Bringing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour back to The Beaumont in Catonsville in the recent aftermath of the damage to the stock market and your 401K retirement accounts, it was imperative we get former Baltimore County Councilman and notorious financial centrist Tom Quirk back to do the math on tariffs, federal cuts and the damage being done to local government and business by the lunacy of it all.
Former Councilman Tom Quirk discussed the economic impact of tariffs, highlighting the Trump administration’s Liberation Day announcement, which led to a $6 trillion loss in stock market wealth. Quirk explained that tariffs, such as those on China, hinder U.S. competitiveness and innovation. He criticized the IT tax in Maryland, which discourages tech companies, and advocated for increasing taxes on the top 6% of earners to fund government programs. Quirk also emphasized the need for pro-business leadership and efficient government spending to avoid economic harm. The conversation also touched on the broader implications of tariffs on global trade and the importance of free trade for economic growth.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
tariffs, federal cuts, government damage, trade deficits, protectionism, economic impact, Wall Street, Trump administration, Liberation Day, IT tax, Maryland budget, Blueprint for Schools, higher income earners, pro-business policies, gerrymandering
SPEAKERS
8
Tom Quirk, Chef Maurice, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, M, S, T, am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. These are, I like the fresh chickens. This is Back to the Future. This is the new promotion scratch off the Maryland lottery. I’ll be giving these away here at Beaumont in Catonsville, where life is great. The 21228, and we’re also going to be next week, on Wednesday at Coopers north in Timonium, Mays chapel. Then on the 30th at Cocos. Can’t wait to get back there. We’re doing crab melts that day. So I’m really excited about that. Jamie Costello is coming out for that one. Then on the seventh of May, we will be at red brick station in White Marsh, having blueberry ales. I’m having ice water. I’m having a crab cake because it is the Maryland crab cake tour. Former Councilman Tom quirk is here well as former sounding, are you always a councilman, or is it forever? Is a lifetime, because I call you Councilman because molar makes me but other than that, you
Tom Quirk 00:51
know former Councilman retired happily.
Nestor Aparicio 00:54
What are you retired from, managing money? Or do you retired from retire? No,
8Tom Quirk 00:58
I’m just retired from the county council. But I run a pretty big company. We manage about half a billion in client assets, clients in 31 states. So
Nestor Aparicio 01:06
you’ve had a rough couple weeks, bro, when I reached to you on Facebook and said, Hey, I’m in Catonsville. You want to come by on Friday? And then I went through your timeline to see you know your causes all in one place. And I’m thinking, you know my money guy, Leonard Raskin with me, people every this has been a lot of explaining to do for a centrist, reformed politician like yourself, that you pissed off Republicans, you pissed off Democrats. Because I tried explaining my wife, I’m like, he’s like, one of these really weird Democrats that sort of would caucus with Republicans on fiscal issues, but certainly is not down with what’s going on with you know, a man I affectionately call Shitler in DC. I but how this is affecting your business, our lives, the finances, deficits, let alone with Wes Moore’s going through with taxes, including the my industry. This is a taxing time on anybody that understands money, let alone yabos like me, that come to people like you to try to clarify what it means when the felon King decides he’s going to put terrorists ridiculous tariffs on every country in the world that we’ve gone to war with not the ones we’ve gone against. So I’ll give you the floor
Tom Quirk 02:22
tom, that’s right, that’s right. It is a challenging time, and Liberation Day was anything but Liberation Day. It surprised Wall Street tremendously. Candidly, there were a lot of Wall Street people thinking that the day, Liberation Day happened, that the actual announced tariffs were gonna be less than what people feared. And the exact opposite happened. The formula that the Trump administration put together didn’t make any sense to anybody that had any idea about money. And when it comes to, for example, how the formula was put together, they factored in different things, like value added tax, but they factored in trade deficits, which makes zero sense in the world, because you and I, we have a deficit, a trade deficit, when we go get our hair cut, because when we do business with our Barber, for example, our Barber is never going to go back and cut our hair. We’re only always going to cut our hair at the barber, and so we run a trade deficit with the barber. We always will, unless he buys your widgets. That’s right, okay, if somehow they come back and buy something from us, but generally speaking, we’re going to consume a lot more stuff from other people, because United States, by far, is the biggest GDP country in the world.
Nestor Aparicio 03:34
8We’re going to use more of Hades goods than they’re going to
Tom Quirk 03:38
use. That’s pretty obvious, and so we also
Nestor Aparicio 03:41
educate me. I’m going to call you professor. Well,
Tom Quirk 03:45
we will never, ever have equal trade deficit with anybody, as long as we’re more prosperous than other countries, the only way another country could have an equal deficit versus us. A priority, for example, would be if their consumer base was as strong and as good as our prosperity base, then maybe we could have some equalization. But as long as this country’s number one GDP, number one consumer base, it’s impossible to not have trade deficits with other countries, and we don’t want to, matter of fact, if we have another country that kind of flips the script, that means they’ve overtaken us. Now. They’re the most prosperous, the most biggest consumption base, so we want to always stay ahead of our competition, and so measuring anything when you’re looking at tariffs, and measuring anything that has to do anything with deficits is completely nonsensical. It makes absolutely zero sense.
