television for serious readers. >> american history tv saturdays on c-span2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 12:30 p.m. eastern eastern on the presidency mark taber author and click of a george washington masonic them were talks about george washington's involvement with freemasonry and its influence on his life and work from his book a deserving brother. at 4:45 p.m. eastern cast members of the world war ii miniseries band of brothers reflect on the historical and cultural significance of the show two decades after it aired. exploring the american story, watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online any time at c-span.org/history. >> host: joining us now on

booktv is steve moore. his most recent book is "govzilla: how the relentless growth of government is devouring our economy and our freedom." mr. moore, has government ever not grown? >> guest: good to be with you. love c-span. thanks for having me. the book really goes through the whole history from the founding of a country and there's lots of graphs and charts ind this that show we've had a relentless growth of government but there have been periods, a good question actually, have there been periods where government has retrenched? the answer is yes. for example,, for the first 50 o 100 years of our country there really wasn't much growth of government. the federal government basically provided the postal service, it built the roads andnd provide te national defense and had a court system but we didn't have all the social programs. there was the education department or energy department back then. and then of course -- i think

you were tot its earnings thins it happen in the united states. one was the adoption of income tax because remember for the first 100 years of this country the constitution actually prohibited an income tax and then we passed i believe it was the 16th amendment but don't quote me on that, i think it was a 16th back around 1913 that enable an income tax. that provided this new revenue for the government and yes, i could guessur what they did. they started spinning it. you had a big burst then and, of course, had the new deal era where government got involved in all sorts of new social programs and things like that that had never really existed before. and then you had the great society programs of the 1960s where we again expanded the size and scope of government, and then keeps going up and up. but there was periods were government actually fell back. so, for example, after the civil

war when you got a massive increase in government during the civil war, then spending came way down after the civil war. after world war ii when the government spent almost half of its gdp to defeat the nazis and the japanese, then government spending went from like 48% of our gdp l back down to like less than 20% of gdp. that's a big reduction. then in the reagan era we saw some cuts in spending but nothing like what we're seeing today. incidentally during 2020 when we were at the height of the covid crisis, for the first time in our country's history even moren so than world war ii the government became almost half of our economy because so much of the business was shut down. >> host: you mentioned ronald reagan who was a hero for many on the right. rand paul does the introduction to your bookk and he wrote wheni first came to washington in the

year 1984 the entire federal budget was less than $1 trillion, and it was reagan who introduced the first trillion dollar budget tragedy i was working for reagan at the time. we were not very proud of that. but it is, i tell that story because now he we are 30 years later, it's not 1 trillion. now it is 6 trillion. it's amazing how much we see government grow. and it the areas that i thinr founding fathers one of the ideas i would like to install in this book is our founders really have the idea of a very limited federal government. over time obviously that has expanded but there's something called theer enumerated powers whichh basically say if these powers are not explicitly given to the federal government, by the way revenue like guns and abortion things like that, where he you divide the land between the states have writes in with the federal government has the oversight of these things, but i

believe that we woulde i beliee in a federalist system that let the states do it, this idea of states being laboratories of democracy. yet 50 states experimenting how do we deal with welfare, health care, our schools, how do we provide good transportation? states to learn from each other and that's an ingenious system. i like to talk in the book about what i call the forgotten ninth and tenth amendments. the ninth and t tenth amendmenta lot of kids don't even know what that is but basically what those amendments say is that all rights to powers is explicitly given to the federal government reside with the states and the people, state and the people. i love that. i'm kind of libertarian. i don't like big government so that was the idea behind our constitution. we have really moved away from that. >> host: thomas paine said that government is ave necessary evil. do you agree? >> guest: i do.

i do. i think too many people think that government is a positive good.ng look, i'm not calling for anarchy or anything like that. i do believe we need a strong defense. i believe b we need good transportation. i believe in a safety net. we are a rich country we don't want people to go hungry or homeless in this country. we do want people to live in deprivation. we have a lot of work to do on that score but i also think that if we're going to get somebody money then they should have to do something in return for it. i like what bill clinton and newt gingrich did back in the '90s when they had, you know, we're going to provide you with the funding but you have to either be looking for work or in a job or in training and we've moved away from that right now. i think that's been a big mistake. it's one of the reason a lot of businesses can't get workers. we are paying people money for welfare benefits but we're not expecting them to do something in return for that.

