The Problem with Jon Stewart (2021) s02e03 Episode Script

[audience cheering, applauding]
Boom!
[grunting]
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Isn't that nice?
I like to pretend I have a live band.
Bam!
Thank you, Paul.
Good evening, my name is Jon Stewart.
Tonight we begin with ostensibly
good news for the American workforce.
American manufacturing is back.
We're proving it's never,
ever, ever a good bet
to bet against the American people.
Okay.
-[audience laughs]
If you are going to bet
against the American people,
Draft Kings enter promo code "stew beef."
First bet
against the American people is free.
But props to America.
We are expected to re-shore
a record 350,000 manufacturing jobs
this year.
So dust off them blue collars,
and get out them hard hats, 'cause it is
[stammers]
Out of curiosity, where did
manufacturing jobs go in the first place?
Because of globalization you had
manufacturing moving to other places.
where it's cheaper.
-to be in a low-tax environment
with lower wages.
-They can take advantage of workers
who don't have rights.
They also have no real environmental
or labor protections,
further undercutting American workers,
totally undercutting our workers.
When Trump gives a speech I love it
because it's as though
he's learning about it in real time with--
He's the speaker and the audience.
It's like being with your grandmother
when she's reading the newspaper.
"Oh, here's an interesting fact
in the Times-Picayune.
Did you know some lobsters are blue?"
[audience laughing, applauding]
[indistinct] Thank you.
But it's true.
The last few decades of globalization
allowed corporations to scour the planet
for the cheapest labor
and loosest regulations,
devastating the working class.
Capital is mobile, and workers less so.
Entire industries packed up and
abandoned the communities that built them.
The auto industry left
Michigan and Ohio for Mexico and China.
Textile companies left North Carolina
for Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
And heavy machinery manufacturer
Caterpillar
shipped jobs from Illinois
to fucking-- wait, what?
[audience laughing]
They-- To Texas? They went to Texas?
That can't be right.
The good people of Caterpillar
have chosen Texas
What in yeehaw motherf-- What?
[audience laughs]
Texas.
I guess that is
still technically America but--
Why-- why would Caterpillar
move its business to Texas,
albeit very slowly
and probably during rush hour?
I'm trying to get to the hospital
for fuck's sake!
Maybe current Texas governor
Greg Abbott can explain.
We have low taxes, reasonable regulations,
right-to-work laws.
I think I understand now.
As China is to America,
Texas is [chuckles] to Illinois.
[audience laughing]
Now, if you don't speak
business euphemism,
allow me to translate
what the Governor said.
"Low tax" means less money
to spend on infrastructure.
"Reasonable regulations" means
you weren't using that finger anyway.
And "right-to-work" means weak unions,
which means companies can get away with
lower pay and fewer benefits, and they do.
I'm sure that's probably
just a Texas thing.
Obviously we have
a very favorable tax climate.
We also lowered corporate income taxes.
We have a regulatory environment
that's friendly to businesses.
We roll out the red carpet,
not the red tape.
The weather's great, the beaches
are great, the regulation is better
Florida.
Sunshine, sand, and no fucking rules.
[audience laughs]
That's why there've been so many
work-related accidents in Margaritaville.
[audience laughing, cheering]
I don't want to sound crazy
but isn't this exactly what everybody
was complaining about with globalization?
See, everybody talks about
how jobs are going to Mexico and to China.
But if you're in Michigan
people forget that we're also losing jobs
to Tennessee and Texas.
We're also competing for jobs
from Georgia and South Carolina.
Yes, and thus the Problem with
Nah, it's not globalization,
it's, uh, countrili--
Uh, countrificat-- countrilization.
Yeah, okay. New word alert.
If globalization undercuts workers
by incentivizing companies to move to
low-wage, low-regulation, low-tax markets
like China and Mexico, why would you do
a mini version of that in America?
It's bound to become a race to the bottom
between the states
at the expense of workers everywhere.
And of course, that's what's happening.
