Tim's a MAGA Republican from East Tennessee. I'm... whatever the hell I am these days. We agree on almost everything that's broken. The split is how to fix it.
Aircraft Carriers and $300,000 Missiles
This is where it got really interesting. Tim's a hawk - his dad fought in the Pacific, he's got Japanese rifles on the wall from soldiers his dad killed. But even he thinks we're building the wrong shit.
"We're building aircraft carriers, dude. And everybody will tell you aircraft carriers are the way out."
Why are we building them? Because components are made in powerful legislators' districts. They literally point out which jet engine gets made where, which armaments come from which district. It's accepted behavior.
Meanwhile, somebody with a $300,000 missile can take out half a trillion dollars worth of equipment on that carrier's deck. Or a swarm of $2,000 drones can create a net that knocks out every aircraft.
"We're building apparatus that will be mothballed the day it's created."
The Lobbyist Playbook
Tim told me about Tom Hensley, the "Golden Goose" - a liquor lobbyist in Tennessee who said something that stuck with him: "I don't need the House or the Senate. I just need one chairman."
Now it's worse. Lobbyists don't even need a chairman. They just need a key staffer on a committee. Tim's heard Democrats and Republicans say they couldn't push a bill forward because "the staff didn't approve."
Here's how the scam works:
Legislator brings their bill thinking they'll get it passed
Lobbyist bends the ear of a staff member
Staff member says "this won't work, but how about we get a report on it?"
Bill becomes a "reporting bill" - do a study, report back to Congress
Nothing ever happens
"I've been in Congress almost eight years, and I've never seen a report."
Where We Split
I asked Tim straight up - when healthcare becomes 20% of GDP and it's unsustainable, shouldn't government compete directly with these monopolies? Maybe run some hospitals to keep prices honest?
His answer: "It's a real slippery slope."
He thinks government inherently breeds corruption - your cousin works the scales, accountability drops to near zero. When he was Knox County mayor, his rule was if Knox County was in any business that's in the Yellow Pages, they'd get out of it.
I pushed back - isn't the same nepotism happening in business? His counter: stockholders hold businesses accountable. With 12% voter turnout, nobody's holding government accountable.
The $77 Trillion Question
I hit Tim with the number that's been keeping me up at night: We're on track to spend $77 trillion on healthcare over the next 10 years. That's going to be 20% of GDP.
His response? The bureaucracy's taking advantage. The middlemen are getting their cut. And their cut keeps getting bigger while their mission gets more watered down.
Here's the kicker - Japan spends 1.6% on healthcare administration. We spend 25-33%. Tim didn't even blink when I told him that. He just said "lobbyists."
The Part That Matters
Here's what struck me most. Tim's as frustrated as I am. He sees the corruption in both parties. He knows the system's broken. We're just coming at solutions from different angles.
He thinks government's too corrupt to fix anything. I think concentrated private power is just as corrupt and needs government competition. But we both see the same problems:
Healthcare eating America alive
Military-industrial complex building obsolete shit
Lobbyists running everything
Nobody in Congress actually reading what they vote on
At the end, Tim mentioned something that made me hopeful. He's working with AOC on a bill to ban legislators from trading individual stocks. He gets criticism from the right for being friends with her, for stepping between her and someone who got in her face.
"We got to get past that eventually."
The Bottom Line
A fiscally conservative MAGA Republican and I spent 35 minutes agreeing that:
We're wasting trillions on healthcare bureaucracy
We're building military equipment for the last war
Lobbyists own the process
Both parties are corrupt
The system needs fundamental change
The only real disagreement? Whether government can be part of the solution or if it's inherently the problem.
Maybe that's a conversation worth having instead of screaming at each other about culture war bullshit while lobbyists rob us blind.
Tim wants to build affordable housing together. I want to build a healthcare system that doesn't bankrupt families. We both want to actually solve problems instead of passing reporting bills that disappear into warehouses.
That's more common ground than most of Congress can find these days.
Watch if you want to see a Republican admit the military-industrial complex is building garbage and a Bernie guy argue about the role of government with someone who actually ran one.
What do you think - is government capable of competing with private monopolies, or is Tim right that it's a slippery slope to more corruption?
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