"Do the Math": $40 Trillion in Debt, Mike ter Maat, and Who Gets to Pick the VP

"Brian, you cannot save trillions of dollars by firing people."

That's Mike ter Maat. Austrian economist. Former White House budget office guy. 11 years as a cop in South Florida. 2024 Libertarian VP nominee.

My answer? Of course you can. Do the math.

He told me my math was wrong. I told him $40 trillion in debt disagrees.

Yeah... let's talk about that.

Watch the full episode with Mike ter Maat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyVZatwHTp4

Who Is Mike ter Maat, and Why Is He Running for VP Inside the GOP?

Mike is a returning guest. He co-hosts the Liberty Lens podcast and has a new book, Broken: How American Politics Is Driving Civil Unrest, Financial Collapse and War.

Now he's doing something he says nobody has ever done. He's running a campaign for the Republican nomination for vice president.

"No one has ever launched and managed a campaign to secure the nomination of the Republican Party for vice president of the United States," Mike said. And he had fun with it: no matter how it goes, it'll be the best campaign ever for the GOP VP nomination... and also the worst.

Why Mike ter Maat Says the Way We Pick a VP Is Broken

Mike didn't sugarcoat it. "The way that we choose vice presidents in the United States is stupid."

Today, the presidential nominee picks a running mate right before the convention, with no process at all. The delegates just rubber-stamp it.

Mike's problems with that:

• Bad picks. He says neither party has "uniformly covered itself in glory" with its VP choices over the past few decades.
• No buy-in. No matter who gets picked, part of the party won't like it, and the system just says "so what."
• The "mini me" problem. The big one. Once a VP takes office, Mike says they stop acting like an independent leader and start acting like a low-level appointee.

And the irony, Mike argues, is that the VP is "the only person in the entire executive branch who can't be fired." For a libertarian worried about how much power sits in the executive branch, that's a missed opportunity.

His fix is aimed at the national delegates heading to the 2028 convention in Houston. Ask for a floor vote. Make it a two-step process. "We want them to think and then vote," Mike said, "rather than just skipping the think and going directly to the vote."

And it doesn't take much. "It only takes five state delegations to ask for a floor vote," he said. He even calls himself "the placeholder guy." Pick his name or anybody else's, but pick.

Fun one for my fellow Hoosiers: Mike said most Indiana delegates love the idea. The exception is a handful who didn't get their way when Indiana delegates picked a different lieutenant governor than the one the governor wanted.

I Pushed Back: Isn't the VP Pick About the Name?

I had to ask. Look at Mike Pence here in Indiana, picked to help win Christian conservatives. Or Tim Walz. VP picks are about names and votes, not ideas. And I said it to his face: Mike ter Maat is not as popular as JD Vance.

So what does he tell a delegate who says, "I hear you, but the VP needs to help us win"?

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Dude, let's not go in a funny direction."

His point: pick whoever you want, just don't give up the responsibility of choosing. If your delegation wants a name on the ticket, start saying so in the spring of 2028.

Idea #2: A Liberty Republican on the 2028 Ticket

The second big idea of Mike's campaign: "There should be a liberty Republican on the national ticket, whether it's me or anybody else."

That means getting back to free markets and free trade, and less foreign entanglement and less war. His dream nominee? Rand Paul or Thomas Massie.

What about an outsider, like a business owner? "No, no, no. It has to be someone who understands how government works."

I disagreed. I think the leadership we need has to come from outside the career-politician class. Mike's answer was fair: "You may be right... there's no evidence you're wrong either." So I gave him a real example. Look at what Elon Musk and SpaceX are doing to the phone industry, where the experts said it couldn't be done. Sometimes it takes somebody from the outside to see things a different way.

The $40 Trillion Debt Fight

Mike thinks the clock is running out. In his words, we have "no more than a decade" before the federal government faces a financial collapse. His fix is a cap on overall spending, because he says the system isn't built to roll back any one program.

My view: get back to the founding principles of the Constitution. Send power back to the states. Get rid of the federal bureaucracies.

Then came the exchange that became this episode's title:

• Mike: "You cannot save trillions of dollars by firing people."
• Me: "Of course you can... when they're coming at the expense of the taxpayer. Who are you kidding? Do the math."
• Mike: "Of course I do, but the order of magnitude is wrong. Your math is wrong, not your principle."
• Me: "Forty trillion dollars in debt disagrees."
• Mike: "No, Brian. The forty trillion dollars of debt did not come from overpaying federal employees."

My argument is that it doesn't stop at federal employees. It extrapolates out to the bureaucracies behind the scenes, the NGOs, the state governments, the nonprofits.

Mike wasn't having it. "None of that is true, Brian. The forty trillion dollars came from overspending on entitlement programs and defense."

So here's the scorecard on the $40 trillion debt:

• Where we agree: the federal government spends way too much of your money, and something has to give.
• Where we split: where the $40 trillion actually came from, and whether cutting the bureaucracy moves the needle.

Who has the math right? Watch the exchange and decide for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyVZatwHTp4

Can Democracy Fix What Democracy Broke?

Then we got into the bigger question. My take: "The problem that was created by democracy is not going to be solved by democracy."

Mike asked if I was arguing to get rid of democracy. Would I advocate for getting rid of our democratic processes? No.

Mike's warning: people like Vladimir Putin are waiting for the U.S. to collapse so they can say democracy doesn't work. His message for young voters worried about affordability is simple. "We have to be advocating spending less of your money. That is where inflation comes from."

So Who Has the Math Right on the $40 Trillion Debt?

I like Mike a lot. That's exactly why I held his feet to the fire on the questions you're asking.

Want to learn more about Mike's campaign? Head to miketermaat.com (two A's in Maat), check out his Substack at Mike ter Maat - the Future, and grab his book Broken.

Then watch the whole conversation and tell me in the comments: did the $40 trillion come from the bureaucracy, or from entitlements and defense?

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyVZatwHTp4

Educated. Enlightened. Informed.