Take wages. When GE moved operations
from a union state, Pennsylvania,
to right-to-work Texas,
wages went from an average of $34/hour
to a starting offer of $18/hour.
-[audience murmurs]
What?
The audience is not happy
about the wage cut.
What about environmental regulations?
That don't mean a lot to Florida,
where sugar companies are allowed
a harvesting practice
called
"burning the shit out of everything."
[narrator]
The sugar giants don't have to burn.
They could deal with the leaves
in different ways,
but that would be more expensive.
Even corporate and fire-friendly
destination Brazil
has banned the practice. Brazil.
Rain-forest-burning Brazil,
whose national bird is dead
due to smoke inhalation.
Dead. The--
Not all the birds in Brazil are dead.
[audience laughing]
He's alive-- Kids, stop crying.
You shouldn't--
I'm sorry,
I'm being told he is dead. He is dead.
But hey, open burning.
It's cheaper and-- and who does it hurt?
[reporter] Charles Jones
has lived in the Glades all his life,
working beneath the smoke and ash
from sugarcane fields for decades.
I call it "black rain."
We see it in our hair, we see it in our--
on our skin, we see it in our cars.
[chuckles] Okay, I mean,
but if attracting corporations
means caramelizing people to death,
[chuckles] I mean, flambé that town.
You may be thinking at least
those people have recourse
through the legal system, or did.
Because last year,
Governor Ron DeSantis passed a bill
that made it much harder for all
the sick people to sue the sugar-burners.
But those are just people
who live near the corporations.
What if you're looking to fuck over
the people who work for your corporation?
Texas still has the edge.
Texas is the only state in America
that doesn't require companies
to provide workers' compensation.
[audience murmur, groan]
Boy, these people are so angry about this.
We've got some--
Do we have pitchforks and torches?
[audience laughs]
Start passing them out.
If you get hurt on the job in Texas,
which I know doesn't happen
[imitates Texas accent] 'cause it's Texas,
a manly man's bones don't break.
I'm in Texas. You can hit me
in the head with a baseball bat.
[audience laughing]
[imitating gunfire] Pew! Pew! Pew!
Pew!
But even if you do, this Texas
personal injury lawyer has had it.
They're fucking people's lives over.
A lot of people that get injured
at work get displaced.
I'm talking about 40-year-old guys
having to move back with their moms
that live in some fucking
shithole somewhere.
Is that a legal term?
I would love to--
I want him to be my lawyer.
Your Honor, if I may, my client's
in a fucking shithole over here!
Don't make me approach
this cocksucking bench, you piece of shit.
By the way, if low wages, open burning
and zero responsibility for
hazardous working conditions isn't enough.
If you're still going "can't you sweeten
the deal?" there is more.
States will also throw you
an amount of money just short of a fuckton
to further entice you.
Ohio put together a
$2.1 billion package to land Intel,
Uh, Wisconsin, $3 billion to land Foxconn,
and North Carolina paid
almost $900 million to land Apple.
Apple!
[audience laughing]
A-- Apple.
I'm sure it's a different Apple
than you're thinking of.
No, they did it-- [stammers]
They paid Apple, and then Apple paid
some of that money to me
to tell you about all this fuckery!
So in some ways,
[whispering] Apple's the only company
that really cares about you.
[mouthing words]
[audience cheering]
-You hear them?
Apple Music for everybody!
-[audience cheers]
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
I have-- I have no jurisdiction on that,
no jurisdiction.
And there's more.
North Carolina's recent
corporate-friendly tax cuts
will cost the state
an estimated $1.5 billion a year,
enough to fund its entire
community college system,
or, like,
half a Brett Favre volleyball court.
But, hey, it's an investment.
Sure, your schools and social programs
suffer some short-term non-fundability,
but in the long-term,
a Louisiana study found
that for every incentive dollar
that was given to these corporations
returns were a robust one to ten pennies
on the dollar.
By the way, you can tell which states
are racing fastest to the bottom.
Every year, magazines rank
the best states for business.