8Nestor Aparicio 04:31
All that being said, there’s no one like you around the president at this particular point, we’ve seen this act once for four years with injecting bleach and not understanding basic science in so many ways, educate me from the beginning on the tariff thing that when a sensible man like you that manages a half billion dollars in assets hears of the word tariff, why have I not heard about tariffs since like the Boston Tea Party or since the last. Last time the Republicans wrecked the economy 125
Tom Quirk 05:01
Well, that’s exactly why I haven’t heard because it takes a little over 100 years to forget how terrible tariffs are. So when Herbert Hoover really pushed for tariffs, it made the Great Depression much, much worse, by the way,
Nestor Aparicio 05:13
you just said two of the dirty you could have said Mother blanker In My Father’s house. My father was born in 1919 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Actually born in Elmira, but they were in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1929 my father was 10 years old and stood in soup lines and never forgot it. And I was born in 68 and came along in the 70s. And my father never voted for a Republican in his life because of Herbert Hoover. Oh, yeah, so you know, he, my father talked about Herbert Hoover chicken in every pot. It was a standard part of my life, in the same way talking about FDR and Kennedy in a reverential term in my household in Dundalk, my steel worker father and Bethlehem Steel. But the Herbert Hoover thing like that destroyed, it destroyed my father’s faith in Republicans his entire life because he starved to death as a kid when he was 10
Tom Quirk 06:04
8years Oh, there’s no doubt. I mean, tariffs are put on to try to protect the farmers during the early 1930s but what happened? It made the depression so much worse, because what happens when you put tariffs on anything? Think of it as protectionism. And what protectionism does from a free market standpoint over a long period of time, is it does two things really well. It makes us less competitive and makes us less innovative. And so our companies, literally with tariffs, become kind of fat and lazy after a while, because they got protectionism, they don’t have to worry as much. And then what you have to buy? My stuff, yeah. And then guess what? Competition like China, if we want China to beat us in the technology battles, all we have to do is put on lots of tariffs, because then their companies will start to jump ahead of us, because they’ll be more competitive and more innovative social. I mean, Darwin is Darwinism works in capitalism. You need Darwin Darwinism. You need creative destruction, because without that, we start losing our edge. And so one of the best things this country has going is we have lots of competition. We have companies competing against other countries. We have companies, we have states competing against other states. All that competition helps us keep ahead of not only, you know, local competition, but most importantly, global competition. So if somebody says tariffs, all they mean is ultimately protectionism that makes us less competitive and less innovative over time. That’s just the fact the
Nestor Aparicio 07:22
tariffs are a deterrent for us to buy anything not made here,
Tom Quirk 07:27
theoretically, but at the end of the day, tariffs just simply don’t work. Now, let’s be fair about this kind of the big picture, what’s going on with tariffs is we all know that, for example, if you’re going to buy a trucks. Say, in the United States, maybe you spend 65,000 you buy the same truck. In Germany, you spend 85,000 so because Germany has these big tariffs, which aren’t really fair either. So I think what Elon Musk said, now, I’m a big fan of Elon lately, but what Elon Musk said makes a lot more sense to me. Instead of building tariffs up on both sides, let’s take them down on both sides. They don’t have more more free trade, and that free trade in itself will increase GDP. And so, you know, I think, I think ultimately bringing down tariffs on
Nestor Aparicio 08:10
is that more like what Clinton did with with North America? You
8Tom Quirk 08:14
know, it’s an interesting question with NAFTA. NAFTA goes way back, and then the usmca that happened under Trump first term that was like taking some of the tariffs on NAFTA and then they recreated it with both Mexican Canada, so, so in a sense, yes, but in the final analysis, have tariffs from other countries been harmful to us? Sure they have. And have we had rust belts and people lose their manufacturing jobs and be sent in other countries they have. And so I think from a purely fair perspective, long term, it makes sense that other countries take their tariffs down. But if we use tariffs, and we have tariffs in the United States trying to force other people take their tariffs down as a negotiating tool, that’s one thing. But if now we just have 10% across the board, across the board tariffs for the rest of our life, well that’s a whole different story. Now we got protectionism. Now we got less innovation. We have less competition. Now our businesses are suddenly slowing down, and we have other businesses around the world that are starting to take over, because the United States is magnificent. We truly are exceptional if we allow free markets to compete, but if we don’t, we’re going to lose our exceptionalism. And if we really want China to take over, all we have to do is raise tariffs and become less competitive and less innovative. That’s where tariffs are often lead. This country is no longer the best companies in the world will come from the United States, because protectionism just simply doesn’t work.
Nestor Aparicio 09:41
The strangest thing for me is the lack of education and civics and all this stuff with Trump, but the fact that it makes sense to people that it can’t possibly make sense to Right. Like anyone in the space here with tariffs knows this isn’t the way it works, right? But I. There’s a television network that’s behind selling it in some way. You can’t sell the stock the stock market, stock market, right? There’s no way to to take that arm that went straight down for five weeks and say that my wife’s 401, K doesn’t care whether it’s Fox News or CNN, the numbers, the number, right? And that’s where you manage money, the volatility of all of this, the frustration for people who manage money, even if they voted for him, and the fact that at the heart of it, no one who’s sensible can make sense of it. Well,
Tom Quirk 10:35
you know, what’s a great point, because when you look at Trump’s inner circle, and you know, I watch it. I studied every day. And so for a long time, he had two advisors really close to him that were pushing these tariffs hard. One guy was Howard lutnic, who’s the Secretary of Commerce, and then another guy named Peter Navarro. And Peter Navarro is a huge tariff guy. He actually wrote a book, an anti China book, where he cited a main source that was his expert. Turned out the main source that Peter Navarro was quoting was fictitious. Was him. He was quoting himself. It was kind of bizarre. And so what happened when this whole tariff thing blew up Liberation Day?
Nestor Aparicio 11:11
8Wasn’t he found by Bannon? Bannon, right, that’s exactly right,
Tom Quirk 11:15
yes. And Navarro and Jared, well, look,
Nestor Aparicio 11:19
they’re all abandoned, Cougs. I mean, from Kennedy, Linda McMahon with a one sauce instead of AI. You know, in the manufacturing, part of this is the thought that we’re going to become a coal mine country again. I mean, who are you selling this to? I mean, who’s buying this outside of the coal mine? Yeah.
