Lowering Drug Prices, Tax Day, Executive Power

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.5 • 772 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike and Trey open with a look at a recent Trump Executive Order intended to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Mike is generally in favor, though he doesn’t see it as having a huge impact. He also points to the absurdity of importing prescription drugs from Canada, arguing that it’s a sign of a fundamentally broken system. Trey makes the case that even if this EO results in savings, it doesn’t come close to offsetting the additional healthcare costs imposed on many Americans by Trump administration policies. Next, they turn to tax policy and IRS cutbacks. Mike points out that eviscerating IRS enforcement makes no sense if the government really cares about efficiency or enforcing the law. Mike and Trey also get into tariffs (essentially a regressive consumption tax), tax burden, tax complexity, and ways the tax code might (but probably won’t) be improved. They close by considering the historic number of executive actions taken by Donald Trump over the first three months of his second term, as well as the equally historic record of non-accomplishment when it comes to passing laws. The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Mike’s Substack: What Fresh Hell is This? Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm making a robot head with an Amazon box.
0:03.0	I've painted it silver and Daddy help me make it.
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0:11.0	and I even made a little brown basket
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1:00.1	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vandal, Oooligans.
1:05.0	Love the government, hug the government, love the government, hug the government, love, the government,
1:18.1	hug the government, love, the government, welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.
1:21.8	I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael Barronowski.
1:28.4	I'm joined today by my conservative counterpart, Oklahoma Christian University political scientist, Trey Orndorf.
1:30.1	Thanks for having me back.
1:31.3	Absolutely, Trey.
1:38.7	And as I mentioned on the weekend show, there was plenty of stuff that we didn't get a chance to talk about. Every week, you know, it just, I think really the change from the far sleepier, quieter body administration to this
	...

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