CNBC, Forbes,
Chief Executive Magazine, a real winner.
And of course,
Business Insider Swimsuit Edition.
[audience laughing]
Oh, Texas, you're giving me
a bit of a Galveston.
As it turns out, states are also ranked on
who is best for workers
by the non-profit Oxfam,
and the relationship is often inverse.
North Carolina was ranked number one
on CNBC's Top States for Business 2022.
It ranked 52nd on Oxfam's list.
52nd out of 50!
[audience laughing]
What?
I-- I guess behind all 49 other states,
Chernobyl and, let's say, Jabba's Hut.
As a matter of fact, a hundred
of America's biggest cities and counties
with the highest median
tax-abatement policies
had the worst inequality.
So knowing that, you can imagine states
like to keep it on the down-low
when they've been ranked
number one for business.
America's top state for business
is a state
that knows how to toot its own horn.
[foghorn bellows]
Congratulations to Washington state,
where I'm from,
for being named
America's top state for business.
Here's my song "Forever in Love."
It's exactly how I feel
about the state of Washington.
["Forever in Love" plays]
I know it's bad for workers,
but I cannot believe
how wet that is making my pussy.
[audience applauding, cheering]
Take a look at this.
There's a reason why
Americans are so angry.
Globalization
-is
destroying the American dream.
We have
-lost jobs
to countries like
-Vietnam
Mexico
-India
and
-communist China.
So I've got
-a strong
message
-for those
disgusting
- stupid
freedom
- hating
countries.
We believe
- workers
should be
-exploited
here at home
on
-American soil.
Why should
-China
have all the
-fun?
We
- love to give
workers
-the shaft
too.
Korea has
-unsafe
working conditions.
Guess what?
-So does
the State of Texas.
They have
-child labor
in Vietnam.
-By golly
we can
-do that
here in Alabama.
In America
-you have the
right to work
-until the day you die.
If anyone
-kills
the American dream
-it's going to be
Us.
-Us.
[all] Us.
[audience applauding, cheering]
Welcome back.
Aw, that's lovely.
Well, often we celebrate businesses
coming into a community.
But we don't usually look under the hood
for what the costs were
to lure the businesses there.
The effect of those incentives
and subsidies on local infrastructure
and what it does
to the workers left behind
in the states
that these companies have fled.
To get a sense of how this plays out,
we have a panel
who have experienced this firsthand.
Jeff Kashak, a former assembly worker
at GE in Erie, Pennsylvania,
Sherry East, a high school science teacher
and President of
the South Carolina Education Association,
and Mother Minerva Camarena Skeith,
an Episcopal priest
who has also spent years
as a community organizer
challenging business incentive deals
in the State of Texas.
Welcome, guys. Thank you for joining us.
-[audience cheering]
Thank you for having us.
Now, you've got-- You know,
we've certainly demonized other countries
for the same practices
that some of these states are doing here.
You're in Pennsylvania. You worked for GE.
Yeah.
They shifted a lot of those jobs to Texas.
What does that do to Erie, the community
where-- where those jobs were,
and what did it do to you?
Well, the community--
It's just a trickle-down effect, you know?
Um, people aren't making money.
They're not spending money.
They're not putting it into dinner.
They're not buying cars.
They're not buying homes.
It affected greatly the Erie community.
Did the Erie community know that
it went to Texas
and not to the normally-demonized places
that they go?
Absolutely. Yeah, they would come in
and watch us doing our job
to take it to Texas. Sure.
[laughs] Abso-fuckin'-lutely. Yeah.
-Oh, nice.
Basically, they came in and said,
"So that's how you do it?"
They would peek. They would peek. Yeah.
-Mm-hmm. Interesting. Ni-nice.
And Sherry, you know,
being in, uh, an educators association,
you're aware of what
just these incentive packages
that these governors are throwing down
does to these local communities as well.
Not just to the workers, but to the kids
-Right.
and to the infrastructure.
