Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the Wallbuilders show, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Later in the program, Jerry Newcomb will be joining us. We're going to be talking about, well, a lot of things that are going on in Washington, DC, but specifically the USA, the, the, the discovery of all of this money that's been, you know, fraudulent and wasteful and the debt that it's created and what we can do about it. And David, Tim, I you know, usually I'm approaching this topic in a bad mood and, you know, really down. I'm actually excited because I sense that we can turn this thing around. There's some good things happening. 

David Barton [00:00:45] Republicans really only have one vote to spare on this thing. They can only afford to lose a vote. And then Democrats are at a place where that they can take possession. And so actually, yesterday, Mike Johnson I actually canceled the vote on the budget. They canceled the vote because the they just didn't have the votes. And there were four particularly that were holding out. And then they really worked on the whip in the house, worked on talking to them throughout the afternoon. And Mike canceled the vote. And then he called them back in and they voted. And so Thomas Massie did not vote with them, but they got it passed. And one bill. And that's a really big deal because the Senate's doing one bill. Now there's some differences between them. They'll have to have reconciliation on it. But when you look at what they got done, it is massive because the Freedom Caucus said, hey, there's not enough cutting of the debt in here. You know, there's some reducing the spending. They're cutting back on spending, but they're not doing the debt stuff. And then on the other hand, you had the moderates, what they call the Republican moderates. And by the way, this is this is kind of funny for definition, a Republican moderate as a liberal for a Republican. But when you throw them in all of Congress, they're moderate because they are so much more conservative than all the Democrats in Congress. So even the liberal Republicans are more conservative Democrats. So they call them moderates. But the moderates said, hey, we can't afford to spend less because we need the Medicare and the welfare. Kind of stuff. Social programs. And so you had two factions warn against each other. One says, we got to stop the spending and the other says, yeah, but you can't afford to stop spending here. So they got that together after two hours of debate and they got it done. And so the way it comes out now that I think the biggest danger they have and what they passed yesterday is to reduce, to actually reduce the the debt, they're planning on 2.6% growth in the economy. If there's growth, there's going to be businesses. There's going to be more taxes paid by the businesses. And if you don't have that growth, if you have any kind of a slowdown, economic slowdown, if you have any kind of recession, anything else, you're going to be in serious trouble because they're counting on that surplus coming from growth. And if they don't get a 2.6% growth, which is a vigorous growth in the national economy, they're going to be in problem. But it does say in discretionary spending, they've cut back 829 billion, so nearly a trillion in discretionary spending, which is good. Which this is the kind of stuff Doge is finding and killing and, you know, stop. And we're not going to let you spend into this crazy money anymore. So we're having some savings off that way. 

Rick Green [00:03:15] David, I gotta start I gotta stop you for a pause. We have to enjoy that moment. Did you just say $1 trillion? We're going to cut $1 trillion. Let that sink in. Wow. I got a picture myself. Okay. All right, I'm done. All right. 

David Barton [00:03:30] Huge. It's 829 billion. So we'll round that up to a trillion. 

Rick Green [00:03:34] But oh you know, billion here. Billion there 100 billion here. Right. Just but think about it guys. I mean how we've wanted this for so long and it's just we have I don't think we've ever seen even a Republican president cut this much. This is just incredible. 

David Barton [00:03:48] No, not not in the modern era. But say here, here's what they don't like and here's what I don't like either. But this is part of getting out of this. And they cannot turn this battleship like it's a motorboat with a skier behind it. It's just not going to happen. It's got to be little by little. And with that. And they also raise the debt ceiling by 4 trillion. And raising the debt ceiling means that that could be adding more debt in the next few years. So I hate it when they raise the debt ceiling, because that allows them to go further in the debt. And they did it by 4 trillion. But you know, Trump, he has all these tasks because he wants to do. And so they've got to be able to cover that. And what they've agreed on is that, well, if the economy doesn't grow as fast as we hope it will, we're not going to spend more money. We'll just reduce the tax cuts that are going to happen. And so tax cuts tend to stimulate the economy. People spend more. And that brings in more taxes without having to tax people per se. So overall that's kind of what happened on on the House today, which is a big deal. And I was just looking to some of the founding fathers and what they said about debt. And a couple quotes. Let me just read these quotes are really strong, Jefferson said. And Rick, Tim, how many trillion is it that we're in debt right now? Is it 32? 34? 

