Another fiscal year has come and gone and another spending resolution deadline is looming. It seems like every year we go through the same exercise with the political class arguing and casting blame on each other over who is going to cause the latest, pending government shutdown.

Well guess what? It is largely inconsequential. The amount of federal spending that Congress actually controls is around 14% of the budget. So we are supposed to tie ourselves in knots over a minuscule part of the budget while the federal government continues its ever-expanding march into unconstitutional areas of American's lives. It's all an unnecessary distraction from the real problems that plague our nation and it is a distraction from Congress' abdication of most of their constitutional duties.

Show Notes:

• Shock Report: 86% Of Government Spending Is Now On Autopilot - IBD
• Report: 86 Percent of Federal Spending Now on Autopilot - NewsMax
• GAO - Government-Wide Inventory of Accounts with Spending Authority and Permanent Appropriations, Fiscal Years 1995 to 2015
• “No Deal” – Government Shutdown Inevitable, Blamescaping Begins
• Everything you need to know about a government shutdown
• What closes when the government shuts down
• Government shutdown spreading pain as it takes hold in Minnesota
• Federal Government Shutdown: Impact on Food Safety May Compound Over Time
• Dana Carvey - Church Lady - "Isn't that special?"

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We are told that protective tariffs are necessary to save jobs. We are told that high-wage countries like the United States cannot compete with low-wage countries like Vietnam and China. We are told that the dumping of products needs to be addressed with protective tariffs. But we are never told the whole truth. Politicians and mainstream news outlets never really evaluate the whole picture when it comes to tariffs. They never explain who really pays. They never ask the question: What about the consumer?

Listen to learn the truth about tariffs?

Show Notes:

• Woodrow Wilson and Tariffs
• The New Tariff of Abominations?
• Why Tariffs Won't Create Jobs or Help the Auto Industry
• Harley-Davidson is Right and Trump is Wrong
• The Economic Illiteracy of Tariff Man
• Tariffs and Americas Early Economic History
• Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell
• Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt - Chapter 11. Who’s “Protected” by Tariffs?
• President Trump's Predecessors Learned About Steel Tariffs the Hard Way
• Economics Was Invented to Refute Trump's Tariff Arguments
• Tariffs Worked in History When They Warded Off All Other Taxes
• Free Trade Let's Us Turn Corn into Cars
• Tariffs: The Taxes That Made America Great - Pat Buchanan

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The video of this episode is available on The Truth Quest Podcast YouTube channel and on BitChute.com.

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In this episode I recount a conversation I had a few months ago with someone in my family. It was a short but wide-ranging discussion mostly about national politics but the actual content is less important than the lessons I drew from it. 

Show Notes:

Americans Grapple Recognizing Facts In News Stories

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The video of this episode is available on The Truth Quest Podcast YouTube channel and on BitChute.

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