Hello again, and welcome to ZacCast, the official podcast for local government nerdery. I'm Chad, that's Patrick. What you got for me today, Pat?

Dude, we're gonna talk about a, just a bunch of stuff. That was a terrible opening.

No, I think-

It was horrible

... that you nailed it.

I, I could've done so much better there.

We're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk about a bunch of stuff. We're not cutting this one. A bunch of stuff.

That is correct, yes.

So, uh, yeah, we needed to squeeze a, a, an ep of the pod in because, uh, I'm gonna be preoccupied in a couple days with my fourth child being born. So we definitely wanted to get one squeezed in here. We got a couple of updates on some sales tax stuff, some COVID vaccine incentives. Maybe we'll get to s- a couple of half-baked ideas that I threw out at Patrick, and he looked at me like I was having a hard day. So anyway, let's get started.

And we, we also have an update on our favorite piece of legislation coming out of the legislature this year, the Defund the Police Act, also known as House Bill 4072. We will talk about that one, give everybody a quick update on where that's at. Uh, and so yeah, let's start with COVID shots. So Chad-

Yeah

... what is your opinion of this movement within COVID shots to incentivize people to go get their shot? So for example, there are states that are giving a free beer at a brewery to get a COVID shot. There are states that are giving $100 savings bond for a COVID shot. There are, uh, locations that are giving $50 if you drive somebody to a COVID shot. What are your thoughts?

I mean, I don't, I don't necessarily have a problem with it. Uh, I, I didn't mind when Krispy Kreme started offering free donuts for the COVID shots. I'll tell you that I'm much more a fan of the, the incentive style that you're talking about than I am of the incentive where you basically can't do anything unless you have a C- uh, vaccine passport.

So you're against the vaccine passport?

Well, okay, so I'm, I'm generally more accepting of it if it's done by the private sector and not by the public sector. Um-

Okay.

But-

Full disclosure, hold on, full disclosure-

Okay

... we're both vaccin- we're both vaccinated.

Right. I mean, I-

Let's say that out loud

... yeah, I, I'm, I'm pretty sure we have, but I, I can't, I mean, I can't fault, say, American Airlines if they say, "Okay, after, you know, August or whatever, when everyone's had a chance to get a vaccine, then you can't fly without a vaccine." Now, they may not be able to because of interstate commerce regulations and stuff like that, but, you know, just as an example. Um, if, if a restaurant wanted to say, "You can only eat here in, uh, inside i- if you have your vaccine card," I don't know that I'd be a fan of that, but I think, you know, it's private property, and I think they probably should be able to do that if they want to. Uh, but I'd, I would prefer if we're gonna go that route that we would do something like, "Hey, here's a $50 gift card for getting your shot." I don't know who's paying for it. I mean, we're already giving the vaccine away for free basically, so, um, you know, this is, like, an extra cost on top of that, and I, I, I assume that, I mean, Detroit is the one who's giving out $50 gift cards, and there's no limit to how m- how much you can earn. You just have to fill out a W-2 if you drive more than 12 people, and Detroit has their own fiscal problems, so may- maybe it's worth it for them to pay that money, you know, to get people vaccinated so their economy can, can reopen. I mean, especially in Michigan right now is they're having a tough time. So I don't know. I mean, I, I, I don't really have a strong opinion, which is kind of unusual for me. What about you?

Well, I mean, I think this is a really interesting public health topic, right? I mean, we clearly before COVID did not invest well in public health, and we've learned our lesson from that, right? Probably not, but the reality is, is that the more people we get vaccinated, the more likely it is that COVID's gonna be behind us, right? And so there's a public health side to getting people vaccinated. Um, I don't really see it any different than any other economic development incentive, right? We are incentivizing people to get the shot so that they will be incentivized to then be more free from an economic standpoint.

Yeah, see, I, I see it quite a bit differently. So to me, economic development incentives fall into one of two categories. One, giving away money that wasn't necessary because it would've, because the development decision was going to make sense anyway, or B... Did I say one or, or A? Doesn't matter. Uh, B-

We're not cutting that one out either.

No. It's like Buzz- ... in, uh, in France when they're talking about Kevin being stuck at home alone. Anyway-

No

... B, city's giving away money to something that is not going to succeed regardless of the incentive, right? So this I don't really even see remotely in the same category. I'm also not a huge fan of economic development incentives, which is kinda weird because we did a lot of them.

That's correct, yes.

