Are you ready to cast your vote but still unsure how each candidate might affect your wallet? This week's Money Talks News podcast dives deep into the economic policies of Trump and Harris.
From tax plans to tariffs, energy policies to job transitions, we break down the key differences that could impact your family's finances. Our diverse panel of hosts, spanning from their 20s to late 60s, offers unique perspectives across generations and economic standings.
Whether you're a high-income earner or an average Joe, a Gen Z just starting out or a Baby Boomer nearing retirement, this episode has insights for you. But remember, these policies have far-reaching consequences beyond just your bank account.
Ready to make an informed decision? Tune in to this Insightful conversation. And don't forget to subscribe to both the Money Talks News newsletter and our YouTube channel for more expert financial advice and money-saving strategies. Your future self (and your wallet) will thank you!
Video Version:
0:00 Introduction and Election Talk
2:00 Income Tax Differences
5:00 Tariffs and Trade Policy
10:00 Energy Policy and Climate Change
15:00 Government's Role in Job Transitions
20:00 Summary of Candidate Differences
Hey there guys and welcome to Money Talks News, the podcast. We're the podcast that makes you richer one day at a time. So, I'm your host, Stacy Johnson. Joining me is Aaron Freeman. There's Jillian, there's Kim, everybody's on board. So what are we gonna talk about today guys? Let's talk about what else? What is anyone talking about? Except this damn election, everyone is talking about the election. I mean, really have you turned your TV on lately,
man? Unless you're on the movie channel, you're seeing some commercials, am I right? Text messages.
I probably got three or four today alone.
It, it is amazing. My wife was telling me the other day that she, she's gotten a text that says we've now asked you nine times if you're going to vote for Kamala Harris. Are we gonna respond or not? And I'm like, oh my God, that makes me so mad just hearing about it. You know,
I just got in my inbox saying, hey, we looked up your records and we want to follow through with that and whether or not you're still a democrat or a Republican. I'm like, OK, what? It's amazing. And you know what, tell me if I'm wrong about this guys, they're spending a billion dollars advertising these things on TV, all of which contradict each other, especially here in Florida, they've got these constitutional amendments that they're getting adopted
are trying to get adopted and it's just, I once said the exact opposite of the other one and I, and everyone's, I've already voted. I mean, people have already made up their mind. It just seems like this is, aren't there better uses of billions of dollars than hammering people with stuff? They don't believe that. Isn't that when they've already made up their mind anyway? I just don't get it.
Yeah. I don't either.
I also read in the New Yorker too that, um, um, there's a, there's a huge problem with Russia and Iran infiltrating our phones and they, they've got a database of voters and their phone number and everything and they're part of the problem too, texting a lot of weird things. They're heavy on X and they're heavy on all these other weird social platforms. So people got to be careful about what they're seeing and what they're reading because a lot of that stuff could be wrong, you know.
Yeah. And, and by the way, I have a hint on that if you're reading something on X or anywhere else and it's in Farsi or it's in Russian, be suspicious.
Ok. We don't have much time for this podcast. I forgot no time. To linger, we've got an election coming up. So pretend for a moment
that I'm undecided.
I know it sounds impossible, but pretend I am and the only thing I care about and, and in fact, the thing that pulls the highest is the economy. So I want you guys to tell me,
um, how these two candidates are different. I'm gonna go to the polls on Tuesday. I wanna know how they're gonna be different, how it's gonna affect me personally.
Uh, my family's finances essentially is all I care about. I don't care about their personality. I don't care about anything else. I know. It sounds impossible, but nonetheless, all I care about is the dough.
Ok. So what's the difference between these two guys in, let's say, income taxes, let's say, let's say for a moment that I'm just an average Joe.
Um, however, I'm a high income, average Joe, I'm in, I'm in the top tax bracket.
Is one of these candidates gonna tax me more than the other ones,
Kim, do you know? Yeah, that would be tariffs, right. Um, she's still limiting, um, if you're making less than $400,000 she's not going to increase, you know, taxes for you, but for those that are in the upper echelon that's going to be, there's going to be what she says to tax the fair share from those 1%. Um, so from what I read in here it would be Harris of the two.
So if I'm a fat cat,
I, I'm gonna get taxed more under Harris. If she, by the way, we should have started by saying this, unless, unless you control both Houses of Congress and the White House, you ain't changing crap. Right. I mean, I mean, if, if you don't control the House and the Senate then you're not gonna get any bills passed. So none of this stuff matters. If, if it's a divided government, I believe that that's true. With one exception, which we'll get to in a minute. But, so I'm gonna pay more. What if I, what if I make less than $400,000 under Harris
or Trump? Am I paying the same tax less tax?
