20
Speaker 3: no idea, who is he? And he said, all right,
9:22
Speaker 3: you got to know him. He's a great guy. He's
9:25
Speaker 3: like driving this this great program to to like have
9:29
Speaker 3: every every baby at every child in America invested the
9:32
Speaker 3: stock market. I said, that's interesting. I want to know
9:34
Speaker 3: more about that. Phil pulled out his phone and texted
9:37
Speaker 3: Brad and me connected us on on cell that night
9:41
Speaker 3: at one in the morning, and we began working together, uh,
9:45
Speaker 3: starting in spring of last year.
9:48
Speaker 2: That's incredible. That's that is how a friendship grows. And
9:52
Speaker 2: let me guess that's how you guys both got in
9:54
Speaker 2: on this. Hey, what a brilliant idea to allow every
9:58
Speaker 2: kid in America that's got so siecut you're your number,
10:00
Speaker 2: to be able to start investing in essence a day
10:03
Speaker 2: they're born understand that they have a chance to have
10:06
Speaker 2: a nest egg when they grow older. I've got three boys, center.
10:10
Speaker 2: This is something I think about. It's two things. I
10:13
Speaker 2: think about college, I think about saving for school, and
10:15
Speaker 2: I think about them having something to start out their
10:18
Speaker 2: lives with. And that's the essence of what you guys
10:20
Speaker 2: are trying to pull off here.
10:22
Speaker 3: So let me describe the vision of it, and then
10:24
Speaker 3: I want Brad to tell the story because he really
10:26
Speaker 3: did the shoe leather to make this work. But the
10:29
Speaker 3: vision of it, and it is included in the House
10:31
Speaker 3: Ways and Means draft right now, is that every newborn
10:36
Speaker 3: child in America will have an investment account created automatically
10:41
Speaker 3: open for them and seeded with one thousand dollars one
10:45
Speaker 3: thousand dollars that comes from the government to start it
10:49
Speaker 3: that's important to get it going. But even more important
10:54
Speaker 3: is that every one of those accounts, you can contribute
10:57
Speaker 3: up to five thousand dollars a year to those accounts
11:00
Speaker 3: in a tax advantaged way. And and that money can
11:03
Speaker 3: come from friends, it can come from family, and it
11:06
Speaker 3: can come from your parents or relatives, employers. And I
11:09
Speaker 3: think that's a really big we're going to talk about
11:11
Speaker 3: how that's a big accelerator. Uh And and you could
11:16
Speaker 3: accumulate in a tax advantage way. And and there are
11:20
Speaker 3: two massive advantages for this. Number One, every child in
11:25
Speaker 3: America begins to experience the benefits of compound growth. And
11:30
Speaker 3: these accounts, by the way, they're not savings accounts. These
11:34
Speaker 3: are investment accounts that are that that that that are
11:37
Speaker 3: invested in neither ETFs or mutual funds that are invested
11:41
Speaker 3: in the S and P five hundred. So so it
11:43
Speaker 3: makes every newborn child an investor in the American stock market.
11:49
Speaker 3: That enables them And and and look, as you know,
11:51
Speaker 3: well as our listeners know well, compound growth, the miracle
11:55
Speaker 3: of compound growth is one of the great miracles of
11:57
Speaker 3: the world. And if you get people investing for a
12:00
Speaker 3: long time, starting at birth, you can get incredible numbers.
12:03
Speaker 3: So Ben, let me ask you this. You have a
12:06
Speaker 3: newborn child born this year, thousand dollars comes in to
12:09
Speaker 3: seat it, and through friends and family or an employer,
12:12
Speaker 3: five thousand dollars a year gets invested for the first
12:15
Speaker 3: eighteen years of their life. If you assume seven percent growth,
12:20
Speaker 3: which has been the historical average for the stock market,
12:23
Speaker 3: what do you think that eighteen year old has on
12:25
Speaker 3: his eighteenth birthday.
12:27
Speaker 1: I'm going to go with hundreds of thousands, if not
12:29
Speaker 1: over a million.
12:30
Speaker 3: One hundred and seventy thousand dollars. One hundred and seventy
12:32
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. And by the way, this is not for
12:35
Speaker 3: a rich kid. This is every baby in America. If
12:40
Speaker 3: you're contributing all along, what do you think they have
12:43
Speaker 3: if they continue doing that until age thirty five?
12:46
Speaker 1: What is it?
12:47
Speaker 3: Seven hundred thousand dollars?
12:49
Speaker 1: There you go.
12:50
Speaker 3: Now, that is transformational. But I'll tell you that's not
12:54
Speaker 3: what Brad said that sold me on this. So Brad,
12:56
Speaker 3: when he talked to me about this, I said, all right,
12:58
Speaker 3: tell me your idea, and he pitched it. Here was
13:01
Speaker 3: the argument he made. I'm gonna let him make it
13:02
Speaker 3: in about thirty seconds. But the argument he made is
13:05
Speaker 3: he said, look, young people, roughly half of them say
13:10
Speaker 3: they believe in socialism, they don't believe in capitalism. The
13:14
Speaker 3: real power of this is you're making every child in
13:17
Speaker 3: America a capitalist. You're giving them a stake in the
13:21
Speaker 3: American free enterprise system. You're giving him an ownership. So
13:24
Speaker 3: you could have a ten twelve year old kid pull
13:26
Speaker 3: out an app on his or her phone and say,
13:29
Speaker 3: wait a second, I own one hundred dollars worth of Applestock,
13:34
Speaker 3: I own fifty bucks worth of Boeing. I own seventy
13:37
Speaker 3: five bucks worth of worth of McDonald's. And when they
13:41
Speaker 3: go in and buy a Big Mac, they're like, wait
13:43
Speaker 3: a second. I'm not just a customer. I'm a stockholder.
13:47
Speaker 3: I'm an owner of this company. And I think that
13:50
Speaker 3: is profoundly powerful. And Brad, I want to give you
13:53
Speaker 3: credit because you have been a relentless evangelist. You have
13:58
Speaker 3: devoted thousands, if not tens of thousands of hours to
14:01
Speaker 3: this and and and this vision. I believe in it.
14:05
Speaker 3: But but but I would not have been sold on
14:06
Speaker 3: this idea had had you not put in so much
14:09
Speaker 3: shoe leather and built such a strong business coalition behind it.
