longer provides better financial security in her book overtime interviewed by college economics professor courtney oil. >> weekend on c-span2 are an intellectual piece. every saturday american history tv documents american stories. sunday's book tv brings the latest nonfiction books and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. ♪♪ >> a force for empowerment. charter invested billions, building infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities big and small.

>> charter communications along with these television companies support c-span2 as a public service. >> joining uss on the tv, growth of government devouring our economy and freedom. has government ever not grown? >> good to be with you, love c-span. thanks for having me. the book to the whole history of the founding of the country, does a lot of grassroots that show that but there are periods, a good question, government has sttrenched in the answer is yes. the first 50 to 100 years, the really wasn't much growth of government. the federal government basically provided postal service and

provided national defense of the social problems and no education or energy department and of course -- i think there were two or three things that caused the big increase. one was the adoption of income status. for the first 100 years of the country the constitution prohibited income tax man i believe the 60s but don't quote me, i think it was 60s that allowed 1913 that enabled income tax that provided new revenue and they started spending. and you have a new deal for the got involved social programs and you have the great society programs of the 1960s the

expanded the size and scope of government and he keeps going up and up. there were peers for government fell back. after world war ii when the government spent almost half of the gdp to defeat nazis and japanese than government spending went from like 48% of gdp back to less than 20%. that is a big reduction. then the reagan era we saw spending but nothing like we see today. 2020 the height of the covered crisis for the first time in countries history even more than what we see, the government was half of our economy.

>> a hero for many, he has the introduction to your book and he wrote when i first came to washington in 1984 the entire federal budget was left at $1 trillion. >> i was working for reagan. i tell that story because here we are 30 years later, it's not 1 trillion, it 6 trillion. it's amazing how much was seen government grow in areas founding fathers, one of the ideas i like in the book was our founders have the idea of limited federal government. over time it has obviously expanded but there's the enumerated powers that basically say if these are exquisitely given that we have a fight on

issues like guns and abortion and things, prettier draw the line between the states and the federal government has oversight of these things? i believe in a federalist system. let the states have laboratories of democracy. fiftyy states, how do we deal with healthcare? the states to learn from each other and it's an ingenious system. i read in the book michael the forgotten ninth and tenth amendments. a a lot of kids don't even know what that is but basically what they say is rights and powers expressly given to federal government reside with the state and the people. i love that, i'm a libertarian, i don't like the federal

government's about the yeah and i think we've moved away from. >> thomas paine said it's a necessary evil. do you agree? >> i do. i think too many people think government is positive. i'm not calling for amnesty or anything, i think we need it strong but hesitation i believe in a safety net, we are rich country, would on people hungry or homeless or people to live in deprivation, we have a lot of work to do but for example we give somebody money and they should have to do something in return so i like will bill clinton and gingrich did in the 90s, we will provide you with funding but you have to be looking for work or in training and we have moved away from that right now it's a big mistake and

one reason businesses can't get business. there not expecting them to do anything in return. >> was the importance and government deficit? >> i am asked this all the time. the deficit is in excess of spending and revenue so personal finance. if you make $2000 a month and spend 25, you have 500 and that's what we have been writing. national that is the accumulation over time but the deficit so depending on how you measure there are different ways to measure debt but at least 20 to $30 trillion. going back to 45, at that time

the debt was less than 2 trillion and now 20 trillion or 20 or 25 so i'm worried the story will not endnd happily. i think we have to get our government spending under uecontrol. >> to redo it? >> enforcing the constitution, move powers back to the states and the people. i think we need spending caps. i believe in a balanced budget requirement which i think most americans would like to see so a lot of it on our government, i am a fan of c-span because you do that everyday and provides both sides of the story but allow people make up their own mind. i'm a fan of "washington journal" into it maybe once every i listen to it on the radio because it's educational

and americans need to know what's happening with the government. >> when government bonds are sold, or they go? >> that's a good one, two. i have been talking about this because the situation where i am now. the last three, two and a half years since covid hit we borrowed three or $4 trillion in the last 30 months. >> where did we borrow it from? >> i'm getting to that. we spent 3 trillion more than rerouted so how does the government get the money? spend the money if it doesn't have the revenue. it issues, goes into that and people by the bonds and they spend so then the tricky part, who buys the bonds? traditionally it's been

americans so world war ii, we had the war cap, you would buy cowar bonds to contribute and tt has been the case throughout history american citizens bought the debt so we owed it to ourselves but what happened lately is two things. foreign governments are buying a lot and guess what countries find the most, china. the other thing is the federals reserve board is buying the it's interesting because that means one arm of the government is spending the government money and the other is issuing debt and another buying the bonds is one of the part. where does the federal reserve board get the money to buy?

they rented and what it is is nationalizing your debt. the cycle i described countries like argentina and mexico and zimbabwe do, i don't have it right now but a trillion dollar zimbabwe currency, it's a truly dollars, worth about 36 cents so depreciate the value of the currency makes me nervous in his there's another step the federa' government buys it that it issues more money and what happens to the value of the dollar when they put the money? it was on and it's one reason we have inflation, spending and borrowing too much.