Rick Green [00:05:04] Think it's 37 now, right? 

David Barton [00:05:06] 37. 

Tim Barton [00:05:07] I mean, we're on our way to 38 right now. 

Rick Green [00:05:09] Yeah. 

Speaker 3 [00:05:09] Yeah. Because it's every quarter, we're adding another trillion. So I think we're in the 37 range on our way to 38. I'll look it up real quick. As you read these quotes. 

David Barton [00:05:18] So they've added another 4 trillion to the to the debt limit over coming years. So here's what Jefferson said. If we run into such debts that we must be taxed, and our food and our drink and our necessities and, and and our comforts and our labors and and our amusements, and for our colleagues and for our beliefs, we'll be like the people of Europe, and they must labor 16 hours out of 24 to make the money. And then they give 15 to the 16 hours to the government to pay their debts and their daily expenses. And they're left with one of the 16 hours of work to afford bread. And he said, we'll be like Europe if we keep getting into debt. We're going to be like Europe. And so he said, permanent public debt is a cancer that will be invariably fatal. It will be a cancer that will kill you if you don't take care of public debt. So he said, I consider public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared. We must not let our rulers lotus with perpetual debt. And then you have Madison of the same thing, he says. I go on the principle that public debt is a public curse. He said armies and deaths and taxes. They're the known instruments for bringing the money under the dominion of the few. And so armies. Yeah, we see that. Debts and taxes. That's the other stuff that'll that'll really enslave a nation. So founding fathers were huge on this. It's like we haven't listened in a good while, but maybe we got started with something today. We'll see. 

Tim Barton [00:06:41] Well, and fiscal data says that it's $36.22 trillion. We are in debt. But I know based on what spending has been under President Biden, we were adding more than $1 trillion every year. The debt calculator is just so fast. As it's growing. But currently it's 36.22 trillion, and we will certainly be tracking to see if some of what has happened with this legislation. We'll see what happens in the Senate with it. But if it does get passed, if things do turn around for the economy, if we can start paying down some of that debt, what that will look like. But for the moment, over $36 trillion in debt. 

David Barton [00:07:21] And by the way, at the same time, I got the word on on what the House did with budget for Trump. I also saw a new report that they found out that under Biden, over the last four years, we've been paying $451 billion. That's a half of a trillion, which means over four years as 2 trillion just in payments to illegal immigrants in the United States. So 2 trillion in the last four years. And just on that one issue, 451 billion a year on paying illegal immigrants, that's that's a I mean, I thought the nation was to take care of its own first. Apparently, we take care of the whole world and think, I don't know what we think that that globalist mentality, man. The scriptures are really clear that you take care of your own household first, and then you take care of others. And we're not taking care of our household. I mean, that's 2,000,000,000,00 in 4 years on illegal immigrants. That's crazy. 

Tim Barton [00:08:21] Well, and guys, we saw an article from Jerry Newcomb where he actually got into some of the same idea about what are the Founding fathers say? So what we're doing now with spending and debt, it's crazy. And he actually had a great breakdown, again, quoting some of the Founding fathers, some different quotes than what we have. You see here. We try not to use one from his article, knowing that he might want to talk about those in the interview, but we said, you know, we really need to get him on to add some thoughts and perspective. Of course, Jerry Newcomb is a well renowned author. Many noted books, very highly touted stuff. He's done a very good job in a lot of areas with history, founding era, certainly from a faith perspective as well, but his article really broke this down really well. 

Rick Green [00:09:03] During our special guests stay with us. Folks will be right back on the Wallbuilders show. 

Rick Green [00:10:15] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show.Thanks for staying with us. Jerry Newcomb back with us. Actually with us from NRBNational Religious Broadcasters convention. They got a lot going on there. Jerry, thanks for taking some time out of the crazy schedule there. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:10:26] Oh, thank you for the opportunity. 