Tom Quirk 11:34
Now it’s great point, because what we’re starting to see build up, and especially right after liberation day is Peter Navarro and Howard ludnick really started to become less and less seen out in the public eye. And then what Trump did was he positioned a guy named Scott Besant, who’s the Secretary of the Treasury. Now, Scott percent gets this stuff. He really does understand it, but I don’t think he won the battle, because I think there’s a huge battle internally in the Trump administration, and I think Scott Bassen surely knew that there’s these tariffs, this whole trade war, needed to go really slow and measured. I think he lost that battle, because I think Trump ultimately sided with Peter Navarro and Howard lutnic. And now, what happened on Wall Street? Now, this really fascinating is on Wall Street, there’s internal discussions. They never go public, you know, unless they can’t get their message heard. And so what we saw was we even saw Elon Musk speak out against tariffs. We saw a guy named Ken Griffin who runs Citadel, huge Trump donor, huge Trump supporter. We saw Bill Ackman. There couldn’t be any more vocal supporter of Donald Trump donated money, big vocal supporter Bill Ackman, Ken Griffin, Elon, Musk, Scott, percent, we started seeing all those guys start speaking out loudly how terrible this terror tariff idea was. And then what happened? We saw the bond market kind of blow up like I was watching it. I was watching closely. We had the 10 year treasury go from 3.9% up to 4.5% now, for people that aren’t paying the yields, paying attention to yields, doesn’t seem like a big move. 3.9 to 4.5 happened in a couple days. That’s really bad. That’s a big flashing signal that things are really going to blow up. And so because of that, we saw the 90 day pause that Trump had to do that because the bond market vigilantes spoke. They said, This is ridiculous. You got to stop there’s got to slow down. That’s why we had the 90 day pause. Plus we had people like Bill acman, Ken Griffin, Elon Musk, a bunch of really big, big, big donors. The guy that runs home, you know, owned Home Depot, started Home Depot. They all started speaking out very publicly, trying to get their messages across. Because clearly the group that’s kind of leery of tariffs. Their message wasn’t getting through. It’s getting through now.
8Nestor Aparicio 13:44
All right, so once again, much like the first term, which is a bunch of Bucha that, you know, like, in the end, this terror thing was just him clapping and making a noise, but it, it’s affected every person I see on the streets, yeah, financially, and I saw you said it’s gonna take years to get I mean, like,
Tom Quirk 14:02
yeah, I talk about that because, okay, well, so we just wiped out $6 trillion in stock market wealth in a couple days. 6 trillion, by the way, if you go back to I
Nestor Aparicio 14:10
can’t comprehend, you know, immediately, go ahead, okay, I’ll give you a hundreds of hundreds of millions, and I your billions. I don’t know how many billions is trillions. It’s just a lot of 06. Trillions, a lot. It’s very Carl Sagan to me, go ahead.
Tom Quirk 14:22
8Yeah. So, okay, so we wipe off 6 trillion in market cap due to a really bad Liberation Day in an absolutely nonsensical tariff policy makes zero sense. So let’s think about that, wiping out chefs bringing
Nestor Aparicio 14:33
me crab cakes. Crab cakes. I’m gonna get you on a minute. He’s told he’s teaching me about tariffs. Hold on. Now. Hold
14:40
on. Sorry to talk about. We’re looking at, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 14:44
there’s a tariff. You take half, I take care. There we go, 5050, go ahead.
8Tom Quirk 14:48
Okay, so, so we went about $6 trillion in stock market wealth in a couple days because of a really, really bad Liberation Day. And about as fast I’m gonna wipe out this crab cake and then. But. Let’s just think about these jobs that will be relocated to United States. Okay, so lose $6 trillion in market wealth. How long is it going to take for Apple, for example, to move 10% of their business to United States? How many years you think will take for Apple to move 10% of its business? According to Dan Ives and red bush securities, it’s going to take apple three years to move 10% of their business back to the United States, and it’s going to cost them $30 billion that’s just apple. That’s just one example. And why are they going to do that? Well, I think if they do that, they’ll be doing it out of pressure, because Trump will, you know, pressure them to do it or to face restrictions, like, for example, in video. I’d like
Nestor Aparicio 15:39
to know how that’s going to work when we start bullying the rest of the world and thinking that that’s a good idea, I know how it works when I took my passport out to go to Canada a couple weeks ago, and it’s not it. It fundamentally isn’t who we are. It’s not what we stood for on the stage. It’s not what my parents stood for. It’s not with everybody. It’s not what Don mo it’s not what every good citizen I’ve ever known stands for yet, up and down my timeline, that’s right. There are people that have been brainwashed through ignorance, lack of civics, lack of social studies, not knowing enough good people around them to think that somehow this cult that doesn’t make any sense to people could make sense. And I’m just blown away the second time around the lawlessness that he has shown all of his life, that we’re shocked that he’s breaking the law every day, you
Tom Quirk 16:26
know, and that will break the law, yeah. And I think you bring up an excellent point, because you can’t be a bully, hit somebody over the head and expect them to be friends with you. I mean, they might pretend they’re friends, but they’re really not. And let me give you two examples right now that’s happening real life. If you talk to a lot of business owners, especially business owners in tourism in Maine, ask them how their summer’s looking. A lot of them have had many, many cancelations from Canadians. They’re not coming anymore. And then I have a client down in Bonita Springs, Florida. She just told me she’s listing her house in Bonita Springs because she’s ready to downsize. She said there’s 50 other listings in Bonita Springs right now in her community alone, like what’s happening there? She said, The Canadians are selling they’re selling their homes. They’re done with it. They’re moving back to Canada. So that’s just one antidotal type of thing, but I’m sure that’s happened on all over the place. Is, you know, we’re pissing off or we’re upsetting our friendly allies we’ve had for many, many years. Well, that’s going to have economic consequences, not only on tourism. That’s gonna have consequence on people that own, you know, businesses own assets the United States, and they might just pack their bags and leave, and some are, unfortunately, that’s not good for anyone. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 17:31