>> host:th what's the difference and the imports government debt, government deficit? >> guest: i get asked that question all the time. so the deficit is the amount of the excess of the spending over amount of revenue. think of it as your personal finances. if you make $2000 in the month and then you spend $2500 that month, you have $500 you have $500 deficit, right? that's what we've been running is these annual deficits. now what is of the debt? the national debt is the accumulation over time of almost deficit and so we are depending on how you measure it there's a lot of different ways we can measure our debt but at least 20-$30 trillion of debt. again going back to 1984-85 at that time that debt was less than 2 trillion. now we're up to 20 or 25 trillion. so i'm sorry i am worried this story is notot going to end happily.

i think we have to get our government spending under control. >> host: how do we do that? >> guest: let's go back to enforcing the constitution.n. let's move a lot of these powers back to the states and the people. we need to have some spending caps. i do believe in a balanced-budget requirement which i think most americans would like to see. a lot of it is just the american people have touc be educated abt what our government is doing. that's why i'm such a fan of c-span, because you do that everyday. you educate and you provide both sides of the story but you allow people to make up their own minds about okay what's happening with ourov government. i'm a big fan of "washington journal." i do that showay maybe once evey six weeks but i watch it a lot and listen to on the radio because it's educational. americans did you know it's happening with the government. >> host: so when government bonds are sold, where do they

go? >> guest: so that's a good one, too. i've been talking a lot about this because of the situation where we are in right now. in the last three years, to an half years or so since covid hit, we've borrowed somewhere in the neighborhood of three or $4 trillion just in the last 30 months. >> host: and where did we borrowed it from? >> guest: i'mm getting to that, okay? t so we spent the $3 $3 trillie than we brought in. how does a government get the money to spend the money if it doesn't have the revenue? that's your point. it issues treasury bonds, it goes into debt, people buy the bonds, they go pick up the money and they spend it. the question of course is, this is abu tricky part, who buys the bonds? traditionally it's been americans who buy the bonds. in other words, for example, during world war ii we had war debt and people, who was patriotic you would buy the war

bonds as you with contributing to the war efforts. that's been c the case where throughout most of history the american citizens bought the debt. we kind of owed it to ourselves. what's happenedof lately is two things. first of all foreign governments are buying a lot of our debt and guess which country vying e most of it. china. that makes me nervous because it don't want to be indebted to our enemy. the other thing going on is the federal reserve board is by the debt. now. that's interesting because what that means is one arm of the government is spending the money, another arm of the government is issuing debt, at another arm of the government is buying the bonds. there is one of the part of this chain. where does the federal reserve board get the money to buy the bonds? well, they print it. they print it, and what the policy i' is called, that's called kind of nationalizing yourur debt.

what worries me is that cycle i just described that's what countries like argentina and venezuela and bolivia and mexico do.zimbabwe i don't have it in my wallet right now but there's a $1 trillion zimbabweh. currency. it's worth about 36 cents. so you depreciate the value of your currency and that makes me nervous. incidentally, there's one other step in this chain, when the federal government is buying ali th' debt is issuing more money, it's burning our money, but what happens to the value of the dollar when the fed prints all that money? goes down. that's one of the reasons we have this inflation. we are spending and borrowing way too much money. >> host: from your book "govzilla" quote we will borrow trillions of dollars and pray that the chinese continued to buy up our bonds.

what -- and and i apologizee ignorance of this question, but to the chinese own a great state in the american government? >> guest: so it's a tricky question because some people would say because -- what's the old saying? if you owe the bank $500 you are in big trouble. if you owe the bank $5 million, the the bank is in trouble, right? so there is to some extent where the chinese buying our bonds? because we have confidence that americans will repay those bonds. they think they are the best -- the saying about the american dollar is that we are the least rotten apple in the cart. so the dollar is actually strong right now relative to all these other currencies like euro and peso and other -- because people do have confidence in america that we will repay our debts and i do, too.

