Rep. Tackey Chan - February 5, 2026

[00:00:00] Speaker A: We're checking back in with state representative Tacky Chan of Quincy for our first Tacky talk of February. Tacky, how are you? [00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, happy February on this. Actually fairly warm for us these days on today's the 5th of February, Thursday. So yeah. Welcome to like balmy weather at 26 degrees according to the computer at the bottom of the screen here. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Anything out of the teens is like spring. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Well, my friends, my family who come from warmer climates don't believe this thing called weatherization, which is actually true. I mean, we actually adapt. People will adapt to weather despite it, no matter what. It's going to be cold. But we do adapt. We start to adjust somewhat and unfortunately some of us, including myself, pick up an extra few pounds during winter months. But we do adapt. And it's amazing when we have consistently single digits a weather and then it hits like 35, you feel like it's 70. [00:00:56] Speaker A: It's true. Well, I mean, there are people that live in much harsher climates than we do and you know, do do quite well. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Well, again, it's really. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure people listening, well, it's cold no matter what. I'm like, yeah, it's cold no matter what. [00:01:09] Speaker A: It's definitely cold, no question. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Yeah. It's still a relative issue of how your body's adjusted. And I remember in college there was a kid, no joke, his name was Michael Jackson. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah, from Minnesota. And he lived way up on, on Minnesota. And you know, it got to about 20 degrees here and they're still walking around in shorts. [00:01:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Because, yeah, northern Minnesota, forget it, you're. You're in the zeros all the time. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah. He was like, this ain't code for him. I mean, he used to having winters where it's consistently, you know, four feet of snow everywhere. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Right. [00:01:42] Speaker B: This is back in there in the early 90s and we were talking about it. It's like, it's, it's, this ain't that bad. I mean, I'm, he's used to like even worse. He's like walking around a pair of shorts like this is everything. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Everything is relative. [00:01:56] Speaker B: Exactly. We're like abundantly up. So yeah, I know it's cold. It's just funny how we perceive cold based on how cold it really is and how our body adjusted the cold. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Hey, did you get to Chili Fest? [00:02:09] Speaker B: I did. It was a lovely and super warm basement at Congress. No church. I didn't stay for the whole thing. Went down, said, hi, food neighbors. Saw some folks, as you are aware, at this point, I have dietary challenges, so I did not get to taste anything. Smelled wonderful. Baked sale raffle, you know, good to see a lot of folks there in the community and yeah, it was a great time. And as we kind of continue in the year to be obviously more events. For example, there is a Ukrainian New Year's party at Greater Links on Saturday. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know about that. Okay. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't know about that either. So I'm. My stain is John Keenan's gonna go down and you know, I'm gonna go down too and say hello and see what's happening. [00:02:55] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. And of course, Lunar New Year is coming up too. This year, this month. [00:02:58] Speaker B: Yep. Year the horse starts on February 17th at sundown. So that is the start of Lunar New Year. The, the new year celebration will be on the 22nd, 11am to 3pm and North Quincy High School from Queen Jason Resources and other volunteers and you know, thanks to North Quincy High School as always and people and staff and students and supporting us on that event. And it's about a two week. It's about two weeks. Even though it's. The holiday itself is really a two day holiday. It's the sun down to sun up because a lunar calendar, I mean it's considered a holiday week in, in China we have basically have two weeks off. So if you watched any of the foreign news, you can watch the same traffic jams that could be going on in China shortly as people was running around the country to get back to their families for their, for the New year break. [00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's the 38th annual, I think in Quincy this year. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's a festival going on for a long time. They started as really small events, both August Moon and New Year's festival. And it's ballooned into, you know, representation of the entire Quincy community and you know, enjoyed by at this point, multi generational families who went to the first few ones 30 years ago. And you have kids now. I mean you, you're definitely the multi generational component, so. [00:04:23] Speaker A: Oh sure, yeah. And multicultural too. It's, it's, it's everybody. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very much a. Representing a lot of the Pan Asian community as best I can, but it's, you know, it's, it's also a winter event and like the summer event where August has very low probability of bad weather despite just humidity and heat, you know, low probability of rainfall. You know, I've done a few of these things where the show was on despite the snow and people could show up. And North Quincy High School is very walkable for the surrounding community. So if people can't drive in because they can't make it that day, people still come by by walking over. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Oh sure, yeah. And if public transportation is running, the T is right across the street too. So that's good. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I've been there. Like I said, I've been there like you know post bad storm days and sure. You know the room is still full. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Yep. And it's still free after all these years. [00:05:11] Speaker B: It is. It's largely supported by many of the sponsors and people who run tables in the auditorium. So you know, always encourage people to just, you know, at least stop by and say hi to folks that are basically supporting paying for event for you to enjoy. [00:05:25] Speaker A: I think actually I think Quincy Asian Resources is in its 25th year this year if I'm not mistaken, it was. [00:05:32] Speaker B: Incorporated in November 2021. Was. It was the corporate incorporation month. [00:05:37] Speaker A: 2001. Not 21. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Right, sorry. 2001. 