Um, but anyway, yeah, I, I see them kind of fundamentally different. There's not necessarily a, um, a negative externality that I can at least immediately see from paying someone to get a vaccine, where there definitely could be for development incentives, you know-

Well, I-

... long-term fiscal health of your city, fiscal health of the development. Like, the, the, uh, development incentives can potentially skew those decisions, whereas incentivizing someone to get a shot isn't necessarily, uh, like, the possibility of something like that happening seems a lot lower.

I mean, I think we would agree that, um, neither one of us loves development incentives, right? I mean, uh, development incentives, if we lived in a utopian world and nobody was doing development incentives, you wouldn't have to do development incentives, right? The problem is, is you're competing against-

Ah, truer words were never spoken

... jurisdictions. I mean, so I, I mean, not, not to say that-

The thing I love about you, Patrick, is when you just roll out a tautology like it's really profound, I just really appreciate that

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. And I, I mean that both from a locality standpoint and also from a state to state standpoint, right? It's, it's the argument we always have with state. State's like, "Well, we wanna get rid of all incentives." And we're like, "Well, that's great, but Oklahoma and Arizona and Georgia and Tennessee still have incentives." So we still have to compete with those other states, and it's usually on the backs of the locals to actually be the ones who are competing with those other states, not actually the state itself. So all that being said, I, I don't disagree with that. But when we're talking about COVID shots, I, I think there is a clear public health reason why we wanna get a certain number of people vaccinated or a certain number of people infected. Like I, I, I'm not ... You know, I'm ... Basically I'm saying in order to get to a herd immunity number, you actually have to p- have people who get vaccinated or they have to be infected, one or the other. So-

And ob- uh, obviously the vaccination route is the preferred

It's the preferred safest route where people do die a little bit less, yes. So, um, and I, I don't mean to say that flip it, I just mean to say that from a public health standpoint, there is a governmental reason why we would be giving incentives to people to get shots. My thoughts.

You hear that train?

Yeah, there's a train behind, uh, Chad's house today. This is the second time. It's ... Uh, BNSF is moving lots of goods through the city of Fort Worth today apparently.

So let's, let's say that you are among the vaccine hesitant. What would it take you ... Like, what would be your preferred incentive? The Krispy Kremes? The free beer?

No, I think if they took out the tracker and-

So they couldn't follow you around?

So they couldn't follow me around. I've been joking with a lot of friends of mine that, um, you know, it's okay, I'm vaccinated, so if they get lost you'll be able to return me to my wife.

Except that you're not a Windows user.

I'm not a golden retriever. Yeah.

You're not a Windows user, so you won't be able to do it.

That's true. Yeah, you won't be able to find me 'cause I don't use Windows. But, uh, kinda like my dog Tucker in the backyard, my new golden retriever, has a chip. Have you ever seen how big the needle is for the chip that they insert into a dog?

No. I have not ever seen them actually put the chip in.

It ... I mean, it's, it is not a small needle. Like, it is a sizeable, like, rou- like noticeably round hole.

Did he take it like a champ?

And I don't know. Uh, he was pretty upset about it.

Yeah.

You know? I felt bad for him. He was only like 16 weeks old when he got the shot, so.

Well, there are other things that you do to male dogs that are probably worse than sticking a microchip in them, so.

That is true. Uh, speaking of the, uh, the vaccination route though, on the COVID shots, have you heard all of the conversation on social media, specifically within like the millennial generation, about, uh, my shot's better than your shot or like the Pfizer one percenters?

Okay, so two things. I find it harder and harder as time goes by to associate myself with my generation. I know technically we're like on the leading edge of millennials, almost, almost in the Xennial category, but I don't really fall in with, with Gen X. Um, I think, and I can't prove this, but I think when we get further out that we will split millennials into an even smaller cohort. And I think that a lot of the Gen Z people are kinda giving us a bad name. But, so that's my first comment. And then the second one is no, I haven't heard this. So what are they doing?

So there's this movement on social media. Chad went like down a rabbit hole. I di- I didn't know where that was gonna go, to be honest.

I didn't either. I just started talking.

It could've got, it could've got very interesting there for a minute. Um, but, uh, you know, there is this, there's this movement, you know, obviously 'cause, uh, you know, the three predominant shots in the United States, there are only three approved shots. You know, there's, uh, Pfizer, Moderna, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Um, and Pfizer is a little ... I- it's about 1%, it's a little less than 1% more effective than Moderna. Now, folks, we're talking like 96% and 95% effective, right? But there's like this whole movement on social media of people, like the cool shot to get is the Pfizer shot.