Rick Green [00:10:28] Well, great article on USA. You know everybody's talking about it and the waste and we all get disgusted. But you brought it back around in your article to kind of looking at it from the founders view and how disgusting this would have been to them. That literally violates everything they stood for. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:10:42] It really does. I mean, the founders wrote specifically about, you know, don't carry public debt, okay? If you're going to have a, a situation where there's a war or something like that, you know, maybe the, the, the government has to borrow. But during peace time, we should not be living, you know, beyond our means as a government. And of course, we've seen with with the unbelievable waste, fraud and abuse of the federal government that's been exposed just in the last couple of weeks. It's it's just mind numbing, you know, honestly, to process the information that they keep coming out with is almost like trying to re drink water from a fire hydrant. I know that's a cliche, but but it's true. It's like, how do you keep up with all this stuff? 

Rick Green [00:11:27] And oh I couldn't agree with you more, man. It's like it every day, multiple times a day. That's the thing. Like if it was one big headline a day, Jerry, I think we could maybe keep up because you'd have some time, but it's not. It's 3 or 4 times a day. There's something big getting uncovered and you know it. It also makes me thankful that that there's a there's a good team being assembled by the Trump administration to send into each of these agencies and clean this stuff out. And they're not taking just little, you know, chisels at it, man. They're taking a sledgehammer at it. I think I feel like Sam Adams has taken over. You know, I think this is how he would have done it anyway. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:12:01] Hey, Samuel. Adams. Samuel. You know what? Lately I've been studying a lot more. And Peter Low back and I are working on a book about Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty and the Liberty Trees. Samuel Adams deserves much more credit than he gets in modern America. And I'm not trying to do anything about beers I'm talking about, you know, what? What he contributed to. In fact, one author put it this way. The Declaration of Independence was the culmination of Samuel Adams life work. And I just thought, that's tremendous. And and of course, the Declaration of Independence says our rights come from God. As you well know, it is you, you know, as your ministry who claims that all the time. And think about this, Rick, in that article. But the this fraud, waste and abuse and how this is so contrary to the founding fathers, one of the items listed is that the State Department spent something like $400,000 to promote atheism in Nepal. Now wait a bit. America is. I mean, to this day our motto is In God we Trust, right? That's our motto. What's even on our money? And yet, you know. Money was wasted to promote atheism in some of these other countries. That just doesn't make sense. I don't even see. I can't even compute some of the waste, fraud and abuse that that's been reported. And I know the founders would not agree with this. 

Rick Green [00:13:29] Yeah. And in fact, Jerry, I was I was just Sunday. My pastor in his sermon was he was sharing the, the 1607, you know, covenant that talks about, you know, proclaiming Jamestown for proclaiming the gospel. But it had a line in it about and future generations to spread the gospel to the world. So it was like even 400 years ago, the idea that we would be exporting from this continent. Right. Good stuff. Right? Good stuff. The the good values. And and instead this administration and frankly it's been it's been other administrations, too, because it's been part of the deep state that nobody even knew was going on. We've been exporting evil instead of exporting good. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:14:10] I know it's amazing. And it even reaches absurd levels. And when you start talking about this with some people that let's say are more of, you know, of the people of the left, if you will, they basically deny the story. So in other words, they're blaming the messenger, not the message. And so, you know, if you asked, okay, are you and are you in favor of thousands of dollars being spent for transgender comic books in Peru? Well, you know, whatever. But they're not really doing that, you know. Well, they are I mean, I have, you know, that one senator from from Louisiana, John Kennedy, speaks with a southern drawl, and he's quite humorous, but he's made that point multiple times that if you listen to the criticisms against the revelation of this waste, fraud and abuse, they're not. You know, saying they're not coming to grips with the waste, fraud and abuse that's being exposed. Instead, they're blaming the messenger. Oh, Elon Musk is bad and the whiz kids are bad and Trump is bad. 

Rick Green [00:15:12] Yeah. And you're you were you know, you talk in the article, you quote Jefferson talking about how bad it is to to saddle our nation with this debt. And, and it's really it's stealing from the next generation. We're when we pass it on to them, we're basically taking from not just their inheritance, we're taking from their future earnings. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:15:30] Yeah, we're stealing from them. We're stealing from from my children. Your children, our grandchildren. It's just awful. And, you know, basically all the founding fathers, you know, talked about if you have to go in, if the country has to go into debt, it's if it's necessary, such as in war, then as soon as it's all over and you have peace, then stop the debt. And instead the, you know, the government has just been borrowing and I don't know, it's it's outrageous how much they borrowed. $36 trillion is the amount that we're in debt. So it just boggles the mind when you get down to it. 