2001. [00:05:42] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:43] Speaker B: So yeah, for incorporation purposes this coming November, the 25th year of incorporation. [00:05:48] Speaker A: Yeah. It has grown immensely since then. It's. It's gone multi state now. [00:05:53] Speaker B: It's also unusual organization to survive two recessions. I mean you may remember in 2001 was right before the dot com bust in 2003 and there wasn't any money with this organization. I mean it was running on a like two small grants for three years and then they had to get past the 09 recession. Those of you that have worked in a not for profit community in those time periods, a lot of not for profits were killed off during, during that decade because of lack of money, period. I mean people were losing money, not just the stock market but in own pockets, people getting laid off. People had to take salary reductions. Corporate and business earnings were these small business or big businesses where margins were shrinking. Foundations took a monster hit on their portfolio so they couldn't earn as much money. And places like United Way actually encouraged strongly to have not for profits merge to try to salvage services locally. And some chose not to. They died off. So. [00:06:56] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:56] Speaker B: You can tell the strengthen economy locally in a very odd way. But the growth of how many not for profit agencies there are because there's just enough donations to go around when the economy turns sour in case of great recession which is by far, you know, super insane sour. You know, not smaller organizations that are heavily donation dependent will not survive. And we've been very fortunate for the last few years especially you know, going into Covid and we had the COVID insanity in terms of economy. And then out of COVID despite having hyperinflation and your dollar being stretched hard, the reality is unemployment spend still under 5%. The GDP growth despite a couple of like I think two quarters that were negative is still positive. And wages are slowly but steadily equalizing against inflation. I think it's a little too late because inflation sends so much damage to your wages. But it's, it's creeping together. But at the same time though they were with a no higher no fire it looks like right now. [00:07:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:58] Speaker B: And the economy is definitely becoming K shaped the people of highest means. And it's not just people, you know, quarter million dollars we're talking really rich people are able to, you know, spend money and most of us are trying to, you know, maintain some survival mode and hoard money for one, you know, big expense like a vacation if we can do it. And of course that's relative to each individual. So what, you know, what I say, you know, that's why it's very vague statement because it's. Every individual has a different concept of what works for them regarding of course which expenditures are. So it is very vague on purpose because it's an individual decisions. But yeah, I mean, you know, I fully expect at some point we'll have a natural recession at some stage in life where it's an average 12 to 15 years. Ish. There's a bump in the economy and we go through a recessionary period because of COVID and all the federal money that was thrown at all of us for three years. You know, it slowed down the potential recession. And of course, you know, people forget, you know, well past a million people lost their lives to Covid a portion of that population was working age. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. And that impacts revenue. Right. [00:09:09] Speaker B: Tax revenues in the long run. It affects our birth rate in the long run. It also affects our employee employee availability. And the federal government's complete inability to address the immigration issue because they're all stupid because they don't actually live in the real world where you. I don't know, people have people that need people, they need jobs, you know, is a reflection of the fact that they. That it's going to continue to be much, much harder on the United States in the next 20 years because of declining birth rate, lack of people to work and automation can only get you so far. So it's going to be, it's going to be interesting time which I hope to be retired from politics by the time it's that stage I was going. [00:09:55] Speaker A: To ask you about, you know, there's the artificial intelligence factor that really hasn't been talked about in terms of supplementing the workforce. [00:10:04] Speaker B: It's really, this is really a nascent issue because the artificial intelligence was getting a lot of hype. I think people still treat it more as a toy than a tool in some ways. And people are using as a tool is, is very narrow, specific circumstances. And even then it's specialized tools. And it, it's, it's not as easy as sounds because it's still a garbage and garbage out problem. So whatever you feed it, it's going to spit it out. If it's bad stuff going in, then it's bad stuff coming out. And the problem is that it doesn't have to really tell you if it's bad stuff because it has no judgment call ability. [00:10:35] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, it's, it's, you know, we were taught in journalism school a long time ago, trust but verify. [00:10:42] Speaker B: And again, the large language models in certain areas, you know, cannot verify because it's simply garbage and garbage out. It isn't, as you point out, like journalism school. Right. You get a bunch of information, then you go talk to people. Right. Go find, you know, find a trail. And not everything can be found on the Internet. For example, you. [00:10:59] Speaker A: Correct. [00:10:59] Speaker B: You would visit the location, for example, let's say it's a story happened on some street corner of a tragedy and a reporter like yourself would go to that street corner, look at the street corner, look around the area, you know. [00:11:11] Speaker A: Talk to people in the area. Yeah, absolutely. It's called, we call it a ground, it's called ground truth. That's, that's the, the term. [00:11:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And the reality is that an AI is not going to go question. It'll get a Google Sally picture from four years ago or whatever. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah. This is the cautionary tale I have with folks, is that people need to still utilize their cognitive thinking or critical thinking beyond AI. And again, it's garbage and garbage out. So if it doesn't exist in the ether of the information it's collecting from it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just not been in that medium. My favorite one is still law cases. People are using the Internet for law right now. And yeah, there's a lot of legal cases out there through many libraries. But Westlaw, whether we like it or not, is a paid service which has everything digitized in the United states in all 50 states, jurisdictions and counties, much more than anywhere on the Internet. It is a paid service which is obviously, you know, target lawyers in law schools. [00:12:10] Speaker A: Sure. [00:12:10] Speaker B: But the thing about that is that they're developing their own internal AI to scrub their own internal databases using the things we learned in law school of how to do legal research. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Yes. [00:12:22] Speaker B: And as they perfect that AI within their ecosystem of information, which is not publicly accessible on the wider Internet in its full form, you know, they're going to charge law firms, law schools, et cetera, to be able to utilize their AI using. Using law school taught formats of how to do legal research. [00:12:44] Speaker A: Yes. Because they have to. They have to pay people to keep that up to date. I mean, those laws are changing hourly across the country. [00:12:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that information is then digitized, collected by Westlaw and then brought up and digitized on there. So people don't realize there are things like superior court cases, but district court rarely has a case that's published. But it's hard to find superior court cases easily online. They are public records. But things like Westlaw, for example, also collect 150 years of, let's say you need to search 150 years worth of superior court cases in Massachusetts. And people may not remember that at one time the courts actually had different court rulings in different superior court jurisdictions, which result in somewhat conflicting results. So depending what time you're talking about, you need to know what you're looking at from a legal research standard. If you're trying to write a brief or do a case or writing a. Writing a paper for law school, there's these little nuances that language, large language models using today's Internet on the public information availability will not be able to do, which Westlaw over time, because AI is an evolutionary tool, over time, Westlaw will continue to evolve its AI to reflect how we are taught in law school and how to find things. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Yep, yep. It's like I say, it's a nascent. It's a nascent technology, so it has to start somewhere. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And the automation issue is real. It's going to really start with white collar jobs, especially those evolving software programming, because you're going to have the computer program itself. It's a very science fiction in some ways. But I actually was listening to a very interesting podcast the other day about software jobs because if you are looking around unemployment, layoffs, you're going to see a lot of software companies doing layoffs. And it's interesting conversation because automation is not new. Automation's been around since, you know, since assembly line. [00:14:37] Speaker A: Essentially the industrial age, right? Yeah, yeah. [00:14:40] Speaker B: It's just evolving Changing how we do automation. [00:14:42] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:42] Speaker B: As technology gets better. And it's interesting because one of the things the podcaster was talking about was the fact that software engineers are not unionized and it's not a, it's not a demographic that the general public has a lot of compassion for because they're high paid, high educated folks and they themselves don't see the valuation of banding together to protect their jobs. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:06] Speaker B: So, you know, obviously I'm, you know, I'm with union support, but I do understand that it's not for everybody, not for every profession. I think that's kind of the thing people understand. It's definitely for different. Different folks need what? Different needs in their employment. But software in particular, there are no such things like a SOFTW employees Union or Software Employees Association. [00:15:27] Speaker A: No. In many cases they're, they're highly competitive actually against each other and don't, you know, want to keep their secrets to. [00:15:33] Speaker B: Themselves and they become outdated very quickly. If you're not like a key component of a software industry, you become outdated and obsolete if you can't keep up your own education requirements. [00:15:46] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Keep up or you're part of a central innovation team. You may have noticed that Meta Facebook in particular has been poaching by giving grotesque salaries to specific software engineers that can help the norm of AI and then also terminating a lot of software engineers that cannot. [00:16:03] Speaker A: Yes, yes, they are definitely moving in that direction for sure. [00:16:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And this is kind of one of those stories that's not told because the media doesn't see a value of this conversation. Frankly, most people that are listening probably don't unless they have a specific interest in this industry or impacted by this industry in the software industry. So, you know, I don't think AI is going to take over a lot of the way called jobs or analyst jobs immediately. I think people to try to do that has given it up. I think something here at 90% of all businesses that try to incorporate and last year has stopped that experiment. It's just not ready in the world. Not to say it's not coming, but I do caution folks that it does take time for these things mature. And you know, does it hurt for you to get updated on what's going on abroad? Absolutely not. You should always be updated what's going on. So it is coming. But as I kind of described using the law as an example, it's not as cut as it seems. I got to argue with my friends in software industry about this too and you know, he's convinced that they can Write better laws than us on AI. I'm like, sure. But the problem is that this institutional knowledge, that is a big deal. And it's hard to explain to him what institutional knowledge is because the presumption is everything's readily available and it's not. [00:17:25] Speaker A: No, no, yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't. It didn't exist, so how can it know? [00:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I do this all the time in the legislature. People always talk about time immemorial. If you've been around long enough, working very specific policy areas, certain specific procedures in the state House, things have changed. It always changes. But you got to remember those changes. For example, the clerks of the House and Senate have been there decades. They know and document all the different changes in the rules. They know the different changes going around the building. So, you know, they have this knowledge of what was before and how we got to today. [00:18:00] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:01] Speaker B: AI cannot substitute for that. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Right. [00:18:03] Speaker B: You know, and AI cannot substitute for a tacky story, so to speak, of how certain policies became into existence. Because we don't. I don't write this down. It's like I have a journal biography from, you know, when I worked as a young intern staffer all the way to now publishing the Internet. This is the evolution of this law. [00:18:21] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. So there is some value still to the human experience. [00:18:28] Speaker B: I mean, I always use a good example of the AEDs, which we actually did pass a bill in the house on having AEDs available in sports stadiums and athletic facilities last week that's now in the Senate. But I mean, when I worked for Senator Morrissey, the automatic stone defibrillator, Good Samaritan law was one that we passed in this office twice. We had to do two separate versions. I was the one that worked on that for three years. There is no document Internet for that. And probably until you hear this now, you didn't realize you actually worked on that. And it's the reason why you see an AED on airplanes and TD bank and shopping plazas, because a good span loaded doesn't create liability if people use it correctly. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:19:08] Speaker B: And the thing prima's automated tells you what to do. So it's not. It's that difficult to figure out. So it only works if you're dead, by the way, because the defibrillation has to occur. So essentially dead. So. But I mean, many listening, you know, look at that device, don't even think about it twice, but don't realize how it got there unless you talk to me, because I was the one that wrote the laws. You know, I worked in Senator Morrissey's office to, To. To encourage businesses to have those devices. [00:19:34] Speaker A: Mm, Yep, yep. So that's a good example right there. And, and AI still has to be coded. I mean, there's, there'll be, there'll be coding opportunities going forward. [00:19:44] Speaker B: It's going to code itself. [00:19:45] Speaker A: You think? [00:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah. What. What's scared about AI for software engineers is that everybody wants the kids to use software. All this STEM stuff, which is great, but they're under some misconception. They're going to be a central part in the economy in 10 years. They will not be essential part of the economy. It's going to be all outsourced to AI. And that's one of the most intriguing things about AI because algorithms always been able to. To do their own calculations. Programming itself is not new, but it's going to do much more intricate programming where you don't need to know anything about software writing to. To do software. So you could show. Just say, hey, I want to do. Let's say you do want to do an animated series. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:26] Speaker B: And, you know, it's 10 years in the future and go, I want this animated. I want these things, I want these people, I want these descriptions. Just write the whole description out, feed it today. I will push something back out to you already. Program an animation, and you can decide if you like it or not. If you don't like it, you go back to the AI. Well, I want the sky slightly less blue. Can you bring it down? And you want to be super precise in art. You can say, I wanted this specific palette. [00:20:51] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:20:51] Speaker B: And the AI would then reprogram itself to the palette you want and bring it back to show you again. If you like it, then you're good. If you don't, you don't. So then, as we talked before, deep fakes is also not new, but also super intricate. So you could actually deep fake public figures into series rather seamlessly today, but really super seamlessly in the future. Welcome to the threat in the entertainment industry regarding AI and the art world too. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:21:19] Speaker B: In the art world and writers and screenwriters. This is what we talked about last year. So, yeah, kids should learn how to program. But I'm going to tell you all right now that it's not new, but it's much more advanced, that in a decade AI is going to write itself and anybody can be a programmer. It's no longer be a central. Any kind of essential skill. [00:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. Wow. Okay, stand by for the Future, it's here now. [00:21:46] Speaker B: Well, how many people need no software engineering to program in an AI? It can program itself because the AI can do it itself. So you just need a software engineer to help improve the AI itself. But at some point the AI is going to self improve. [00:21:59] Speaker A: Yikes. Okay, wow. So you're only, you're only limited by your own imagination at that point. [00:22:03] Speaker B: Well, and again, it also dumbs us down a bit, right? [00:22:06] Speaker A: That's true. [00:22:06] Speaker B: You know, we will get dumbed down on our own skill sets because you can just create a lesser group of folks of those skill sets. I mean, you know, as we learned during COVID it turns out a lot of people don't know how to cook, so. [00:22:18] Speaker A: But they tried. [00:22:19] Speaker B: They tried. You know, didn't realize how dependent people were in the restaurant industry until Covid made it very apparent. And not uniquely just Americans. I mean, Chinese had a big problem. Japan, Singapore, I mean England, I mean it was, it's universal in first world countries that cooking skills have largely degraded and some will revive because of COVID I never realized exactly how degraded globally in first world countries cooking skills were. [00:22:49] Speaker A: We're so dependent now we, we can just pick up the phone and order something or have it delivered to us now. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And I, look, I'm not that old, but I'm getting the attention that I am out. I am clearly a dinosaur in certain things because the idea of, you know, spending ten dollars in a service fee for delivery for a six dollar item seems very ludicrous. But it is a real thing that people do. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. [00:23:13] Speaker B: And I just, my mind's blown by that. I think I'm becoming a dinosaur in these kind of thoughts. But if I'm paying six bucks, but I'm paying ten dollars to get it to me, something's wrong with this picture, Right? [00:23:23] Speaker A: Exactly. What's been going on at the State House? Hey, did I read where the. There's, there was a, a delegation from Denmark at the State House this week? [00:23:34] Speaker B: Maybe no one invited me. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Oh, okay. I just, I found it interesting just given the whole controversy with Greenland recently. [00:23:46] Speaker B: The people. Well, I mean, Boston is still a major consulate city. There's about 45 plus consulates in the inside the greater Boston area. As you know, there's some of the smaller ones on the Canyon Crown Colony here in Quincy. So we're still a global hub. You know, we have FIFA coming this summertime. You know, put aside all the schools, historical things and the hospitals and all that stuff. I mean, it's still very Involved economy in technology and moving foods and services. I mean we're still seafood exporter with a big seaport and a hub for export import in the area. You know, all the major train lines for cargo come through Boston. So, you know, it's not unusual to have consulates or dignitaries from other countries visit. I mean, parliament in England annually sends a delegation of parliamentarians to Boston and other parts of the country just to get, for lack of better term, cultural exposure of other, other governments. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:49] Speaker B: You know how other governments operate. It's, it's a kind of information exchange. And you know, the English do that of their parliament annually in regardless of political party just because they feel it's a good idea to get them out to, to talk to other governments. This, this is kind of the thing that we really should do more of ourselves. [00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we're so, I mean, relatively young, right. 