Correct. What we have found
in the last five years
with the Good Jobs First report
that came out
is the funding that is lacking
for our school districts,
it lays it out district by district
on how much money
that the districts did not get
from these companies
that we allow to come into South Carolina
because we don't make them pay any taxes.
It's called a "tax abatement."
-Mm-hmm.
And so in the last five years,
there are billions of dollars
that our school system
Taken out of South Carolina schools?
that would've went
into the South Carolina schools
had we charged these folks, um, a tax rate
instead of giving them a free ride
to come into South Carolina.
So one district in particular lost
about five billion a year.
And in the past five years, $17 million
in this poor, poverty-stricken community
that the schools--
We have terrible infrastructure.
We have schools without air conditioning.
We have schools
that the windows don't open and close.
I mean, we could really use
some of that money.
You know, I remember Stephen Colbert
did a DonorsChoose.
Uh, now, obviously
he is not a charitable individual.
He generally, I thought, was going
to use some of the money for himself,
to be quite frank.
I don't know if it's drugs
or what he was buying with it.
Most likely it's gambling.
Stephen Colbert is a gambler
and a drug addict.
[audience laughing]
I'm legally allowed to say that I think.
But he had these donors choose,
and oftentimes the money would just
go directly to classrooms
Right.
-[Stewart] in South Carolina.
But I didn't realize
that there was this billion-dollars gap
Right.
-because they were giving it
to these corporate tax abatements.
Minerva, you're in Texas, uh--
-[Skeith] Mm-hmm.
Mother Minerva. How-- What is the proper--
You had many names. What is the proper
So when I'm working,
and when I'm representing the church,
I'm Mother Minerva.
-[Stewart] Mother Minerva.
May I call you "Mother Minerva?"
-Absolutely.
All right. I am Jewish,
so you do not have jurisdiction here, but
That's all right.
Nor do I claim any.
-[Stewart] But
we will still continue the conversation.
Uh, Mother Minerva, you've been fighting
against this practice.
How do these localities
still elect these officials
who are hollowing out the infrastructures,
and how do we change it?
So I think part of it is,
is we have to ask the questions.
If we don't ask questions,
then we're not gonna find out
who pays and who benefits.
-[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
Texas IAF, which is the organization
that I work with,
Central Texas Interfaith,
is the affiliate at the local level.
And so what they teach is, is always,
when we're looking at policy and issues,
look and follow the money.
Who pays, who benefits.
And so what often happens is people
come in and say,
"Look at these goodies you're gonna get
if you give away some money
because you're gonna make more in return."
And so the-- They will--
-So they'll say to the population,
"Yes, we're giving a billion dollars
to this corporation,
but the jobs"
-"you're going to get so much more."
And so we should hold them accountable
to make sure we're getting a return
on our investment.
And so then ask the question.
How many jobs are we really getting?
How is this
going to benefit the community?
Is this really gonna go for jobs,
high-paying jobs?
'Cause it's still-- As a political move,
any governor, any mayor, anybody who says,
"Hey, we brought in this big business,"
most people are going to celebrate it.
Right? I'm sure in Texas,
they were celebrating
what happened to you guys
in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Sure.
-So how did you fight back
in your situation?
Well, at that point,
there-- there was no fighting back.
Right.
-And then we just washed our hands of it.
And did our own thing.
Started our own business.
Do you have workers?
-We have five guys that work for us.
And are you fucking them over?
-Absolutely not.
What? Have they taught you nothing, Jeff?
-No way!
[laughs]
What, are you giving them benefits?
-We treat them well, very well.
How does that play in South Carolina?
Education is such an important issue
to voters.
How do they not connect
the two, uh, practices?
I think she made a very good point.
They don't know. People don't know.
We've talked to school board members
that they didn't realize,
"Oh, what do you mean
we didn't get any money
from Honda coming to our district?"
Or "what do you mean
we lost this much money?"
So we're not asking the right questions
and nobody's aware that this is going on.
So we, as the Education Association,
this year,
are asking for some of that money.
Like we want to, one,
be at the table when these deals are made.