Rick Green [00:16:09] You know, Jerry, we've been doing this about the same amount of time, you know, several decades. And I don't know about you, but I've never seen the same appetite that we have now in the people, in the American people to want to see this cleaned up. You know, usually everybody's protecting their own little fiefdoms or the program they like, or they, they buy the story that this is government saving us and keeping us healthy. And all the, you know, all those things. I'm right now it's different. It seems like to me people are going, oh yeah, that's ridiculous. That money shouldn't be. Yeah. Slash and burn. I mean, they're all the polling numbers show they love what Doge is doing. And Elon and and President Trump. Is that your sense as well? 

Jerry Newcomb [00:16:47] Well, yes. Although obviously there's a very vocal minority that is objecting to it. And yeah, I do what Rick, if I could. There's a there's an item that I put in my book In the Footsteps of Giants, in the chapter about debt, and it relates to this whole subject of, you know, doge and exposing all this waste. But this is the purpose of this is to let me put $1 trillion in perspective. And again, remember, we're $36 trillion in debt. This is from a scholar who said, if I owed you $100 and said I'd pay you in 1,000,000 seconds, then I would pay you in 12 days if I owed you $100 and said, I will pay you in 1,000,000,000 seconds with a B, then I would pay you in 32 years. But if I owed you $100 and said, I'll pay you in 1,000,000,000,000 seconds, when would I pay you in 32,000 years? Well, it just it's like what? This just boggles the mind. And this is the debt kind of debt we're saddling our future generations to. Yeah, I appreciate the administration saying no more. We've got to stop this. Got to cut the bleeding and then, you know, lop off these these different debts. And, you know, even right now, we're at a point where a lot of the debt that's being accumulated is to help pay off the interest on the debt. So. That's right. It's just crazy. Rick and I know the founders would not have approved this at all. That government which governs the least, governs the best was a general philosophy they held to. 

Rick Green [00:18:29] That's right. And last thing, Jerry, I know, I know, you got to run NRB, but the it's no different than for us personally, right. If we're in debt, we have fewer we're limited in our decisions and the things we can do and the things we can do to help other people. It's the same for a country. When we have this much debt, we're limited in our decisions and our ability to do the things that we should be doing as a government. Does that make sense? I mean, like the more debt we we compile, the harder it is to have a good government. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:18:56] That is so true. And, you know, in fact, I think of Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers, and some of the things he wrote in, you know, Poor Richard's Almanac and so forth about, you know, a penny saved as a penny earned. Of course, it costs three pennies to make one penny. Know that you get that part. But anyway, you know, he would often talk about how, you know, if you if you want to, you know, succeed, make sure you spend less than you make so or, you know, if you overspend what you make, then eventually it's just all going to collapse and so forth. And and we're seeing that we're seeing that we're where people are having, you know, just runaway debt on a personal level. And it's really terrible. And, you know, and I know situations where people get caught up in this thing with the with the credit cards and they're just overwhelmed. It's almost like the drowning in debt. And you're right, it takes away options. And so as a nation for us to go down this road, we got to correct. And I think this is a very welcome time from this administration to to start, you know, trying to correct, correct these things. You know, it's yeah, God's word, in fact, is filled with examples where I'm thinking right now the parable of the talents, where Jesus says, hey, you know, I'm going to hold you accountable one day and I don't want you to waste the money. I want you to take the resources I give you and the talents and so forth, and use them, you know, for for God's glory and others. Good. 

Rick Green [00:20:35] Amen, Amen. Well, and it used to be that there was just a a voice here, our voice there in the House or the Senate or a governor, whoever, that would sound the alarm and say the things you and I are saying right now. And now it just feels like there's a chorus, there's a, there's a, there's so many more that are in the positions to actually do something about it. So it's so it just gives me so much hope that, that they're making these big dramatic steps. I mean, obviously the devil's in the detail and we'll see how much they actually get done. But boy, it feels pretty good right now, Jerry. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:21:05] It does make may God help us to to keep going until this thing is really, you know, under control. Because right now it is not under control, but where at least we are seeing steps, major steps are being taken in the right direction. 

