Austin Berg (9:41)

Hey Mike, thanks for inviting me. This is one of my favorite podcasts and I get to be on it. It's. It's a dream come true.

Eric Zorn (9:47)

And one of the guys I discovered from listening to the Mincing Rascals podcast, where Eric is a regular guest is Austin Berg is the Executive director of the Chicago Policy center and Vice President of Marketing for the Illinois Policy Institute. A lot of titles, but what do you really do?

Mike Pesca (10:02)

Austin Berg I'm a ninja. I'm a man of all for all seasons. I'm a I'm a dancer. I'm a singer, a puppet, a poet.

Eric Zorn (10:12)

A pirate, a pawn and a king. We're doing all of them.

Austin Berg (10:15)

The Joker, a smoker, a midnight toker.

Mike Pesca (10:17)

Toker for sure. I do a lot of stuff. I also run a marketing agency called Ironlight and do a lot of work around the country. I think of myself as eliminating barriers to human potential. That is my mission.

Eric Zorn (10:28)

And wow, that could either be very nefarious or very inspiring. I hope you do it the right way. And speaking of very inspiring, surprisingly inspiring to me is your governor J.D. pritzker. He recently made a foray into New Hampshire. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box. Eric, how did J.B. pritzker turn into Maxine Waters all of a sudden?

Austin Berg (11:28)

Well, he is certainly positioning himself for a run for president in 2028, and he wants to be out in front on this idea that Trump is bad and he's going to lead the way. A lot of Republicans were concerned that he was calling for actual violence. And I pointed out that he talked about microphones and megaphones and not bear spray and baseball bats. So he is talking about protest. He is asking people to protest at the offices of Republican lawmaker and to really underscore how upset people are with what's going on in the Trump administration. This is a new JB Pritzker that we're seeing. In some respects, he is much more fiery on the stuff. I saw him give a speech the other night at a documentary film festival. He took the stage ever, if ever.

Eric Zorn (12:17)

There was a forum for fiery rhetoric, it's a documentary film festival.

Austin Berg (12:20)

Right? He's, he's going to be everywhere you're going to, you're going to see him. He was on Jimmy Kimmel last week. And he wants to be the Democrat who is going hardest after Donald Trump right now. And he thinks that that is a lane towards success. And, you know, I mean, right now, I don't think he's going to be the leading candidate for president. But, you know, a lot of candidates start off way down in the polls or fairly obscure. Think of Jimmy Carter, even Bill Clinton. You know, nobody had heard of him. And then they came out of nowhere.

Eric Zorn (12:54)

And became Arkansas, not as populous a state as Illinois. And I do want to zoom out and talk about his tactics, his strategy, the general theory of the case that he represents. But Austin, I want to ask you, first of all, you buying it? You buying the new JB Pritzker?

Mike Pesca (13:07)

I don't buy that. That's the first time in his life he's called for mass protest. He's been protesting since he was a kid. His mother, I believe, was a staunch pro choice activist. And that was activism that he participated in as a kid as well. That's something he often highlights in his campaigns that he's sort of been A fighter in the streets for a long time. He's not your average billionaire. But the most stunning thing to me, or the most interesting thing I should say in his rise to national prominence is that he has not yet been forced to answer for the results in Illinois. And we're going to see this constant tension between the rhetoric of a success story as a state, which he needs to project in order to be in a strong position to run for president, and the actual realities on the ground here in Illinois, which are that we are hemorrhaging people. We've lost over a million people to outmigration over the last decade. We're losing population every year. We're one of the highest taxed states the last five years. We have actually lost jobs in the private sector. We have not gained them. And on top of that, we are the least equitable state. So there's a Wallet hub study in 2023 that looked at racial equity. If you want to measure a progressive state success on that measure, we're not doing well. So I don't think he's been forced to answer for that and that will. I will be looking to how he frames that to a national audience.

Eric Zorn (14:31)

Some of those are apt critiques, right, Eric? I mean, you're not. One governor is not going to reverse the dynamics of. Of inequity, the haves and have nots, and how that's organized along racial lines. That is true, but it's still a fact and it will be used against him. So what do you not think? You're his press agent, but what would you say about that?

Austin Berg (14:51)

Well, I'm not his press agent and I acknowledge that Illinois has been run poorly in a bipartisan way for a long time. We've had more years of Republican governors and Democratic governors as our pension debt has gone out of control. We are.

Eric Zorn (15:06)

What's their record in terms of incarceration, by the way?

Austin Berg (15:09)

The governor incarcerated. Oh, it's 50. 50. In recent years, we've had a lot of governors, Democrats and Republicans head off to the spa with no toilet seats, as I call it. Illinois has the 9th heaviest overall tax burden in the country. And Austin is right that we're having an outmigration of citizens. I think the actual population is fairly steady. But a lot of that has to do with immigration and people who are not not citizens. Our median household income is a little bit higher than average. Our poverty rate is a little bit lower than the national average. I mean, it's Illinois. If you look at a lot of the different measurements, you know, education, health, all those sort of things. Illinois is in the middle in a lot of places and Pritzker did inherit some, some big problems. And he's going to point to things like that. He was able, with COVID relief money to present what looked like balanced budgets. He's able to be paying down the state's. He has been able to lift the state's abysmal credit rating a little bit. And he's also been a champion for abortion rights and for raising the minimum wage and so on. So he has a mixed record. I will acknowledge that. I think that it's not totally fair to pin all of Illinois's woes on him. But Austin makes a good point, as he usually does when you talk about the failure of Illinois to pull out of the nosedive that it's in. The business climate here is not rated very high and they're going to have to work on that. And he hasn't done that. He hasn't been out front as he should have been on ethics improvements in the state. There are all kinds of things that we're going to pick apart. The question is, is an election like this going to be, or a race like this going to be governed by this, this kind of statistical argument that we're not, we're not. It's not really an argument here because we're, we're not even mad. But, but, but a statistical comparison or is it going to be based on kind of the vibes that a candidate puts forth? Like is, is Pritzker the guy? Can you see him in, in the White House? Can you see him leading the country, taking the bully puppet, taking the country in the direction you want it to go into again? You know, the attack, the attack ads for governors always write themselves. He's going to do for the, for his own home state. And look at these statistical measurements by which he's fallen short.

