Monday 4/20/26 Bill Meyer Show Guests and Information
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6:35 Demian Brady is the Vice President of Research for the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF). He runs NTUF’s Taxpayers’ Budget Office and produces analyses and commentaries on fiscal issues, including NTUF’s annual Who Pays Taxes and Tax Complexity studies. Demian’s research has been cited in prominent publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Times. Additionally, he has written extensively on budget and IRS reform for both NTU and NTUF.
Despite resigning from Congress in disgrace, Reps. Swalwell and Gonzales will still be able to cash in, thanks to their congressional pensions. Since 1946, lawmakers with at least five years in office or other federal service can qualify for a taxpayer-funded pension.
Eric Swalwell will be eligible for a starting pension of nearly $22,000. Swalwell is 45 years old, so he won’t be eligible to start collecting a pension until he is 62 in 2042. That will be the starting amount, and then going forward it is adjusted annually for inflation.
Tony Gonzalez (R-TX) Gonzalez will be eligible for a starting pension of just over $8,700 when he turns 62, also in 2042, and that also accounts for the automatic spousal set aside.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK Act) and Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA) only strip pensions for specified crimes related to corruption or lying to law enforcement officials during an investigation. These reforms include a loophole so ex-members may collect pensions while appealing their convictions, even if they are in jail. No lawmaker has lost their congressional pension yet.
For more information on congressional pensions and other taxpayer funded perks:
National Taxpayers Union Foundation: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Resignation Timing Secures Her Congressional Pension by Three Days
National Taxpayers Union Foundation: Taxpayers Shouldn’t Subsidize Perks for Wealthy Former Presidents
National Taxpayers Union Foundation: While Debt Soars, Some Lawmakers Seek Retroactive Salary Hikes in Federal Court
The Center Square: Swalwell, Gonzales to receive taxpayer-funded pensions
Washington Examiner: Scandals won’t stop Eric Swalwell from getting $22,000 a-year taxpayer-funded pension
Washington Examiner: Boebert working on bill to strip Swalwell of $22,000 annual taxpayer-funded pension
7:35 Dr. Douglas Frank www.secureourelectionsnow.org
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers – www.DennisPowersBooks.com with today’s Where Past Meets Present
Mattie’s Nugget–and the Currency of Gold
By Dennis Powers
Throughout the country—and especially in Northern California and Southern Oregon—gold nuggets, bars, and even dust were used as currency until the 1930s. During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt decreed that the private ownership and use of gold as a currency to be illegal. Before then, gold was used to pay debts and anyone, whether a resident or not, could buy gold nuggets at any local bank, from Crescent City to Ashland.
In 1859, a small, nervous Irishman—one Mattie Collins—was working through the tailings around Althouse Creek in Josephine County’s Illinois Valley. Althouse Creek winds its way from the Siskiyou Mountains and flows over fifteen miles into the Illinois River. The area had been a fine place for placer gold discoveries. Although the great finds were largely over, Mattie was ever hopeful. On one of the tributaries, he looked up the bank and spotted a large stump with exposed roots. Hoping he might find something, he began pulling out rocks—and came across a huge nugget.
It weighed 17 pounds, the largest gold nugget reportedly discovered in Southern Oregon. Terrified that someone would rob him, or con him, if they heard about his good fortune, Mattie hired a fellow Irishman by the name of Dorsey to help him bring the nugget to a San Francisco bank. Collins and Dorsey jumped at every noise or strange shadow; they checked every side trail to avoid an ambush. They were able to get to arrive safely in San Francisco, and he sold the nugget for $3,500, which would be worth $1,250,000 today. When word went out about his find, miners flooded into the area—but didn’t find anything close to this.
Mattie kept the money in the San Francisco bank and worked for wages, first in California, and then in Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. The frugal man deposited his earnings into the same bank. The years passed by and at age 65, however, Mattie Collins fell in love with a younger woman. She succeeded where everyone else had failed: skimming the money away and then leaving him. Collins died near penniless, despite his good fortune and years of hard work.
Although the great majority of prospectors never came close to Mattie’s good fortune, gold for all those years was a currency—and preferred. Banks weighed the gold nuggets, accepted them, and gave gold coins in return. The coins were in five-dollar, ten-dollar, and twenty-dollar denominations. One problem was that the five-dollar gold coin was nearly the size of and appearance of a penny. Mistakes were made when passing out a five-dollar gold coin as change for a penny, the loss not equal to ones chagrin when later discovering this.
Whether Gold Hill or Jacksonville, prospectors came to town and exchanged their gold or nuggets for whiskey, women, clothing, food, or whatever provisions that were needed. When they needed more money, the miners trudged back into the hills. Disdainful of banks, they carried or hid their nuggets. If big enough or armed, some held them in public, including one who would set his quart glass jar of gold nuggets on the counter when ordering his meal.
The ones who owned the general stores and sold provisions to the miners were usually the ones who became prosperous. One local prospector, Lester Foley, wrote in 1931: “After seventeen years, I’m a little weary, hungry. I’m reduced to Spartan austerity. Have a depressed feeling. Am on a diet of beans. After 17 years, my pocket averaged $2.30 a year, excluding expenses–but included frost-bite, fly-bite, and rattlesnake bite, with bleeding fingers, an aching back, a frosted lung, and pain.”
With the quantitative easing seen and enormous U.S. and worldwide fiscal deficits, we might need to head back to those times.
Sources: Kerby Jackson, “OregonGold.Net: Great Gobs of Gold Abound in Southern Oregon,” at his website; Dennis M. Powers, Gold Hill: Images of America, Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, South Carolina, 2010, pp. 7-8, 21, et al; Dennis Powers, Where Past Meets Present, Hellgate Press: Ashland, Oregon, 2017, “Mattie’s Nugget and the Currency of Gold,” pp. 45-47.
8:45 Open for Business – Kelly Bales with Futurity First in Medford.
Turning 65 is a big milestone. And with it comes one of the most important decisions you’ll make — choosing the right Medicare coverage.
A free Medicare educational workshop — designed to walk you through your options clearly, so you can make the best choice for your health and your budget. At Futurity First, we’re independent advisors. That means no loyalty to insurance companies
Join them Tuesday, April 21st at Central Point Parks and Recreation, 235 South Haskell Street in Central Point — or Thursday, April 23rd at the Financial Learning Center, 516 Crater Lake Avenue in Medford. Both classes begin at 5:30.
Seating is limited, so sign up today at medicare-made-for-you-dot-org. That’s medicare-made-for-you-dot-O-R-G. Futurity First. On Crater Lake Avenue in Medford — putting your needs first.