Idaho Prop 1, Lobbyist Access & the New Pork Report

Bob Neugebauer Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Idaho Pulse. This is your host, Steve Party. Bob here once again to bring you interesting facts and information about what’s happening in this great state of ours called Idaho. Today, we will be speaking with our good friend Ronald Nate, president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and he has some topics you will be very interested in, like the prop one battle on abortion and of course, the annual Pork Report, which I just can’t wait to see. Um, so without further ado, let’s get on with the show and welcome, Ron to the Idaho Pulse. Welcome, Mr. Nate.

Ron Nate Great to be on Idaho Pulse once again. Always good to hear from you, Bob. And, uh, um, give a little report from the Treasure Valley and what’s going on all across the state. You’re right. The prop prop one battle is heating up. We’re. Gosh, looks like we’re about thirty five, forty days out from from election day. And, uh, prop one is the battle on abortion. It was a few years ago where the Idaho legislature voted to create a trigger law that said, if Roe v Wade were ever overturned, then abortion would be made illegal in Idaho. And that’s what the legislator legislature wanted. That’s what the people wanted. And it easily passed. Now, to be frank, I don’t think many legislators thought that Roe v Wade would ever be overturned. Lo and behold, just a couple years later, the Dobbs decision overturns Roe v Wade and says, you know what? It’s not the federal government’s job to decide abortion policy. It’s up to the states. And Idaho’s trigger law went into effect. And sure enough, abortion became illegal in Idaho. Uh, Planned Parenthood, so-called clinics, uh, shut down and left Idaho and abortions essentially stopped. Clinical abortions stopped in Idaho. What was one thousand five hundred and fifty three babies aborted in the year prior to Dobbs dropped to zero. Or depending on what you count, uh, the last total count of abortions, clinical abortions in Idaho was five. Now, keep in mind, miscarriages don’t count. Ectopic pregnancy, um, procedures don’t count. It’s only abortion. So I would argue those five abortions are either mis defined or they’re illegal and happened anyway. But the decision on prop one is really, are we going to go back to having fifteen hundred fifty three elective abortions a year, many of them done for contraceptive purposes or convenience purposes, or are we going to maintain Idaho’s ban on abortion and therefore protection of life of one thousand five hundred and fifty three babies a year? Go ahead.

Bob Neugebauer You know, when it comes right down to it, it’s a matter of what you consider to be life. When does life begin? And I think if you are biblically taught and a good Christian, you would think that life begins at conception. But for some reason, the legal authorities of our country have indeed looked at it from a different premise that it’s not a living human being until it is birth born. And that makes me think that our society has gotten really unraveled in their thinking process.

Ron Nate Yeah. The, uh. I mean, we were told, just not so long ago, to follow the science when they were talking about the bogus science on on Covid and stuff. But I’m willing to take their word for it. Let’s follow the science on abortion, because people who are religious believe like you and me, that life begins at conception. People who are scientists also agree that life begins at conception. In fact, the word conception means beginning. The beginning of life is when the when the. When conception happens. And so the science also agrees. Look, in any biology textbook, life begins at conception. All the code for that. That life is formed. The only difference between the conceived. You know the conception and you and I are years of development.

Bob Neugebauer Agreed. But the problem is there’s a certain faction in this country that would like for us to believe, uh, otherwise, for a convenience.

Ron Nate Yeah. The only ones who don’t believe it’s life are those who deny science and are rabid leftists. And I guess some misguided judges.

Bob Neugebauer Well, of course, there has to be the misguided judges, otherwise we wouldn’t have such a a big, uh, should I say, controversy going on in a legal system.

Ron Nate Yep. So anyway, this this campaign battle is heating up. Like I said, about thirty five days out from election. Uh, money is, you know, we we always hear about this complaint about outside interests pouring money into Idaho or whatnot. You know, leftists argue this all the time. Outside money, you know, they claim that any, any conservative bill or conservative proposal is funded by outside interests. Well, I’ll tell you what. In one week alone, one point three million dollars flooded into in Idaho from outside interests to promote abortion in Idaho. Michael Bloomberg from New York City. A quarter million dollars sent to Idaho to kill babies. Uh, government that works pack from Washington, D.C., six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to sent to Idaho to promote the killing of babies. Gwendolyn Sontheim from Minnetonka, Minnesota. A quarter million dollars sent to Idaho to promote the killing of babies. Uh, Blair Holt from Chicago, p p g s r trust from San Francisco, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to promote the killing of babies in Idaho. The money is flooding in, and it’s demonic.

