Crom Carmichael: We've Had More Government for the Last 50 Years, More Government is Not Exactly the Solution

Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio.

During the third hour, Carmichael reflected upon the Democrat’s unsuccessful 50-year push for more government and pointed out its failures. He explained how more government is not the solution and pointed out how the government unions that protect bad apples among the good ones were an even larger problem.

Leahy: You were going to talk a little bit about the Governor, Tim Walz a Democrat from Minnesota and his sort of COVID-19 hypocrisy.

Carmichael: He is like all these other governors’. And they all happen to be Democrats. I don’t know exactly why they all kind of act almost exactly the same way. I don’t think they get their marching orders from anybody but perhaps they do. But here is the data in Minnesota.

The number of people who have died from COVID-19 since the start of the so-called pandemic. And I’m saying it’s so-called because 100,000 people dying of something in one year out of 330 million. I’m sorry, it’s unfortunate but it’s not terrible. In Minnesota, there have been 1,026 people who have died. 837 of the 1,026 were staying in long term care facilities.

Leahy: Nursing homes.

Carmichael: Either in assisted living or nursing homes.

Leahy: Either one. Yes.

Carmichael: These are elderly people who actually need help in their living status. So if you subtract that its less than 200 people from Minnesota who are not in that category.

Leahy: What’s the population there? Six million?

Carmichael: I don’t know.

Leahy: Five million maybe.

Carmichael: I think it’s about the same size as Tennessee. 200 people. 200 people who are not in long term care facilities. Now, if you want to protect the people who are most at risk, those are the people in the long term care facilities. You go to great lengths to protect them and then you let everybody else live their lives.

Leahy: That makes sense.

Carmichael: That absolute makes perfect sense. Then when you see these Democrats and De Blasio is just a, gosh, what a fool.

Leahy: And by the way, his daughter was arrested.

Carmichael: OK, well. What was she doing?

Leahy: Rioting.

Carmichael: Was she looting?

Leahy: I don’t know.

Carmichael: Was she throwing Molotov cocktails at the police? You must have had been doing something pretty bad to get arrested by the police because there were hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country and there were 1,600 arrested.

Leahy: All I know is that she was arrested in New York City.

Carmichael: You look at these crowds and all of a sudden social distancing goes out the window. Goes absolutely out the window.

Leahy: Somehow.

Carmichael: Yes. But by the way, remember when people protested the lockdowns?

Leahy: Yes.

Carmichael: And they went to the state capitols and they had guns? How much damage was done by those people?

Leahy: Zip, zero, none.

Carmichael: How many people were hurt in those protests?

Leahy: Zip, zero, none.

Carmichael: None. But those protesters’ rights. They didn’t have the right to protest. How dare they! How dare they protest not being able to work for a living and feed their families. How dare they do that.

Leahy: Speaking of the riots and looting in Nashville. Don in Nashville wants to weigh in.

Don, good morning. You are on the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy, that’s me. And Crom Carmichael.

(Leahy takes a call from Don)

Caller Don: Good morning guys. I just have a question for you guys. So since the mayor invited all his buddies to come down and tear up Nashville and lower Broadway, can the owners of all the businesses’ on lower Broadway now open up?

And those that can’t because they have damage to their stores, can they send that bill on to the mayor because his buddies did all that. It seems like now we ought to be able to open up. Since he had thousands of people down there. I’ll hang up and let you guys answer that.

Leahy: Don, thanks for that question. We’ve been thinking the same thing.

Carmichael: He’s facetious with his question because his point is so obvious. I mean, I don’t know if you saw the very first part of Mayor Cooper’s presentation. He thanked everybody who was there for wearing a mask.

Leahy: At the rally that he wanted all the metro council members to attend.

Carmichael: And you know what the rally was about? It was about the tax increase. By the way, in his mind, the people who were there, they were there as protesters because when he thanked them all for wearing a mask and then told them to put your hand as high as you can in the air and then lower your hand and keep your arm absolutely straight and barely touch the person in front of you and to either side of you (Leahy laughs) He did. He did. And then he said, you must social distance. You must social distance.

Leahy: And they said? Are you kidding me?

Carmichael: They got very loud.

Leahy: Yes. Like, are you a moron?

Carmichael: The other speakers were talking about the moral imperative of passing a 32 percent property tax increase. That’s what the other speakers were talking about. So when you look at how this is being played by the left and by the media which is one and the same, it’s all about more revenue and fixing the problem. Fixing these problems among the races with more government. That’s their solution to everything. More government.

Leahy: Hasn’t worked out so well.

Carmichael: Well, we’ve had more government and more government for the last 50 years and at some point, you have to say maybe more government is not exactly the solution. I mean at some point! We’ve spent more and more money on just about everything that the left says we should spend more money on. And according to the left things are the worst today than they’ve been in 50 years. That’s according to them. Their solution has been tried for decades. And it hasn’t worked.

I go back to what I said since the first day I was on this show in November. The biggest single problem we have, it’s not government employees. There are many many fine government employees. There are many many and almost all police officers are fine police officers. Almost all teachers are fine teachers. But the unions protect the bad apples and lazy people. And there are not that many but there are enough to become a cancer within the institutions.

Leahy: Here’s the big question for you Crom. Everything you say our listeners are I’m sure are in strong agreement with everything you say.

Carmichael: Well a lot lets say.

Leahy: A lot. I think generally you are articulating their views.

Carmichael: Generally is a better word.

Leahy: OK.

Carmichael: Thank you. (Laughs)

Leahy: Where do we go from here as a country? We’re going to have an election in five months. What do you see happening?

Carmichael: If Trump is re-elected, one of the very first things he needs to do is he needs to sign an executive order. I don’t even know if this requires an executive order. This just requires him to hold a press conference and telling the attorney general that under the supreme court ruling that said that unions cannot withhold dues without the permission or against the will of the union members.

Trump could simply say that every government employee who pays union dues must sign a document where they check off, ‘I want money withheld from my paycheck’ or ‘I don’t want money withheld.’ Have two choices with their name signed at the bottom. And if they are coerced in any way then the people who coerced them should be indicted.

Leahy: Well that makes sense Crom.

Carmichael: Then that way government employees who oppose this socialization of our country and ultimately the demise of our standard of living.

Leahy: And our constitutional republic.

Carmichael: Yes. And by the way, their standard of living. Ultimately governments’ derive their revenue from the production of the private sector.

Leahy: How does this play out? The mess of coronavirus? The economic debacle of all the unemployment? All of these crazy riots? How does this play out?

Carmichael: I have no idea but we’re going to find out. I’m not going to sit here and pontificate and tell you I have a clue because I don’t. The American public though will speak in November. And it is my great hope that between now and November that we do have political rallies. That we do the things that we have been doing for 250 years to elect our elected representatives. And I will promise you that the Democrats will try to use the coronavirus to even keep Joe Biden off the debate stage.

Leahy: Yes. The other thing too is you’ve talked about the Manchurian media, the mainstream media. They are doing everything possible to promote the candidacy of Joe Biden. Particularly I saw the story yesterday, the headline was ABC News poll reports ABC News Washington Post poll owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon reported Joe Biden Leads Trump by 10 Percent, EXCEPT, you see the little asterisk there. Among registered voters. Among likely voters, it’s five percent. The margin of error, four percent.

Carmichael: I don’t care about polls right now at all.

Leahy: Right. Today.

Carmichael: I really don’t. But I do care about what the process will be. And I do think we need to have our normal politics because this is so important.

Leahy: Yes. I agree.

Carmichael: And the Democrats can tell the people in long term care facilities to please stay there while we have our political rallies.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.