Eric Zorn (17:42)

Yeah. Also he comes from a billionaire family, which I guess used to be something that they could use against you now maybe not his sister, Penny Pritzker, former cabinet secretary, but also she is, they have a special designation like the senior fellow at Harvard. She's essentially chairman of the board at Harvard or CEO at Harvard. So that puts her a little bit in the crosshairs. I don't know if those are positives going back to the actual track record of the state. I remember when Michael Ducass ran and there was the so called Massachusetts miracle. And it was real. I mean, it wasn't really a miracle, but they did better under Dukakis. And did that help? I guess it was the absence of hurting. But all and also, let's be really real, the attack ads will focus on unflattering angles about his girth and that's what they did to Chris Christie. And all the polls show Americans still care about that unfairly. But maybe you want to take that Austin, or maybe you want to zoom out and talk about the general theory of the case, which I think think he's doing something smart, which is you have to show you're a fighter. You don't have to show it through literally radical proposals. But doing what Cory Booker did, even doing it a little more forcefully, using this rhetoric that signals to Democrats we are not going to stand for it. It's at least exactly where the Democratic Party is. And you can't become president until you get the Democratic Party. So I think it's all smart. But what do you think? Think.

Mike Pesca (19:11)

Matt Iglesias had a very interesting tweet about this the other day that I agreed with where he was looking at. There's clearly a recognition among the Gavin Newsoms of the world, the Rahm Emanuels of the world, the JB Pritzkers of the world, that you have to have a rhetoric of two things. One is like moderation. We're not crazy far left people. Right. Newsom and Rahm have been doing that JB a little bit less so. And you also have to speak in the language that the energized base is speaking in, which is that you bemoan the do nothing Democrats right now. Where push comes to shove though, is you actually have to state what your moderating positions are like. There's a pretty short fuse, I think on this argument. You can't just keep bemoaning do nothing Democrats for the next year. And that's the difference in Pritzker and some of these other candidates. Newsom will be the same way, but he's going into a third term as the Illinois governor. So while he didn't create the problems in Illinois, he is really, he's going to be one of the longest serving governors in state history and he'll have to kind of deal with the ongoing crises that are happening out of Chicago and at the state level kind of throughout this campaign. And he'll have to make tough choices at some point.

Eric Zorn (20:25)

Yeah, look, you run the sixth biggest state and do nothing Democrats is a good label. But you are a Democrat and you've been a Democrat for a long time. Time. And what's the record of accomplishment? I know it's not exactly easy. And I know, Governor Pritzker, that a lot of times you're cut off at the knees by the decisions made by the leadership of Chicago. But still, how much do you expect voters to take all that into account and make excuses for it?

Austin Berg (20:52)

Well, I, you know, I want to look at these recent polls that showed how dismally Trump is doing. And in terms of his popularity, like record lows after his first hundred days. And in these same polls, you find out that people still, voters still say they would choose Trump over Kamala Harris, even all this chaos in the first 100 days, and that they still trust the Republicans in the issues of immigration and on the economy more than they trust the Democrats. And se cup, of all people, the former arch conservative, I'm not sure how you'd categorize her anymore, but she used to be sort of a go to conservative.

Eric Zorn (21:33)

Only anti abortion atheist I've ever met.

Austin Berg (21:39)

She is, she wrote a column recently saying, where's the new Democratic, the Democratic New Deal? Where's their version of the Contract with America? She said, they just don't show that they have a bold agenda for every Democratic lawmaker to get behind. And I think that that's really important that, that, you know, we're talking about the idea that, yeah, bashing Trump, yes, bash away, it's true. But you have to convince people that you have a plan and that it addresses the concerns that voters had and that, you know, we all knew voters knew what the problems with Trump were when he was running and yet they still took a chance on him because they did not like the direction that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris had taken the country the last four years. And, you know, we could, I don't want to relitigate or fight that election again, but that's the case. I mean, you can't, you can't, you can wish that things were different, but they're not. And so As a, when J.B. pritzker is out there and he is eloquent, he gives a great speech. I love that. I posted a great hunks of that speech in the Picayun Sentinel. I thought it was a terrific speech, a lot of great lines in it, but that only gets you part way. You've got to say, this is what I will do. This is what the Democratic Party now stands for. And I do think I'm one of those middle of the road kind of Democrats who says the focus on some of these far left issues, some of which I agree with, is not necessarily a way toward Winning the power that you're going to need to enact.

Eric Zorn (23:23)

Does he have that in him? Has he separated from the far left agenda social justice crowd sufficiently on occasion to appeal to a middle of the road Democrat?