Do we know what the margin of error is on that, on that statistic?

You know, that's a really interesting question that if Dr. Krueger was on the show-

Yeah

... he'd talk about

... I suspect that it's-

Why margin of error matters

... yeah, I suspect that they're basically the same. But anyway.

Yeah.

So now, so now we have-

Of course

... a situation where the millennials want to be part of the 1%.

That's correct.

Interesting.

And millennials wanna be part of the 1%.

Interesting.

That is exactly where I was going with this conversation. So what i- what is happening is people are, uh, they're shot shopping, right? So they're, they're going to the shot clinics and they're only getting a shot if it's a Pfizer shot.

Hmm.

Uh, if it's a Johnson & Johnson shot or if it's a Moderna shot they're not gonna get it.

So maybe we should just be incentivizing the other two. I think at, I think at this point-

I think-

... we're gonna have to be incentivizing the Johnson & Johnson given how it's been treated in the press and by the CDC, but.

I think if I could do it again though, honestly, I would just want the one shot. Just give me the Johnson & Johnson, let me move on in life. But I had to go, I had to go for the two-shot run.

Well, you were an early adopter.

I was, I was an early adopter. I don't ... Yeah, I guess I was.

Early enough that there were only two options.

Correct.

So.

All right. S-

Okay, so sales tax.

For people ... Yeah, sales tax.

Yes.

Why people actually listen to us.

Yes. Uh, that was a, that was a beautiful segue. Um.

Yep.

Okay, so, so, so two quick updates on sales tax. The first is yesterday the Comptroller released their press release on April sales tax. This is sales tax that they collected in April for March sales, so this is sales tax that will be allocated to cities in May. And those numbers were 31% up from last year. So all that to say, A, the impact of not having the COVID shutdowns this year, uh, plus p- perhaps some pent-up demand and maybe even some, uh, some lingering effects of the snowmageddon. But, uh, it looks like cities on average will have a pretty good month in May as far as sales tax goes.

We expect there to be a pretty good month, but let's roll back the beautiful bean footage for just a little bit, right? March was not a month, it was a month of fear, but it was not a month of full shutdowns in March of 2020.

No. It was only half the month that we actually had closures.

Yeah. It was half the month that we actually had closures. The first couple of weeks, you know, that's the story I told. I was actually sitting at spring training in Florida watching baseball those first couple weeks when, uh, things got closed down, and, um, you know, the reality is is that, you know, Ap- if March numbers are this way, what would we expect in April where we did have a full month of shutdown? I mean, April we were totally closed down for the entire month. I know you and I were really busy, uh, doing lots of analysis for lots of different cities. But the reality is is that most people were, uh, were really shut down, and we would probably see and expect to see a pretty significant bounce. And from the comptroller standpoint, an unpredicted bounce. I, I think that's the interesting thing about this is that when the comptroller did their initial projections, they used the non-COVI- or they used the COVID month as a baseline, clearly in their projections, because they came back and-

And then fundamentally revised their biennial

... almost as an addition.

Yeah.

Yeah. They fundamentally revised their biennial based on one month. I, I mean, I would ask the question, when has that ever historically happened? I doubt it ever has, right? And two, what it shows you is is that they took the COVID year and based their projections off of the COVID year, not off of 2019, uh, which we had a couple conversations with clients along the way where we said, "Okay, hey, things are gonna get more normal as we go. You probably need to go back and look at your 2019 number, not your 2020 number, and use that as more your baseline number, not the number that lost 25% in the middle of the COVID year." So if anybody, if an- you know, anybody listening to this did the same thing, then that growth is gonna be even more substantial, and the 2021 growth is still more substantial than the 2019 growth.

Yeah. So when you're, when you're evaluating what the actual impact is, don't forget how you actually treated March and April sales in your projections. If you baselined off of 2020, then, you know, if you get a 20% growth rate this month, then you're gonna be in good shape. If you baselined off of 2019, then a 20% growth rate may just get you back to where you were. So-

Correct

... that number is gonna be big probably, uh, but depending on how you actually accounted for it in your projections, the actual impact may or may not be quite as big as it sounds.

I, I, I mean, my comment is is that, you know, uh, we also are not gonna see the full catch-up of what happened, you know, 'cause, 'cause really the, the e-commerce side of the business, you know, that came in in, in, uh, April. So you have the, the regular coming back, the economy is opening back up, those type of things, but you also have the fact that e-commerce has picked up significantly since this time last year.