I think that it stays the same. Right. This, this time around that. Yeah, like Harris is in, I know she's distancing herself from Biden's administration, but a lot of the same policies will remain the same there. But if I'm a rich guy, but, you know, I know one thing that Harris wants to do is, um, tax, you know, social security has a limit. You only tax up to 100 and $68,000 of your income.
But as a fat cat, I make more than that. So she wants to get that, that, uh, 6.5% Social Security tax on all of your income, which would be huge. I mean, if you make, you know, if you make a million dollars a year.
So that, so it would be hard for rich people tax wise.
Uh, harder. I mean, you know, if you're just voting on taxes and you're rich, you'd probably want Trump, especially if you're over a corporation. I mean, going from 21 she wants to take it to 28 and he wants to take it to 15. That's monster difference. Yeah.
But if you're a regular person who makes less than $400,000 a year, you're probably not worse off on e under either one. Is that true?
That's how I hear it and how I feel about it on that front. I know that that's not just the one thing that we're looking at. Right. I think it's the prices at the pump or going to the grocery stores as well that I think are affecting a lot of, I would say middle, middle class, you know, people households right now and how are Trump and Harris standing on those fronts? How are they? I mean, you know, a lot of people are pissed about inflation. Right.
Um Jillian is, is it the government's, is it Joe Biden's fault that there's inflation.
Um, from what I've read. Not particularly, I mean, just based off of what you said earlier as well, like without having control over the House and the Senate, which he does not, um, his power is limited there and a lot of inflation um, comes down to, of course, like import prices, which by the way, Trump would like to add tariffs on to. So that's going to make things more expensive um that will add to our inflation rate for sure.
Uh Let's let's talk about that. But ok, if inflation, in fact, inflation numbers came out today and they're around 2.5% for core inflation and a little less than that for regular inflation with uh considering food and energy. Um Now,
is there something that somebody can do? Actually let me back up a step. I think that these rescue plans that happened after the pandemic probably helped uh stoke inflation, of course, that's done. Now, it's already gone through the economy. Um So I, I think in that sense, the government did have something to do with inflation,
of course, and you, you hear people talk about this all the time, once you don't hear them talk about, is that the reason the government did that is so people wouldn't be sleeping under an overpass. I mean, you know, there were people who would have lost their homes and lots of them granted people who didn't need the money also got it, but there's no way you can flood the country with money and not hit some of the wrong people. Um But anyway, so that, that probably was inflationary but a lot of it was, was bottlenecks from uh
from the uh pandemic. I think that caused inflation and now it's coming back down, but a lot of people were pissed about that and they think that the government had something to do with it. Kamala Harris specifically. Uh, and, and is, is there some way that Donald Trump can prevent, or, or, or lower prices even more? I mean, is it, or, or either one, either one of them can they?
I don't know,
I don't know how they would
le let, let's talk about something else. Something that Jill had mentioned. What about tariffs? Now, one of the things that Trump has said is that tariffs, will he, he, he actually, he's even said it's possible to replace income taxes. If we make tariffs high enough, 60% tariffs on everything can come out of China 10% tariffs on anything. Can we know our country at all? Now, Aaron, you've, you've mentioned this before. What's the good thing about tariffs? You mentioned this before?
Well, tariffs are good for, for global, you know, uh economy just because, you know, some goods are made cheaper in other countries, it may be more expensive than others. So this creates a global trade system where it equalizes, you know, the the price of goods coming from other foreign countries and, and when we export our goods to other countries.
Um but yeah, if you crank the tariffs up on Chinese goods or any other country that's technically just gonna cost us more money to buy those goods, it's not really going to, it's not going to make that country benefit us and, you know, they're not, they're not paying for us. You know, it's no feedback loop. And then the other problem is is that if you do that to another country, that country could, then just ship those goods to another country doesn't have those tariff problems and then get it back into our country.
So it, it doesn't really work. Um, And it's known to not work. So I don't even know why Trump is trying to push this. He's trying to push, people don't understand because I've heard him say that China is the one paying the tariffs. That's why we're gonna get all this money from China. It's not true. It's just a lie. Right? Who, who, who, who pays the tariffs
we do for buying that product. So for example, if China, if China can make an electric car for like $20,000 and we slap a tariff on that and we make that car cost, you know, $40,000 which is exactly what we do have a right. That's 100% tariff and we're paying that $40,000 you know, uh that, that tariff, that extra 20 grand goes to the government. That's a tax basically.
Yeah. And it, and it's, it's theoretically inflationary at the same time. What you were saying before though was, I mean, the, the purpose of a tariff is to protect uh domestic manufacturers, right? So if I make that Chinese car $40,000 instead of $20,000 then GM is better able to compete.