Austin Berg (23:34)

I'm gonna throw that question to Austin. I'm not sure that he does that.

Mike Pesca (23:37)

That's a really, really good question. I don't think so at all. Which I think has been one of the more interesting things about his tenure as governor because in the words of Peter Parker, what's his uncle name? Uncle Ben. With great power comes great responsibility, right? And that is an interesting story in Illinois where you have the richest public official in the country and he should be able to throw around an extraordinary amount of political muscle and political independence, Right? But you look at one issue in particular in Illinois, this was around school choice. So Illinois had a very modest tax credit scholarship program where private citizens could donate to a fund, they get a tax rebate and then the fund, if you're a kid who's not going to a school that's right for you, you can access a scholarship and go to a private school if you want. And it served about 10,000 low income kids across the state. And sort of the most progressive, most left political actor in Illinois is the Chicago Teachers Union. And they put enormous amounts of lobbying power behind killing that program. J.B. pritzker, instead of saying, no, we're going to save this for poor kids in our state, he said, if it comes to my desk, I'll sign it. But he did not lift a finger to save the program. And Illinois actually became the only state in the country to kill a school choice program. There's never been a school choice program that's existed and then been rolled back except for Illinois. So that I think gave a little bit of an insight into while he might have a ton of money and while he might have national aspirations, it is those national aspirations that are kind of preventing him from taking independent stance because he's afraid he'll kind of piss off labor, essentially.

Eric Zorn (25:14)

What about in general, his political instincts, his ability to say the right thing, do the right thing without an excessive amount of consultancy informing him? Seems like the voters want that.

Mike Pesca (25:26)

I would say he, he's had an incredible ability to stay kind of scandal free in terms of unforced errors as a governor. I think Eric would probably agree with me on that. And he was, I will say, though buoyed and or prevented from making unpopular decisions because he served as a governor at a time when the federal government was just printing out Billions and billions and billions of dollars and handing it to states. Some people may remember right at the beginning of COVID states were asking for respirators. States were asking for, you know, hospitals to be built, things like this. The Senate president of Illinois asked for a $50 billion pension bailout. Like that's how close to sort of insolvency we kind of were as a state. And that really helped Pritzker avoid really big tax hikes. He has hike taxes a substantial amount, but really large tax hikes or cuts. So he's been able to a little bit coast under the radar in terms of doing any controversial decisions. There's an old Chicago phrase on this. It's don't make no waves, don't back no losers. JB has done a good job of not making waves and not backing too many losers.

Austin Berg (26:32)

Yeah. He's a politically smart guy and is charismatic in his way. I think that him being overweight. Let's circle back to that. Is an issue. It shouldn't be, but it is. Donald Trump is not exactly a model of fitness, but Pritzker is husky, as we used to say, in a nice way. And I am watching his weight myself because I think that if we see him dropping some pounds, we're going to know that he's going to run because he has to know that that is one of the last acceptable prejudices people have. And there are drugs on the market now, you know, Ozempic and those things which will, I guess, allow people to lose weight pretty quickly. I'm guessing that he is going to do that. And when we see that happening, we'll know that he's running.

Eric Zorn (27:28)

Yeah. A candidacy motivated by conviction, belief and Manjaro. One last thing. I want to. As a news consumer, outside of particular areas, you sometimes don't hear about great initiatives, great ideas. I was recently hearing about the fact that the state of New Mexico has free state provider childcare. Never knew that. Felt resentful that I didn't know that. Does Illinois have any such very clever program? Maybe even a program that J.D. pritzker championed and then never got passed. But is there a really clever JD Pritzker esque program that we could all look to saying, yeah, I want some of that on the national level?

Mike Pesca (28:07)

Well, Mike, you keep saying J.D. pritzker, which is making me do that crazy J.D. vance meme in my head where it's like that funny face of cherubic JD Vance face, but on JB Pritzker's body, which some, maybe a listener could do that Would I be very interested in that?

Eric Zorn (28:23)

Would you say J.D. more than J.B.

Mike Pesca (28:27)

Maybe. Yeah. I, I think maybe not. A good program, a great program in Illinois doesn't really come to mind, which is sad. I'm sure I could think of one. Okay, here's, here's one. Illinois has done a very good job. We used to be one of the worst states in the country for occupational licensing, especially for people who have had a criminal record. And that was an issue that I worked on for many years and through some really brave and great reform minded people and people who are victims of that system. We're actually one of the better states in the country now for the ability to get a license to work, even if you've made a mistake in your past. Oftentimes one of the biggest causes of recidivism, obviously people going back to prison is that they can't have a meaningful job because they can't get the government permission slip to do that job. And Illinois has done, I will say, a good job under Republicans and Democrats of, of, of fixing that issue.