14:13
Speaker 4: Well, you described it incredibly well. And the reason I
14:17
Speaker 4: think we have such incredible support, incredible support in the
14:21
Speaker 4: business community. These are the world's uh, you know, greatest CEOs.
14:25
Speaker 4: You know, Jensen Hwang and Dvidian Renee has at arm
14:29
Speaker 4: and Michael Dell's and and and Soffra cats at uh
14:33
Speaker 4: you know at Oracle, and Pittman at iHeartMedia and and
14:37
Speaker 4: Lisa Sue at A and b uh you know, Ryan
14:40
Speaker 4: McInerney at Visa or Mel McDermott at uh uh you
14:45
Speaker 4: know Service now, Darkasha shahiat Uber and the list goes on.
14:48
Speaker 4: And notice you know are on the CEOs. It's not
14:52
Speaker 4: a partisan issue. And we have incredible bipartisan support as
14:55
Speaker 4: well on Capitol Hill because every parent wants a better
15:00
Speaker 4: life for their kid, right. I grew up in rural Indiana.
15:04
Speaker 4: My dad was a first time entrepreneur and in nineteen
15:07
Speaker 4: seventy eight in the Rust Belt, starting an autoparts manufacturing
15:10
Speaker 4: business with double digit inflation, double digit interest rates. We
15:15
Speaker 4: lost the house, we lost everything. So I understand profoundly
15:20
Speaker 4: what it feels like to finally be in the game,
15:22
Speaker 4: to finally own something. But for every parent who wants
15:26
Speaker 4: a better life for their kid. Whether they're in rural Texas,
15:29
Speaker 4: whether they're in inner city Trenton, whether they're in rural Indiana.
15:33
Speaker 4: I'm talking every town, every main street in America. Those
15:38
Speaker 4: kids will have a shot. They have skin in the game.
15:41
Speaker 4: The most powerful economy in the world is the American economy.
15:44
Speaker 4: For seventy five years, the S and P five hundred
15:48
Speaker 4: has compounded at ten point two percent. And what has
15:51
Speaker 4: Warren Buffett told us, start with a really small snowball,
15:55
Speaker 4: got a really long hill, and the longest hill you
15:58
Speaker 4: can possibly imagine, and is starting at birth. Almost every
16:02
Speaker 4: American today misses the first twenty five years of compounding.
16:06
Speaker 4: That's nearly one third of your life. By starting these
16:09
Speaker 4: kids off early, we give every kid a shot. We
16:12
Speaker 4: unlocked all of that human potential and the financial literacy,
16:17
Speaker 4: the hope and optimism, and their opportunity to participate in
16:20
Speaker 4: the system is going to skyrocket. It's sad that less
16:23
Speaker 4: than half of kids under the age of forty or
16:26
Speaker 4: folks under the age of forty have a positive view
16:29
Speaker 4: of capitalism. Yeah, but they're left out. They're not capitalists,
16:33
Speaker 4: they're not owners. So it's easier for them to feel
16:36
Speaker 4: like the system is rigged against them. This is going
16:39
Speaker 4: to change that by aligning everybody with our capitalist, free
16:43
Speaker 4: enterprise principles.
16:45
Speaker 3: So let me ask a quick question. Brad, you mentioned
16:48
Speaker 3: your dad. You guys lost your home when you were
16:51
Speaker 3: a kid, so I did too. How old were you
16:54
Speaker 3: when that happened.
16:55
Speaker 4: I was in sixth grade, so I was.
16:57
Speaker 3: In high school and my parents were small business owner
17:00
Speaker 3: in Houston. And in the eighties, oil collapsed and my
17:04
Speaker 3: parents went bankrupt and we lost our business, we lost
17:06
Speaker 3: our home. I didn't realize You and I've been friends
17:08
Speaker 3: a long time, but we haven't talked about this that
17:11
Speaker 3: we both went through the experience. It's a traumatic experience
17:14
Speaker 3: when when you lose your home through through financial stress,
17:17
Speaker 3: and it makes an impact on a kid, whether sixth
17:21
Speaker 3: grade or for me it was eleventh grade, but it
17:25
Speaker 3: you never forget it.
17:26
Speaker 4: Well I you know, I say, in life, you're either
17:29
Speaker 4: running away from something or running towards something, And to me,
17:32
Speaker 4: it planted a seed, and that seed was that I
17:35
Speaker 4: didn't want my family to feel the pain that I
17:39
Speaker 4: was feeling at that point in my life. And you know,
17:42
Speaker 4: as a kid, my life thought I thought was pretty good,
17:44
Speaker 4: but I felt bad for my dad. I felt bad
17:47
Speaker 4: for my mom because I saw them struggling. And so
17:50
Speaker 4: I know, you know later in life talking to mom,
17:54
Speaker 4: she's now turning eighty nine, next door turning ninety here
17:58
Speaker 4: next week. Amazing, beautiful woman. But you know, she felt
18:02
Speaker 4: the guilt of not being able to provide, not knowing
18:05
Speaker 4: whether her child was going to have a better tomorrow.
18:09
Speaker 4: And you know, she is such a supporter of this
18:11
Speaker 4: idea because she said it would have taken so much
18:14
Speaker 4: pressure off her just knowing that her kids were going
18:18
Speaker 4: to have a shot. And so I think everybody deserves
18:22
Speaker 4: you know, you and I have talked about this. See
18:24
Speaker 4: this with a thousand bucks in the SMB five hundred
18:27
Speaker 4: and then get out of the way and let the
18:29
Speaker 4: magic of the private sector do its thing. We're going
18:32
Speaker 4: to have a thousand to one contribution by parents, you know,
18:36
Speaker 4: and we've done the study that it's not just rich
18:40
Speaker 4: parents who say for their kids. Here's a little known fact.
18:45
Speaker 4: You know, the reason poorer folks don't save as much
18:48
Speaker 4: is because of course they don't have savings accounts. This
18:51
Speaker 4: is going to disproportionately benefit the people who are least
18:56
Speaker 4: likely to participate in the market. And who is that right?
19:00
Speaker 4: Those are the people who are the lowest, bottomn fifty
19:03
Speaker 4: percent of the economy today. Because it's hard to open
19:06
Speaker 4: up a custodial account for your child, almost nobody does it.