250 years old compared to Europe. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah. But we're actually one of the oldest running governments compared to Europe. [00:25:17] Speaker A: Oh, continuous, right. Yeah, yeah. [00:25:20] Speaker B: We, we have no, surprisingly no breaks in government operations in terms of a, of a country. You know, the British technically has the longest because of continuation, not just loyalty, but Parliament. [00:25:32] Speaker A: Right. [00:25:33] Speaker B: But the rest of Europe for the most part has had multiple forms of government with monarchies to military dictatorships to monarchies to democracies, back to monarchies. The French in particular have a crazy history. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Yes. [00:25:48] Speaker B: And then countries break apart, reform become neo something else means. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. [00:25:53] Speaker B: Before World War I, before World War II, then you got the Cold War, you got the post Cold War. A lot of those lines don't make sense in, in Europe they've all been around, so. So I mean that's something that we don't do a lot here that we should do more of. I mean, I remember one year a delegation from New Zealand came in. They were traveling the country again on government information exchange. I actually spoke to a group in that from Latin America. Five countries come in of a combination of government officials, elected officials and not for profits doing a government to government information exchange. And see our state governments is kind of unique because we're federalism and we're, we're own kind of independent entity with specific powers in the Constitution, which Commonwealth. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Right? [00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, we have the US constitute create specific powers for each of the categories of government, which is what elimism is. However, I mean given the current state of politics in D.C. i like my federalism. States should have in continuity should continue to have its own independence under current system. It's the Independence, the constitution dictates. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:27:02] Speaker B: So. So, yeah, so, I mean, this is something that, you know, we don't get, we. We should do, but we don't do in this country, is that you should be taking legislators and counselors and congressmen and their staff and, you know, go to other countries, to other governments and talk. Talk about how things are done there. These type of exchanges are important. And you know, before COVID there was more of them. After Covid, it's been tougher. And unfortunately, as you guys can imagine, what happens in D.C. actually impacts our ability to go visit places and also impacts other countries ability to visit us. [00:27:37] Speaker A: Right, yeah, yeah. Not only for legislators, but for regular people too. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it affects all of us. I mean, certain programs that allow elected officials to meet other elected officials in other countries, you know, has been so dampered. And those programs also run by the US State Department, and the US State Department's not about informational exchange anymore to create better quality government officials, at least. [00:28:04] Speaker A: Under the current administration. You know, it probably changed in the future. [00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we'll see. I mean, as we said earlier at the beginning about AI institutional knowledge, you know, every new president wants to either stamp in government, which I fully understand, but like my experience with a lot of governors passing through here in Massachusetts, the governor's folks have zero institutional knowledge of how they are got here today. They just assume the world started when they showed up. It's really interesting phenomena observed through multiple administrations now. And the one that actually had the least issues was Iing up was Paul Saluchi because he was a state senator, a state rep. Governor. Acting governor. Governor. Right. And he had actually. Well, we don't always agree with, you know, it was clear that he understood the institutional knowledge components going back. [00:28:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:57] Speaker B: Right into the 80s. So. [00:28:58] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah. Well, of course, Marili was attorney general for almost 10 years. [00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah. But not the same because of the fact that you were not actually, actually engaging the function of government, running the state government. [00:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah. It was the. Still the executive branch. So. [00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. And you have to engage the legislature and how you do that. So people like Paul Salucci, Michael Dakis, you know, actually could communicate with the legislature pretty well. Those who have no people from their own office that has experience of legislature, has a very difficult time dealing with us as a collective. [00:29:33] Speaker A: You're so difficult to deal with. [00:29:35] Speaker B: You, you legislators, you, Hey, 200 voices gets pretty complicated. [00:29:41] Speaker A: You hope you get that part. [00:29:42] Speaker B: You have to communicate essentially 200 of us because, you know, Any one of us could make your life crazy depending on what it is, so. That's right. You know, it just. People have this misconception that you just have to, like, talk to a Senate president and. And the speaker. There's some truth to that, but not entirely. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:58] Speaker B: You could get, you know, a series of representatives from one region, you know, get together and decide just to, you know, annoy the governor. You know, it can be. It can get very difficult. [00:30:07] Speaker A: It's called a caucus, right? [00:30:09] Speaker B: It's called a caucus. [00:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:10] Speaker B: Right. You know, you have different caucuses of various interests. So a little inside politics, folks. [00:30:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fun. [00:30:17] Speaker B: You know, people perceive that strictly from the top, there's some truth to that, but that's also not some truth to that as well, depending on the circumstances. [00:30:23] Speaker A: Well, and that's by design. It's designed to be messy and slow. Right. On purpose. [00:30:27] Speaker B: We call it deliberative. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Yeah, deliberative. Okay. [00:30:31] Speaker B: So who was I talking to about this? Oh, pennies. Let's talk about pennies for a moment. [00:30:36] Speaker A: I was just going to bring the penny situation up. Okay. Yeah. [00:30:39] Speaker B: So I was talking to Boston Globe about this. There's a Boston Globe story about pennies. I was in. And some talking about the penny impact, the ending of pennies. My response to the Globe was that this is what happened. We don't have a deliberative process. President Trump decided to end pennies by law because he has the power to do it. Because the law basically says you have to make pennies. Doesn't say how many pennies you have to make. It just have to make pennies. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:00] Speaker B: So his decision was making zero pennies, which is actually in compliance to the law. [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Because zero is a number. Yeah. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Zero is a number. Well, it depends. You want to talk to a mathematician, but. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Well, that's true. Yeah. [00:31:10] Speaker B: But yes, it is a number. So as a result, obviously, there's a penny shortage and about 20% of the population, give or take, is underbanked. A lot of people do not use electronic payment. People really have this misconception that everyone uses the Tron of payment. It's not true. And, you know, as a result, other countries have phased out pennies over the course of a decade with a plan of how to phase it out. So, for example, Canada's most, our closest neighbor, phase out the penny. It took them 10 years to phase it out. [00:31:39] Speaker A: No, I didn't know that. [00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah. It had an incremental process of a plan, a plan, a national plan of how it's going to Work. [00:31:45] Speaker A: Imagine that. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Imagine that. So here they just go cold turkey with no plan. And the states are fumbling around because we have a rounding problem. We don't have pennies. So Canada has a whole even, odd number system. Whatever number you're closest to is where you go to see if you're closer to 1 cent, you go down to the zero, you're closer to 4 cent, you go to the five. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Oh, all right. [00:32:07] Speaker B: And so forth. You can see the logic here. [00:32:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:09] Speaker B: And ultimately eliminates the constant of $1.99 because the math gets hard. And then if you're paying in cash, you know, this is. This is what's really addressing people paying cash. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:32:22] Speaker B: That you round out the right way. Now, when you have a incremental program over the decades, we have gradual phase out of depending because it's slowly moving them. You implement a new system of calculation for cash transactions. Eventually the businesses would change the price structures to zero and five. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah, right. So instead of $1.99, it'd be $2 for an item. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I still don't understand the 99 concept anymore. [00:32:47] Speaker A: But it's a psychological thing, I think. [00:32:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think it's worn out as welcome a long time ago. [00:32:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:53] Speaker B: But regardless. So that's what happens that, you know, countries get repented. It's a gradual process where businesses evolve to develop a 015 system and eliminate. And he's as part of their sales. And we actually have an. No discrimination. Actually, everyone has a no discrimination regarding payment on price. Payment on products. So if I Pay, you know, $1, you pay $1. Pay by credit card. The price of that payment is $1 and they're picked by cash to $1 offer. You know, as you can see out there, you know, some places trying to charge you fees for credit cards or, you know, offer discounts. Gas stations have a special law that allows them to charge more for credit. Credit cards. [00:33:32] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:33] Speaker B: Versus versus cash. Again, credit cards make. I'm sorry, Gas stations make money on a total gallon sale, not a percentage of sales. [00:33:43] Speaker A: Yep. [00:33:43] Speaker B: Exploit gallons, whatever, you know, pennies to get out of it. That's what they get. So, you know, that's how that kind of works. But the issue here is that since administration didn't address the issue, the Treasury Department has issued no guidance. The Congress has a bill that not moved. States are now left to their own devices to try to figure out how to do this in a uniform manner. And it seems like states around the country are trying to move closer to Canada. And why is this important to you? Well, for example, SNAP is a problem now because you can't overcharge undercharged snap. The federal government is very strict about that. So it affects grocery stores. About the penny calculations. On snap, you. You will not know you've been cheated or not because the storefront does inconsistency in storefronts regarding how they handle cash transactions. So one may say, you know, we're going to round you up. One may say, you're going to run you down. There's no concern that matter. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:39] Speaker B: And then the inconsistency on the matter also creates inconsistency for electronic transactions because you want the consistency to show that everyone's getting treated equally and what they're paying for. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Yes, I see. Yeah. So it's really. Yeah, it's the wild, wild west when it comes to it right now because it's either the individual retailer or the state trying to come up with a policy, but there's nothing uniform. [00:35:00] Speaker B: That's absolutely correct. And this is kind of the problem we're running across on this penny issue, which affects not all of us. Exactly. But definitely affects over 20% of the population, give or take, that are underbanked. [00:35:15] Speaker A: And then what happens if a new administration comes in and starts making pennies again? [00:35:20] Speaker B: Well, that, that is the challenge of democracies. Right. When we allow things and want things to change, because change is supposed to create innovation, new ideas, but also, you know, take a step back and look what happened and see if we need to address issues that were done before. [00:35:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:35] Speaker B: Hopefully, in a good public policy, the interest of the public in mind when you're doing that. And you're right, you know, in, you know, three years, this, this may become. I won't even. I won't see my mood. It could be another type of chaos because once you try, everybody switched over. [00:35:51] Speaker A: To the new policy and then you have to switch back. [00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah. You have to unwind. [00:35:55] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:35:56] Speaker B: It's like we decided to go all metric one day. [00:35:58] Speaker A: That's right. Oh, that was a. That was a disaster. I remember that. [00:36:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm a little young for that one. But, you know, the attempt for this country to go from inches to centimeters, you know, wasn't phased in properly. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Oh, it didn't go. It didn't go well. It didn't last very long either. [00:36:13] Speaker B: It did not. Other countries actually have been able to go from the British metric system. British. British metric. To the universal metric. [00:36:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:22] Speaker B: And they did it over the course of. Phased over the years. [00:36:24] Speaker A: Yes. [00:36:25] Speaker B: The United States did not do a good way of phasing it in. [00:36:29] Speaker A: No. [00:36:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's why we have not joined every, pretty much everybody else on centimeters and kilometers and Celsius because the US government could figure out how to do it properly. [00:36:40] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. That's why you get so frustrated sometimes using tools because so many things are made in metrics and we don't have the proper wrench to fix it. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Well, I mean wrench sets comes in millimeters and inches. That's right. You know, I have old centimeter wrenches downstairs from my father's, you know, 40 years old. [00:36:59] Speaker A: Yep. [00:37:00] Speaker B: There's a set of inches wrenches next to that and you know which one you were using and remember. Well, now we're just not date ourselves. But I mean foreign cars, European cars in particular had higher maintenance costs because they had to get all different tools. [00:37:15] Speaker A: That's correct, yes. [00:37:17] Speaker B: You know, at one time foreign cars were all only metric and there was no universal tools. So your mechanic had the said European cars had all, you know, European metrics systems in their garages that other person want to pay for because, you know, 50 years ago buying extra tools they weren't going to use was basically using money. [00:37:36] Speaker A: Right. And it was the same for foreign company, foreign countries buying American cars. They, they didn't, they didn't have the standard tools. Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:37:44] Speaker B: And that's kind of the, the reality of it. Right. Why would I buy a bunch of tools I'll never use? Right, right. So, you know, and you actually brought a good point about, you know, tariffs and cars. Right. I mean not every country wants a U.S. vehicle and some one of the reasons is likely to be because of maintenance if that reach a critical mass locally where the cars can get service. So why would you try to sell a car that can't get serviced? [00:38:08] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, it's, you can't just do things unilaterally. It has, it has global impact. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Oh, we're feeling that right now, D.C. so I'm just saying unilateral decision making has created exhaustion I think. Was it. The people have been talking to me already in January after being exhausted with news cycles last cycle. We started the news of a lot of news cycles in January. And you know, we're in the business of trying to keep updated the best we can, but there's too much to keep up with now. It's exhausting. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, exactly. Hey. Well, all we can do is talk about it every week here. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Oh, hey, hey. As you can tell People, I'm not shy with my opinions about certain things. But yeah, I mean, this is how it is. And next week we'll talk. What I say today may be totally irrelevant because people lose our past. [00:38:57] Speaker A: Things change. Yeah. Have you heard any rumblings this is an election year, folks. Seeking reelection or not seeking reelection in your colleagues? [00:39:07] Speaker B: Well, I mean, Representative Bill Galvin from Canton announced his retirement up to 36 years. [00:39:12] Speaker A: Wow. [00:39:14] Speaker B: So actually he came in the same class as Speaker Mariano and Tony Cabral from the Bedford also same classes as the Speaker. So that that group is moving on. Representative Markey, not Senator Markey. Representative Chris Markey from Dartmouth is going to run for district attorney. So that seat's now opened up. [00:39:31] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:39:32] Speaker B: One of my other classmates actually, Chris Markey is actually a classmate. He came in with me. Kim Ferguson, a Republican. She came with me. She's. I believe she's going to announce for non reelection soon if she hasn't done so already. We. One of my Asian caucus members v. Howard, Cambodian from Lowell, won the special state state senate seat Tuesday. [00:39:56] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Very good. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Very exciting. Should be the first Cambodian elected state senate be. Tend to be the third Asian and second Asian woman elected to the state senate here. [00:40:08] Speaker A: Wow. [00:40:09] Speaker B: And the first actually should be the second refugee too, to my knowledge elected state Senate. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Okay. All right. [00:40:19] Speaker B: So it's very exciting. She's, you know, leaving my caucus in the House and moving to the Senate. So that, that's another change open up, opens up another seat of law and then who else we got? I think there'll be more change on the way. Christine Barber from Somerville, is it Somerville? Medford? I think she's Somerville method combo. She's in that area. She's leaving a run for Pat Jalen state senate seat. Pat Jalen's retiring from the state senate. So there's, she's going to run over there. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot going on in movement still. It's still early on in the legislature and I expect some of my friends will be, you know, looking for either greener pastures or, you know, retirement. Natalie's already left. Natalie Blaze is from, I think East Hampton. She's from. She's in that, in that like Amherst area. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Okay. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Zone. So she already left. Take a job at UMass out there. Out there. So you know, that seat already opened up and we were not going to have a special election. There'll be a normal election. So yeah, there's a lot of change starting and it's still early. Plenty of time. You know. [00:41:32] Speaker A: Oh sure. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Secretary of State Bill Galvin announced re election yesterday, which may come the longest serving election officer appointed or elected in the country. [00:41:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's what, early 70s, I think he was first elected to office. Not that office, but. [00:41:47] Speaker B: No, no, he's 75 now. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Right. [00:41:50] Speaker B: He was elected. He was elected secretary. He was sworn in Secretary of state in 95. [00:41:54] Speaker A: Right. Wow. [00:41:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 20. 