Eric Zorn (29:28)

That's a good one. All right, let's widen the aperture out. Let's talk more about national politics. Let's talk a little bit about the municipal politics that take place outside of Chicago, but also some inside Chicago. We'll be back in a minute with not even mad. You know what I say about a shirt that I just love? I say I could live in it. And that's what I've been doing with Quince. I've got a few pieces from Quince. They're in my closet, but also on my torso. Quince is all the things you actually want to wear. They have organic cotton silk polos. They have European linen beach shorts. And I am here to tell you, also applicable in North America, everything with quints is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find with similar brands. Because I'm talking to you. And as cliche as it sounds, by cutting out said middleman, who's maybe not even wearing pants as comfortable as Quint's pants, we're saving you money and giving you luxury pieces without crazy markups. I have gotten two Quint sweaters that are comfortable, fashion, fashionable and make me look good. Really, that's what it's all about. One's a heather green and the other is a is a basic black. But there's nothing basic about how it feels and how it looks. Elevate your closet with quince. Go to quince.com the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com the gist to get free shipping in 300365 day returns quince.com/the gist. And we're back with Not Even Mad joining us. Not to be mad or two guys who are used to not being mad at each other because they often appear on a WGN podcast called the Mincing Rascals, which I love listening to. It's about Chicago and Illinois politics. They are Eric Zorn and Austin Berg. And there is not impending, not this year, but a mayoral race brewing in Chicago and here in my city, in New York City, there is also a mayoral race. And my point, or the thought that I've been having about the New York mayoral race is that there are some good candidates. There are some candidates who perhaps would be promising. But we are about a month away, a month and a few weeks away from the only vote that matters, the Democratic primary. And it's good, though not terribly important, that it's conducted via ranked choice voting. And I have seen so far one weekend's worth of ads. There has been almost no campaigning. There have been candidate forums, if you're one of those freaks who like to go to candidate forums, which is great for the 8% of voters that care. But generally I think that there is a problem within municipal elections that take place not on election day where voter turnout is something like, I mean, it'd be great in New YORK if it's 30% of all voters, but this is New York, Austin, what are you thinking about either in the Chicago context or just overall in the municipal context, in voter turnout. And if we're doing any favors to.

Mike Pesca (32:45)

Democracy, well, reporting live from Chicago, a kind recommendation to our friends in New York City, do not elect the socialist activist mayoral candidate. I would not recommend that as a, as a future, as to protect the future of your city. However, my understanding is that the options are very poor. And it's not like, you know, there's, there's 10 other candidates who are incredibly better. Eric Adams has so many problems. Cuomo has so many problems. So I'm very sympathetic. I will say I completely agree with you that some of the most insidious voter suppression that happens in our country, if not the most, is the timing of these off cycle elections, especially in municipal races. That is absolutely the case in Chicago, where we have about half the turnout in municipal as we do in general elections. So half the city that typically votes is just not voting at All. And that's a huge problem. There are other places that have fixed this. California. If you don't meet a certain threshold of voter turnout in your municipal elections, the election timing will automatically switch to a general election ballot, which I think is very good, but it's not talked about enough as a problem in municipal governance. The last thing I'll say too is New York City has partisan primaries for mayor. Chicago used to have partisan primaries for mayor until the 90s when the last Republican candidate for mayor happened to be a professional clown. And this was so embarrassing.

Eric Zorn (34:20)

As opposed to the normal amateur clowns who run. Yes.

Mike Pesca (34:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not unpaid. Yeah, yeah. But this combined with the fact jesters. Exactly. Pro bono clowning, they're. They're totally allowed, but they were really embarrassed that this guy was actually selling his services as a literal clown. So the. That combined with the fact that in the 80s, the first black mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, he was elected by essentially because the status quo white ethnic vote was split in the Democratic primary. And the Democratic machine essentially said like, we can't have that happen again. So those two kind of, you know, Baptist and bootlegger kind of interests combined and eliminated partisan primaries altogether. I think in general, I would be more favorable toward a partisan primary process. I think that's.

Eric Zorn (35:11)

So our prominent socialist candidate is named Zoran Mamdani. And fun fact of the nine candidates running for mayor to have the initials Z.M. no, let us not overlook Zelnor Myre. And I also think that there are some interesting candidates. It's just hard to break through, which is a problem everywhere. Right, Eric?

Austin Berg (35:33)

Well, we had nine candidates in our 2023 election, and we had 14 in 2019. And I don't know if you can say clusterfuck on this. You have to ask, but certainly 2019 was a clusterfuck. And 16% of the vote was enough to get into the final two. And that was the election that was won by Lori Lightfoot. And then last time we had nine. 21% in this open primary was enough to get into the final two. We do a runoff then. And to me, it argued for ranked choice voting. I think there were some candidates who were appealing to me certainly who just didn't quite make the threshold. And if people had had a second choice or a third choice and we could have done the ranked choice voting. I'm really eager to see how that plays out in New York. Now, I understood that Eric Adams was running not a Democrat.

Eric Zorn (36:31)

He's not one of the nine.

Austin Berg (36:32)

So he's not Even included, he's not in. Yeah. So I think that having a system, having an open primary like this, especially in cities like Chicago, which are so overwhelmingly Democratic, there will be no Republican. You know, when you have city offices, other offices that are, that are state offices that are partisan, there's no chance in Chicago for a Republican to win. So it makes sense to me that you would have this kind of open primary. But I would, I would like to see ranked choice voting in situations like this. And I don't know what to do about the low turnout. Austin's right. In Illinois, we've had primaries in February. You know, it's just, it seems designed to keep people from voting, and it would be good, I think, to include them in the. More in the general election.