but at w w some point when the t gets so big then that causes real hardship. and it needs by the way that the next-generation a lot of the taxes they're going to be paying, peter, are going to go to the chinesere because they're going to be paying taxes to repay the debt that we have issued. what i usehi this term physical child abuse inu the book. by that i mean you and i and all the people in this conference we are allll made in her 30s, \40{l1}s{l0}\'40{l1}s{l0}, \50{l1}s{l0}\'50{l1}s{l0}, '60s. our government is borrowing borrowing and borrowing. who's going to pay off that debt? our children and grandchildren. >> host: you mentioned the federal reserve. for about two days in 2020 your phone was blowing up because your nameas was floated. >> guest: it was more like two months. >> host: your name was floated as a potential -- >> guest: i was nominated by president trump. i worked as a senior economic adviser during the campaign and network with himim in an officil

capacity while he was president. quick story on this is a called and asked me to be on the federal reserve board. i had never thought about it before and you don't say no to the president, so that iad had o say what's -- i knew with the federal reserve board does but it wasn't really sure the responsibilities of all the governors. what happened was essence i was nominated all of a sudden dash i didn't know at the time when the president asked me to do this that i would have to go through senate confirmation. my advice to people is if the president have asked you to do jump and get to go through senate confirmation, say no because you're put under the microscope. all of a sudden literally these reports were calling girls i dated in college. did he ever mistreatow you? you know, look, i'm no saint. i have skeletons in my closet. i finally just one quick story about that though is i called the present a few times and said mr. president, this isn't going

well. i i don't want to embarrass youo i said, i think i should probably resign, step aside. he was one who kept saying, this is something our member, he's a fighter turkey said no, i want you to keep going. it's like you're a boxer and you getting -- get back in the ring. finally when it became clear i didn't have the votes in the senate we finally withdrew but it was a painful experience because everyday as i go, what to do sit back and 1987 for something that offended someone? it was an experience that i think i said about that confirmation code if you want to attack my ideas, fine but that's perfectly -- but to dig up all this dirt on me and things like that, that's the ugliness of our current political system.

asno i said i'm not a saint. i've done things are not proud of or said things i'm not proud of but i'm surprised by the way, peter, if this kind of toxic nature goes on the people are not going to want to do these positions in government and i know a lot of people are well-qualified to say i'm'm not going to go do that. >> host: like to "govzilla." california is a textbook example of financial mismanagement. california has a big budget surplus. >> guest: do you know where they got it? from uncleng sam. what happened was drink of it the federal government gave all this went to california and look, i don'tl like that when te federal government gives money to states because think about it this way. the only way the united states government can give money to california is by taking the money from the other 49 states. it's just awe glitzy game. we will give this money, so i don't want thehe states, the

federal government to do that. california is really and i think really terrible shape what's francisco, los angeles, the proms with homelessness, poverty, schools. people leaving california. this is one of the themes of the book. blue states like california i grew up in the chicago area. illinois is losing a lot of -- caterpillar just left illinois which is one of its iconic companies. boeing just left illinois. elon musk is really famous now. he left california. you are seeing a lot of people moving away from this high tax high regulation states and i think a better get a house in order. by the way you know where they're going. a lot of themto are going to states, texas and florida, to income tax.have no >> host: steve moore, you sidetracked me a little bit that is elon musk a hero of yours or use somebody who is good for the country in your view traffic that's a complicated question because he's really change his

political philosophy over the last 20 years. when she started with all this companies like a solar power company, tesla and spacex he was getting all this government money. we called him the $5 billion spent because i i don't think there was anybody who's company got more money than elon musk did. i do like the fact he has kind of woken up to the danger of localism and that he is -- localismsm -- for example, he wants, he's an advocate of free speech and i am, too. you have the right to say what you want to say. t what i want to say. i have this ideaa i don't like what you're saying so i'm going to shut yourt voice down. we are pretty rare in this country among all the countries in the world that we do have the bill of rights which are really

