Welcome to today's edition of the Clay Travis and Boxe Extend Show Podcast.

It is no secret I served in Congress, although it seemed like one of the time. I don't know.

You gotta give my critics their due though. Let's be honest folks, you all were told that if you voted

for me for Congress or for the US Senate and Minnesota, why we'd have a recession, we'd be in

another war, we'd have inflation and the country would go to hell. While the critics were right,

you all voted for me and all those things happened. I'm confused. So welcome once again,

it is a frosty variety on the Clay and Buck show and I could not be happier to be sitting in for

the dynamic duo. I am the talk show host formerly known as Congressman Jason Lewis back at it for

a second day in a row. How about that? Getting ready for the big weekend. We've got lots of news to

get over or to go over today and some to get over, especially if you're trying to travel. If you're

trying to get out of Buffalo or survive in Buffalo, you know, it's interesting about the Southwest

airline debacle. It is true that they've had some technological glitches that led to much of this.

There's no question about that, but it is also true that post pandemic, there has been a corporate,

as we talked about yesterday, a little bit, a corporate cutting of unprecedented proportions. That

is we've got a pilot shortage. We've got staff shortages because we're paying people not to work

when you combine, for instance, healthcare subsidies, the ACA exchanges with supplemental

unemployment insurance of $600 a week. That was the rule for many, many, many, many, I shouldn't say

years, but for during the COVID era, when you combine generous welfare states like New York and

California and Minnesota and Massachusetts, it simply doesn't pay to work and people are not working.

In fact, our unemployment rate is dropping, but we actually have fewer people working now than

before the pandemic. The labor force participation rate, which is the true measure of how productive

people are, how many are in the workforce has dropped from around 67%, 68% to 61%, 62%,

...