What does that look like in practice within your state of Tennessee? And what's your model for building those relationships across these areas?

Let me a little further define the issue.

As the size and scope of government has increased in this effort of supporting our most vulnerable.

It has had one of the unintentional consequences of squeezing out other parts, other sectors of our community from being part of the problem solving.

With this notion of an arrogant government that believes it's the principal problem solver.

Part of our vision is government needs to check its weapons at the door and ask for help from the rest of the community.

Say we have this very big problem that we've got in Tennessee two million of our neighbors that need our collective help.

Can you tell us more about this effort?

What does that look like in practice within your state of Tennessee? And what's your model for building those relationships across these areas?

Let me, let me a little further define the issue.

Okay.

As the size and scope of government is, has increased in this effort of supporting our most vulnerable.

It has had one of the unintentional consequences of squeezing out other parts, other sectors of our community from being part of the problem solving.

With this notion of an arrogant government that believes it's the principal problem solver.

Part of our vision is government needs to check its weapons at the door and ask for help from the rest of the community.

Can you tell us more about this effort?

How do we fix those barriers? So,

Joe, a couple of different threads here.

One thread is that I believe that we have, over the course of time, become a very instant gratification society, a belief that it has to happen for us right this minute.

Well, Joe, you know, in your own life, you had to put building blocks in place to ultimately get to where you have gotten to in your life.

You didn't wake up one morning and have this successful podcast.

You built it a little bit at a time, okay? And we have gotten away from that in our society to believe that, one, it's supposed to happen today.

The second thread, okay, is that we also have gotten to be a society which is comfortable living beyond our means, okay? And we have to get to a place where not that we don't aspire, but that we do understand that, you know, before we have that complete version of the American dream that we want.

I know kind of alluded to that a little

What does that look like in practice within your state of Tennessee, and what's your model for building those relationships across these areas?

Le-let me, let me a little further d-define the issue, okay? As the size and scope of government has increased in this effort of supporting our most vulnerable, it has had the, one of the unintentional consequences of squeezing out other parts, other sectors of our community from being part of the problem-solving, with this notion of an arrogant government that believes it's the principal problem-solver.

Part of our vision is government needs to check its weapons at the door and ask for help from the rest of the community.

Say we have this very big problem that we've got in Tennessee two million of our neighbors that need our collective help.

So let us construct an approach that meets those neighbors where they are and addresses the challenges that has them in a place where they need that help.

Michael, I think it was President Reagan that said that, um, "The nine most dangerous words in the English lexicon are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" And so part of my argument here is w-we wanna turn that around, and we wanna say, "We are from the government, and we are here asking for your help.

Asking for your help to build a Tennessee where everybody has the opportunity to grow and thrive." What we did early on is we reached out to, um...

Can you tell us more about this effort?

Uh, so for the, for the audience here, can you kinda give a, a, you know, 30-second overview or whatever of what is wrong with the system currently?

Sure.

So let me, let me begin with a slight explanation, okay? That when, when, when I use the term public safety net, I'm referring to the system of federally authorized programs that were each designed with the intention of addressing some dimension of human vulnerability.And so there are currently 114 of those programs that were all developed singularly to, to address a single aspect of the human condition.

They evolved over time.

And, um, and because there was no overarching intention in the build of the system, it is literally just an aggregation of single-purpose programs with no true north.

And so therein lies the problem, that we begin with no shared vision.

And I make the argument in the book that we have to begin with a shared vision, and that I propose that that shared vision ought to be in concert with the principles of the Founding Fathers.

But we don't seem to have that right here in America as we're looking at, at what's being spent on, uh, you know, our citizens for, for these safety nets.

What does that look like in practice within your state of Tennessee? And what's your model for building those relationships across these areas?

Let me, let me a little further define the issue.

Okay.

As the size and scope of government is, has increased in this effort of supporting our most vulnerable.

It has had one of the unintentional consequences of squeezing out other parts, other sectors of our community from being part of the problem solving.

With this notion of an arrogant government that believes it's the principal problem solver.

Part of our vision is government needs to check its weapons at the door and ask for help from the rest of the community.

Can you tell us more about this effort?