And the second thing is
we want a percent of that money.
So, okay, you can give them a deal,
but they need to give us a percent
of that money into our school system
that they should invest in.
They say they want to come here
and invest in our communities, then do it.
Prove it.
-So when you talk to the governors,
they have teams.
They have teams of people
that are designing incentive packages
for corporations.
I mean, they work on this,
and they go and they present them.
The truth of the matter is people--
companies don't move
and they don't relocate
because of incentives.
They move for other reasons
like good employees.
They move for good infrastructure.
They move because there's good schools.
But isn't the irony of all that,
the very things they say
they're coming for,
infrastructure, education, and all that,
their presence hollows out.
Absolutely.
And so when we started fighting with them,
we said, "If you're going to do them
at the local level
you have to at least, at a minimum,
give living wages, have a career path,
give benefits, and to make sure that
they're high-paying jobs," right?
Now who do you take that to?
We took that to the county,
and we took that to the city.
And so we made--
we made clawback provisions,
because what we discovered is that
people make promises that they don't keep.
But if there's no clawback provisions,
they get to keep the money.
And you were successful?
-And we were successful.
And we did this in San Antonio,
in Houston, in Austin,
and several communities in Texas.
So the schools in South Carolina,
will you follow that same blueprint
and do the same thing?
-Yes.
We're gonna become good friends.
-Are you?
Did you guys not know each other?
-[laughs]
No, we did not.
-[Skeith] No.
[East] So we're just--
-South Carolina better watch the fuck out.
[laughing]
-[audience laughing, applauding]
Yes.
What's happening right here, right now,
very powerful.
I know what's going-- You keep looking
at her, she keeps looking at you.
[Stewart] I-- I feel like--
-Yeah.
And I don't want to say anything,
this is a "Wonder Twins unite" situation.
[audience laughing, applauding]
-[Stewart] Well done.
Thank you all very much, uh,
for coming to talk to us about this, uh,
for shedding light on how these decisions
are made at the local levels.
Take a look at this.
-[audience applauding]
Hi, I'm LeVar Burton
and you may remember me
for teaching you how to read,
or for not being allowed
to know how to read.
Now that's range.
In my new Master Class,
I'll be breaking down globalization
and the dynamics of capital mobility
in open economic systems.
En garde.
In a globalized economy,
Friedrich Hayek's model
of free-market competition posits that--
No, much too dry.
Imagine this gully is cheap labor.
Too wet. [sighs]
Oh, hell no.
Where is my textbook?
Ah, yes.
This All Started With Slave Labor.
The economic argument
is always about getting the most work
for the least money
in the worst conditions possible.
The reason the South will rise again
is because wages won't.
Globalization my ass.
Join me for my next class,
where I'll explain Elvis,
using the exact same book.
Take that.
[stammers] Do I get an Apple TV
subscription for doing this?
[audience laughing, applauding]
LeVar!
[applauding continues]
So, why do states engage in this race
to the bottom
even while not seemingly
being so happy about it?
We checked in with North Carolina
Governor Roy Cooper to find out.
Thank you, Governor Cooper,
for sitting down with us.
We came to talk to you because
North Carolina is the number-one state
for business.
Why is North Carolina number one?
We paid a lot of attention to workforce,
investing in our community colleges
and our universities.
And when I talk to businesses,
I spend time trying
to find out what CEOs are looking for.
-[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
Their top three issues are workforce,
workforce, and workforce.
They believe our workforce
is more educated
[Stewart] Mm-hmm.
-and more diverse.
So let's deal with the second issue,
which is workforce.
Generally, the states that are considered,
"best for business,"
are also ranked, "worst for workers."
You know, when you look
at the Oxfam rankings,
North Carolina is ranked 52nd.
Now, I am not a well-educated workforce,
so I didn't realize we had 52 states,
but--
-Well--
Well, first, uh, I have some issues
with that study.
But I want to acknowledge
that we are hurting in that area.
-[Stewart] Right.
Uh, we have a lot of work to do
in North Carolina to protect our workers.