Do you remember the-

And that really has not been significantly decreased

... do you remember the total drop in March from last year for city sales tax?

I don't. Um, and it was... I, I remember it being in the single digits, and the reason I remember that, uh, is because we, we predicted that. We predicted that it was not gonna be substantial, and we had talked to a number of cities, and we had actually put some stuff out there and, uh, and, and told folks to not... 'Cause remember, this is the same time that-

Everybody was cutting their budgets, like, by 40%, laying off people. Or at least not everybody, but some people were

... not everybody, but it was the same time where the Government Finance Officers Association, the national association, not the state association, the national association sent an email out with, "These are the things you need to do in this situation." And it, it was, like, a three-page, "These are all the things you can do to cut your budget," which includes, you know, just cutting at the bone, right? I mean, there was, there was... And, and, and we saw that, and our initial response was, "Whoa, way too early to do this." And at that time, that's when we started rolling out all the cellphone analytic analysis that we were doing because we wanted to prove to our clients, like, "Hey, just don't take our word for it. Let's actually look at what's happening for real." Like, yes, everybody is locked up at home, but the reality is is people are still driving to fast food restaurants. They're still going to the grocery store. There is still some economic activity that's occurring within our market. We were able to prove that out, uh, with, with analysis. So I, I, yes, I mean, at the end of the day, I think we're gonna see some differences from year to year. I- what surprises me the most, though, is that the comptroller didn't take that into account.

Yeah. I mean, I don't wanna wade into the politics of the biennial estimates, um, because obviously they're, they're providing those revenue estimates to the legislature so they know how much money they have to spend. And as a former budget person, sometimes you, you tend to opt for the more conservative projections initially, uh, 'cause it's always better to have more money than you thought than to have less. Uh, but the... it's a balancing act, right? You don't wanna be too conservative because that kinda hurts your credibility.

Yeah, but I mean, at the same time, don't, don't you feel like we're hurting the credibility at this point of those estimates? I mean, this has been a little bit of, like, an infomercial, uh, for set it and forget it. Like, it's, it... we're getting a lot of, "But wait, we're gonna be $10 billion down. Oh, but wait. It's really only five billion. Oh, but wait. It's two billion. But oh, but wait. It's not anything." I mean, we've literally gone from a $10 billion deficit in Texas to nothing in a year and a half.

Okay. So I pulled up the press release from last May. So this represents the c- the period that we're comparing against for the current press release. This is April collections for March sales of 2020, and the decline was 9.3%. So we had a 9.3% decline last year and a 31% increase above that. So if you do that math, which I just did, you know, in my head, um, that'd be about a 19% increase over the 2019 numbers.

Which is the largest increase in state history though, right? Period. That's what the comptroller said in the press release.

Uh, yeah. So the third, the, the, the total amount of revenue is one of the largest numbers for any month that we've ever hadI suspect that the percent change is probably the highest, if not one of the highest, if not the highest.

Yep.

But if you, if you did your sales tax budgets for this year based on twenty nineteen numbers, uh, the statewide totals were about nineteen percent above that, and that represents a thirty-one percent increase from last year, accounting for the, the COVID shutdown dip.

Okay, so moving on from that then.

Moving on.

Talking about House Bill 4072, also known infamously by us as the Defund the Police Act. And anybody who hasn't listened to that podcast, uh-

It'll be in the show notes.

It'll be in the show notes. Uh, also, uh, it's not actually defunding the police except for the problems it causes at CCPDs. But ironically, I believe that podcast may be, like, the most passed around podcast we've ever had, right? It, it actually has made it into the halls of Austin. So I know a number of, like, chief of staffs for legislators that have listened to it. You told me that somebody reached out today-

Okay, question

... told you listened to it, so.

Is it, is it chief of staffs or chiefs of staff?

Ooh.

Like-

It's chiefs

... like attorneys general.

Chiefs. It's attorney, yeah.

RBI.

Chiefs of staff.

Yeah. We've had this conversation before.

We have.

Okay. So, so the news on this, uh, uh, i- in the previous podcast, which you can find in the show notes, is a, it's a whole breakdown of this House Bill, uh, 4072. It changes the way that we account for, uh, sales tax allocation, shifting it from point of sale in most cases, uh, especially when there's a place of business. It basically gets rid of the place of business and changes the sales tax nexus to the point of delivery. So whether that's you go to a physical store and pick it up where you take ownership, then that store is the place, uh, uh, where the sales tax is consummated, or if it's delivered, then the delivery point. Wherever the ownership changes hands for a good and then wherever the service is actually performed, that's would be where sales tax is due. So the big change for this is that it's come out of committee. It still has not made it on the calendar. Is that right?

