i ve said where i m at. the bottom line i think we should be starting and making sure our priorities are put in the proper place. first of all, we know the taxes. we know the taxes. all democrats we voted against the tax cuts 20617. that should be the first thing we should be able to agree on, a tax improvement that basically makes it fair and equitable. that s all we re talking about and then see where we stand. i brought to $1.5 as you ve seen by nourishing the 1.5 was always done from my heart, basically what we could do and not jeopardize our economy. i asked for the strategic pause because after that then we basically had covid coming back at us and all the unknowns right now, especially with what the financial fallout might be and the geopolitical fallout, excuse me, the geopolitical fallout that might come from the afghanistan departure and also inflation. i ll give you a perfect example. in west virginia, i just saw today where to where the $1,
i will say the stock market went up higher under obama than under bush. the economy was better under bush. i will say the economy s been slowly getting slower and slower decade after decade, that is a trend some tax improvement will only make a slight change to. i will say the one thing, gary, the only problem with the tax cut, yes, government spends money irrationally, but they can t keep spending it irrationally and give us our money back. that combination is dangerous. if they re going to do an across the board fix or an improvement, if it s a net major cut of revenues, then there s going to have to be some spending tied to it at some point or it s going to end badly. if we get a happiness bubble, we can always tax happiness and the democrats would if they could. john, the danger is people have gotten their hopes up. that the jump in consumer confidence is the equivalent of a full percent jump in consumer spending, which is the vast majority of our economy. so if you don t give