[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know. We've got you covered. This is Around the House. Welcome to the Around the House show, the next generation of home improvement. Thanks for joining me today. I'm Eric G. Happy middle of the week, and we are cruising up on Labor Day weekend.

[00:00:37] Eric Goranson: Hope everybody's got some great plans this weekend, whether you're heading to the lake, or you're heading to the best you can. We're just chilling out and relaxing at home. I hope you take some time for yourself and relax before we get back into fall here. And we still got more summer left, you know, technically, but this is always the last hurrah a summer officially out there.

[00:00:57] Eric Goranson: And I wanted to talk about a heavy subject today because [00:01:00] I think it's super important. And quite frankly, it's something we don't tackle a lot here. And we try to actually steer way well away from it because it's politics. And if there's something two people can't agree on, it's politics in the United States.

[00:01:14] Eric Goranson: And there's usually a lot of energy behind that and it's problematic to discuss, but as homeowners or future homeowners, it's something that I think we need to have a real discussion about. And the thing is, this is not about one political party versus other political parties, because in my opinion, the political parties are there to take money out of your pocket and create division because that creates more money.

[00:01:40] Eric Goranson: And that's how our system works here, unfortunately. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how this affects us as homeowners as elections come up, because there's a lot of local things going on. There's state things going on. There's federal things going on. And I wanted to talk about a few of those things right now, because a lot of these come down to some serious [00:02:00] money and that's taxes.

[00:02:02] Eric Goranson: And that is something that can really affect homeownership out there because In some places that can add five, 10, 000 a year to your monthly bills that have to get paid to the government. So one of the biggest problems that I see out there is that we have. With our two party system that we've got out there is we've got a lot of us versus them mentality.

[00:02:24] Eric Goranson: And right now we're seeing a lot of this. We're going to tax the rich and we're going to give some benefits to the poor. The problem is, is the rich ones or the people that are making the most money are the biggest donors to both political parties. And that means, guess what? They're really controlling the purse strings when it comes down to it.

[00:02:44] Eric Goranson: So, we can play this game from either party, but we know that they're the ones in the box seats that are sitting there at the conventions, that paid a million bucks, and they're the ones writing the big checks. So, let's not fool ourselves with the, Oh, this party is about me, the little guy, because it's [00:03:00] really not.

[00:03:01] Eric Goranson: Now, one party might give you more benefits, but One party might give you more perceived benefits, but that's up for you to decide and not for me to preach you on. But I wanted to talk today about some of the problems that we're seeing right now at the local levels. We're seeing across the United States, something that we're not talking a lot about, and that is many school districts have overspent their funds.

[00:03:23] Eric Goranson: What did they do? They took that COVID money and actually hired teachers and brought in more administrators, less teachers, more administrators, actually. And they put them into social media accounts and things like that, that they're out there running for them. The problem that we're seeing with that is COVID dollars ran out from the government.

[00:03:41] Eric Goranson: And now they've got these huge budget shortfalls. Now, instead of going back and saying, Hey, we're going to, we're going to get rid of these administrators we hired two years ago. We're going to start to get rid of trade programs, music programs. All those things in schools that are easy for them to cut and that really affects all of us.

[00:03:59] Eric Goranson: So [00:04:00] if you like the arts, if you want to have people learning the trades in school, those are the programs getting cut right now. They're not cutting out the extra administrators. So this is a problem that we want to see. So if you have children or if you are following the school district in your area, make sure and show up for those budget meetings.

[00:04:18] Eric Goranson: Take a look at it. Follow the school in your area and make sure that you're hearing what's going on, because this is going across the country. Some states have spent worse than others. Some areas have made some big mistakes. I know areas around here around me in the Pacific Northwest, there are dozens of school districts laying off hundreds of people.

[00:04:39] Eric Goranson: And they're killing hundreds of programs out there. And so that's one of those things that we need to hold some accountability to. So pay attention to that because we got to keep those trade programs open. So we don't have kids out there with no skills going into the workplace after they leave high school, because they weren't meant to go to college.