Eric Zorn (37:18)

Yeah. So only 21% of registered voters cast ballots. It's in New York City. And it is a shame. And ranked choice voting is fine. I'm fine with it. The vast majority of ranked choice voting wouldn't have any different result than if you did a force runoff, than if you did a jungle primary, which they do in Louisiana. It to me is a tinkering on the edges. And the main problem is that if I had one reform electorally, it wouldn't have anything to do with gerrymandering. It wouldn't have. It really wouldn't even have anything to do with money and politics. It would have to do with massive primary reform because people do want to be involved. And so often I hear the sentiment that it's already baked in. The decision has already been made for me. And people say, wait a minute, when was the election? Or how do we get this guy? And the answer is because it's all done through these primaries, which are inherently very low turnout. I have a friend who is a former. Well, think of this how you want. Bradley Tusk. He used to work for Bloomberg, but now he's dedicating much of his fortune and he made a lot of money as an early adviser to Uber, just trying to reform the primary system, trying to get voting by digital devices, which can be. Which can be done and which can be secured. And if there was one thing to really change elections, I think this is the thing that's needed. And that's probably why it's not going to happen. Because who is the least incentivized to change the way elections work? Elected officials. Because they've benefited.

Mike Pesca (38:50)

That's. That's true. But I believe if Mike, that Bradley was doing reform on that in Washington, D.C. where they were kind of getting somewhere on the online voting, which is very strategic. He'll.

Eric Zorn (39:02)

He'll do a pilot program in West Virginia with, with veterans and then he'll do it with Washington D.C. where there's a little bit of an appetite for reform. I don't know as much among the ward healers in Chicago, but. Sorry, go ahead. You're saying Austin.

Mike Pesca (39:16)

No, shout and shout out to his book the Fixer, which is a fascinating book about the time when I think he was like 28 years old. He was essentially running the state of Illinois as the deputy.

Eric Zorn (39:26)

I forgot, right hand man who kind of turned on Blagojevich. Well, rather than get a diet.

Mike Pesca (39:33)

Fantastic.

Eric Zorn (39:34)

But go ahead. You were saying. So what do you think? So primaries, are they.

Mike Pesca (39:38)

Yeah. Increasing, increasing the turnout is so essential. It's, it's. People underestimate the amount of apathy that is created when you have. Eric can speak to this in Chicago, where Brandon Johnson has an approval rating of below 10% by most polls. And that just does extraordinary damage to people's belief in the system being faired, the belief that they have any voice in their government. And yeah, he won the election, but really he won with like 15 to 10 to 15% of voters voting for him in the runoff in the general. And so when people see that as the result of the system, they just lose a lot of faith. So I think automatically putting those municipal elections in line with general is great. The other thing I'll just mention, the thing that I would be worried about in those low turnout New York City elections is that who is advantaged by those low turnout elections? Well, it's usually special interest groups. In Chicago, it happens to be the ctu. Chicago Teachers Union is the biggest one. They spend the most money on politics. And critically, all of the members are required to live in the city limits. So those are votes. And that's the same way with the police union. It's the same way with the firefighter union. Right. And those people go out and vote because they have a direct vested interest in exactly what the mayor is doing on a day to day basis. And those interests are way, way, way too prioritized when you have low turnout elections.

Eric Zorn (41:04)

Yeah, I think the second half of that, having your firefighters, police and teachers live in your city isn't a bad thing. Maybe. You disagree?

Mike Pesca (41:12)

It depends. I think the worker. What's really funny is union leadership will bargain to keep that requirement in the collective bargaining agreement because they know it's part of their political power. Most of the members are like, nah, I want to live in Oak Park. I want to live in Berwyn. And I think it's a little bit silly when you think about the. At least the geography of Chicago. It's a little bit different with New York City. Yeah.

Eric Zorn (41:33)

You don't have to cross a bridge to get out of town.

Mike Pesca (41:36)

Exactly. If you're living on, you know, in a near west suburb and you're teaching in, you know, a West side neighborhood, what's the big deal? You live 10 minutes away, but you happen to not be in the city of Chicago boundaries.

Austin Berg (41:47)

Well, that's exactly right. And you see where a lot of the police and firefighters live in the city, they live way out right by the borders.

Mike Pesca (41:54)

Right.

Eric Zorn (41:55)

Same with New York, these enclaves in the Rockaways. And if it's Far Rockaway, you're in Nassau county, but if it's just Rockaway, you're eligible to be a firefighter. But go ahead.

Austin Berg (42:07)

Yeah, no, I think they should. One of the things that's irritating, and this is maybe a little bit too local with Chicago politics, but Johnson, he did squeak into the. Well, he won his way into the final election, into the runoff, and then he won by about 5% of the vote. Austin, is that about right? And he's always going on and on about what the people of Chicago elected me to do, and what the people of Chicago elected him to do was to keep the streets safe and to make sure that the education system ran well. And he has all these ideas about this mandate that he's got, and he's got approval rating somewhere around 6% right now because of the way he's governed. And he keeps insisting that this is what the people want. And I think when you have the situation where you have a barely small majority of the vote to claim that you're now given this great mandate, I mean, it's kind of like what Donald Trump is doing on the national level. He talks about his great mandate, his great landslide victory. I heard him talk about on NBC the other day. It's like, no, our city is divided. It's actually not all that divided. It doesn't like Randon Johnson right now. Our country is divided. And it doesn't want to give necessarily all the power to one person to enact their full agenda. And I mean, maybe that's a problem just in general with elected politics, which is that somebody who gets 51%, or in Trump's case, 49% of the vote decides that he has the right to do anything he wants. Wants.

Eric Zorn (43:38)

I saw the debate that you moderated last year. And you did a great job. And Brandon Johnson did not play well with your questions. But his rival or his ultimate rival, Paul Vallas, titular Republican, claimed he did. It was a little similar to the L. A Mayoral election where Karen Bass, who's come under fire, but she did win an election against, against Rick Caruso, who is a Republican. And it was interesting to me that it shook out that it was essentially a mainstream moderate Democrat against a Republican. And in Chicago is. I don't know how mainstream or moderate was, but it's certainly a Democrat against a very moderate Republican. I don't think it would work in New York that way, but I think it would be better off if it's did.