Right? And, and, and then, so that's the whole idea. It's protectionism. Um And, and whether it's a good idea or a bad idea, it sounds, it sounds inflationary for sure.
Uh And, and I think actually what makes sense to me and what I think what Harris has said and what most most presidents have done in the past is have targeted tariffs. In other words, if, if China is dumping steel on the, on the international market at prices less than it costs to produce, then I'm going to put a tariff on it because that ain't fair.
You know, I mean, if what they're trying to do is expand their market, their markets by underselling everybody else and they, and the government's subsidizing that where we have to compete on an even footing that ain't fair. So that's, that's one reason why we might want to have tariffs and so targeted tariffs make sense to me. Universal tariffs do not. The other, the other incentive too is that to do this. You're,
you know, Trump is saying that it's going to increase uh manufacturing in America, build more in America by putting these tariffs high in other countries. He did that before in his first administration and it didn't do much good either. There wasn't an increase in, in manufacturing in the United states when he implemented these tariffs. So it never really works. It's a complicated topic, isn't it? Because even if you're talking about cars, that makes it sound real simple. But what if you're talking about seatbelts?
You know, I mean, in other words, there's a lot of components in these, in these, uh, in the things that we're making and, and so now we're going to build a new seat belt factory in the United States because the seatbelts from China are too expensive. What if it's just a light bulb that goes in the, in the dome, light of a car? I mean, you know what I'm saying? I mean, if it's easy to talk about when you've got big giant things, but if you break it down into the components, it makes it a lot more complicated. You bring up a good point because if anybody were to actually look into where the parts come for their Chevy truck, it is all over the world,
you know, it's everywhere. Indonesia, Germany, I mean, these parts come from everywhere.
So it makes sense to have tariffs when they're, when they're have a target when there's a reason, you know. Um but like maybe you want to support a man like American steel, you know, it makes sense because you need to be able to make steel, right? So it may make sense to have tariffs on some things, but having a universal tariff and saying it's gonna replace income taxes is nonsense as, as far as I'm concerned anyway, it doesn't make sense.
What, what about energy? There was a brief mention of energy and then, and then we'll call it quits.
Yeah. Um So talking about both candidates when regarding energy, right? Something that Trump has mentioned was unleashing us energy, you know, lifting restrictions on oil and gas. Um that allows for more production, energy production here in the US, which in his, in his administration would, you know, bring the prices down for energy. Um
And then on the Harris side of things, it's reducing those energy costs by investing in, you know, alternative energy sources, right? So that, you know, I think those are,
I, I wouldn't say they're so different in terms of how their approach is, but I think one feels more forward thinking while others like, ok, let's, let's drill more. It's kind of what it sounds like to me, you know,
what, what do you think Gillian do you think? Um let me ask you, let me ask you this question. Ok, Jillian, do you, do you, are you concerned about global warming? Do you think it's real? Yeah, absolutely.
And Trump has called it literally called it. Uh What do you call it a not a rumor but fake news or whatever. Hoax, hoax. I'm sorry. That's what exactly what he said. A hoax.
I think people are dying as a result of it. Now. They are.
And I know, like the summers are getting hotter. I felt it here. I felt it when I lived in Florida. Um, I felt it since moving up north as well. Um, you can tell and it also makes things, it's funny because the people who don't believe in it or they'll call it a hoax also be like, well,
the winter was really cold this year. So, if things are so hot, um, why, why was it cold? And it's like, well, global warming doesn't mean by a blanket statement that everything is hot. It means our temperatures will get more extreme. That's why we are getting, you know, terrible hurricanes. Of course, there is, what is it this year? La Nina? Is that, or is it El Nino this year? So that's a part of it as well. But um,
global warming impacts all of that. We're gonna get more extreme weather, whether it's hot, whether it's cold, whether it's hurricanes or tornadoes like that affects so, so much. And we're seeing it this year alone. Although
we
have decent carbon though. Imagine for a moment though, Kim, that you work in the oil business that you drill for natural gas, that's your job. So you support your family. How do you feel about everybody going to solar
or when? I mean, I'd be scared for my job. What do you say to those people when you're trying to reduce the carbon output?
Something that I've seen? I, I saw this a long time ago. So I'm blanking on exactly where it was but it was, um, a town that was heavily based on mine
and then there was this transition out of it and people were really struggling but what did they do? They came in and trained them for other energy sectors. Right. So, we are always going to need energy and I'm not a genius, I'm not going to say I have like the perfect business model in my head for how to fix things, but we're still going to need energy and there's still going to be jobs in energy. It's just a matter of how much effort are we willing to
put in to transition these people to a different energy
sector.