That's correct.

But, uh, the one big change is that the implementation has been delayed until January first, twenty twenty-three, which is good because it would have been absolute chaos if it had gone into effect in October. Uh, so at least that gives cities a full year and then a half year basically to kind of prep for that change. But again, the big challenge with it is, for me, is not even necessarily the principle behind it, it's just that we have no idea what the impact is gonna be.

Nobody has any idea what the impact's gonna be, so therefore they're gonna have to budget based on worst case scenario. I mean, it just is what it is. Every city is gonna have to assume that anybody that doesn't, uh, have a direct to customer purchase apparatus or brick-and-mortar location is gonna have to assume that they lose sales tax, and it's gonna be a big number in every city, and they're never gonna know the amount of money they get back until they get it back. Um, so it's gonna be incredibly difficult to understand. We believe what has happened in this process, just talking to a few people in Austin, is that the Comptroller's office specifically said, "Hey, everybody, this could be really complicated." We talked about the three-legged stool and how sales tax administration and all that type of stuff in that last podcast, but the Comptroller basically came in and said, "Implementing this on September first is really not feasible." You know, it's just, that's not enough time for us to be able to implement this and let alone be able to do this and do it successfully. I'm not even sure they could do it successfully on twenty twenty-three, in, in January of twenty twenty-three. Um, and it just creates a lot of headache for private businesses. Now, you and I had this conversation last time. I don't wanna rehash it totally, but my example is if a mom and pop pizza restaurant delivers to five different cities from one location, they're gonna have to pay tax to five different cities instead of the one location that they have a storefront in. And Chad's comment is, is there's lots of software out there for that. Of course, the software nerd says that. But the reality is mom and pop restaurants don't care about software. Uh, they may still have handwritten tickets. And because of the difficulty in tax administration, we're going to collect less sales tax because of it. Any ideas? Any thoughts?

Just in terms of, you know, administrative overhead, it, it is better if this does end up passing and being signed into law that it will not go into effect for another fifteen months. But yeah.

And this is an example if, it, this is an example of if it was always this way, that would've been awesome, right? I mean, this is-

If-

... one of those things where it's like-

I, I think you can still debate about whether it would be awesome, but I think that if it had always been this way, we wouldn't look at it and say, "That really doesn't make any sense." Like, this is, this is-

Okay

... a crazy idea.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

But because it has not always been this way and because it would be a massive disruption, there is a prudential, uh, question to ask and answer about whether we should do it, even if you agree with it in principle, um, which I haven't quite yet decided if I do.

Fair. So I, I think, um, and I had a conversation with a client today that would probably be one of our few clients that I think would be a net positive for this. Um, and even they said, "Even though I'd be a net positive, like, this would just really negatively impact a lot of jurisdictions." And it would. The fear is, is that the jurisdictions would have to react with a really far swing and a pendulum because they just wouldn't know anything anyway.

Yeah. And then you couple that with the fact that you may or may not be able to cut your police budget more than the rest of your budget, or you'll lose your property tax.

Although, so yeah, that's correct, so.

And that's a whole new world of questions. But before we get too far into or o-off on a rabbit trail on, on that kind of stuff, uh, let's wrap up this podcast. It may be the last for a couple weeks. It's been a while since we've recorded an episode with a newborn in the room, so, uh, you know, it, it really just depends on how quiet he, how well he sleeps. But I threw out a wild idea to you earlier, and you looked at me like I had kinda lost it. SoUh, I have, I have plenty of these, these wild ideas, and, uh, I thought maybe I'd just throw a couple at, at you and get some reaction and if... You're welcome-

Go ahead

... to obviously reciprocate.

No, no, no. I'd, I'd love to hear what you have to say 'cause I'm ready for this reaction.