19:11
Speaker 4: But if you start them off with an account, and
19:13
Speaker 4: you make it really easy for these parents to vendmull
19:17
Speaker 4: in twenty bucks a week or thirty bucks a week,
19:20
Speaker 4: right to give up their Starbucks in order that their
19:23
Speaker 4: kid might be able to save a little bit more money.
19:25
Speaker 4: What we've learned is that cohorts of four families say
19:29
Speaker 4: that about the rate that the cohorts from wealthier families
19:33
Speaker 4: if they have an account. We're going to make it
19:35
Speaker 4: super easy for those parents to contribute.
19:38
Speaker 1: My dad was a police officer I grew up.
19:41
Speaker 2: I would say lower middle class would be a fair
19:45
Speaker 2: way of putting it. But there were several times where we,
19:48
Speaker 2: you know, things got really really tight and my dad
19:53
Speaker 2: just put his head down and went to work as
19:55
Speaker 2: a police officer. And I remember thinking if he only
20:00
Speaker 2: he was able to at a younger age start investing,
20:05
Speaker 2: especially even thinking about college. We knew that we were
20:07
Speaker 2: on our own. I mean, I knew that if I
20:09
Speaker 2: want to go to college, I better be either good education,
20:13
Speaker 2: at having great grades, or at a sport. It was
20:16
Speaker 2: made very clear to me. But I can't imagine how.
20:20
Speaker 3: By the way, brad Ben went to Ole miss on
20:22
Speaker 3: a on a tennis scholarship. So that's how he went
20:25
Speaker 3: to college.
20:26
Speaker 1: No, and I knew that. I knew for that.
20:28
Speaker 2: The pressure to get out was if I'm going to
20:31
Speaker 2: go to college, I have to do these are my
20:34
Speaker 2: only two options. Because there was no savings account, there
20:37
Speaker 2: was no college fund.
20:38
Speaker 1: There was nothing.
20:39
Speaker 2: And I and I and I look now as a
20:41
Speaker 2: father with two three kids, and I and I sit there,
20:46
Speaker 2: I know, right, one of the twins, right, which everyone's
20:49
Speaker 2: my favorite.
20:49
Speaker 3: Today, I'm gonna get you in trouble because whoever it is,
20:52
Speaker 3: he's gonna listen and be like, dad, what about me?
20:54
Speaker 1: Exactly?
20:55
Speaker 2: And And but I sit there and I look at
20:57
Speaker 2: my dad, and I feel bad now because I'm I'm like,
21:00
Speaker 2: I know, he just put his head down and he
21:02
Speaker 2: made whatever he could make being a police officer.
21:05
Speaker 1: This could have been transformative.
21:07
Speaker 2: I think for the pressure that you just mentioned, it
21:10
Speaker 2: seems overwhelming to set up an account. It seems overwhelming
21:13
Speaker 2: to start it, and so many parents just assume I.
21:17
Speaker 1: Don't have enough money to do it.
21:18
Speaker 2: So I'm not even going to be embarrassed and go
21:20
Speaker 2: in and try seven account with one hundred dollars or
21:22
Speaker 2: fifty dollars to start that nest egg.
21:24
Speaker 1: This could be transforming.
21:26
Speaker 2: And for a lot of parents that are just wanting
21:29
Speaker 2: their kids to have a better life, the number one
21:32
Speaker 2: thing that holds them back is that worry or the
21:34
Speaker 2: embarrassment that they're not walking in with enough might have start.
21:37
Speaker 4: It one hundred percent that well said. They call it
21:41
Speaker 4: in economics the cold start problem, right, the cold start
21:46
Speaker 4: problem is I don't know how, or I'm embarrassed, or
21:50
Speaker 4: I don't have the time. Remember, lots of parents are
21:52
Speaker 4: working one or two jobs. You know they not only
21:55
Speaker 4: do they not know how, It takes time right to
21:58
Speaker 4: set these things up, and then you run into questions
22:02
Speaker 4: and then how do you fund it? And you know
22:04
Speaker 4: you have to have that next next tag to get started,
22:06
Speaker 4: so it will unlock that power. But let's let me
22:09
Speaker 4: talk about two other areas. We're going to get incredible
22:12
Speaker 4: private sector participation. So we now have companies representing ten
22:18
Speaker 4: millions of employees, and I mentioned a lot of them,
22:21
Speaker 4: you know, but literally from Uber to Goldman Sachs, from
22:25
Speaker 4: T Mobile to iHeartMedia, from a m D to the
22:29
Speaker 4: Southern companies, you know, an energy company. And we're just
22:32
Speaker 4: getting started, right Wait until the President and folks on
22:36
Speaker 4: Capitol Hill and all these CEOs, wait until we have
22:39
Speaker 4: this seat, this set up, and we're going to ask
22:41
Speaker 4: every company in America to participate in this, and it's
22:45
Speaker 4: going to become a feature of their corporate benefit program.
22:49
Speaker 4: And they're going to match and what we've asked them
22:52
Speaker 4: to do by joining the CEO Council, they've committed to
22:55
Speaker 4: two things. Number One, that they that they agree to
22:58
Speaker 4: do what they can to help get this past. They
23:00
Speaker 4: think it's a great idea. But number two, they've all
23:03
Speaker 4: made a commitment to contribute to the count the accounts
23:06
Speaker 4: of the kids of their employees at a level of
23:09
Speaker 4: participation that makes sense for their company. And so I
23:13
Speaker 4: just had, you know, over here we're talking about some
23:15
Speaker 4: people heard me talking about it yesterday. Another couple of companies,
23:19
Speaker 4: you know set up. I was, you know, I was
23:21
Speaker 4: on Charlie Kirk last night and Charlie said, we're going
23:24
Speaker 4: to do this for our employees. And so you know,
23:27
Speaker 4: I think that once people know about this, we're going
23:29
Speaker 4: to have broad based participation. And when they start adding
23:33
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars at birth or two thousand dollars in
23:36
Speaker 4: that in those first few years, you're going to double
23:40
Speaker 4: and triple those amounts that Ted was talking about through
23:43
Speaker 4: the power of compounding. So whatever number you get to
23:47
Speaker 4: starting at age zero, by agat, if you start with twice,
23:51
Speaker 4: the amount of three times, the amount of just skyrockets.
23:53
Speaker 4: But so that's corporos. But we're also going to have
23:57
Speaker 4: some other big announcements. We have philanthropy this in this country.