to be sacred. the right of assembly, the right of religion, the right to bear arms, the right of a fair trial all these things are really in history they are not very prevalent. i admire that about elon musk. >> host: at the end of "govzilla" you have some reforms that you suggestha to maybe gets off this hamster wheel of debt. >> guest: a lot our thoughts experienced what he thought ask about me go ahead. >> host: ideal. term limits for congress. >> guest: i've always like term limits. i believe that we should not have a permanent political class. i don't know what the term limit would be. i week over something like two terms in the senate, 12 years and maybe four or five, six terms in the house, so maybe ten, 12 is an house and then you get back to it. that was when the country was -- and my opinion term limits were not in the constitution because no one thought we would have this permanent political class. go back to the early years of

our country, george washington is a perfect example. there was no to term limit. he could have served, he was the most popular president in history. he could've served until his death but he said no, we don't want a ruling class. we don't want a monarch. that was one of the great things that george washington that it was time for someone else to will. i be a big advocate for that. how do more of a civil legislature with people fromnd farmers and businessmen and teachers and nurses people who know about america really making a lotot of these decisions. right now it's mostly lawyers and lobbyists who run washington. >> host: you also suggest a federal spending limit but at some point are we not in so deep,ma a small spending limit would not be important? >> guest: spending limitations work when the put in place. in other countries and it states i think it would work but you're right we dug ourselves in a pretty deep ditch but peter don't you think maybe we should stop digging?

that's my warning in this book. let's at least stop digging a ditch deeper. this year alone we are going, joet, biden has been bragging about we're only going to run $1 trillion debt this year. when you and i got started in this business could you even imagine trillion dollar deficits? now that's heralded as some kind of progress. do you know how many zeros there are in a trillion? >> host: nine? try to know. it's 12. 12 zeros, thank you. glad to learn that tried to a lot of people, that's a problem though is it? most people, you can't, people watching the show we can't tell whether it's 1 million, 10 million, 100 million. the numbers have become so large. >> host: engine to these numbers. >> guest: if i told you the government wasted $200,000 on a program you would say that's

outrageous, $200,000? does for money that i make her something like that. if i said it's $20 billion, okay, you knoww you can't even comprehend it. >> host: two more recommendations before we let you go. privatize federal assets, what does that mean? >> guest: this is an important one. the federal government owns a huge amount of land in this country. i am forgetting exactly, but was of the mississippi it's over 50% of the land area owned by the government. the government has not been a very good custodian. now that i'm not talking about our national parks or national treasures. i'm not talking about privatizing the smithsonian or yosemite or yellowstone that there's whole huge amounts of land that could be, the government could get money by selling it.

by the way one of the ways the uniteds states government raise revenue for the first 100 years of our country before income tax can do know what one major revenue raisers was? land sales with the federal government sold land and that was revenue collected to do its purposes. perfect tradition with our country but isan not just land. there's buildings, there's huge amounts of energy resources that we have in this country. we are very richly endowed country with energy, minerals and those kinds of things. we estimate there's about $50 trillion of assets like a buried treasure under our land. why don't we these that land and have people pay a fee to get at those resources and then we use that g money to reduce our debt? that would be a great thing to do. >> host: back to "govzilla" and a recommendations, no federal dollars to millionaires.

>> guest: this is something the late great walter williams, i know you had them on your show, a very famous economist, black economist who was just, became an icon. he and i came up with this idea of like let's say nobody who makes over $1 million on a company that makes over $1 million gets any federal money. think of how much money we could say. most of the people listening say yeah, let's not. like right now there's a bill before congress that is probably going to pass and probably be signed into law although i'm fighting againstna it in their colleague at the china deal. this is as bill that will give all this money to intel and our chipmakers, and is just corporatey welfare. why should the federal government be giving money to intel? if they want to build new chips, we want to be number one in technology but were are number e in technology. yougl look at great companies le

google and apple and amazon and on and on, microsoft, those companies didn't do it by getting government money. they came up with great ideas and the innovative and silicon valley is a great example of how just free enterprise system can work. i do like this idea at the government giving all this money to industries because i think a lot of it will be wasted. >> host: steve moore, his most recent book is called "govzilla: how the relentless growth of government is devouring our economy and ourr freedom." thanks for being on booktv. >> guest: good to be with you again. >> if you are enjoying booktv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive a schedule of upcoming programs, author discussions, book festivals and more. booktv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org. television for serious readers.