We have one of the worst
unemployment insurance benefits
That's right.
-in the country.
Uh, we need to force our wages higher,
and-- and we need
to do better in those areas.
And, as governor,
one of the reasons I'm trying
to attract the better-paying jobs,
-Mm-hmm.
is because it's going to raise the wages
of our families.
At the same time,
I'm fighting the legislature
about raising the minimum wage.
They won't do it. They refuse to do it.
-Right.
And one of the reasons why we're trying
to attract these companies,
and are successfully doing it,
that raises the boat here in the harbor,
that everybody is gonna do better.
So you're saying,
"A rising tide lifts all boats?"
Well, it does
if you are particular about it.
You've got to make sure
that the safety net is-- is there,
that you're paying attention.
-I've always, you know,
the problem I had, 'cause it's that
trickle-down economics theory.
You know, and they say,
"The rising tide lifts all boats,"
and I always think,
yeah, if you have a boat.
That's right.
-If you don't have a boat,
it's just a rising tide
and you sink to the bottom.
So this gets us to, kind of, the crux
of what we're talking about.
Do corporations come here and go,
"Governor, you're right.
There-- What a great workforce.
I can't wait to go there
and treat them worse
than I would have to in another state?"
Are we hollowing out states like Illinois,
and New York, and New Jersey,
who don't have zero corporate tax rates,
who do have more worker protections?
Well, if that were the entire premise
then they'd be going to Mississippi.
-Yep.
Right. Right.
-It's not a zero-sum game here.
I mean, it's a lot
-You're saying it's not just
of factors.
-the corporate package?
Yeah, it's a lot of factors
that are involved here.
I think it's a combination
of a lot of things, Jon,
that businesses look at
when they decide where to go.
-Right.
If that's-- if that's the case,
why do these incentive packages
-Yeah.
Apple, which is a terrific company
-[Cooper laughing]
and I have nothing bad to say about it.
$840 million for Apple.
-Yeah.
If it's all about your educated workforce,
why pursue those incentives?
Well, first incentives get us to the table
with these companies.
Secondly, ours are better.
-Your incentives are better?
Yeah, they are,
because they are performance-based.
Right.
-But what they have to do is to have
a certain number of jobs
at a certain number of, uh--
A certain wage.
-At a certain wage.
And we have a provision
that we clawback if they don't do that.
You do see the irony of it though?
The corporations all say,
"We want to come for your workforce,
but if you have an incentive package,
where I pay less corporate tax,
maybe we'll do that."
But that's going to take money away
from your ability
to keep creating a wonderful workforce.
Would-- Wouldn't you rather have
a tax credit for a company
that promises you that they're going
to create a certain number of jobs,
at a certain ra-- wage,
rather than an across-the-board
corporate tax cut,
where you have no accountability
whatsoever?
I'd rather have that money invested
into those--
The return on investment
for these corporate incentive packages
is almost always pretty dubious.
-We-- We ha-- We do, uh,
a strict economic analysis
-Mm-hmm.
as to whether the overall economy
and people's wages
are going to be helped by these deals.
There are a lot of deals we don't do
because it doesn't meet that test for us.
Generally, the states
that have greased the skids
for corporations
and given big incentive packages
are less appealing for workers.
That's just--
-Well, people wouldn't be coming here,
Jon, if that were the case.
I mean, we are growing significantly
in population.
Right.
-And that may be other-- in other states
that are front-loading
a lot of their incentives
-Right.
and aren't making the right ki--
-So why give the incentive?
Is it the best use of the money?
Why not take that money
and put it into child care
and into all those things?
-[Cooper stammers] Oh.
You know, I want to invest in child care.
You keep trying
to make this a zero-sum game
So you're saying you can do both?
-and it is not. Yes. Absolutely.
The money is there to do both.
And particularly,
if we put our corporate tax rate
where it ought to be, and our tax rate--
-Right. But it won't be.
It's going to zero.
-Well, we--
You're going to lose $1.5 billion.