Bob Neugebauer Well, the unfortunate part is that these people think they’re doing something good and how they got to that point, I really don’t know. So I have to believe that either they’re demonic or demented.

Ron Nate Yeah, well, we have work to do. Good conservatives, good, uh, family loving folks. Christians need to unite on this, make sure everyone, you know, goes out to vote, uh, against this proposition because babies lives are at risk. I mean, fifteen hundred fifty three babies a year is what we’re talking about. And, um, I would like to think that Idaho has a culture of life. We certainly have a culture of freedom. That’s what Idaho Freedom Foundation works every day to try and preserve. And, uh, you can’t have freedom without the very first prerequisite, uh, your life being protected. So that’s the work we have before us. Um, next on my agenda is to talk about access politics a little bit.

Bob Neugebauer Oh, you mean all those people who put their money up and then want to tell the legislators what to do and how to do it.

Ron Nate Yeah. This week on Idaho Freedom Foundations website. Uh, and I think maybe your gem state Patriot might might have published this too. Let me let me check. Did you publish John Livingston’s article?

Bob Neugebauer Ah yes I did.

Ron Nate Yeah,

Bob Neugebauer I published three of his.

Ron Nate he’s a great writer. He’s been a doctor in Idaho for for many years. And he is engaged in the cause of freedom and, and against, uh, the corporate and corruption type of politics that go on. Wrote a great article about access politics and things like the Governor’s Cup, where the lobbyists sponsored legislators to come and knob Hobbs with one another and, and to, uh, associate with the lobbyists and hang out all under the pretense of creating scholarships for schools. But really, it’s tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on lobbyists having unbridled access to legislators for a few days, usually in a place like Coeur d’Alene or Sun Valley. He even noted that some legislators posted online their thankfulness to Blue Shield and Regents for their sponsorship to send them to the Governor’s Cup to hobnob.

Bob Neugebauer So you’re telling me that besides the seven hundred lobbyists that we currently have down at the state House, we need another deal like this so they can spend more time with the legislators, convincing him them to do more stupid legislation.

Ron Nate Yep. And I believe that humans, humans have an innate sense of justice and and right and wrong. And but we also have this innate sense of when somebody does something for us. This principle of reciprocity makes us want to do something in return for it. And so, um, lobbyists thrive on that. They, they take legislators to dinner, buy them drinks, sponsor them to Governor’s Cup events, sponsor them for this or that, uh, hold conferences, all these things. Um. Schmooze the, the legislators and legislators are human to the sense of reciprocity means that, uh, they’re going to listen a little bit, maybe listen a little bit more, maybe want to give something back in terms of, well, you did something nice for me. I don’t quite agree with the bill, but because of of all the kindness you’ve showed me, I’m going to support it this once or something. And, and, uh, the, the corruption is obvious to outside observers, but once you’re inside the system, they will claim that, look, it’s just we’re getting information. Lobbyists tell us a lot of information about bills we couldn’t possibly get ourselves. Well, lobbyists also have a special interest engaged in it. And so it’s a bit disgusting to me to see the access being purchased for the price it is. And then, uh, for legislators to thank these big purchases for their kindness and for, for sponsoring them to this big lobbyist event and then tell us that it’s not going to have an impact on their important policy decisions that affect Idahoans directly.

Bob Neugebauer You know what irritates me more? The fact that the lobbyists are in our state House and that they roam freely, that they have the free run of going and talking to any legislator they want at any time that they want during the session. That to me is it’s an affront to everything constitutional that I’ve ever believed. Why should they have that access? Why shouldn’t they be restricted from doing that? And why don’t our legislators actually do the job they’re getting paid for? They just got a raise.

Ron Nate Yeah, well, the First Amendment says that even special interests get to have the opportunity to speak to legislators and try and influence policy. I don’t think we should take the extra step that Idaho has taken and provide them office space in the Capitol

Bob Neugebauer Agreed.