8let’s get to the state for a minute. By the way, I’m gonna get chef Maurice out here because this crab cake. I mean, my wife’s not getting any of this. I’m gonna eat this for get out of here. But Wes Moore has not been on the show. I’m just sort of for the out west at this point. I don’t talk much about him because he hasn’t been around. I travel the state I talked to elect its former elected, by the way, Tom quirk is here, former councilman. I would keep want to call you a delegate, but a councilman here in Baltimore County, we’re at Beaumont eating delicious crab case. So Wesson running the state with the tax thing and the people that already want out of the state, I’m thinking for the deficit. That’s happened very, very quickly, and certainly Hogan was bragging about how much money he left in the till and the bridge going down the federal jobs. I have a call out to Martin O’Malley about Social Security, which is three miles away from here, and we got employees over here getting sacked. We’ve got NSA. We’ve got all the federal 5.3% of the federal workforce is based in state of Maryland, right? You mentioned tourism. You like Ocean City. I like Ocean City. Tom prolas likes Ocean City every time I’m down there, whether it’s H, 2b, vs on the eastern shore for crab cakes, where these crabs come from, in the CHOP tank river. And I’ve been down to Cambridge and walked and shot video there as a journalist, Ocean City. Every time I go in a place in Ocean City, there are young people there from Poland, from Ukraine, from Eastern Europe, from other countries, Ireland, that come over to work in the summer, that now all of a sudden, their parents don’t want them coming over here. They don’t want to come out like and ocean cities, not the I’m sure Myrtle Beach is that. I’m sure all these transient beach communities use summer help from other places, let alone everyone that might look a little Venezuelan. I, I’m hiding my MS 13 tattoo here underneath it. I, but people look like me are getting put in cages and thrown away. I and the people that work in fields that look like me, that Pick, pick this broccolini and the potatoes that came with this and the lemon that’s on the platter. I don’t know what to say. I mean, it’s just, it’s it’s just racism. I can’t sell it any other way, because it’s not rooted in anything that should be part of the American ideology. But all of that comes down and now Wes Moore’s on the wrong side of color, state politics, like all of that to get any. Help from this guy, right? I, I’m, I’m gravely concerned that this is going to affect us. You Me, Catonsville, Maryland, the DMV, maybe more than it’s going to affect any other place in the country if we’re going to gut the government, if we’re just going to completely gut the government and not have a government
Tom Quirk 20:18
any Oh, yeah, it’s absolutely terrible. The dog is going to be disproportionately, obviously, pretty rough for Natalie County, the state Virginia, is going to get hit really hard because people are worried about their jobs. If people are worried they’re going to lose their jobs, or they actually get fired from their jobs, obviously, they don’t spend money, and that affects small businesses dramatically. And some people in Maryland are just going to move. I mean, I’ve talked to a couple people that work for Social Security, that are now retiring, going to move out of state. That’s not helpful. They make pretty good incomes. Where do
Nestor Aparicio 20:46
you try to send people your money? Guy? Where would you send somebody? Because everybody’s Republican in my world that manages money, and then we said, Florida, Florida. And I’ve met that creep that runs the state down there. I saw my timeline. I ran into him last year at a baseball game down in Fort Myers. I I don’t know that there’s any Val how on a tax basis, right? I mean, the places that you want to go, they’re Republican states, right? If you’re a Democrat that’s looking to flee. I don’t know where the safe places are in this country anymore, but Delaware
Tom Quirk 21:15
is pretty decent. I mean, they have very low property taxes. They don’t have any sales tax. Delaware is a fairly competitive state. A lot of retirees go there. That’s a real problem for Maryland, yeah, oh yeah, especially in the beach, right? Yeah. Well, you know what? I was talking to a friend of mine who actually is a big economic development director for Virginia, and we were talking about this recent kind of budget that just passed. And he said, in Virginia, they don’t even worry about Maryland. They just dismiss Maryland. They think more about North Carolina. They think more about Tennessee, as far as who they need to be competitive, but they don’t even think about Maryland. And now they shouldn’t have to think about Maryland even more, because the it tax is absolutely nonsensical. They really need to undo that next budget, because we do not want to have a sign for any IT services company or technology company saying you’re not welcome. That’s where all the growth is. So it makes absolutely zero sense. Whoever came up with that idea. Explain this to Wes Moore. I don’t know who came up with the idea, but whoever did. It’s just a bad idea. You we Todd. Wes Moore’s
8Nestor Aparicio 22:14
a guy that I, you know, I support him. He was Poland at 2% I had him at State Fair, so a couple weeks ago, I can’t defend it. I mean, it’s indefensible to me, and that’s reason he won’t come and sit with me, because I don’t think he could defend it either. Just doesn’t make any sense to me.
Tom Quirk 22:27
Todd marks runs a company called Mind grub. He’s a friend of mine. He’s a neighbor of mine. We talk quite a bit, and I was talking to Todd, he’s like, Hey, I’m starting to look. I’m gonna go look in Tennessee. I’m gonna go look in Nevada. We’re not staying in Maryland. And that’s a guy that has, you know, over 100 employees, who’s a great innovator. He’s so mad he’s moving. And that’s not like his threat. He’s moving. He’s leaving because of this it tax makes zero sense for people like Todd marks to literally run for the exits after this really silly idea. The it tax is absolutely incredibly Why is it silly? Break that down, because it discourages IT services companies from locating here, like, if I’m a CEO and I have an IT services company, and somebody puts Maryland on the list. If I go to Maryland now I’ll be fired, and I should be fired, because why to go to state that has a literally, do not enter sign for IT services now. That’s what we have. And so other technology companies will see that, and even if it’s not affecting them directly, Maryland’s going to now be labeled anti tech. That’s the last thing we want a data we want data centers. We want the technology companies. We want the IT services. We don’t want to
Nestor Aparicio 23:31
tax. Why we’re so hurting for taxes? What the hell happened your last couple I’ll tell you exactly. What
Tom Quirk 23:36
8happened is the blueprint, you know, for schools. Okay, it’s completely even when the Blueprint was passed, no one, and I mean, anybody, believed that there was a way to pay for it. If you go back and you research it, and you look at the blueprint, you look at the debate at the time this thing was discussed, people said, on both sides, hey, if this gets passed, we’re gonna have to raise taxes by maybe $3 billion to really pay for it. So I think the Blueprint was absolutely unfeasible. It was not feasible to pass the blueprint. We could never even afford it, even when we passed it. And so I think that’s a if Democrats really wants to support schools and we want to support different government programs, we have to be honest about how we’re going to pay for it, and if we’re going to vote for something, no, we can’t pay for it unless we increase taxes. Completely increase taxes. Well, that doesn’t make that makes zero sense, and that’s not really being the best representative to the people you serve.