Mike Pesca (44:30)

Yeah, we essentially had Brandon Johnson came, he was an employee of the Chicago Teachers Union, activist, organizer on the left. And then Paul Vallis, who. He was the, the, the biggest attack against him and the most effective was that he was a MAGA Republican. But the guy worked in Democratic administrations all his life, ran for statewide office several times as a Democrat. I would characterize him as a, as a centrist to Red, you know, Red dog, Democrat. I don't know if blue. I guess Blue dog is what you would call Purple dog.

Eric Zorn (45:01)

Red dog.

Mike Pesca (45:01)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. And that was an effective attack in a heads up election. I think Chicago voters have figured out a little bit that that's fake. You have, you have already a new candidate for potential, but I think very likely candidate for mayor next time around, Susanna Mendoza, who is the Democratic Democratic Comptroller of Illinois and she spoke out on public safety issues and Democrats are already calling her MAGA Mendoza. And I think an average voter looks at that and are just saying like, no, that's ridiculous. Like, I think the term is probably being overused.

Eric Zorn (45:40)

I mean, does it work? Is it so toxic, especially in a blue place, that you can't not say it? You're a political consultant. What do you think?

Mike Pesca (45:50)

They tried it in school board elections. The reason I think this is Chicago had its first ever school board elections in November and CTU had nine competitive races and they called all their opponents MAGA and they lost six of them. And if you're a teacher's union, you should win about 70% of the school board races that you're endorsing people in. So I think it's lost its luster a little bit. And it depends very highly on how credible the accusation is. I think people are actually looking into, okay, what does that mean? You're calling this person maga? Um, that's that's changed and I think.

Eric Zorn (46:24)

It probably goes back to exactly what Eric was talking about in the first segment. It's necessary but not sufficient. Okay, maybe the opponent is maga, maybe not, but what are you going to do for me? And I don't know if the voter. I don't think you could blame the voters. We've talked about structure, but I hope the voters are asking that question more than they have been. You know, what's the positive agenda that you're going to show on my behalf? Any inclination, Eric, that there is more of an appetite for that than there was last time when, when Brandon John just dodge your questions and get got mad at you for asking good ones?

Austin Berg (46:58)

Well, I mean I think that my sense is that the reason that Dallas lost, for instance, is that that he came across as, as too much of a Republican in the city and people were willing to take a chance on Johnson because some of the things that he said were resonating with them. And, but, and so a lot of these elections turn on vibes not so much on, on these policy prescriptions. And that's, you know, I said that about Pritzker and I'll say that about the general approach that Democrats and Republicans are taking, which is like you can attack Susanna Mendoza is career Democrat. Last time she ran she was attacked as being too loyal to Democratic leadership and now she's being attacked as MAGA Mendoza. I think voters see through that and I think that they end up voting on how the candidates present themselves in their ads and in, in some of these debates and when they're televised. I don't, I don't think that just calling somebody MAGA is going to stick with voters who are paying attention and those tend to be the ones that turn out for election.

Mike Pesca (47:59)

So I will only add to Eric's point. This is the first time I'm revealing this theory. Mike is on your show. This is a total experiment. 2028. Yeah, 2028 will be the first chat GPT elect election where people enter in a ton of their information into an AI and the AI tells them basically who to vote for and they're asking questions to it about the candidates. So it's going to depend and AI is pretty fair on a lot of that stuff depending on which ones you use. So I think those labels become less effective in an environment like that.

Eric Zorn (48:33)

The long that may be true. And I thought you're going to say it's the chat GPT election because candidates are already using that to generate their policy positions and that too.

Mike Pesca (48:41)

That too.

Eric Zorn (48:42)

Andrew Cuomo got caught doing that. And, and there was some chat GPT language at the bottom of one of his housing proposals. And then I don't know if this made it out to you. He blamed it on a one armed consultant because that consultant had trouble typing. So he had to dictate and use chat GPT. I thought that was.

Mike Pesca (48:58)

You guys get the best, most theatrical sometimes, I think. But that New Yorker story about the Blasio where he's like taking the, you know the one I'm talking about, that just came out like that stuff.

Eric Zorn (49:07)

So Anthony Weiner's running for office. Oh God, we do. We have delicious politics here.

Austin Berg (49:13)

The one armed consultant is like the guy, same guy who killed Dr. Kimball's wife. He is.

Eric Zorn (49:19)

Tommy Lee Jones is hunting him. And by the way, Anthony Winner is not only running for city council, he was one of the last guests. I'm not even mad. So this could be you next segment or next year. Guys, let's finally talk about in national politics the proposed budget cuts. And they'll never go through, but they do lead me to a discussion point. Donald Trump wants to cut 22% of non defense agencies policies. And the House Ways and Means Committee are trying all Republicans and Mike Johnson knows he can't get any defections. They're trying to craft some sort of GOP mega bill that will pass that will somehow meet Trump muster in terms of cutting the deficit. And yet at the same time the promise and vow not to cut Medicare. I'd say it's impossible. But what gets me very annoyed is the bona fide charge that everyone's hypocrite. Everyone's a hypocrite. And it's true the many of the Democrats, I guess you could find some Democrats who say yeah, the budget or the debt's a problem, but they never prioritize it. And you could certainly find many Republicans who say runaway spending, the debt's a problem. But then given the choice, they will always, all but two or three will always vote vote for tax cuts. So the only thing I guess we could do is say, oh, it's really not that much of a problem because it hasn't been during our lifetimes. But I think this is pretty bad and I'm pretty worried. I think Austin is too. But Eric, I'll go to you how genuinely worried about our debt load and our inability to do anything about it.