24:01
Speaker 4: These are folks who you know, may have millions of dollars,
24:04
Speaker 4: may have billions of dollars, may have hundreds of billions
24:06
Speaker 4: of dollars, who've committed to adding dollars to the accounts
24:10
Speaker 4: of these kids. So we're going to make it really
24:12
Speaker 4: easy for philanthropy. Remember, we have twenty trillion dollars of
24:17
Speaker 4: wealth transfer that's going to occur in this country over
24:20
Speaker 4: the next fifteen years, you know, as baby as the
24:24
Speaker 4: baby boomers retire, move on, et cetera. And many of
24:28
Speaker 4: these people want to give away this money during their lifetime.
24:31
Speaker 4: But if you're Mikeeldell and you have over one hundred
24:35
Speaker 4: billion dollars, you simply can't give it away through charity
24:38
Speaker 4: fast enough. This gives you a financial infrastructure right in
24:43
Speaker 4: order to match. So Michael might say, I'm going to
24:46
Speaker 4: contribute to this five O one C three and match
24:48
Speaker 4: for every kid in the state of Texas, or maybe
24:51
Speaker 4: every kid in the country, or maybe just every kid
24:54
Speaker 4: in the state of Texas whose family earns under one
24:57
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He's going to give five
24:59
Speaker 4: thousand dollars to each of those kids. So we're going
25:01
Speaker 4: to unlock the power of philanthropy for invest America. And
25:06
Speaker 4: then finally I'll drop this out there. I think you're
25:09
Speaker 4: going to see incredible experimentation at the state and local
25:14
Speaker 4: and church level. Right this is going to uh we.
25:18
Speaker 4: I've had states reach out to me, folks running for
25:21
Speaker 4: governor reach out to me, and you're going to be
25:23
Speaker 4: hearing some announcements where they say, in order to attract
25:26
Speaker 4: people to our state, we're going to launch them at birth.
25:30
Speaker 4: We'll take some of our our revenue from you know,
25:34
Speaker 4: from alcohol and cigarettes, We'll take some of the you
25:37
Speaker 4: know that revenue, and we'll put in into account for
25:40
Speaker 4: a kid who's born in this state, and better yet,
25:45
Speaker 4: we may make you know, in a bonus account if
25:48
Speaker 4: they graduate from high school in the state. Because not
25:51
Speaker 4: only do we want to attract people, what we want
25:53
Speaker 4: to keep them here. And so listen, there's going to
25:55
Speaker 4: be a million entrepreneurial flowers that bloom on top of this,
26:01
Speaker 4: and all of it gets back to this fundamental We
26:04
Speaker 4: have too few people who participate in the upside of
26:07
Speaker 4: America less. You know, seventy percent of people have no
26:11
Speaker 4: skin of the game. They'll never have an account their
26:14
Speaker 4: entire lifetime. That compounds. We're going to change all that,
26:17
Speaker 4: and the senators leadership has been absolutely crucial in order
26:21
Speaker 4: to make it happen.
26:23
Speaker 3: So Ben, let me ask you something. Yeah, are you
26:26
Speaker 3: excited listening to this?
26:28
Speaker 2: I am because cause I am. No I am, and
26:30
Speaker 2: I think this is something that we've been missing. You know,
26:33
Speaker 2: you remember when I was working with the Bush administration,
26:36
Speaker 2: it was on Social Security form because it was just
26:39
Speaker 2: a Ponzi scheme in essence, where I was like, what
26:42
Speaker 2: are we doing? How are we not giving people more
26:46
Speaker 2: with investing? And this is one of those things that
26:49
Speaker 2: for me, is about financial freedom, and it allows people
26:52
Speaker 2: a chance to succeed in the greatest country in the
26:55
Speaker 2: world and do it in a way that is just
26:57
Speaker 2: so smart. And I can't imagine what this is going
27:01
Speaker 2: to do for single moms, for people that are working
27:06
Speaker 2: nine to five jobs, two jobs, working hourly jobs.
27:09
Speaker 1: They say, now I.
27:11
Speaker 2: Feel like even I can give my kids a better life,
27:14
Speaker 2: because that's ultimately I think what every parent wants. They
27:17
Speaker 2: want to give their chance, their kid a chance to
27:20
Speaker 2: a better life than they live. And this is an
27:22
Speaker 2: example of starting literally at day one of their birth
27:25
Speaker 2: saying we've got you and dag, now let's go and
27:28
Speaker 2: build on it.
27:29
Speaker 3: So, Ben, one of the things Brad was describing that
27:31
Speaker 3: has me really excited is the accelerator that is built
27:35
Speaker 3: into it. So seating every account with a thousand dollars
27:39
Speaker 3: is valuable. By the way, there are three point seven
27:41
Speaker 3: million babies born every year, and so one thousand dollars
27:46
Speaker 3: for three point seven million babies a three point seven
27:49
Speaker 3: billion dollars a year. That means this will cost thirty
27:52
Speaker 3: seven billion dollars over ten years. This is a four
27:56
Speaker 3: to five trillion dollar tax cut. So thirty seven billion
27:58
Speaker 3: dollars is a relatively small piece, but you want to
28:01
Speaker 3: talk about how it transforms America. That seed money is important.
28:06
Speaker 3: Even more important is simply creating the account. As Brad noticed,
28:12
Speaker 3: two thirds of Americans will not have an investment account,
28:15
Speaker 3: will not be invested in the market. And we're creating
28:18
Speaker 3: a world where every child, every single child, from gazillionaire
28:23
Speaker 3: kids to a homeless kid on the street is suddenly
28:27
Speaker 3: has an account invested the market. That is transformative. But
28:31
Speaker 3: then the accelerator. So what Brad has worked for several
28:35
Speaker 3: years is he's brought together world class ceo some of
28:39
Speaker 3: the most prominent CEOs in the country. He mentioned Michael Dell.
28:42
Speaker 3: That was not theoretical. Michael is Michael is a good
28:45
Speaker 3: friend of mine. He's a Texan, incredible entrepreneur worth over
28:48
Speaker 3: one hundred billion dollars. Michael is the chairman of the
28:52
Speaker 3: CEO Council for Invest America. So Michael is leaning in heart.