25 years ago. Yeah. [00:42:00] Speaker A: No, 35 years. [00:42:01] Speaker B: 35 years ago. Yeah. So secretary is still sworn in. He was election of 94. Sworn in 95. [00:42:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:08] Speaker B: So he's running for election. Our state governors announced. Lieutenant governors announced. Yeah, Treasure was announced. The otters announced. So all the custody officers running for election locally. You know, my good friend, and I always will say this, I don't care what other people think. You know, like Morrissey, you know, is topping off 50 years of politics, you know, retiring from the district attorney's office, which again, 50 years in office, I mean easy one of longest serving elected. And like Ren folks, he's done a lot for a lot of people over a lot of years in his professional personal capacity as a state rep, state senator and district attorney, being helpful to folks. So, you know, and also stewarded Democratic Party. People also forget that, you know, Michael Morrissey, standard bearer of the party, never wavered, never said stuff, never did things that made you kind of a fly by the Democrat. He's not that kind of guy. So, you know, we're going to miss Michael. We will. I just, I've been around, I've seen a lot of people I've missed over the years too. But people are going to realize how much he meant to, you know, meant as an elected official, still be in our community and you know how important it is. And the Democratic party is going to miss him as well. Not just in Quincy, but statewide. As you know, you need people to fill those voids of leadership. And then as far as I know, you know, John Keon, myself, Bruce and Ron are all run free election till one of them tell me otherwise. And we're just kind of waiting out to see how locally the election cycle goes. I think next door to us, Bill Driscoll, the senator from Milton, has drawn a Democratic primary, I believe. And just kind of waiting, you know, there's plenty of time on the clock. We got see what people are thinking about running for election. [00:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a busy year. Of course, a slew of ballot questions as well that are in the works. So. So 12 right now. [00:44:09] Speaker B: Oh my God, 12 I mean the. [00:44:11] Speaker A: Ballot'S going to be 10 pages long. [00:44:14] Speaker B: I'm going to get so many complaints come November. I know it's coming because people are just going to be looking at this ballot. They're going to get angry at the legislator because they're like they think we did this to them. [00:44:26] Speaker A: Right. [00:44:26] Speaker B: We did not do this to you folks. Just letting you know now which you call me an email, be unhappy in about seven months. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Mark your words now. [00:44:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you're gonna be complaining to me in about 7, 8 months. Size of the ballot. [00:44:45] Speaker A: These are all special interest groups that are sponsoring these. Yeah, yeah. [00:44:49] Speaker B: We have a very fluid and easy accessible ballot question system again which may not be a good thing after this experience. We shall see. So. So yeah, we'll see what other things going. Obviously you guys know there's a senate race between Seth Moulton and Ed Markey. When we see what Congressman lynch, if you know he pick ups an opponent, there's always rumblings here and there but until someone actually like does it, it's just talk. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Right. [00:45:18] Speaker B: And of course, you know, locally, you know we have a new council and the mayor's has a state of city address coming up this Monday night. Yes, I will be attending. Unless there's a family problem here, you know I will be there barring a family situation. Yeah. [00:45:35] Speaker A: Monday, February 9, 7pm Auditorium at Quincy High School. Folks can watch it right here on QATV too. [00:45:41] Speaker B: Yep. And also remember, you can watch QATV council meetings. [00:45:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yes. You can watch them live. You can watch them on our website after the fact and they're archived going back a long time and I'm thankful. [00:45:55] Speaker B: For QE TV showing our own sessions as well as selecting certain public hearings as well. Obviously you know we can watch emerylegislature.gov which announce every time at the end. So you can watch our archive stuff at the state legislature and look up bills and orders and journals and anything else you want to find that we put out there public, including committee votes and things like that. So yeah, there's a QATV continues to be a great resource on local information as well as state information. And of course, you know I enjoy my time with Market State View as well, which exposes me outside of the immediate area which I'm not quite sure is good for everyone. [00:46:37] Speaker A: Makes you put a tie on too. [00:46:40] Speaker B: I'm half jesting, half joking. Although I do admit I do comb my hair better. Not for you. [00:46:47] Speaker A: Well, we're a little more casual here on. On Tacky talk. [00:46:51] Speaker B: Well we Actually did plug Tacky talk a MOG show. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Oh, did you? Thank you for that. [00:46:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's like you want to see them. A casual off script version Unplugged. [00:47:01] Speaker A: Tacky Unplugged. Yeah. [00:47:02] Speaker B: Go to Joe Carlotto show, not Mark Crosby show. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Well, seeing as we're here talking about it, let's give out all the contact information. [00:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Room 42 at the State House. We are staffed maybe an area free to come by. You know, obviously there's meetings all over the place some days and the office is running around around the building all day some days. So. But we generally would try to keep one person in there minimum despite everyone trying to run around the run around the state house and meetings. 617-7222-3706-1772-2237 is the office if the reception does not pick up is an automated system. It is. I, I've heard complaints about the system. I can't do anything about the system. You have to be patient moving through the system because it is not my office. The person who runs the office is first. So 617-722-2370 hit anybody in the office. We'll get your voicemail. Tacky ChanMailHouse UV T A C K E Y.ch A [email protected] is the email obviously talk about me legislature Gov a moment ago. Tacky chan Org is the is the resource page tackychan.org and State Reserve Tacky Chan Facebook which also has Instagram. We also do qatv with you every week or every two weeks the best we can to give you updates. And again, if you don't like something, email joeqatvatv.org Please send all your complaints to him. I don't want to hear about it, just send it to him. [00:48:37] Speaker A: I'll make sure you get a copy of it. [00:48:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you're on payroll now, Joe. We just didn't type. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Excellent. [00:48:44] Speaker B: You receive all my complaints. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Well, stay warm, Jackie. [00:48:50] Speaker B: Stay warm, be well. And seriously, it is going to get cold again, everyone. So, you know, keep it on your pipes. You know, take care of neighbors and you know, most importantly, you know, get, take care of yourself as you head into the fridge of water. [00:49:01] Speaker A: Absolutely. You know, one day, one day, one day it will be spring.