Okay. So I have not been driving during rush hour very much in the past two years, and I had to go pick up the kids, run to Target, you know, during rush hour yesterday, and it was a disaster. And I got to thinking there has to be a better way for this, right? We have technology to do this. We have machine learning algorithms and all this kind of stuff. Uh, all we need is to basically get rid of all of our sense of privacy, and we can actually, I think, solve this problem. So I'm gonna throw this idea out to you. Uh, please don't take this as an endorsement of this idea, because I, I think it would actually be terrible, but it could potentially solve some traffic issues, okay? What if we had a, a huge database... It could even just be, like, regional, right? Like the DFW area, Central Texas. Like, it didn't have to be national. And I- if we're gonna do this, I'd prefer that it wouldn't, wouldn't be national. But basically what it's stored is every single person, where they live and where they work, okay? And then we relegate work scheduling to this central authority. They figure out some kind of algorithm to tell people when they need to go to work and come home. I think you'd have to set some kind of parameters so that you wouldn't have people, like, you know... an office job all be- all of a sudden having to work the, the graveyard shift. But so with- within some reasonable parameters, we have, like, some cog planning authority that says, "Okay, you go to work at this time, and you come home in the- at this time." And that way we can spread out the traffic on the road and reduce congestion.

Okay, so I'm gonna take this on like a Methodist pastor. I'm gonna give you three points- ... and three reasons why this is a terrible idea, okay? Idea number one. You started with, what if we had a database full of people? Okay? We're Americans. There will never be a database full of people on where they live, where they work, how they drive, and what those habits are.

Uh, I'm not sure you're-

Like, our privacy concerns-

... I'm not sure you're aware of this, but the census was just released.

That's true.

It has all that information.

That has all that information. But I, I will... It doesn't have, like, actual identifying information.

No, it doesn't tell you, like... No, I know.

It doesn't tell me down to the last name of the person.

I'm exaggerating for effect. Go ahead.

Um, but there's a reason why, uh, Apple is bigger than Android in the United States, and it's privacy.

And it... Okay.

Period.

It's privacy.

It's privacy.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, uh, it-

App-

I don't think that Apple's smart-

Well, there's a reason why-

Hold on. I'm gonna, I'm gonna call you on that one. Okay. 45% of smartphones are Apples.

Yep.

41% are Androids. You think that-

Yep

... you think that that is, like, a substantial difference?

I think it's grown significantly. It used to be Apple was only, like, 30% of the market, I believe, and it's actually grown.

Apple's been 44, 45, 45 since 2017.

Man, why you gotta call me out with facts? Come on. All right. Can I move on to my second point?

Yeah, but... Yeah. Since I've, yeah, debunked that one, go ahead.

That's a... Since that's a moo point-

A m-

... we're gonna move on.

A moo point?

Yeah.

I'm glad-

You've never, you've never seen that episode?

... I'm glad you didn't go to law school.

You've never seen that episode of, of Friends?

I don't watch Friends.

Okay.

Friends is one of the worst shows that's ever existed. Go ahead.

Wow, folks.

That's my hot take for the day.

That is his hot take for the day. We're gonna leave that one in there so y'all can all criticize him via email. It is chad@zactax.com.

Yeah. It wouldn't be the first time I've heard about it.

He's-

I tried to watch it. It's terrible.

Oh, s- this is, this is hurting my heart. Okay. Second, second thing, right? One, we talked about the security and privacy and those issues. Two, the second thing, how in the world are we gonna get you out of bed- ... okay, and somewhere on time, regardless of what the actual time is? Okay. Let's just be honest. If, if we have a company meeting, okay, or we have a lunch or we go to dinner, you are always the one who's late.

Yeah, but I, d- I blame my wife.

No, don't blame Jessica for that.

I only blame her because she doesn't listen to this podcast, and she'll never hear it.

That's true. So it's, it's the fact that you have to do your hair or-

I don't do my hair

... you have something else that happens.

Barely have any left.

Or Texas, Texas is playing some sporting event that you have to watch-

Yeah

... and you can't walk away from for a minute. So... But the, but the reality is is in, in the grand scheme of things, okay, trying to actually get people to stick to that time is gonna be incredibly difficult, because people are just inherently late.

Okay. I'll, I'll push back and say that the point is not necessarily strict adherence to the schedule as much as it is spreading out the traffic load.

Okay, but great. All of that said, here's my third thing. We've tried it. Remember the red light/green light system on the interstates where we would talk about the interstates, they would be too full? This is a Texas thing, I think. I don't know if it happened anywhere else, but we used to have red lights and green lights on the entries to the interstate that would restrict the flow of vehicles onto the interstate, and it would... It basically would be red and make you wait there for 30 seconds, and it would turn green.

Yeah. I've seen that in Houston, but I've... That's the only place I've ever seen it.

So they've tried this. It was an epic fail.

That's because-

And why was it an epic fail? Because people never listened to it.

Because it was a Band-Aid. It was, it was a patch.

It, it did exactly what you're talking about.

No. You are... At that point, you already have all those people on the road.

I just blew your mind. Like, I can see it in your face right now.