Ron Nate that they that they do. It’s called the safe because it used to be a safe where the Treasury kept money for Idaho. But, um, that’s where the lobbyists office space is. And so they have, they have something that citizens don’t have. They don’t have, you know, citizens, you don’t have your own space when you go to the Capitol. But, um, you know, they, they do have the opportunity to talk to legislators. But here’s the problem. Citizens don’t have the time or the access that the special interests do. And when policy creates concentrated benefits for the special interests and the costs are dispersed amongst two hundred or sorry, two million Idahoans, then, uh, the incentive for the individual citizen to go and try and influence policy might cost them hundreds of dollars to go to Boise to try and talk to a few legislators, and it might save them a couple hundred dollars in taxes if they’re successful, but their chances of success are very slim compared to the lobbyists who are well heeled, well funded, and the benefits are concentrated for their industry and for their firm. And so that is why we see the the constant drift towards bigger and bigger government, worse and worse policy for the individual, but better for the special interests, concentrated benefits, dispersed costs.

Bob Neugebauer You know, Ron, I spent seven or eight years down at the state House on my own time, on my own dollar. And I will tell you that trying to trying to change something by yourself not only is expensive, but it really takes you away from what you would normally be doing in life, so to speak. And I found that it is almost impossible, with all of the lobbyists down there to change the minds of legislators, and I’ve tried to do it on a lot of different bills that were coming up that were talked about. In fact, I even had the legislators who would allow me to come up and speak for three minutes, and after a minute and a half would cut me off.

Ron Nate Oh, yeah. But the truth is, you know, these committee hearings. Okay, I’m going to say this, but I’m going to tell citizens, you need to go to the committee hearings. You need to make your voices heard. But one of the frustrating parts about these is a lot of times you’re in that room and you get the feeling that the legislators have already made up their minds. And in a lot of cases, they have. Uh, but that is not a reason to shy away from the system. Go and overwhelm them with your citizen voices. Make them feel like there is a cost to sticking to the position that they came to that meeting with.

Bob Neugebauer Well, I agree with you one hundred percent. I know it’s almost impossible for most people who are trying to make ends meet and go to work and take care of their kids, to get down to that steak house for the meeting, and they hold them at times when they’re never going to be able to get there anyway.

Ron Nate Wasn’t that one of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence? holding meetings and decisions in in far away and odd timed places. You know, that, uh, that they, you know, beef they had with Parliament and King George. Yeah. Well Samy, Samy and they don’t give us much notice either that uh, all of a sudden it’ll pop up on an agenda at eight o’clock at night. That it eight in the morning. The state affairs will put Bill X on the on the docket there.

Bob Neugebauer I mean, like they did with the gas tax, the additional gas tax

Ron Nate Oh

Bob Neugebauer when.

Ron Nate yeah. There was a forty page oil and gas bill that was introduced one day and passed by the end of that day.

Bob Neugebauer Yeah, I, I just I don’t see the merits anymore. And I, I guess most people don’t see the merits, but by the same token, I see voting at a, at a low ebb in this state when we see Boise County electing someone for a school board and only three and a half percent of the voters show up to vote. That’s getting a little scary.

Ron Nate Yeah. We need to stop these. These interim elections that happen in August or whatever. We should have May primaries. Sorry, should have March primaries. And we should have, uh, November general elections on even years. And that’s it. Because all these odd elections where there’s two issues or one candidate on the ballot, um, they do that for a reason. They do that because they know that if there’s a levy vote that’s on a, on a third Tuesday in August, that all those who have special interests in education will be motivated to vote. But the rest of the public hardly even knows about those elections.

Bob Neugebauer Listen, I saw a fifty seven million one hundred and fifty seven million dollar bond passed in Meridian when I first moved in there by

Ron Nate Mhm.

Bob Neugebauer a vote that was less than twenty percent of the voting public that could vote.

Ron Nate Wow. Wow.

Bob Neugebauer That’s kind that’s kind of scary. You wonder why our taxes are so high.

Ron Nate Yep. There you go. Well, why your taxes are so high is because spending is so high. Um, every two years, Idaho Freedom Foundation publishes what we call the Pork Report. And it is a tracking all the all the waste, fraud and abuse that may be happening at different levels of government in Idaho. We try and document as many cases as we can just to show the citizens that, uh, government does what government does waste, fraud and abuse. Um, we try and track it down, try and hold them accountable, but it’s up to the citizens to do that to.

Bob Neugebauer So it’s.

Ron Nate It’s called a pork report because, you know, they. They used to I looked at a little bit of history on pork, on why they call it pork and pork barrel spending is that back in the slave days, they used to bring out a big barrel of pork scraps to the slaves who would who would just come and get all they could while the getting was good of the pork scraps from the barrel. And they associate it with politics because politicians tended to do the same thing with the money. It flows into government. They. They looked at it as as pork for for their own well-being. And so it got called pork barrel spending because they behaved a lot like the. The plantation slaves did, uh, wrestling each other over the, the pork scraps. And that’s what politicians do. Our pork report highlights we have billions of dollars reported in this Pork report. Of waste, fraud and abuse. From things like Idaho continuing to fund an old age commission or a Hispanic commission that does what.