Austin Berg (50:56)

Well, I'm one of those people who has just whistled past the graveyard on this issue for so long because it does feel like we've been hearing that we're going to go into default and there's going to be all kinds of crisis for years and years, and it never seems to happen. We just keep borrowing more money and being more and more in debt. Yeah, it's very easy to talk about getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse and cutting spending. And then when you've got a president who says he's going to spend, what, $100 million on a birthday parade for himself in Washington the date that the.

Eric Zorn (51:27)

Army was found, it just happens to be his birthday, let's be fair, just.

Austin Berg (51:30)

Happens to be very North Korean of him to But I don't think that these are serious people when they're talking about the kinds of cuts they want to make along with the tax cuts they want to give that. If you had bipartisan buy in on cutting spending, you could probably do some of it. What happens, though, in Illinois, the governor before J.B. pritzker was Bruce Rauner, another millionaire, and he came in vowing to cut spending. But his budget proposals never really got to the meat of the debt that we have here because it turns out that on the edges, there is waste, fraud and abuse, undeniably in government spending. But when you're talking about meaningful cuts, you are really cutting programs that people rely on and that really make certain constituencies very angry. And that's what happens anytime you get into any kind of major budget cutting situation, people howl and they vote, they turn against you. And so that's where this whole but that's why we are where we are. Michael Kinsley wrote a great book a couple decades ago called Big Babies. It talks about how Americans are big babies because they want lots and lots of government services, but they don't want to pay for them. And I think that's still true. And both parties have to face up to that, that their voters want all these things that government provides, but they don't want to pay for them. And so it's easier to say, well, okay, we'll borrow the money to pay for it and then we' let future generations deal with it. That's what's going on with a pension problem in Illinois.

Eric Zorn (53:09)

Illinois pensions, oh my, there's a topic. But nicolaspi Pass, Gas pass. ANTHONY Weiner, SPARRING PARTNER and I've been mad, just puts it succinctly. Americans want a dollar's worth of services for 70 cents worth of taxes. It's not sustainable, or it is. In our lifetimes it has been. Is anything going to change that dynamic?

Mike Pesca (53:26)

AUSTIN yeah, I think there will be ultimately some kind of debt crisis where it comes home to roost. I think, think the way I think about it, essentially you had the financial crisis in 2008 and all of that risk was essentially levered onto the federal balance sheet. And now everybody is stuck with it and it's just growing out of control. And at some point there is going to be a big short style movie about the person who calls the time where that's going to happen. And what's most frustrating to me is of course Republicans talk a big game on this and they're always horrible once they get into federal office. The best. And this to Eric's, and Eric's totally right about the psychology of voters too, which means you have to have a structural solution to this. It's not going to be one elected official who's going to do it. And the best thing that we have lying around is Paygo. And Clinton used Paygo. And it's essentially every new law that increases mandatory spending or cuts revenue has to be offset by either cuts or higher taxes, period. And there's no way to get around it. And until you have that kind of, you know, those, those handcuffs in place, it's not going to change. I think I remember another great proposal about like, if Congress doesn't pass a truly balanced budget, like their paychecks don't go out, you know, things like that. That's the only ultimate thing that keeps it sustainably a balanced budget is when it's completely out of political hands or somewhat out of political hands.

Eric Zorn (54:51)

Yeah, the one. It's not a hope, but maybe people will wake up and be alerted now that we're in a position where paying off the national debt is a larger portion of our budget than anything else than the military. And that never used to be the case. Interest rates were low, the debt was lower. Now we spend more on paying off the national debt than any program included, including the Pentagon.

Mike Pesca (55:19)

All right, but people, that's. I will tell you, Mike, in Illinois, people don't care. Pensions and debt are the biggest line item. No one cares. We spend more on that than social services. It's did I get my services and what are my taxes? No one thinks about. Once the money goes away, where does it go? So I hope, I hope you're right.

Eric Zorn (55:37)

Oh, let me end with a McLaughlin type question. On a scale of 1 to 10 in how term, in terms of how serious you take the tax debt, 1 being bad fonts on traffic signs and 10 being the 9, 11 of fiscal responsibility, how Bad do you think this problem is Austin bag?

Mike Pesca (55:54)

10 out of 10. I think it's the biggest problem the country faces, Eric.

Austin Berg (55:57)

Zone six.

Eric Zorn (55:59)

I'm a seven. Correct.

Austin Berg (56:02)

Now you can say wrong.

Eric Zorn (56:04)

The answer is Special K and banana. Thank you. Thank you. Jack Jermond and company. We now get to the portion of today's show that everyone loves, talking about something that everyone hates, or at least our guests hate. It's the goat grinder. Things that grind your gears, things that get your goat. Eric, do you have a goat? Is it a billy goat? Did it start, did it cause a curse to the Cubs or anything else?