I agree with you 100% Jillian. I, I think that was a huge mistake that governments, our government has made uh administration after administration. No, none in particular that you because progress occurs, you know, we don't ride horses anymore and, and we're probably going to be using electric cars one day. But as things change as they should, you know, that's what progress is.
It's the government's responsibility to look forward, see progress or see, see a radical change coming. Like for example, the um the most popular job in the United States is driving a truck
and one day truck drivers won't have a job more than likely. So as a government, it's my responsibility to say I need to take these people who are going to become displaced and I need to help them find something in a, in a field that's growing instead of shrinking. But, but go ahead here, here's the problem with that.
So you're fighting the idea between us being a socialist, you know, government and a capitalist government. So the capitalist government would say, ok, well, we're gonna let the money decide that. And it is if you look and see what's happening, if people are choosing to buy evs, even though that's been a push by like the Elon Musk and everything. The problem is the infrastructure is not there. We don't have enough power. So now you're seeing everybody starting to develop, you know, uh neighborhood size, uh uh nuclear power plants,
Microsoft's investing in uh Google is investing in it. But that's because that's where the money is going. They're starting to see that they're starting to see that A I is, corporations don't give a damn whether you lose your job or not. When they put robots into a car factory, they had 6000 people working there and now 600 work there. Do you think GM cares? But I it's not their problem but I'm saying the capitalist government moves at a slower rate than a socialist government is going to do that.
That's what I'm saying. The money is going to move it that way. Rather regardless of whether it's Trump or whether it's Harris, the money, the momentum is going to push it in that direction because if A I is gonna need power, EVs are gonna need power and coal, oil, all that stuff is not efficient enough and our infrastructure is not there. So, regardless of who I just have to go that way, I don't think it has to do with capitalism and socialism. I agree with what you're saying, but I think it is the government's responsibility to try to help people. Uh because what, what you're gonna end up with is you're gonna have a disinfected people.
Uh And, and that's what causes things like the French revolution or the American revolution. You know, it's what pisses people off. You know, because they, their dad worked at this factory and they can't, and they're mad about it.
And so I, I think that it's the government's job. I don't think it has anything to do with socialism, communism or capitalism. But what I'm saying, but you're saying it's the government's job to do that. And what I'm saying is our system is not set up to be the government's job. Well, certainly, certainly that's why our country is slower than every other country. Norway has already got evs and power infrastructure. We don't have it. Europe and by and large did retrain people
when they became out of work. That that did happen, it didn't happen here. But you know what we are so far a field
and we've seen like government intervention work in the past. I forget it was either early or early mid 19 hundreds. The government paid people to go to school for like, education jobs,
you know.
Well, sure, the G I Bill and, and actually by the way, the government pays for people to go to school right now I pay property taxes to put people in, put kids in high school and I don't have any kids. So the government is paying for people to,
I'm educated. But anyway, again, my fault, my fault. But we got really far a field there and, and you know what, we're not running overtime because I forgot to set my stopwatch. I have no idea how long we've been on, but I know we need to quit. Let's do a quick summary of the difference between these candidates are first and foremost in my, this is the way I'm looking at it. If you're rich, you are definitely gonna pay less, less taxes under Donald Trump. If that is, he controls the both houses of Congress and pass tax laws,
um
trade policy. He, he wants tariffs. Uh which I think sounds stupid to me. I mean, the universal tariffs anyway,
uh in energy. I, I think the world is, I, I happen to do believe in global warming and I think that uh drilling oil is fine. I own a bunch of oil stocks actually, but it, it, the world's gonna change because it's gonna run out of oil and it's gonna, it's gonna put too much carbon in the air and it's gonna start killing people. So, I mean,
I think people need to transition what anything else before we leave. I think you covered some major points here. And from the way it sounds, amongst all of us, we're all very passionate about how this turns out that is true as we should be as we should be. And one thing I learned today is that Aaron is a fascist.
Look at that, look at him. He's a hippie and a fascist fascist. Out of that two things you don't usually see together. I just make things up, Aaron. I don't really think you're a fascist. Well, you know what, I don't think people talk about what these two people agree on too. I mean, you don't have to worry about military spending. Both of these candidates, believe on military spending. Uh Both of these candidates uh believe on uh kind of pushing, pushing the brakes on, on military build up in China.
Uh They're kind of both in agreement on that. I don't think they both agree on Ukraine, but again, we're supposed to be talking about money, but, but these things do affect the economy overall, certainly
let us all retire to our separate corners and meet here again in a week or so. Hope you guys have enjoyed the podcast, please be sure and follow us on youtube, Facebook, Instagram. Join our website, do something that's gonna help us. Please stop thinking of yourself all the time. We will see you right here next time.