Bob Neugebauer Waste our money.

Ron Nate Wastes our money. Seventy two million dollars were appropriated last year for a program to teach teachers how to teach reading in elementary school. To teach them how to use phonics again to teach teaching. Senate Bill ten sixty nine. Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, I would think that one of the prerequisites for an elementary school applying for a job at an Idaho elementary would be that they know how to teach reading.

Bob Neugebauer If that were the case, why are our reading scores so low in Idaho schools?

Ron Nate Exactly. Well, the the teachers who are teaching apparently don’t know how to teach it. They don’t know phonics. They were taught some other way. The, the three step method or whatever that was that failed students for decades. And, and now we have it’s the biggest general fund budget line item we have in Idaho, you know, over three billion dollars spent on education. And they need to appropriate another seventy two million to teach teachers how to teach. Reading should be a fundamental.

Bob Neugebauer I gotta write that down. That’s

Ron Nate Yeah,

Bob Neugebauer gotta go in my next newsletter.

Ron Nate it’s in the pork report. It’s in the pork report. We got, uh, um, let’s see, you know, urban renewal subsidies or urban renewals have turned into one of the biggest scams that cities, uh, impose on their citizens. Uh, the Luma program that was meant to increase transparency of of what goes on in Idaho government. But we’ve identified so many deficiencies and lack of transparency in the program itself. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Uh, Department of Health and Welfare cash was overstated by four hundred and thirty three million dollars. Uh, two hundred and eighty million dollars in Snap benefits were simply omitted from the from the reporting, uh, five hundred and forty five million dollars in public school payments, um, went completely unmonitored. That we have a lot of spending and a lot of waste going on in government that escapes the public’s view. It just simply disappears. You know, about quality learning centers.

Bob Neugebauer Oh, I’ve been leering at the government for years.

Ron Nate Idaho child care program, uh, was flagged for what it was. It was giving money to a lot of programs that maybe don’t exist, a lot of learing centers, you know, without the N in it for some reason. Um, the legislature poured another eighteen million dollars of state and federal money into a failing into the failing program in fiscal year twenty twenty six. It’s grown to be about seventy million dollars a year in spending.

Bob Neugebauer Which

Ron Nate It’s

Bob Neugebauer program

Ron Nate not even in

Bob Neugebauer is

Ron Nate statutes.

Bob Neugebauer this?

Ron Nate By the way, the

Bob Neugebauer This.

Ron Nate director of Health and Welfare pointed out that this this came about because of some rules in the rule making process, and it really ought to be in statutes. So they proposed a bill to put it in statutes, and that bill failed. But have they ended the programs? No, they’re still doing them.

Bob Neugebauer So we continue to pay while they continue to play.

Ron Nate That’s right. And we don’t keep it at the state level. We also look at cities and county governments. Boise, uh, prides itself on wasteful spending. You know, they, they, they spent, uh, uh, a few thousand dollars just to put, just to wrap their flagpoles and put a big banner on front of city hall just to, uh, thumb their nose at the legislature. Who told them they couldn’t fly pride flags?

Bob Neugebauer Well, I would expect that from someplace like Boise. But it’s not just Boise that concerns me. It’s the way that that attitude is spreading to some of the larger, uh, should I say municipalities like Meridian and even as far as Napa and Caldwell.

Ron Nate That’s right. So, uh, I’ll tell your listeners this. Watch out for the pork report next week or so. It’s coming out. Uh, you’ll be able to access it online. You’ll be able to order copies of it from Idaho Freedom Foundation. I think it’s about forty four pages long, full of, uh, full of examples. Heartbreaking examples of waste in Idaho. And the reason why I say heartbreaking is because this all falls on the back of Idaho taxpayers. And so I look at it this way. I took the amount of waste divided by the number of Idahoans. And we’re looking at, you know, just what we’ve identified here. And I’m sure we’re only scratching the surface. Do you think Idaho families on average, would would appreciate two thousand dollars more off of their tax bill if we could get rid of this waste, fraud and abuse.

Bob Neugebauer Hell. I think they’d appreciate if we just got rid of the grocery tax.