Nestor Aparicio 24:28
That made you really unpopular with the Democrats right caucusing with the Democrats couple years ago, I did a lot on the Blueprint here. You know, molar was an advocate for it, and bringing all the advocates on for it. And I did have even Democrat I think you might have been one of them sitting here Christmas couple years ago saying it’s going to be really expensive. I mean, I probably can look you up, and I think it was a part of our conversation, because you were pragmatic and realistic about it. I’m idealistic like everyone else. I want kids to be educated and same, and I would love. That all these people are getting fired from all these other places and federal government would go to teaching and go to, you know, there’s nothing more important investing in our kids. I believe in that. And I don’t even have a child at this point, you know, this of that age at all. But I would have no problem. If we had better young people, better schooling, all of that, we would have better leadership. People wouldn’t be voting for this clown that they’re voting for at this point. If we had better education, we’re burning books. We’re taking, you know, Jackie Robinson and Harriet Tubman off of, you know, they’re gonna come after COVID state and want to take Fanny Jackson Coppin name off because she’s an African it’s crazy, you know, like, what, what they’re trying to do culture war wise, but what our state is doing in the swirl of this, and how Wes is perceived as a presidential candidate, or just as a guy who’s gonna get the bridge rebuilt and fix Baltimore, Baltimore, Baltimore, right? He inherited this blueprint thing, right? So as much as it’s on him to figure out how to pay for it, larry hogan never thought it was a good idea to begin with, because the math as Republican, he didn’t like the math as a money manager, Democrat, you didn’t like the math, math,
Tom Quirk 26:01
math didn’t work unless we were really prepared to raise taxes by an exorbitant amount of money. That’s the only way, and that the public would be willing to accept that that’s right. And I don’t think they would. And I think most people that voted for the blueprint knew that I and so I think it’s irresponsible if you’re going to vote for a blueprint that you know you can’t pay for without increasing taxes incredibly well. That’s maybe a disservice. And I think at least be honest about That’s right, that’s right. And and then I think, I think another thing with this budget that really was upsetting to me is the more administration goes say we’re not raising taxes for 94% of Marylanders. So that’s the talking point. But that’s not really true, because part of the cost cutting was shifting some of this cost to the local government. Okay, so maybe the state’s not paying, you know, 10s of millions of dollars is shifting now to the local government. You pay more Catonsville for it, and, well, it’s the same taxpayer. So the Catonsville taxpayers the same state taxpayer. So the governor saying, Well, we’re cutting costs, but you’re just shifting costs the local government this is still the same taxpayers are gonna have to pay for it, and so now the local government has to figure out, hey, where did we get these revenues now to offset more of this money that’s now been passed on to us under the guise of saving costs? It’s not if you’re the same taxpayer, you’re paying the taxes, whether you’re in Baltimore County or whether you’re in montgomery county. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 27:18
I mean, maybe that’s the real question at the top end of this map. By the way, a former councilman. Quirk is here. We’re at beautiful Beaumont. I have delicious crab cakes. It is the Maryland crab cake tour. I’m gonna wrap things up. I gotta get chef out here. Talk about these crab cakes in a minute, too. If we can do that, Paulie, you’re the pragmatist. And if I make you king of the world or governor of Maryland, and the money side of this, where, where could or should that money, where would you recommend that we raised? You know, is it toll boost? Is it tourism? Is it entertain? I don’t I’m just saying like,
8Tom Quirk 27:51
I think a lot of the work has to be done in making government more efficient and possibly cutting some if we have some inefficiencies, maybe cutting some of the government that we can that we can identify. But I I’ll tell you one thing I want to do, one thing I definitely want to do is I want to increase taxes on the top 6% of Maryland, which we just did, buy a significant amount, because the top 10% of people have disposable income. They spend 50% of the consumer money in the economy, like places like this restaurant we’re in. So if we chase one or 2% of the top income earners in Maryland out of the state, that’s going to affect small businesses all over the place. So I think this idea of, hey, let’s just tax higher income earners more you know, higher income earners can just move, and we’re going to see that, unfortunately, and that’s going to hurt small business. I had a partner,
Nestor Aparicio 28:38
Brian Billick, you know, came seven, eight years ago, and said, I die in Maryland, it’s gonna cost my family 10 million, you know, millions of dollars if I die in another, more tax friendly state. And I just have to make that decision on behalf of my family, that, like, being a Maryland resident is not beneficial if you have over X amount of money, right? I mean that, and that’s true for anyone who’s done well for themselves in this state, right? That’s
Tom Quirk 29:01
right. And you know, what really irritates me, to no end is to hear, and I won’t mention any names, but I’m tempted to, I won’t mention names, but some of the politicians like, oh, the highest income earners need to pay their fair share. Well, that’s ridiculous, because the highest income earners in the in this county and in this state, they just moved to any other state would probably easily save 50,000 100,000 a year just by living in a different state. So when I hear so
Nestor Aparicio 29:26
8that that would pay for their home if they had that kind of money, right? Like, literally, right it, you can literally just say, I have a beautiful, $1.8 million house here in Catonsville. I’m out on the fringe. I’m in that tax bracket. Wherever I am, I can literally just sell it, move to another place, and it will finance itself. It
Tom Quirk 29:44
would save the higher income earners in Maryland tons of money, because it’s a high tax state, and by driving higher income earners out of the state, it hurts small business. So there’s no way anybody convinced me that this budget was a pro growth, pro business budget. It. It wasn’t. It’s going to do the opposite, cover
