Program:  Fox Business Tonight
Date:  5/24/2021
Station:  Fox Business News
Time:  5:00PM

BRIAN BRENBERG: Well, for reaction, let’s bring in our panel, Carol Roth, former investment banker and author of The War on Small Business, Scott Martin, Kingsview, Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer and also a Fox Business Contributor. Welcome to you both. Glad to have you both. Carol, let me start with you. I’m looking at this so-called counter offer coming from Democrats, just one point seven trillion dollars. They came down 10 times more than Republicans apparently went up, according to Jen Psaki. This a counteroffer or is there even a negotiation happening at all right now?

CAROL ROTH: I mean, the whole thing is so insane, Brian, because their definition of infrastructure is so insane based on their definitions. I should be getting a gift card to Nordstrom’s shoe department because I walk around a lot to get from point A to point B.. I think the bigger issue here in the we came down this many percent versus this many percent, the big issue is spending. And we as citizens spend on average for our lifetime earnings just shy of thirty five percent of them in taxes. And in some places, people who live like in the state of New Jersey, it’s just shy of 50 percent. So we don’t need the government getting into any new spending. They need to be finding places where they already have money and shifting it for infrastructure, which should be a priority. All they’re doing, though, right now is saying, OK, well, who is going to pay for it when we should all collectively be pointing the finger back to them and say, no, we don’t want to we don’t want anyone to pay for it. We want you to be more wise with the spending.

BRENBERG: And Scott, you know, this latest proposal actually took down some of the actual infrastructure in the bill. The one thing that the bipartisan agreement would have needed, it’s actually removed here. But let me ask you this. I look at this thing and I say, here’s the strategy. Let’s get bipartisanship on a little infrastructure and take everything else and shift it to that reconciliation bill. And what does America end up with? Four trillion dollars in spending? Is that what’s happening here?

SCOTT MARTIN: Yeah, and that’s a number that it might seem like really small when we get done with all this spending, Bryan, because there’ll be bills beyond bills after this. Look, put me down on the gift certificate or gift card for the Shoe Department because it looks like we’re heading that way. I mean, Carol, and I know being in Chicago, the local issues that government has here on misspending tax dollars. And the other thing that worries me, too, Brian, you talked about bipartisanship. I mean, this is that whole mantra of the government saying we know what to do with your money better than you do on really anything. And one thing to think about is even the Obama administration and even saying that’s as old as time is, how about introducing like a private public partnership type of agreement where you can factor in the private partnership that we can get with local businesses, local experts, local workers, create actual real jobs and not get the typical waste, fraud and abuse that we see with massive spending bills like this. But instead, it’s all like, yeah, we’ll come with a compromise or an exception here and knock it down a few hundred billion dollars and call that a good offer. It’s shameful.

BRENBERG: You know, Carol, you wrote the book on the war on small business. I look at this situation right now. Big companies look at big government and they say, I can navigate that. I know how to work it. I’ve got contacts there. I know how to spend money there. But it’s small businesses who look at all of this spending and beyond that, all the taxes that are supposed to pay for it. And they say we’re the ones who cannot navigate this. We get lost or we get dictated to when spending like this happens.

ROTH: Yeah, I mean, if you think you want to come up with a definition of infrastructure, small business is the backbone of the economy that fits the definition better. But unfortunately, this is all intentional when you have pre-covid thirty point two million small businesses that are all independent minded and want to be left alone and don’t want big government, they are very hard to control. That stands as the polar opposite road block of central planning. Central planning wants to have a handful of big businesses and cronies to deal with. And so what happens? The small businesses end up as collateral damage. And so none of this is unintentional. It’s completely intentional. As you said, the small businesses cannot navigate all of these tax increases, all of these roadblocks to economic freedom. And at the end of the day, this is bad for each and every one of us and for our economy.

BRENBERG: Scott, I only have a few seconds left, but your thought really quick. Does this thing fall apart? And if so, are you happy about that?

MARTIN: Oh, definitely not happy about it, happy about it, the fact of it does fall apart, we don’t get this crazy spend that’s going to possibly come down the pike. I think eventually they’re going to work something out, Brian, but they’ve got to change the face of this thing pretty quick and pretty fast. Otherwise, it’s going to be a nasty fight

BRENBERG:  Carol and Scott wouldn’t have anyone else to talk about this than you. Thank you for being here today. Appreciate it.