>> barring trillions afraid the chinese will continue to buy out bonds. i apologize for the ignorance of this question but to the chinese own a great steak of theit american government? >> a tricky question because some would say because if you owe the bank $500, you are in trouble. if you owe them 5 million, the bank is in trouble so to some extent, why are the chinese buying our bonds? they have confidence americans will repay them and they think -- saying they are the least rotten apple so the dollar is strong with other currencies

because people do have confidence in america we will pay and i do, to but at some time when it's so big it causes real hardship and that means the next generation the taxes they will pay are going to go to the chinese because they will pay taxes to repay the debt we have issued that's why i use this term child abuse, you and i and the people in this room,me conference we are it may be in our 30s, 50s, 60shi borrowing and borrowing, who will pay that? how are children. >> a previous answer you mentioned, for about two days in 2020 your phone was blowing up because your name was a. your name was floated. >> i was nominated by president

trump, i worked as a senior economic advisor for the campaign and worked with them in the unofficial capacity as president and he called me and asked me to do this and i've never actually thought of it before and you don't say no to the president so i had to say -- rei knew what the board does bui wasn't sure the responsibilities of them for what happened was as soon as i was nominated, i didn't even know at the time but i have to go through senate confirmation and my advice is if they ask you to do a job, say n because you are put under the microscope. literally reporters weree calling, did he ever mistreat you? i'm no saint, i have skeletons

in my closet. [laughter] so finally one quick story about that, i called the president and said this is not going well and i don't want to embarrass you so i said i think i should probably step aside and he kept saying he's ant fighter say i want youo keep going it's like you are a boxer and they are saying get back in the ring and finally when it was clear we finally withdrew but it was a painful erexperience because every day s like what i say in 1987 or something? so it was an experience, i said a confirmation if you want to

attack my ideas, fine but to dig up dirt about me, that is the ugliness of the current political system. i'm not a saint, i've done thing i'm not proud of or said things that i'm not proud of but i am surprised toxic nature goes on that people would want to do these and i know a lot of people well qualified say i'm not going to go through that. >> a textbook example of financial mismanagement. california has a budget surplus. >> the government gave this money to california and i don't like that when the federal government is on this because think about it, the only way the u.s. government can give money to california is taking the

money so it is a game of giving this money so i want the federal government to do that. california i think is a terrible state for this, the problems of homelessness and poverty, people leaving california it is the theme of the book to states like california, i grew up in the chicago area, illinois making these, illinois, and iconic company, boeing left illinois, elon musk, pretty famous now, he left california and you see a lot of people moving away from high regulation states and you know where they are going, texas and florida with no income tax. >> you sidetracked me but is

elon musk a hero of yours are good for the country in your view? >> that's obligated because he's changed his political philosophy the last -- when he started with companies like solar power company, tesla, spacex, he's getting all of this money, i don't think anybody's company has more money than elon musk but i do liken that woken up to the dangers of wokeism and for example he wants -- is an advocate of free speech and i am, to. you have the right to say what you want to say i have a right to say what i want to say, i like what either of your saying so i will shut your voice down,

i don't think -- it's pretty rare in this country we do havet the bill of rights, the right of assembly and religion and free speech, the right to bear arms, a fair trial, all of these things in history are not troubling so i admire that about elon musk. >> at the end of godzilla, you suggest to get this hamster wheel -- >> if you want to ask -- >> i do. >> term limits for congress. >> i believe we should not have a permanent political way. i would go's something maybe two terms in the senate, 12 years in the senate and maybe four or five or six terms in the house and then your back to that was the way -- in my opinion term

limits were not is because nobody thought you would have this and he would go back to the early years of our country george washington is a perfect example, two-term limitu and he could have served, he could have said served but we don't want this and i think that was one of the great things but it's time for somebody else so i would be a big advocate of that and a citizen is later the farmers an businessmen and teachers and nurses, people know about america make these decisions, right now mostly lawyers and lobbyists. >> you also suggest federal spending limit but currently in so deep? >> that would be important. i think limitations work when they are put in place in other

countries and states so it would dwork but you're right, we've g ourselves in a deep ditch but maybe we should stop digging. as my warning, at least stop taking the dig deeper and this year alone, joe biden has been bragging we are only in a trillion dollar debt this year. will could you even imagine? >> do you know how many zeros are in a trillion? >> nine? >> no, that would be a million. it's 12. >> thank you, i had to learn that. >> that's a problem though. i can't, you can't, you can't tell if it's a million or 100 billing, we are immune to these

numbers. if i told you the government wasted 200,000 on a program, that's more money that i make or something like that. if i said $20 billion, okay. >> two more recommendations. privatized federal assets. what does that mean? >> this is an important one. the federal government owns a huge amount of land in this country. i forget exactly, west of the mississippi over 50% is owned by the government. the government has not been equipped to sodium. i'm not talking about national treasures, privatizing the smithsonian or yosemite or

yellowstone but there's huge amount of land that the government could get money by selling. ... its purposes. so this is in perfect tradition with our country but it's not just land there's buildings there is huge amounts of energy resources that we have in this country. i mean, we're a very richly endowed country with energy, minerals and those kinds of things. we estimate that minerals and we estimate there is $50 trillion of assets of buried treasure under our land. resellha the land and have people pay a fee to get the resourcess and then we use the

money to reduce our debt. that would be a great thing to do. host: bacteria recommendations and your book no federal dollars to millionaires. >> yes. this is something the late great walter williams was a very famous economist who became an icon, he and i came up with theom idea that let's just say nobody makes over $1 million gets any federal money. think of how much money we could save? there is a bill before congress that will probably pass all the one fighting against it calling it the china bill. it will give all this money and it's just corporate welfare why should the federal government be giving money to

intel? if they want to build new chips. obviously want to be number one in technology but we are. we have google and apple and amazon and on and on. microsoft. they didn't doee it by getting government money. they had great ideas and innovated. silicon valley is a great example how a free enterprise system can work like how the government gives all the money to industry because a lot of it is wasted. host: the most recent book "govzilla". thank you for being on booktv. >> good to be with you again.