In the second episode of Capitol Fight Club, John Gray, Brian Darling, Sam Sacks, Sam Knight and Nate Madden battled over taxing Wall Street and whether to defund the Clean Water Act.

Capitol Fight Club is a weekly face off between two political insiders on the right versus two on the left. Darling and Gray worked for Sen. Paul. Our progressive friends, “The Sams,” Sam Sacks and Sam Knight, are the co-founders of the progressive blog The District Sentinel. Nate Madden is the ref and the moderator of the podcast.

Round 1 

The first segment was all about sin taxes and whether it would be a smart policy to tax high frequency trading on Wall Street. The hook for the segment was Sam Knight’s piece “Despite Proposing Rule Last Fall, CFTC Lacks Resources to Oversee High Frequency Trading” at the District Sentinel published April 12, 2016. The Sams want to tax as a means to raise cash and deter high frequency trading. The freedom lovers argued that the proper role of taxation is to merely raise enough money to run a very small government – not to social engineering.

Round 2

The second segment was a debate on the idea that Congressional Republicans should use the power of the purse to defund the Clean Water Act, because average landowners are being bullied by the government when they try to fill in water on their own private property. Gray wrote a piece titled “The One Thuggish Regulation McConnell Needs To Defund Now” on April 7, 2016. The Sams thought it was madness to argue for defunding an environmental regulation. Gray provided a hard core defense of small government and the idea that landowners should not be regulated by bureaucrats from far away D.C. – and threatened with jail time for filling in some standing water on their private property. 

Another fun debate that got hot late in the episode. No agreement but another great debate for you to enjoy.