Ron Nate There you go. That’s that’s it too. So lots of examples here. And uh, so yeah, get ready for that. It’s a, it’s a great little bonus, uh, to be able to look at this a few weeks before Election day, right?

Bob Neugebauer Well, I get upset because everybody complains. Uh, I don’t have enough money for gas. I don’t have enough money for rent. I don’t have enough money for food. And then I look at the taxing that’s going on in the different areas that it’s going on, and I know where it’s going, but there’s nothing I can do about it because people don’t want to listen. Instead, they’ll blame Whomever’s name is out there.

Ron Nate Yeah, they, you know, prices are going up generally, but, uh, people want to lash out at the business who’s raised their prices. Well, the business isn’t ripping people off. The business also experienced a rise in prices of their resources. This general inflation that happens because the the federal government’s increasing the money supply to pay for government debt and everything like that. It is a hidden tax on Americans that when you raise the money supply, you make dollars worth less. And therefore it’s a it’s it got more expensive. Um.

Bob Neugebauer About, right. Right now, I would say that earnings are actually running ahead of inflation by not by a small amount, I would admit. But people are making more money today than they ever made before.

Ron Nate But they’re paying more for things than they’ve ever paid before, too.

Bob Neugebauer I, I don’t disagree with you.

Ron Nate Yeah.

Bob Neugebauer I don’t disagree with you. But they’re putting the blame in a lot of the wrong places. And that’s what disturbs me. I think municipal governments have gone nutty with what they’re doing. When you look at the taxes that the individual pays here in Idaho compared to the corporations. It’s absolutely abominable.

Ron Nate Yeah, I, uh, I was at a seminar last week, and, uh, we were talking about housing affordability. Now, if you own a house in, the price of it goes up. It’s it’s not really a gain until you sell the house. And by the way, if prices have gone up on everything else. In the meantime, it’s not really a gain at all. But if houses are becoming more expensive relative to other goods, there might be an affordability problem with houses. And it’s not because builders are soaking the the new customers. Twenty five percent of a new house cost is government permits and regulations twenty five percent. We’re talking like on average, over one hundred thousand dollars of a new house’s value on average is because of government regulations and permitting fees.

Bob Neugebauer I will tell you just in our HOA here, if you want to build a new house here, you better be able to put up between twenty five and thirty thousand.

Ron Nate Yeah, yeah. And so that affordability problem is real. Um, so we covered prop one. We’ve covered government access in the pork report. Do we have time for for Ron’s weekly econ lesson.

Bob Neugebauer We always have time for you. But just before you get started, I need to ask you a question.

Ron Nate Sure.

Bob Neugebauer This morning they were talking about all of the police that were looking for whoever was stealing the Democrats political signs. Hundreds of them were disappearing. However, I have not heard one word about looking for the illegal immigrants that are walking around our cities.

Ron Nate I know, I know. Uh, it’s it’s it’s laughable at what draws police attention and what doesn’t and where we’re at, uh, political sign stealing or damaging happens in every campaign. I’m not excusing it by any means. It’s wrong. It’s against the law or whatever. But, uh, and it’s, it’s always a common complaint in every election, somebody stealing signs or whatever. And it’s, it’s usually, Um, it’s usually one one sided that I can tell you in walking around neighborhoods in Boise. I see yes on prop one signs untouched unscathed, but I see no signs being ran over and trampled. And, uh, but then you tell me that the Democrats are complaining about political sign damage and stealing, and I’m like, I see the opposite. But anyway, common complaint. Everyone always complains to our elections. They steal at our sides. They’re damaging our signs.

Bob Neugebauer All right, on to the economics and message for the day.