Nestor Aparicio 30:02
your ass budget kind of sort of, right? It had to be. That’s all they had, right, in
Tom Quirk 30:05
fairness. And a lot of tough decisions had to be made. And the governor was dealt a bad hand, because now he’s got to either break promises to the blueprint. He’s got to raise taxes or cut spending. And I’ll tell you one thing I think governments did really wrong during COVID is they had all this money from the federal government, so tons of money coming in, and so what they did was they spent it, and some of the money was spent on ongoing operations. When is one time capital infusions? And now, if you have a new stimulus, that’s right, that’s right. But if you fund ongoing operations with one time money, you are setting up a scenario that just doesn’t work. That’s not a bad idea. It’s not budget once the money’s out. That’s right. When COVID money came this we spend a lot of money. That’s right, exactly right. And you can’t budget ongoing operations that you you shouldn’t be increasing like state employee role. You shouldn’t be increasing county employee roles at during that time. But it’s always tempting, because, oh, you got the money now, and you kind of tend to think, we’ll figure it out later, that’s right. And figuring out later means tax, and now we’re paying the price for it, and that’s exactly what happened. Are we going
8Nestor Aparicio 31:06
to make it? I
Tom Quirk 31:08
think we’ll need a little different leadership. I think we need much more pro business people that are being elected, whether Democrat, whether it’s Republican. I think this country needs to start voting for people that have more business sense and that actually understand numbers. As simple as that sounds, I don’t think a lot of people understand numbers at all and and I think we got to get rid of gerrymandering, I mean across the country, because all we’re doing is we’re voting in the primaries for the more extreme left and more extreme right, and it’s designed that way. The system is designed for failure, because now that we just got the extremes, that because of the way we elect people, with gerrymandering, we actually get the extremes more and more well. And
Nestor Aparicio 31:49
you also have a man who’s the richest man in the world financing, you know, a fascist at $400 million right? Like so the money in politics, the thing that gross me out the most when molar and I began this thing, and I started talking about running for mayor, was how much in the in the click of people who run, it’s all about money, money, money, money, money. And who’s got money? And I got that guy, he’s got money, he’s got this. He’s a developer, he’s that. And like that schemed me out from the beginning, and I would never have run like that. I was never going to run that I’ve explained to you and everybody else, that wasn’t gonna be my kind, but apparently that’s 99.9% of the wins anywhere it’s based on that. It’s based on money, even if the smallest elections, yeah,
Tom Quirk 32:31
8I think we can break that down some if we get rid of gerrymandering, and then maybe we look at things like rank, rank choice voting. So it’s no longer like a binary choice, like I have to vote for Trump or I have to vote for Harris, like instead, maybe we rank choice and say, Well, my first choice is this person, but then my second choice is this person. So I think we might have to redo how we vote for people, and I think we have to get rid of gerrymandering, and I think we have to do a balanced budget amendment, except for times of war or Great Depression, because there’s no way in the World Congress is ever going to vote for any budget that they’re not running these huge budget deficits every year. It’s preposterously ridiculous. I don’t have to worry about paying for it, right? That’s right. And and then it’s our kids and our grandkids that pay for it. And so how does that do? Anybody I mean that the generational kind of, you know, it’s really kind of sad. And we’re
Nestor Aparicio 33:23
the most prosperous country in the history of the world, right? And we’re bad phones here with every piece of information. And, you know, great food here at Beaumont. We we live in a culture of abundance, and yet, within three blocks of here, somebody’s hungry right
Tom Quirk 33:38
now, and, like, literally, right? That’s right. And we’re also kind of shifting all this burden to our kids and grandkids, which I think is just generationally, an abdication of responsibility. It’s the opposite of what the world with two generation did, what they did, they they sacrificed and they saved, and they made sure their kids had a better future, and we were the beneficiaries. That’s right, 100% and then unfortunately, what happened with baby boomers collectively, not anyone individually, but they’re basically spending all the money, and they’re taking it with them, whether it’s social security, whether it’s Medicare, whether it’s pensions, whether it’s cruising, they’re spending all the money, and their kids and their grandkids are paying for it. That’s all we’re doing. We build up debt. We’re just passing that debt to our kids and grandkids. So Paulie,
Nestor Aparicio 34:20
grab chef for me, if you can. I’m gonna bring him out here. Talk about these crab cakes. Talk about Catonsville a little bit, because we’re here in Beaumont. And I have I asked for the broccolini, and they brought me to broccolini here. So it’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery at the Back to the Future scratch offs, former councilman. Quirk is here. We’re here at the Beaumont. My wife and I dinner here probably twice a month, where all we stand at the bar. Come on over, Chef, jump in here. Let me get you in here and get you miked up. We’ll make some room for you, because he made these delicious crab cakes here, and we’ll make sure we get him into because he came to me about 11 o’clock in the morning, and I said, you’re gonna be making me lunch today about three, dude, I’ve been sitting here. Was Mike down for me. I’ve been sitting here. You go. I’ve been sitting here for six and a half. Hours, I think, and I haven’t eaten anything, man, I’m ready to eat your food. I gotta, I gotta get your mic going. There you go. Yeah, I got you now. How are you
8Chef Maurice 35:08
good? Man, I’ve been actually in the background listening y’all talk about turfs and stuff.
Nestor Aparicio 35:11
You’re learning anything I’m trying to get through my hard head.
Chef Maurice 35:15
I try to stay up with the politics, you know, just so I know what’s going on for myself, right?