28:55
Speaker 3: He's committed Dell Computers. When this passes, Dell will help
29:02
Speaker 3: fund the accounts for the kids of their employees. That's powerful.
29:06
Speaker 3: But as Brad said, also Michael is quite interested on
29:09
Speaker 3: the philanthropic side in supporting not just the accounts for
29:14
Speaker 3: the children of his employees, but more broadly having a
29:16
Speaker 3: bigger impact. I think we will see think for a second,
29:20
Speaker 3: ben about four to one k's. Remember when we were kids,
29:23
Speaker 3: four oh one k's didn't exist. Now just about every
29:28
Speaker 3: every job at a big company, it's part of the plan.
29:31
Speaker 3: It's part of the plan, and the employer matches four
29:34
Speaker 3: a one k contributions makes their own contributions. It's a
29:39
Speaker 3: really attractive employee benefit. And what I like about this
29:43
Speaker 3: is the accelerator component that I think you will end
29:46
Speaker 3: up having real wealth creation that changes. Look an eighteen
29:51
Speaker 3: year old kid who's got a single mom, who's not
29:54
Speaker 3: coming from money, who's living in a rough environment, who
29:58
Speaker 3: suddenly got a couple of hundred thousand dollars invested in
30:01
Speaker 3: the stock market. That changes their whole life. This is
30:07
Speaker 3: this is life changing.
30:08
Speaker 2: And well this also seems I go back to the
30:11
Speaker 2: trickle down effect. And you know, it's like four to
30:14
Speaker 2: one k's. You remember when it was your grandparents and
30:17
Speaker 2: your parents when you go to get your first job,
30:19
Speaker 2: your first real job, and do they have a four
30:21
Speaker 2: to one k. It's not the twenty one to twenty
30:24
Speaker 2: three year old that's asking that question. It's the parents
30:27
Speaker 2: and grandparents. I remember when I got my first other.
30:30
Speaker 2: They do they match? Where they match? They have a
30:31
Speaker 2: four to one k imagine if you get that started
30:35
Speaker 2: in the mindset at age literally zero, that can transform
30:40
Speaker 2: an entire nation.
30:41
Speaker 3: So, Brad, let me ask you something. How did you
30:43
Speaker 3: get involved in this to begin with? Because you were
30:46
Speaker 3: passionate and working on this. I got involved with you
30:50
Speaker 3: about a year ago, but you were passionate involved in
30:52
Speaker 3: this long before that. What was the kernel of the
30:54
Speaker 3: idea that started this?
30:56
Speaker 4: Well, you know, you'll appreciate the senator as a dad,
30:59
Speaker 4: you're but you know I have two boys, Lincoln and Jack,
31:05
Speaker 4: and they're sixteen and fourteen. And one of the things
31:09
Speaker 4: we talk about a lot when we sit around the
31:10
Speaker 4: dinner table is when we see problems, don't complain about them, right,
31:17
Speaker 4: have a bias to action, have a bias to action,
31:20
Speaker 4: Do something about it, don't just sit around and complain.
31:23
Speaker 4: And so, coming out of COVID, I was showing them
31:28
Speaker 4: the investment accounts I set up when they were born, yep.
31:32
Speaker 4: And we're talking about the power of compounding, and we
31:35
Speaker 4: were showing they were talking about the stocks that they owned,
31:38
Speaker 4: and I could see their excitement and they said, Dad,
31:41
Speaker 4: when are we going to be able to, you know,
31:43
Speaker 4: have some control over what we're investing in. We want
31:46
Speaker 4: to learn more. Will you set up a robin Hood
31:49
Speaker 4: account course, et cetera. And then we started talking about
31:53
Speaker 4: the wealth gap and we started you know, my son
31:56
Speaker 4: Lincoln brought me something you know that was the headline
31:59
Speaker 4: and that said ninety three percent of stocks are owned
32:02
Speaker 4: by the wealthiest ten percent of Americans. Yeah, and he said, Dad,
32:06
Speaker 4: I feel I feel like you know, I'm I'm glad
32:09
Speaker 4: you set this up for me when I was a kid,
32:11
Speaker 4: but I kind of feel guilty, like what, why can't
32:14
Speaker 4: everybody you know have this this uh you know, saying
32:18
Speaker 4: benefit and and I said, you know, we got to
32:21
Speaker 4: fix this. And so he said to me, what are
32:24
Speaker 4: you going to do about it? And I turned to
32:26
Speaker 4: him and I said, no, what are we going to
32:28
Speaker 4: do about it? And we made a commitment as a
32:30
Speaker 4: family that we're going to do something about this. Yep,
32:33
Speaker 4: And you know, it's been been one of the best
32:36
Speaker 4: parts of the journey. We set up a five oh
32:38
Speaker 4: one C three uh call invest America and we literally,
32:42
Speaker 4: you know, just started uh, you know, making the calls.
32:47
Speaker 4: And it was lining up light minded thinkers in the
32:51
Speaker 4: private sector and lining up light light minded folks in Washington.
32:56
Speaker 4: And you and I have talked about this. I you know,
32:59
Speaker 4: I had the fortune when I was returning from studying
33:02
Speaker 4: overseas in nineteen ninety ninety one to show up in
33:05
Speaker 4: Washington and go work for the late and great Senator
33:10
Speaker 4: from Indiana, Richard Lueger. Luber was a Rhodes scholar. He
33:14
Speaker 4: was a mayor of Indianapolis, became a long serving senator,
33:18
Speaker 4: credible senator and at the time he was working on
33:21
Speaker 4: denuclearizing the nuclear stockpiles coming out of the Cold War
33:26
Speaker 4: with Sam Nunn. And let's just say later in life,
33:30
Speaker 4: I went on to have some success. And when I
33:33
Speaker 4: saw the Senator in those later years, he said to me,
33:36
Speaker 4: you know, don't waste it. You know, remember those days,
33:39
Speaker 4: remember those runs around the wall in the mall in Washington,
33:43
Speaker 4: and make sure you do something that matters. And so
33:45
Speaker 4: as a family, we want to do something that matters.
33:48
Speaker 4: And I will say in the House, in the Senate,
33:51
Speaker 4: you know, you know, in the White House, and in
33:54
Speaker 4: a broad bipartisan way, and that was something that was
33:57
Speaker 4: really important to me. We've had incredible support, and I said,
34:03
Speaker 4: I've never seen an idea with a better product market fit.