Austin Berg (56:30)

Well, the. The Billy Goat, of course, is a restaurant right by the old Tribune Tower. And my. My goat grinder is. Has to do with restaurants, but not the billy goat. The billy goats menu is very easy to read and very transparent in terms of what you're going to get. I am really resenting menus in fancier restaurants where their entries include a whole bunch of terms of ingredients that you have to Google them. You don't even know. I look at them and you see gremolata, remoulade, pavalova, romesco alla plancha. And I'm like, what is that? And I feel like such a rube having to add, ask the waiter. Like, like, like, what is. What is this?

Eric Zorn (57:09)

Didn't she star in Tristan and Isolde at the Met? Yeah.

Austin Berg (57:12)

Yes. Patatas bravas. What is that? And. And you just, you feel like an idiot. And I just wish that the menus were a little bit more friendly. I realize that if you dumb it all the way down, it'll look like you're eating at a Denny's or something or, or a billy goat. But at some point I just like, ah, that grinds my goat.

Eric Zorn (57:29)

Aren't they tatas bravas, cute little potatoes like they serve in Portuguese?

Austin Berg (57:33)

I have no idea.

Mike Pesca (57:35)

Sure.

Eric Zorn (57:36)

Sure you don't. You're a fine diner. I've dined with you. The pinkies in the air all the time. Austin Berg, what grinds your goat or filets it over a spit?

Mike Pesca (57:44)

I was thinking in my. My. My most. My most Andy Rooney, grumpy old man take, and it just happened to me last night. Here's the. Take my phone. I'm on it eight hours a day. It works 99.9% of the time. I barely watch TV. I have a nice TV that I paid a lot of money for. It works 50% of the time. The TVs do not work. I watched, like, three things I wanted to watch the rehearsal season two. I want to watch my Criterion app. Just. It never works. It's. The UI is so bad. It's a. It's a Samsung TV and my. My proposal is make the TV the phone. Make the TV the phone. Everything's phone. Just do it from the phone. CarPlay works great. If I stream stuff from my phone to the tv, it's great that whatever's going on in the tv, the ramp.

Eric Zorn (58:38)

Up to actually get the channel is even if it's quote unquote working three menus to get there. A lot of swirling discs. It's like I'm hand cranking a stutz Bearcat in 1923.

Mike Pesca (58:51)

Whereas there's ads playing there shows I've never heard of playing automatically.

Eric Zorn (58:56)

Philo. Apparently I have and I've been being charged $28 a month for this because I wanted to see. I don't know. So I wanted to see the Hunt for Red October once for free and now it's cost me $106 because I forgot my subscription was in effect. Ooh. I think I've backed into. I've piggybacked on Austin's Go Grinder.

Austin Berg (59:16)

I want to piggyback on your piggybacking on this which is that my tv, you turn it on, you have to. To have two remote controls because it's an LG TV and it won't interface with my Apple TV device unless I have two remote controls going and it automatically puts me on the screen that where they're trying to get me to use their service. I have many ground goats all over.

Eric Zorn (59:41)

My house actually, so I'll be really quick. And this is kind of an obvious one, but we're speaking a day after the Knicks had this great win again against the Celtics. Or did the Celtics just decide to miss 45 three pointers? And I hate to bore everyone who doesn't care about sports, but there used to be this sport called basketball. And one of the main, one of the main strategies of basketball is get close to the basket with tall players because it's easier to make a shot. Then there were three pointers and I love the idea of three pointers and I love actually shooting three pointers and I love when Steph Curry makes three pointers. But when teams miss so many three pointers, it's esthetically miserable. And in that game, not to tell the Celtics how to play, you have one of the best players in basketball, Jason Tatum driving down a lane. A two point a dunk is assured and him turning around and Passing it to a far worse shooter to take a further shot. So to make my point clear, I'm not against kids these days or changes in the game or anything like that. I'm against the basic geography and philosophy of a sport changing, being tweaked so that it's unrecognizable from the sport that we started off liking. There's a little bit of a problem, not even to get into the Minnesota Timberwolves going 1 of 16 in the first half. And I only say this because I talked to three guys in Knicks jerseys yesterday. Just I randomly struck up a conversation with everyone in Nick's jersey. I said, what a win. And they said, yeah, but. But there's something about this game where you miss 45 three pointers that I don't like, which is against their interest. They want the Knicks to win.

Austin Berg (61:20)

Well, they. They took. They took 63 points, which was a. Which was a playoff, which is a playoff record that apparently the NBA record is 73 pointers. And if you look over time, it started off where the teams were, you know, taking 10, 15, three pointers a game, and now it's just. I mean, I think it's just out of control because you're right. You see the guys drive the lane all the time, and they kick it back out, out. And when the teams are missing it, it's just excruciating to watch.

Mike Pesca (61:47)

So I'm shout out to shout out to Paul Scalas, AKA Lindy. Man on X. Lindy, referring to the Nassim Taleb parable of the Lindy Diner and his term for this. He's the guy who coined the term stock culture. Like, we keep getting the 10th remake of stuff he terms this. The game's been solved. I think basketball's been solved, and it's.

Eric Zorn (62:13)

Not fun to watch. Right? We got quotes. Exactly. We're now some version of Deep Think or deep blue IBM playing chess with itself and missing 45 three pointers. Well, I want to thank my guests, Austin Berg and Eric Zorn. And we're not saying we're right. We're certainly not conceding you're right. But we are saying. Saying we're not even mad. And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the gist. He's back. Shel Peska, CBSO of Peachfish Productions. Astrid Green runs our social. Leo Baum is our intern. So many more people to thank and get to. But most of all, you. You're the real heroes. Uproo G. Peru Duparu and thanks for listening.