Ron Nate Let’s do it. Um, you might remember a couple weeks ago we talked about the role of economic profits and that when somebody is deciding to go into business or expand their business, they compare revenues and costs. Absolutely. And if revenues exceed cost, then it’s a profitable endeavor. If costs exceed revenues, it’s not profitable and it’s likely that you choose against it. But simply having revenues greater than costs is not enough to get somebody to decide to do something, because it revenues have to exceed costs by enough to make that endeavor more attractive than the next best alternative. And that’s what we economists refer to as economic profit. Does the revenues exceed the costs in an accounting sense, exceed the other opportunities that you have in an economic sense? An economic profit says that whenever you have an accounting profit large enough to offset your other opportunity costs, then you should run and grow that business. But here’s the important part. And the second part of that lesson is that economic profits. In other words, when accounting profits are big enough, they attract resources to their highest and best use. So we just talked about the housing market. If housing prices are going up enough to create profits for contractors and potential contractors, if those accounting profits are high enough, they might attract new contractors into the business. And so rising prices of houses in a housing shortage situation are the rising prices are exactly what’s needed to attract new producers. Now, I would like those rising prices to be based on people wanting the houses and and trying to attract the resources to it. I don’t like to see the prices going up because government is overregulating them, but nonetheless, it has the same effect. When something is profitable, it will attract resources to that endeavor. And so I don’t get, you know, I don’t get all wound up when I see prices of something going up that people want, because it’s exactly those higher prices that attract the people. Uh, the producers into that market prices are great signals for what needs to be produced more because it generates the economic profit and attracts producers away from their other opportunities. And so a natural market mechanism where government is not overregulating houses, the price of houses would reflect a relative scarcity. If more people wanted houses than than there were available, the higher prices would attract more producers into creating more houses. It’s a beautiful thing. The whole point here is that are we going to have markets direct resources, or are we going to have governments supersede markets by saying, you know what? This price is too high. We’re going to put a price cap on it. And therefore they have retarded the market. And retarding the market means that the shortage persists. And that’s what Nixon did in the seventies said, oh. Gas prices are going up to too much. We’re going to put a price freeze on it. And then what? You have gas shortages, lines at gas stations. People couldn’t get gas because he made it impossible for producers to be able to produce gas and sell it at a profit when the price was kept from going up.

Bob Neugebauer Let me give you one benefit of that happening, because I was there

Ron Nate Sure.

Bob Neugebauer during that gas crisis. I was able to go out and buy a brand new Chrysler New Yorker for three thousand dollars under list.

Ron Nate We call that the complementary effect of pricing, that when the price of a complement goes up, people buy less of it and therefore they buy less of the complement to it. And so that’s why the price of your Chrysler went down.

Bob Neugebauer Right.

Ron Nate You can thank Nixon.

Bob Neugebauer Oh, thank you Dick. Thank you so much.

Ron Nate He’s not a crook.

Bob Neugebauer Now, my wife got the car in the divorce, so it doesn’t matter.

Ron Nate Not even half of it. Got the whole thing, huh?

Bob Neugebauer Now, she got it all.

Ron Nate Alright.

Bob Neugebauer And and even

Ron Nate So.

Bob Neugebauer the Barry Manilow tapes.

Ron Nate Wow. So as an economist, my little my final lesson here on economic profits is that economic profits do wonderful things. They attract resources where they’re needed the most. They take resources away from what is what is not as exciting anymore for people, what is not in demand anymore. And so I trust markets to make those decisions more efficiently and effectively than any central planner anywhere. And to the extent government gets involved. Overregulating. overtaxing over permitting something like housing. They have stopped the housing market from working to eliminate its own shortages through the prices adjusting in a market sense instead of a government imposed sense.

Bob Neugebauer Well, keep government out of our business. Things will get a lot better.

Ron Nate Straight to the heart. They’re perfect. Couldn’t have said it better. And that’s that’s Ron’s, uh, econ one hundred and one for this this episode of Idaho Pulse.

Bob Neugebauer Well, I want to thank you very much. And I look very much forward to your pork report, because I want to see where all those pigs are running around.

Ron Nate I’m excited for it. This will be good. So, um, yeah, look for that, uh, we’ll have some promotions out on it so people can sign up and, and get engaged with us and also get their pork report and then, uh, and then hopefully hold their government accountable.

Bob Neugebauer And I hear you have a little soiree going on on October the eighth downtown.

Ron Nate Uh, October the eighth. Downtown. What’s my soiree?

Bob Neugebauer And they’re going to be a little shredding party.

Ron Nate Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, on October eighth. Yeah. If if you have papers, old divorce papers, old whatever papers, uh, you know, um. And you need to get rid of them. We’re, we’re going to do a little shredding party, I think from eleven to one one p m just bring him on down. We’ll, uh. And you can watch him go through the shredder. So, you know, you can feel secure that, uh, that, uh, your paper trails are disposed of. Everyone’s welcome, except government and spirit of transparency. We’re not going to help government shred documents out of the people’s view.

Bob Neugebauer Well, God bless you. And I’ll be down there with my ten boxes.

Ron Nate Okay. Downtown Boise, we’re right here on Bannock Street, so it’ll be great to see you, Bob. Thank you.

Bob Neugebauer Thank you Ron. Have a great day.

Ron Nate You, too.