The Big Beautiful Bill and the Cost of Lowering Standards

Thursday, June 4, 2026

You’re listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for June 3, 2026.

We open with the numbers behind Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill that the media isn't telling you — 96% of taxpayers receiving a tax cut earned less than $200,000 a year, 70% earned less than $100,000, and households between $50,000 and $100,000 received an average reduction of over $815. We dig into what those numbers actually represent — 29 million filers claiming no tax on overtime, 7.5 million claiming no tax on tips, 35 million seniors claiming the enhanced senior deduction, 40 million families claiming the enhanced child tax credit, and 127 million taxpayers claiming the doubled standard deduction. We also explain why a tax code is more than a collection of rates — it's a statement about what a government chooses to encourage, and when you tax work and savings and punish overtime, you get less of all three.

In our Top 3 Things You Need to Know, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling allowing Alabama to proceed with its congressional maps — overruling lower courts that had blocked the state from using the old map even after the Supreme Court itself had reversed its earlier ruling requiring minority-majority districts. Then longtime CBS News anchor Scott Pelley was fired after publicly confronting the new 60 Minutes executive producer at a staff meeting, calling him unqualified and accusing CBS News leadership of trying to kill the show — and refusing to make peace afterward. We note that anyone who refuses to acknowledge there has been a bias problem at CBS News is not capable of being part of fixing it. And Samsung announced it is moving its U.S. corporate headquarters from New Jersey to Plano, Texas — following ExxonMobil, which announced its own departure from New Jersey the week before. New Jersey has the highest corporate income tax rate in the country. Texas has zero.

We also cover Colorado Governor Jared Polis signing a law requiring college and university health centers to stock and dispense abortion-inducing drugs — meaning one of the primary services a Colorado college campus must now provide is access to pills designed to end pregnancies. We ask what would happen if that same level of energy were directed toward helping pregnant students continue their education and carry their children to term.

Our American Mama Teri Netterville joins the conversation on the California elections — where at the time of broadcast, Steve Hilton leads Xavier Becerra in the governor's race and Spencer Pratt trails Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor's race with about half the votes counted. We discuss why NBC was already telling viewers that mail-in ballots would push Pratt to third place before counting was even finished, why Brazil counted 124 million ballots in two hours while California is projecting 37 days for 10 million, and why the SAVE Act matters more after watching California's election unfold in real time.

We also cover Democratic Congresswoman Camlager Dove shouting at Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a congressional hearing and then walking out before he could answer — and Rubio's perfectly measured response, which sounded remarkably like a man watching his wife leave the room mid-argument. We make the point that committee hearings have stopped being about answers and started being entirely about social media soundbites.

In our Digging Deep segment, 1,100 STEM professors in California have written a letter begging the state to restore standardized testing after the University of California system dropped ACT and SAT requirements during the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020. The results are in — the number of college students whose math skills fall below high school level has increased nearly 30-fold, with 70% of those students performing below middle school level. Professors are being forced to reteach middle school algebra while simultaneously teaching college-level engineering and sciences. We explain why eliminating standards doesn't help minority students — it abandons them, and then blames the test for their unpreparedness rather than the system that failed to prepare them.

We also cover a Breitbart roundtable discussion on America's greatest strategic advantage in the AI race against China — and the surprising conclusion that it isn't technology, military power, or economic strength. It's the human soul. Communism, by suppressing religion, individuality, and free will, has weakened the very thing that separates humans from machines. The founders protected that, and it still matters.

For our Bright Spot, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen testified that the border wall is on track for completion from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of America by this time next year — with all contracts out by end of month, a secondary wall being added in high-traffic areas, and a smart wall system that deploys drones the moment sensors detect a breach. We call it exactly what it is — a promise made, a promise being kept.

We also note that Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is now saying that 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump are ignorant and uninformed. We respond briefly and move on.

And we close with Leah Wilson, who heard crows cawing around a rain gutter, called the fire department, rescued an injured crow, and held its claw on the drive to the wildlife center. The crow recovered, was banded, and released. A couple of days later, while walking her dog, a crow dove down and dropped a bundle of feathers at her feet. Now they bring her gifts every day. May your pursuit of happiness bring you joy.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts, visit AmericanGroundRadio.com, and join the conversation at 866-AGR-1776!

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