-You gonna give up?
You gonna give up the political fight?
But incentives to corporations
isn't a "right-wing" or "left-wing" thing.
It's an "everybody" thing.
-Well--
You know, corporate subsidies
and incentive packages
for these companies is seemingly
one of the few things that Democrats
and Republicans can agree on.
And, so, are we doing this the wrong way?
The problem
is not performance-based incentives.
The problem is, "right-wing"
Republican ideology
And what's that?
-that wants to bring down the tax rate.
That don't want wealthy people
to pay their fair share,
and don't want corporations
to pay their fair share.
Under the current tax structure,
you'll get less by $1.5 billion
in your 2023 budget.
That could fund the entire
North Carolina Community College,
could make North Carolina
Community College free for everybody.
It's not an either-or, Jon,
particularly here in North Carolina.
These guys have got billions
of dollars sitting there.
Our-- The Republican legislature.
-Which guys?
[Stewart] Right.
-Billions of dollars
that they have refused to invest.
Because what they want to do
is to lie in wait
and cut more taxes for corporations
and wealthy people.
Because what they want, down the road,
is lower overall taxes for corporations
and the wealthy.
How much lower can they go for zero?
Well, corporate taxes aren't quite there.
They're, like, at two and half right now,
but they want to go there.
It's supposed to be by 2030.
We've still got time to turn that around.
Remove the Republican resistance
to what you would do.
I want a progressive tax system
to make sure that wealthy people
and corporations pay their fair share.
But I think that what we've done
in North Carolina,
is if you build a quality educated,
diverse workforce,
they will come.
-They will come.
That, I believe,
is still the overriding issue.
Why do you need incentives?
I get it. I understand that.
But we--
This is a way that you guarantee--
-But answer 'cause--
'cause that's the question,
why in your mind do you need incentives?
Because we need to make sure that they do
what they say they're going to do.
And we're competing with other states
-That's--
that are front-loading.
There's no question about that.
-Does that need to be stopped?
Well [stammers] I think that
we should set a better example.
I-I hoped that they wouldn't do it.
We're not doing it.
So can you think of a better system?
Yeah-- Yeah. [stammers]
-That's all.
I'm going to give you your premise.
-[Stewart claps]
I'm gonna give you--
-That's all I'm asking.
That's all you're asking.
-Boom. Now we got a premise.
Let's do this.
-[laughing]
First, I disagree.
-What would you do?
I disagree with the return
on performance-based incentives,
because if we do the analysis,
I think it's good.
But, let's just say
I had a defined amount of money.
Okay. Here we go.
-[Cooper laughs] Guess what?
I would rather invest it
in early childhood education
-Boom.
public schools--
-We're done here.
No, man, come on-- [stammers]
I'm giving you your premise.
-You're giving me my premise.
That's an "if." That's an "if."
-You think though--
You believe it'd be a better return
on investment?
I think it would be a better return
on investment.
Okay. We'll see you guys.
-[laughing]
Thanks. That's great.
-Thank you, sir.
[audience applauding]
You see? That's all you need.
All he had to do
was give me my fucking premise.
Give me my premise.
[applauding continues]
Because, like Wu-Tang,
Roy Cooper's for the children.
[audience laughing]
That's our show.
Hopefully, you learned
a little something new
while you folded your laundry out there.
For more information
check out these resources,
or you can always find them
on our website, unless you're chicken.
[audience laughing]
You scared?
You scared to go to our website?
[imitates chicken]
-[audience laughing]
If you want more me,
but without seeing my face,
we've also got a-- a little podcast there.
Speaking of faces nobody wants to see,
here it is, your moment of Cruz.
I was out in West Texas
and I asked folks there, I said,
"What's the difference
between regulators and locusts?"
[summit audience laughing]
Said, "Well, the thing is you can't
use pesticide on the regulators."
[laughing continues]
And this old West Texas farmer,
he leaned back, said, "Wanna bet?"
[summit audience laughing]
[audience laughing, applauding]