Nestor Aparicio 35:19
8You got to you’re an American, right? Absolutely, all right, man, now, you’ve been with the company a long time. You you open guapo down the street, right? You
Chef Maurice 35:27
open up guapo about going on five years ago. Well, we’re starting to
Nestor Aparicio 35:31
plague. I mean, Evan, you talk about economy and Catonsville, this is an area that has thrived here in the time that I’ve known you. In the last decade you’ve been working out here. I love Beaumont. I love everything you guys do over at State Fair and seeing Keith over there. But give me the crab cake combinations. It’s been a little while since I’ve had the crab cake combination out here. I haven’t had a crab cake at Beaumont, dude. I get the steak out here. I get the chicken fried. I get the salad. My wife loves the pork tenderloin, so I just never get the crab cakes here. I don’t
Chef Maurice 35:59
know. Yeah, everyone loved the it’s actually not a pork tender noise, the rib eye, rib eye. That’s
8Nestor Aparicio 36:03
what I meant. Get a pork rib eye. Pork rib eye. Well, hold on. The other night you served it. I got it and it came over the cream spinach, and it had the barbecue sauce on the top. Yeah, man, that was dirty and
Chef Maurice 36:15
personal. Top Sellers. I think it’s a little different than the flavor combination goes to go together. Well, actually, mac and cheese. Yeah. Kyla was like, that’s a lot of starch, but everybody loves it, so I, if it’s not broken, I want to fix. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 36:28
asked for mashed potatoes here because I’m starchy. You know, what’s your favorite thing on the
Chef Maurice 36:33
8menu? My favorite thing on the menu, hands down, would be the lamb app. The lamb chops. Yeah, the lamb chops. We got those the other night, and that peach barbecue sauce that we actually put on a pork rib eye that also goes with the lamb barbecue chops. But I just turned my app into Orangey. I put sides with it. I literally just headed he’s
Nestor Aparicio 36:51
saying to me what my wife said to me. My wife flew in from from New Hampshire the other night. Monday night, I picked her up. We came over here to eat. We’re at the bar seven o’clock. She loves the pork rib eye. I keep calling 10 to one, but it’s rib eye, and she ordered it. And I wasn’t like in I wasn’t all that hungry, so I split a salad, and we love the lamb chops here. And we ordered the lamb chops. She’s like, you know, it comes with the same sauce, right? And so I don’t know she’s egging me to get something different or whatever, but she loves the lamb chops. So I gave her two of them instead of the three, and then I had a little bit of the pork. I pork, but lamb chops for me, but I’m Chicken Fried lobster for me. Lobster fried lobster. Did I say Chicken Fried lobsters? Chicken Fried lobster, right?
Chef Maurice 37:34
Well, they were friendly, like chicken fried steak, yeah, but
Tom Quirk 37:38
it’s like a breaded I love it. That’s my favorite by far. I always get it.
8Chef Maurice 37:41
It’s dipped in buttermilk. Chefs, Chef nay, she made an awesome dredge. I’m not messing with that at all. I bet your name on she best. Yeah. So that’s one of our top sellers as far as apps too. I love it. I love it. Real simple. We got a garlic herb butter that goes with it. It’s
Nestor Aparicio 37:58
divine. It is. And it’s the only place I’ve ever really had it. It’s almost tempura, but not temporary. Kind of has that. It has everything I love. So I’m gonna give a secret away here, Evan, if you’re watching I hope you are, because it’s inspired a little bit by Evan. I started the crab cake tour six years ago, and it was really, it was about eating crab cakes, but it was about every place has a crab cake, right? I mean, every yoms, every every place has a crab cake, and they’re all different, and I knew they’d be different, so I knew I could talk to chefs about it, and it’s a fun Maryland thing, but it’s really my live show, and it’s become like the reason I can get together with a rock star, a football agent, a money manager and Councilman, a chef, and sit in a window here on a beautiful day and do it right? So the crab cake tour, and people like you ranked the crab cakes. I’m like, no, they’re all freaking great. They’re all different. You know, I can’t wait to eat this one. See how this but I did crab cakes, and then I did a summer where I did 30 crab cakes in 30 days for my 30th anniversary. And I did it in every county, all 23 counties in the city. So I had one in every county, and I traveled in August the next year, I did it again, all in different crab cake places, but I stopped at breweries. I drank a lot of beer that month. It was August three years ago. Last year, I decided to do oysters because Dami at fadlees, who’s opening the fishmongers daughter, who was here about an hour ago, she brought me fried oysters in a show with molar like, three years ago. And I’m like, Oh, that’s great. And I’m thinking, I don’t eat fried oysters. Why don’t I eat fried oysters? Because if you had them on your menu, and you might, there’s 12 things in line on the menu, and it’s never get down to fried oysters. I get the shrimp, I get the fish I get that. What a steak, whatever I get, but it’s delicious. And then she gives me the whole Miss Maryland thing that O’Malley would say, the oysters, they oxygenate the bay. They’re the reason we have crab cakes. No oysters, no crab cakes, right from an ecosystem in the grasses, in the marshes, and I’m like, oyster. Oyster recovery partnership, Maryland. I went down to Hooper’s Island. I saw oyster shells as big as that tree down in Hooper’s island. So I traveled the state. And I’m skinny chef, right? So, I mean, I eat a lot for being skinny this summer. What I’m doing for the first time, it’s my 27th anniversary of the radio station. 35th year I’ve been on the air, but I’m doing 27 days of my 27 favorite things to eat that you can go to a restaurant and get that are available. There’s a couple of rips, you know, Nacho Mama’s salsa. Can’t get it anymore. Burke’s onion rings can’t get any more. Angelina’s crab cake on my side of town can’t get any more. So I’m honoring all of them, but I’m picking my 27 favorite things, and I’ve already got the dates fixed. I got two or three dates that are open where I’m trying to try new things, see if I can find something new to add to the list. And I’m not going to give it away, but there are desserts, there are dishes, there are sandwiches, there are platters. I’m going to call it chicken fried lobster. You’re going to correct me. Just go. Correct me. Just call it fried lobster. We call it fried lobster, fried lobster too. It’s great. It’s
Tom Quirk 41:07
definitely, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 41:08
8on my list, and I’m gonna do the show here. I think I’m doing it a guapo, because I told Evan, I guapo a year and a half to do the show in her basement, upstairs. I don’t know, but you’re gonna bring me that chicken fried fried lobster, whatever you call you know, because it’s on my list. So it is. I’ll talk about your lamb chops. I love them. I love the chicken and waffles at State Fair. I love the puzzle. Is that your recipe? Yeah, guapo, is that your recipe? I
Chef Maurice 41:34
helped put it together. Me and Ricardo.