[00:04:56] Eric Goranson: They're better electricians or better plumbers or better [00:05:00] HVAC techs. They're better builders. And so I want to really make sure that we've got them taken care of. And that's our job as parents out there and homeowners and taxpayers to make sure that stuff is happening. So as our governments and our school districts get bloated with more administration, more overhead.

[00:05:19] Eric Goranson: Make sure we're holding them accountable as homeowners, because guess what? We're the ones paying those taxes. So that's the first one there. Second of all, anytime that I see the government coming up with new ways to tax us, I get very concerned because it kicks the door open for that program to expand.

[00:05:36] Eric Goranson: And that's really what's happened to our federal government. Why it's so big out there because every year they're trained to ask for two, three, 4 percent more money. And after 50 to a hundred years. That got really expensive and really bloated and we just pay more for it and get less services. So be very careful when people are talking about new taxes, because that means new revenue [00:06:00] that is going to affect you as a homeowner.

[00:06:03] Eric Goranson: These are things that we're going to tax. These big corporations that are making money. Those big corporations could be Home Depot. It could be Lowe's could be your local lumberyard chain. Those things are going to show up in your housing prices because those materials are more expensive. Just as you see that with appliances, LG, Samsung, Whirlpool, GE, all these companies, if they're cranking more corporate taxes on them, rest assured you're paying for that the next time you go buy something.

[00:06:33] Eric Goranson: So anytime that someone is talking about new taxes out there. Realize that tax trickles down to you on this because these companies are going to still make the same money right now, they're probably making less because of how things have hit us. If you think about it as people right now in the United States, we're in a tough spot with what it costs for us to survive right now, it's up 20 plus percent for most people, if not more.

[00:06:58] Eric Goranson: So I want to make [00:07:00] sure that we're not making this worse in the years ahead. So be very careful of the word taxes. Now there's something that's been coming up here. That's been all over social media and it's something to be very careful with. And this is my best advice to you guys out there. If you see a news story that pops up or social media pictures about something, great example.

[00:07:23] Eric Goranson: This last week, there was something blown up about Lowe's. Where some social media influencer put out a meme basically saying that the Lowe's CEO said you conservatives can go to Home Depot if you don't like our policies or something to that effect. Probably paraphrasing that incorrectly, but it was basically that.

[00:07:46] Eric Goranson: Now here's the thing. They didn't say that. That CEO didn't make that comment on CNBC. It was literally, completely, 100 percent false, never was said. But Lowe's took a lot of heat this last week [00:08:00] because of that, even though it was 100 percent fake news that got retracted. But guess what? That meme just kept traveling around the internet, and it got a lot of people fired up.

[00:08:11] Eric Goranson: And that's stuff we just don't need these days. It's not worth the hassle. So, before we share stuff up, and it's something that I try to do, and I don't make many mistakes in this, When I see a story come out, I do my research, Google it up real quick, try to find the quote, try to find the article. Now, if a presidential candidate is saying, I'm doing this, I go back and search and find where they said it, because I want to see it.

[00:08:37] Eric Goranson: Because right now, there's a lot of news organizations out there that are national, and I'm not talking about really the network guys, but there is Guilty as well. But I'm talking about print online, those kinds of things where they're making statements. It's not what the candidate's saying at all.

[00:08:52] Eric Goranson: They're guessing. They're saying, I think they're going to support. That's not news. I want to make sure that we're following what's good and what's the [00:09:00] right information. So take your time and dig through it if you can. So you don't get sucked into that trap on social media to tell you what it can be really rough.

[00:09:07] Eric Goranson: Now, one of the things that I'm really worried about right now And it's something that came up in the presidential stuff this last week. And it's not clear with what exactly is going on because again, presidential candidates haven't said it and we're getting a lot of speculation. And that is as a homeowner, this could be a big deal for you if they move the bar of what the rules are.

[00:09:30] Eric Goranson: And it's something we've never been taxed on before. And that is unrealized gains. We have capital gains. And then there's this theory of unrealized capital gains. Capital gains is when you bought a house a few years ago, you fix it up, you sold it, it was your primary house and guess what? You made 800, 000 on it cause you did it perfectly.

[00:09:51] Eric Goranson: It was a wreck. And now you've got some serious capital gains tax to pay. That's one thing unrealized capital gains is the perception of what your [00:10:00] house currently is and how that works would be. And this is important. If I purchased a house for 400, 000 bucks and it appreciates 50, 000 the next year, an unrealized gain at 25%.