No, I, I think-

So I have to describe it to everybody else. You're like, "Wait a second. Maybe they did try this."

No, it's... I think it's totally different, because you still have all the people on the road at the same time. You're just trying to patch after the fact, put a Band-Aid on all that traffic by restricting access to the highway. I'm talking about not even having the people on the road at the same time. Now, after all of this, I will, I will say I actually think that it's a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, and I wouldn't support it, but-I say I thought that's an interesting thought experiment. I think the biggest challenge would be the fact that, um, schools start at specific times and end at specific times, and, ah, you can't take your kids to school if you have to go to work at 4:00 in the morning or, you know, like-

So the school district... Yeah, yeah, yeah

... and you can-

The school district obviously-

You can't have a school district, you can't have a school open for, like, 14 hours a day with some kids getting there super early and some kids getting there super late 'cause it just obviously wouldn't work very well, so.

That is changing, though. You know, there used to be very stringent state laws in Texas on when school started, when they ended, uh, and how many days they had to go a year, right? And so now you have what's called the district of innovation process, which allows a district to kind of calculate things based on minutes. And so my kids, I joke all the time with you and everybody else who has to deal with me on a day-to-day basis. My kids, like, randomly have a Monday off. It's not a holiday, it's just, like, a random Monday that they're off, and it's because they go to school 15 minutes longer every day, which gives them, like, these random holidays throughout the year.

Mm.

Right? And that's different than my wife's district who doesn't do that, where she works. Um, but, but all that being said, you can separate the day and the district. Mind-blown statement, though, we're not gonna need the capacity in the end anyways.

Hyperloops?

Because when we go to... No, when we go to hyperloops, when we go to air taxis and air Ubers-

Yeah

... and, and that type of thing.

By 2015 when we have flying cars, like Back to the Future promised.

20- 2015. That's, that's a little early. You know, Back to the Future was off maybe by 20 years, right?

I'll make you a bet right now-

But I think we'll-

... that we won't have flying cars in 20 years.

We'll have flying taxis-

On the record.

We'll have flying taxis operating in DFW before 2035.

All right, you heard it here, folks.

Before 2035. And hold on. The automation of vehicles itself i- is gonna increase capacity on the roadways.

Yeah.

Right?

I've seen prototypes of, uh, transportation systems that are designed for completely driverless cars, not just a handful of autopilot cars, but, like, the entire system is designed for no one driving. Um, it's not like they're not just put onto the roads that we have now. It's like it would be a whole new system, and theoretically, it would function extremely well, but the investment that it would take-

One of the most-

... would be so astronomical, it would never happen.

Well, I don't know about that. One of the most fascinating things in, in metropolitan areas is the automation of, of trucking and truck convoying. That... I think that's closer than you think it is. I, I think you're gonna see lines of, like, 40 trucks in a row-

As long as you're not in the left lane

... that con- that convoy at specific times of day, and they're communicating with each other.

They need their, they need their own lanes.

Well, that was Rick Perry's thought. Everybody told him he was crazy, right? I don't know if anybody remembers that.

Yeah.

But what did he call that? What was that called?

Uh, I knew you were gonna ask before.

He was gonna build, he was gonna build, like, truck lanes-

It was the Trans-Texas, the Trans-Texas Corridor.

Trans-Texas Corridor. He was gonna build truck lanes and rail in the middle of all the, uh, major highways in Texas, right?

Or at least do 35.

Yeah, and it failed epically, so it became, like, a big political issue in Texas. Everybody was against it.

Mm-hmm.

So.

Okay. So my other issue related to transportation or idea, and this, uh, is not even that wild anymore. When I first had it a long time ago, and I'm not even saying that any of these ideas are, like, totally novel and, like, you know, are, are particularly special, but, um, one of the problems with the gas tax is that it's allocated through political processes, basically.

Yep.

And it would be nice if it would actually be allocated based on where people are driving. And so the fact that we have GPS on every car means that you theoretically could collect all of that data and allocate it to each jurisdiction where people are driving.

Can, can we go back to item number one, privacy?

Privacy.

Item num- item number one. You want the government to track where you're going?

No, of course, I don't. Look, we have, we have-

That's why my iPhone's encrypted.