Nestor Aparicio 41:38
Those are my two favorite things in the whole family is the pozole at El Guapo and the fried lobster here. So I’m gonna feature in these 27 dishes. I think the fried lobster thing I want to feature, yeah,
Tom Quirk 41:50
every time I come here, I get that. That’s
8Nestor Aparicio 41:54
my favorite by far. And why do you get it? Because you can’t get it anywhere else.
Tom Quirk 41:58
That’s right. Appetizers the best. And really nobody does like you do laughs
Chef Maurice 42:02
is unforgiving, man, you really, like, have to have temperature and time controls, like, a huge factor. You shouldn’t even fry more than, like, three to four minutes. Yeah, you guys get rubber, right? Yeah, it’ll it’ll definitely get rubber, you know, if you overcook it and you definitely want to undercook it.
Nestor Aparicio 42:16
8Yeah, I could talk food you and I could go all night about what makes a steak delicious, but I paid you. Did you make my meal Monday night? Were you working Monday night? I don’t even I was all right, man, you made me dinner Monday night. She made the lamb chops, and when that the pork came out, Paul, he was my server, and I said to him, because Larry Stewart was at the bar here, Stuart supposed to come by today, and he had an NCAA meeting, and Coppins, my partner. I mean, I do have COVID on all time. I had on there a Director of Graduate services this week. Was wonderful, but Stu was here, and he looked over, he said, What’s that, man? And I said, that’s, that’s, I called it portendling. But is she Correct? Rib Eye? I’m like, All right rib eye. And it was so dirty and down and dirty in that in that cream spinach in the bottom. And it just worked. And I said to him, I think when I got it here a couple years ago, it came with the cream spinach in a bowl, and it came with the macaroni and cheese. It was perfect over the spinach, over the bed of spinach. It was just dirty and pleasant. Man, I got that barbecue, and I got the cream, the cream mixed with the barbecue, which mixed with the spinach,
Chef Maurice 43:22
phenomenal, delicious combination. Thanks for making me dip. I’m making little, small tweaks while I’m here. I’m changing, like, I’m old school as far as, like, my culinary thought process. So, like, if it’s not edible, it should be on the plate. You’re fine. Don’t get away with the planks, though, the planks you can put a put a vessel on it. Well, you
Nestor Aparicio 43:40
bring the whole plank on a whole plank on a steak, right? It comes out, it looks like a whole butcher plant. That’s the only exception with the planks, though. All right. Well, keep doing everything you’re doing for all of you out here, I’m very appreciative you. Evan, Keith, everybody. Donnie, so wonderful to me. The whole family here’s been awesome, and it’s wonderful to have you on the show. Man,
Chef Maurice 43:56
I’m glad to be here, man, and a lot of people, they don’t really know about the history, like crab cakes, Maryland, Baltimore, they were known for it. But they don’t know, like, dated back into the 30s, like, you know how it really got popularized around the whole country, and they attribute a lot of it to like the Native Americans. So when the colonies were formed, and the settlers came from England, like, it really came from their mints meat, and then he took, like, the crabs that the Native Americans used to get, and then they made the cake. Well, nobody
8Nestor Aparicio 44:24
wanted to eat crab. It was, it was like a it was a poor man’s food, right? In the same way, same with lobster and the oysters were what we went the war over. I mean, Dan Rodricks did the show with me, talked about the oyster wars and oyster police. There were, there are shirts that they have the oyster recovery says, oyster police. Oyster police was like the Dodge of 100 years ago, because they would, they would kill each other out on the boats, the oyster boats. They would shoot each other over the oysters. Like, this was a thing the real I did the research on this. Nobody wanted the crabs, because the crabs were everywhere. And now the crab is the delicacy, yeah, and I’m telling you there, and I’ve had the difference this Chinese crab meat, no offense, even a crab meat from north. Carolina or out of Texas, more salty, more the Maryland meat is sweeter because of the brining and the fact that the marshes and the way that the dirty water is here makes our crabs bigger, fatter. Late season, upper upper chest, peak sweet. It’s just different. And I talked to crabs
Chef Maurice 45:19
in the US, as far as blue crabs. I’m from Maryland, and by the way,
Nestor Aparicio 45:23
Italy has a crab problem. You read about this show now. They’re smart guy accounts when Italy has crabs, blue crabs and what to do with them. They’re trying to eradicate them. Bring them over here. That’s what I’m saying. Get us on the plate. Give me an air Italia flight. All right. Councilman quirk is out here. We’re here at beautiful Beaumont. Chef Maurice is here mixing up just magic, by the way. First Back to the Future, a ticket is gonna go to the chefs. Good luck. You hope you win 10 grand on that for everybody out here. John Allen, my dear friend, Paulie, for keeping a sane around here, and Mel and everybody at the bar. And of course, Chad Weasley, my NFL agent, buddy. Stu I want to come find you over COVID state. I’ll get him on Council. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Education. You learned something today. Martin, absolutely,
Chef Maurice 46:07
8was listening to y’all in the background. I saw all about mine. Everybody knows something. Nobody knows everything. That’s
Nestor Aparicio 46:12
right. Listen, you know, you’re a historian, Councilman, and whatever, that Boston Tea Party thing is one of the tariffs you let me know. We’re gonna just, don’t throw the crabs back in the water. We’re gonna throw some something to water. Let’s heal the country, right?
Tom Quirk 46:23
And absolutely need to bring people together. They gotta come together again. All right? We’re gonna come together
Nestor Aparicio 46:27
next Wednesday and do this again at Cooper’s north. We’re gonna be doing oral baseball loops at the ballpark all weekend with the reds. We got the NFL Draft next week. Unbelievable combination of guests this week. I got great stuff happening next week. We’re signing off from Catonsville here at beautiful Beaumont. Come on over and visit him on Frederick road. Life is great. The 21228, I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.