34:06
Speaker 4: Everybody I talked to in the private sector in Washington
34:10
Speaker 4: was intrigued by the idea. But I remember we were
34:14
Speaker 4: speaking with them. Speaker McCarthy in the House. Lincoln was
34:17
Speaker 4: in the meeting with me. We had an incredible meeting
34:20
Speaker 4: with the Speaker and we walked out and I said
34:23
Speaker 4: to him, as we're looking at the rotunda in the House,
34:26
Speaker 4: I said, every single good idea in America has started
34:30
Speaker 4: with a conversation just like that. Right as an entrepreneur
34:34
Speaker 4: in Silica Valley, nothing happened in Zilica Valley right, not Google,
34:38
Speaker 4: not open Ai, not Facebook. Right without a conversation on
34:42
Speaker 4: the back of a napkin. That starts as an idea.
34:45
Speaker 4: And so I had started a few companies in Valley.
34:48
Speaker 4: I knew something about starting things, and we just got
34:51
Speaker 4: started and the snowball started rolling. And here we are
34:54
Speaker 4: three and a half years later, and I think we're
34:57
Speaker 4: on the precipice. I think you're great leaders the great
35:00
Speaker 4: leadership in the House and the White House of making
35:04
Speaker 4: this happen, and I agree with you. I think we're
35:06
Speaker 4: going to look back in ten or twenty years and
35:08
Speaker 4: this is going to be a massive legacy of this moment.
35:12
Speaker 2: You just said a word. A moment ago, the word
35:14
Speaker 2: and it's become a bad word now. Is bipartisan? It
35:17
Speaker 2: like never happens anymore. So I'm going to ask both
35:19
Speaker 2: of you this, is there a chance that this can
35:23
Speaker 2: be such a great idea that it is in fact
35:26
Speaker 2: bi partisan and that Democrats and Republicans can work together
35:30
Speaker 2: like they used to twenty thirty years ago when there
35:33
Speaker 2: are nonpartisan ideas that are just great ideas that are
35:37
Speaker 2: great for all Americans. And this one, by the way,
35:40
Speaker 2: I would actually argue with Skew Moore to helping those
35:42
Speaker 2: that are poor in this country.
35:43
Speaker 1: Look at anyone.
35:44
Speaker 3: Else, unquestionably, and I'll give you some positive signs on
35:48
Speaker 3: this one. There are significant overlaps between this idea and
35:53
Speaker 3: an idea that Corey Booker had called baby bonds, and
35:55
Speaker 3: his idea was to create bonds and create a savings
35:58
Speaker 3: account for every baby worn in America, and he when
36:01
Speaker 3: he was running for president, he campaign on that. Corey's
36:03
Speaker 3: a friend of mine. Brad knows Corey. Well, I will
36:07
Speaker 3: say this is different from Corey's baby bonds, because I
36:11
Speaker 3: was not a supporter of just the baby bonds of
36:14
Speaker 3: an investment account that is accruing interest. What really sold
36:18
Speaker 3: me on this was making a generation of capitalists. Was
36:22
Speaker 3: the fact that this money is not just a savings account,
36:25
Speaker 3: which is easy for Democrats to support, but rather it
36:28
Speaker 3: is investing in the equity markets. It is making children
36:32
Speaker 3: owners of the major companies in America, and that to
36:35
Speaker 3: me was really exciting. That being said, I think there's
36:39
Speaker 3: a good chance that we will get Democrats to support this.
36:42
Speaker 3: I'll say Dick Durbin, who is the Democrat whip and
36:47
Speaker 3: very liberal senator, although I've served with him on the
36:49
Speaker 3: Judiciary Committee for thirteen years. Dick Durbin, in a press
36:52
Speaker 3: story today, actually praised this idea. And it's common about
36:57
Speaker 3: me that Dick is wicked smart, but we said about
36:59
Speaker 3: me as he said, well, a stop clock is right
37:02
Speaker 3: twice a day. And I actually ran into Dick in
37:06
Speaker 3: the wall in the hallway and I said, Dick, you
37:10
Speaker 3: praised me in the press. He said it must have
37:12
Speaker 3: been a mistake, and I reminded him of the quote
37:14
Speaker 3: and he laughed, and I said, Dick, it's a good
37:16
Speaker 3: thing you're retiring. They might primary in the Democrat primary
37:19
Speaker 3: for saying something nice about me. It's and I'll tell
37:22
Speaker 3: you there was another Democrat senator, a freshman, it was
37:25
Speaker 3: newly elected, who came and approached me and said, I
37:27
Speaker 3: really like this idea. This is interesting. And I said, well, look,
37:31
Speaker 3: so no Democrat is going to vote for the reconciliation bill.
37:34
Speaker 3: That's going to be a pure party line bill. So
37:36
Speaker 3: the actual bill that passes this no Democrat will vote for.
37:40
Speaker 3: But what I told this this Democrat freshman, I said, well,
37:43
Speaker 3: co sponsor my invest America bill, so you can make
37:46
Speaker 3: clear you supported. I think we've got a decent chance
37:49
Speaker 3: of getting Democrats on board. Brad did a good job
37:52
Speaker 3: of talking to them. And I will tell you a
37:57
Speaker 3: couple of things. So Brad was describing all the time
37:59
Speaker 3: in entergy he put in and he said, quite modestly,
38:03
Speaker 3: he said, well, I've had some success in business.
38:05
Speaker 4: Ben.
38:06
Speaker 3: Let me be clear, Brad is a billionaire. Like he's
38:09
Speaker 3: got a crap ton of money and he could sit
38:12
Speaker 3: back and play golf all day long and never need
38:15
Speaker 3: to work again, and he'd be fine, and his kids
38:17
Speaker 3: would be fine, and his grandkids would be fine. But
38:20
Speaker 3: he's not doing that. A He's got a ton of energy,
38:22
Speaker 3: but he has poured so much time and energy and money.
38:26
Speaker 3: So I will tell you the way this got done
38:29
Speaker 3: is he was relentless. He was talking to everybody in
38:31
Speaker 3: the House. Why is this in the House bill? Because
38:34
Speaker 3: Brad was talking repeatedly to Jason Smith, the Chairman of
38:37
Speaker 3: Ways and Means. He was talking repeatedly to Mike Johnson,
38:39
Speaker 3: the Speaker of the House. By the way, I was too,
38:41
Speaker 3: I was talking to both of them. They're both good friends.