Okay. So this is actually something that I wanted to talk to you about a long time ago, and we never, we never did, which is as technology grows and becomes more and more, um, capable-

Mm-hmm

... we will be able to do things that we have never been able to do before. We will be able to be more efficient about things in ways that we have never been able to do before. And so there, there have to be guardrails. Like, there have to be limiting principles that keep you from doing things that you shouldn't do even though you can do them, and this is obviously one of those areas where I think that is the case. Just because we could allocate our gas taxes totally efficiently, uh, based on exactly where people are driving doesn't mean that we should, because what you'd have to give up in order to do that would be, to me at least, a bridge too far. But that's not the point of the conversation here, which is just to throw out crazy ideas and see how they're reacted to.

All right. What's the R&B song that goes, um, "One, I wanna mm, mm, mm"

It's called Back to One.

Is it Back to One? Okay.

Yeah.

I feel like this is our-

I think it's, is it Brian McKnight?

It's Brian McKnight. I feel like this is the conversation we're having right now.

Were you d- is that what you were doing, is looking that up on your phone?

I was trying to find it, but I couldn't Google it.

All you had to do is ask me.

Okay.

Who is it? Who is it? Who is it?

I thought it was Brian McKnight.

Brian McKnight, Back to One.

Brian McKnight, Back to One.

It's like a steel trap up here.

Can you sing, can you sing all of them, all the way through?

I can't sing. No, I don't sing.

Okay. But that's, that's really cool.

Believe me, you don't want, you don't want that.

I'm, I'm just saying, like, this whole conversation is, it's, like, Back to One.

We're gonna start back at one.

We're gonna start back at one. Yeah. So.

You don't have anything that's like-

I don't know

... just some wild idea that you think, "Wow, that would be interesting"-

You know, I'm thoughtful

... that you just, like, you save for cocktail parties to just throw out at people and-

I-

... then totally disavow them?

I'm thoughtful and really think through things before I speak.

I don't.

Yeah.

I get, like, I get that first 80%, and then I'm done.

So somehow, folks, we developed a software platform that gets purchased by people.

Somehow.

Somehow. Yeah

Well, Patrick, I think this is, this was a pretty freewheeling discussion

It was a pretty fun show. I liked it. It, it was good right before, uh, your wife has y'all's fourth child. Um, and I look forward-

Oh, God

... to the podcasting. Are you scared?

I mean, how much more difficult can it be going from three to four?

I mean, it got you a dad van. Can we talk about that?

The ratio... No.

Can we talk about the dad van, please?

You go from zero to one, that's like an infinite jump, right?

Right.

One to two is 100% increase, two to three is 50%. Right now I'm only at a 33% increase. Like, the more that you add, I think the less impact that it probably has. That's, um, I'm gonna stick to that.

But we'll-

Stick to that reasoning.

Is that a percentage of level of crazy? Is that what we're calculating here?

Uh, just between, with four kids and five dogs, my house is gonna be... It's gonna be loud.

Okay. And the commuter van that you now have as your family vehicle, can we get a picture of that in the show notes?

No, but... So we talked about this when we spoke at, uh, was it the UMAT, UMACT thing?

Yes, I believe so. Yeah.

Yeah. About how the study that said that, uh, there's a possible link between car seat laws and, and family size-

Mm-hmm

... because the requirement for car seats means that you have to have cars big enough to handle all the car seats.

And you have to have la-

And-

You have to have latches and all the other type of stuff you have to have

... yeah. And, and I mean, most, like the average car can't really support three full car seats, so-

Mm

... you end up going, when you go from two to three kids, you end up going from a sedan or something like that or a, a crossover to, like, a full-on Expedition or something like that. And so, uh, I finally f- fall into that category myself now, 'cause my, my F-150 cannot hold four car seats. So we had to get something else that we'd have two cars that could actually take all of the children, and the most cost-effective option, and it pains me so much to say it, was a van. So, um-

It's a cool van, though. It's like a Mercedes Sprinter, right? Isn't that what it's called?

It's basically the van that all of the, like, the drug traffickers and the criminals use in any movie that's set in Europe.

Any, any Liam Nielsen move, movie.

Liam Neeson, yeah. So like-

Neeson, yeah

... if s- if someone's gonna get taken, they're gonna get thrown into this van.

That's correct. Yeah.

So, you know, it was a compromise.

We'll have to make a video for future, a future podcast for people to see.

Let's throw you into the van.

Throw me in the van.

You've been taken.

You've been taken. So all right, folks, well, that's all we've got until after the kid comes. Uh, and we'll have a podcast probably a couple weeks after that. If you need anything, uh, feel free to reach out to me, and be happy to help. And Chad, good luck, man.

Thanks, buddy.

All right.

We'll see ya.

All right.