[00:10:16] Eric Goranson: Which means I have to pay the government $12,500 in tax, whether I sell the house or not. And then next year, if I lose 50,000 and it's back down to it, 'cause we had a housing correction, I don't get that money back. And to me, I don't care if it's gonna be somebody over a million dollars, $500 million, 50 or a hundred.

[00:10:39] Eric Goranson: In my opinion, that is a dangerous precedent to set because it's real easy for them to go, Oh, it didn't bring in what we thought at 50 million. So we're going to bring it down to one. Now, where that affects you is if you've got a 401k or you've got any of these things, stock markets, you've got [00:11:00] maybe a family farm, these are things we need to be really careful with, and I, I would recommend to everybody to take a hard look at it.

[00:11:08] Eric Goranson: Because once we let that Pandora's box open of that new tax rate, I guarantee they're going to be moving that thing around. So be very, very careful. With what we choose this next year. It's great example here in Oregon. We've got to pay attention to those tax measures too, as well. We've got a measure here that says basically if I was to paraphrase and even people across the board are saying it's poorly worded, but basically it's a profits tax for corporations.

[00:11:34] Eric Goranson: If you get above a certain rate that they're going to tax that. Unfortunately here, we've had some businesses move from California up to Oregon, because it's a little bit better of a, a little bit better of a business atmosphere here. The problem we're going to see though, is those companies are going to move to another state again.

[00:11:52] Eric Goranson: As we've been seeing the businesses move out of California, you're going to see that happen. So I think it's a really bad precedent for us here. And they're going to give that [00:12:00] money back to the people, which has a second thing for low income people out there. This could be a really big deal because if you're on food stamps, if you're on some government program for low income, that little check that you get from the government could actually put you in a worse position because it could kick you up above out of any of those federal programs out there.

[00:12:21] Eric Goranson: For the free lunch programs, food stamps, any of that stuff that you're trying to get, it could hurt your kids low income college scholarships. These are all things we've got to be very careful with. And trust me, I want people to get up and get out of poverty and I want them to get up and live a good, comfortable life without having people in the household work at 80 hours a week and busting their chops and be able to live a comfortable life.

[00:12:44] Eric Goranson: I just want to make sure that we're doing it correctly. So my advice out there, if I was to wave a magic wand is I think we don't need more government. I think we need smarter government and that's going to end up. Probably we need to cut some stuff back guys. It's getting bigger and bigger [00:13:00] and bigger.

[00:13:00] Eric Goranson: We're getting less services. I think it's time for them to cut back. Like we've had to cut back as citizens in the United States. Let's see if we can get, I bet you, if we, if we had them look at their budget, had somebody outside coming in, Bet you could get 30 percent out of the government to cut back.

[00:13:16] Eric Goranson: Why? Why raise the taxes on us when they should be cutting back like we've had to? People aren't going out as much. We're not going to see as many football games. We're not going to the beach, the coast. Or the mountains or camping. Like we did, we're not going on those big vacations. Many of us right now, because things are too expensive.

[00:13:33] Eric Goranson: About time. We tell them to do the same thing. That's my soapbox for the day coming up this weekend. I want everybody to be really safe and have a wonderful time out there. There is some great times we had this weekend. Relax. R and R I'm going to be doing that. I got a great concert. I'm going to on Friday night.

[00:13:50] Eric Goranson: Can't wait up in Seattle. If you, if you're going to be up there to go see Metallica, like I am and pants and mammoth Eddie Van Halen's kid, it's going to be a great show. Send me a message over on Facebook [00:14:00] or Instagram. If you're going to be up there, I'll maybe have a beer with you. If you're around I'm Eric G thanks for tuning into around the house.

[00:14:08] Eric Goranson: This is a great midweek special. Wanted to get that off my chest. Don't get mad at me. And if you are, guess what? I'm just trying to speak the truth from my perspective. Have a great rest of the week. Everybody. You want to find out more about us head to around the house online. com. We'll see you Saturday.

[00:14:25] Eric Goranson: Thanks for tuning in.