38:44
Speaker 3: He was talking repeatedly to me and other senators. I
38:48
Speaker 3: sat down with Brad this week with Mike Crapo, the
38:50
Speaker 3: chairman of the Finance Committee, who's drafting the tax portion
38:53
Speaker 3: of the reconciliation of the Senate. He's been talking in
38:56
Speaker 3: the White House to Kevin Hasset, who runs the National
38:58
Speaker 3: Economic Council, over and over and over again. He's been
39:01
Speaker 3: talking to the President. It is been that relentless. And
39:04
Speaker 3: by the way, President Trump weighed in directly with the
39:08
Speaker 3: Speaker of the House and said, I like this idea
39:10
Speaker 3: included How did this idea get like like a lot
39:13
Speaker 3: of the press is shocked. Why is this in the
39:16
Speaker 3: House bill? A big part of the reason is the
39:20
Speaker 3: President weighed in and said I really like this idea,
39:23
Speaker 3: and so the House included it. That wouldn't have happened
39:27
Speaker 3: without Brad's efforts and my efforts making the case to
39:31
Speaker 3: the House, to the Senate and to the White House.
39:33
Speaker 3: And I think we will get this done and it
39:37
Speaker 3: will have an impact. When all three of us are
39:40
Speaker 3: dead and buried, this will still be having a profound impact.
39:44
Speaker 2: So for people that are listening, and this is when
39:47
Speaker 2: I get genuinely excited and they say, all right, I
39:49
Speaker 2: want to support this, what do they do?
39:51
Speaker 1: Is it call?
39:52
Speaker 2: Is this one of those where you say, call your
39:54
Speaker 2: congress person, regardless of party, call your senator?
39:58
Speaker 1: I mean that sound like the White House is on born.
40:00
Speaker 1: You don't have to call them.
40:01
Speaker 2: But what is it that the American people need to
40:03
Speaker 2: do to help this get across the finish line as well?
40:05
Speaker 3: So I've got an answer to that, and I want
40:06
Speaker 3: Brad to chime in on this also, but I'd say
40:08
Speaker 3: speak out, use your voice and say this is a
40:12
Speaker 3: great idea and I like this, And Brad today was texting,
40:16
Speaker 3: so he and I started the morning. Early this morning,
40:19
Speaker 3: I did an interview on Squawkbox on CNBC, which I
40:22
Speaker 3: love doing, and Brad called in from Riod. By the way,
40:26
Speaker 3: you might think, Okay, a billionaire Silicon Valley investor in
40:31
Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia calling in to CNBC Squawkbox, this is high falutin.
40:36
Speaker 3: This is fancy schmancy. Brad sent me the picture of him.
40:40
Speaker 3: He was literally standing there holding his laptop in the
40:44
Speaker 3: air like filming it on a zoom. It was as
40:48
Speaker 3: low tech as can be. And we did the interview together.
40:51
Speaker 3: But I want to tell you two things on this
40:53
Speaker 3: because this is the answer to what you can do. One,
40:56
Speaker 3: when I finished that interview, and also when I finished
40:59
Speaker 3: the interview with Cudler, which I did this afternoon, this
41:02
Speaker 3: is so cool. In both instances, the cameraman who was
41:06
Speaker 3: filming us like the I haven't told you this, Brad.
41:10
Speaker 3: At the end of squawk the cameraman said, Wow, I
41:14
Speaker 3: have a daughter as a senior in high school. I'd
41:15
Speaker 3: love for her to have one hundred and seventy thousand dollars.
41:18
Speaker 3: And like the cameraman on Cudler said basically the same thing.
41:22
Speaker 3: I mean it was you want to talk about a
41:24
Speaker 3: message that resonates people think, wait, this could really help
41:28
Speaker 3: my kid, And that was cool, But on the question
41:32
Speaker 3: of what you can do, and I'm so brad today
41:36
Speaker 3: at eleven thirty six am, he texted me, how are
41:39
Speaker 3: you tackling the quote this is socialism? Retort? And so
41:44
Speaker 3: there are some people online who are saying that's saying that.
41:47
Speaker 2: By the way, people are coming after you in the
41:49
Speaker 2: White House saying this.
41:50
Speaker 1: Is socialism straight up. So let's respond to that.
41:53
Speaker 3: Okay. So I texted him back, I'm just going to
41:56
Speaker 3: read you my text. I said, yep, it's the opposite
41:59
Speaker 3: of socialism. The definition of socialism is government ownership or
42:03
Speaker 3: control of the means of production or distribution. This is
42:07
Speaker 3: ownership and control by millions of citizens. It is making
42:12
Speaker 3: them capitalists. Online people use quote socialism as a shorthand
42:19
Speaker 3: for any government spending or tax credits. But obviously some
42:23
Speaker 3: is good and some is bad. And so I will
42:26
Speaker 3: say what I will encourage our listeners to just speak
42:29
Speaker 3: out and say, look, helping people creating a vehicle for
42:33
Speaker 3: our children to invest, to accumulate wealth, to transform their lives,
42:37
Speaker 3: to have resources to get an education, to buy a house,
42:40
Speaker 3: to start a business, to climb the economic ladder much faster.
42:45
Speaker 3: That is incredibly worthwhile. And creating people who are capitalists
42:49
Speaker 3: and invested in the free market system, that is, if anything,
42:53
Speaker 3: more valuable. And so I think adding your voices. And
42:56
Speaker 3: by the way, for some of the critics, they're quiet
43:00
Speaker 3: by the fact that the President Trump enthusiastically supports this,
43:04
Speaker 3: but but it is really transformed. To Brad, what do
43:08
Speaker 3: you think about that? I kind of went at a rant.
43:10
Speaker 4: No, well said number one. I would say on Twitter
43:14
Speaker 4: or X follow it at invest America twenty four. So
43:18
Speaker 4: it's just at invest America twenty four. And what we're
43:20
Speaker 4: going to do there, like we've been doing for three years,
43:23
Speaker 4: We're just going to continue to post the updates so
43:25
Speaker 4: people can stay informed. Right. Secondly, as the senator said,
43:29
Speaker 4: way in, you know, use your voice, use your voice
43:32
Speaker 4: in your social networks, direct people to follow it. We're
43:36
Speaker 4: building the movement, and the movement's going to last well
43:39
Speaker 4: beyond just getting the legislation pass. Remember when we passed
43:43
Speaker 4: the legislation. Now, the Treasury Department is going to set
43:46
Speaker 4: up these accounts and so you know we're going to
43:49
Speaker 4: integrate this into the financial literacy across the country. There
43:52
Speaker 4: are already thirty states that require literacy in high school.
43:57
Speaker 4: But think about this, it's hard to learn about financial
43:59
Speaker 4: life when your parents don't own anything, when you don't
44:02
Speaker 4: own anything and you have no prospect of owning anything.
44:05
Speaker 4: Now they're going to say, get out your phone, open
44:07
Speaker 4: up your Best America account. We're going to talk about
44:10
Speaker 4: how you got twenty five thousand dollars in that account,
44:12
Speaker 4: what it means to own a little bit of Nvidia
44:15
Speaker 4: or Berkshire halfway, how compounding works, how stocks work, what
44:20
Speaker 4: voting rights you know in these companies mean. So like,
44:24
Speaker 4: this is going to be a movement that lasts well beyond,
44:29
Speaker 4: you know, just getting the legislation, but certainly way in.
44:32
Speaker 4: And yeah, I want to underscore Senator that you know,
44:37
Speaker 4: the Senator's leadership has been incredible here. But what will
44:41
Speaker 4: make this big and beautiful is by building a giant tent.
44:45
Speaker 4: I will tell you this. I have had former Democratic president,
44:49
Speaker 4: I had had lots of members of the Democratic Party
44:53
Speaker 4: in the Senate, in the House and across America tell
44:57
Speaker 4: me what a great idea this is. They can't wait
45:00
Speaker 4: until this happens for the benefit of their kids. Because
45:02
Speaker 4: I want to return to this fundamental principle. If you're
45:05
Speaker 4: a parent, if you've experienced having a child, you know
45:10
Speaker 4: you would give the shirt off your back to your child.
45:12
Speaker 4: There's nothing parents want more that a better shot for
45:16
Speaker 4: their kid than the shot that they had. And this
45:19
Speaker 4: is the way that we do it. It unleashes economic mobility,
45:23
Speaker 4: it unleashes human potential. It aligns everybody with the democratic,
45:29
Speaker 4: free market, free enterprise principles which has made this country
45:34
Speaker 4: so great. You know, here I am in Saudi Arabia today,
45:37
Speaker 4: I'm looking out the window of my hotel and I
45:39
Speaker 4: will tell you, while it's a very wealthy nation, the
45:42
Speaker 4: wealth is not equally distributed. Right. One of the powers
45:46
Speaker 4: of America is we have the greatest economic mobility in
45:51
Speaker 4: the world. But for too long, over the course of
45:54
Speaker 4: the last thirty years, we've had a concentration of that
45:59
Speaker 4: because the stuff has been the thing that's compounded all
46:02
Speaker 4: the value, and less than three percent of the market
46:07
Speaker 4: is owned by the bottom sixty percent of people. We're
46:10
Speaker 4: going to turn that on its head by getting everybody
46:13
Speaker 4: into the game. And so every rural town in Texas Senator,
46:17
Speaker 4: where you have folks who want to vote for you.
46:19
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter the color, the race, doesn't matter if
46:22
Speaker 4: you're working one or two jobs. You're going to have
46:24
Speaker 4: a lot more hope for your kid and you're going
46:26
Speaker 4: to have account that you can contribute to that future.
46:29
Speaker 4: So that's all I would weigh in, you know, and
46:33
Speaker 4: I hope people have an open mind. I think they will.
46:35
Speaker 4: You know, you mentioned Social Security and obviously that's a
46:38
Speaker 4: sacred promise got to be met, and this is something
46:42
Speaker 4: totally different. But you know, if I asked you guys,
46:46
Speaker 4: most Americans would have no idea whether that was passed
46:49
Speaker 4: by a Republican or a Democrat. Most Americans would have
46:52
Speaker 4: no idea about the political debates. Most Americans would have
46:55
Speaker 4: no idea you know how many votes had caught in
46:58
Speaker 4: favor of it? Where they Republican votes, were they Democrat votes? Right?
47:02
Speaker 4: What people remember is doing something that helps America come
47:06
Speaker 4: together on Team America, something that unites us not divides us, right,
47:11
Speaker 4: something that uplifts families around the country. And I can't
47:15
Speaker 4: think of anything more powerful than the power of invest
47:19
Speaker 4: America accounts for all these kids born. You know, I'll
47:22
Speaker 4: leave you with this. Twenty twenty six is the two
47:25
Speaker 4: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this great American experiment. Right,
47:29
Speaker 4: and the three folks on this on the Zoom or
47:32
Speaker 4: on this podcast are living testiments. Right, our parents struggled.
47:38
Speaker 4: Two of us had parents still bankrupt. Right, and this
47:42
Speaker 4: country has been unbelievably good to us. We can unlock
47:46
Speaker 4: that power for millions and millions and millions more kids.
47:50
Speaker 4: And this is one of the ways we can do.
47:52
Speaker 4: Lots of great ideas out there, but you know, we
47:55
Speaker 4: got work to do to get this passed. So I'm
47:57
Speaker 4: gonna be back in Washington working with the Senate, are
48:00
Speaker 4: building that broad coalition making sure that we get it done.
48:04
Speaker 4: And you know, and just can't thank you enough for
48:07
Speaker 4: your support.
48:08
Speaker 2: Well, I want to make sure people know that are
48:10
Speaker 2: listening where to follow you guys on X and I'm
48:12
Speaker 2: going to say it again at invest America twenty four.
48:16
Speaker 2: At Invest America twenty four, don't forget We do this
48:19
Speaker 2: show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Make sure you hit that
48:22
Speaker 2: subscriber auto download button wherever you are share this episode.
48:27
Speaker 2: This is one of those that really can make a
48:28
Speaker 2: difference in the future of this country. So make sure
48:31
Speaker 2: you do that and again at follow what they're doing
48:34
Speaker 2: at invest America twenty four on X you can see
48:38
Speaker 2: a lot more about this and share videos as well
48:39
Speaker 2: in the center and I will see you back here
48:41
Speaker 2: in a couple of days