Rick Green [00:21:19] Yeah. Amen. Jerry Newcomb God bless you, brother. Thanks for coming back on Wallbuilders. 

Jerry Newcomb [00:21:23] God bless you to Providence forum.org, if I may. It's. Yes. Wonderful to be with you. Thank you for all that you guys do at Wallbuilders. 

Rick Green [00:21:30] Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:22:40] Welcome back to the Wahpeton Show. Thanks for staying with us today. Thanks to Gerry Newcomb for joining us as well. Back with David and Tim now. And on the break there, David, I was thinking about what you were saying for 4 or 500, whatever. It was billion a year on illegal aliens. And I was thinking not only like you said, are you not putting yourself first? And you're in a sense wasting that money because you're spending it, not on on the country, but you're also creating enticements. I can remember in the legislature 25 years ago, we would debate the whole driver's license thing, or in-state tuition for kids of illegals and all of those issues. And every time we would talk about, hey, if you do this, you're going to create an incentive and an attract a magnet that's going to make the illegal immigration even worse. So you can see why it's spiraled over those four years of Biden. It just got worse and worse and worse because they're giving away all this stuff. People are hearing about it. You get free rent, you get all the, you know, the phones, you get all the stuff. So yeah, just like you're saying, it's mind boggling. But it does come back to that, man. We just almost, you know, in that what was it in Romans one it says they lack understanding. Yeah. I think these people actually lack the understanding to know how bad these policies ended up hurting our own nation. 

David Barton [00:23:48] You know, if they wanted to give away their own money, do it. The problem they have is they take our money as their money since there and leadership. Yeah, everything in the country belongs to them. And if they wanted to bit. But already just since Trump's been in now a month or so. We've seen crossings of the border drop to about 200 a day showing up at the border, and that's down from the tens of thousands a day. Wow. And so, you know, this was a magnet attracting people to come in to get all this free money that they could get. And, you know, again, going back to the Bible verse, it says, if you don't take care of your own household, you're worse than an infidel and you've denied the faith. And by the way, we were talking about that and same with Jerry and interview. And let me just point out, the Bible is really clear that you shouldn't be in debt. Proverbs 22 says the borrower is servant to the lender. You get a slave and you get in debt, and too many people are in debt and need to get out of it, not just the federal government. All of us need to be out of debt. And so there's a lot of changes got to happen. They didn't get everything they wanted this budget. But even when God's people were going to the promised Land, he told them, I'm not going to give it to you all at once. It's going to be little by little. So progression, steady change, that's what you want is not going to happen in one budget, but that we're or at least headed in the right direction. 

Tim Barton [00:25:03] Well, and I appreciate it too, where Jerry Newcomb pointed out that it's just perspective for us when we talk about debt, because $36 trillion is a lot. But that's not math that any of us do regularly. Right. Those that's not a financial number that we work with is we're, you know, navigating our personal finance and taxes. We're filing those things, getting ready. Like, that's not a number we know about. And the way he broke down. Right. If if you have $100 and you're going to pay me back in 1,000,000 seconds, right. That's eight days. If you pay me back in 1,000,000,000 seconds. Right. That's that's years and a trillion. I mean, the breakdown of that number, guys, I was like, oh my goodness. But one of the things that as you're talking about, even as we should avoid debt, the Bible encourages, if you're in debt, may get out of debt as quick as you can. We as the American people, I don't think if fully wrapped our head around how in debt we are because we're using numbers. It's like monopoly money numbers. We don't even understand that anymore. And I appreciate his breakdown to give that perspective as well. And certainly, again, something the Bible's clear on avoid debt and the Founding fathers talked about for security, for the nation. You need to make sure you don't let your rulers load you with perpetual debt. Get out from under that as quick as you can. 

Rick Green [00:26:21] Yeah. I mean, what's what's a good policy for us, as you said, as individuals, biblical policy for us is going to be good for the nation as well. And it's just good to finally have some members of Congress, and certainly the president and the administration that gets this and understands how that hurts the health of the nation completely. So thanks for Jerry know, Kim, joining us today. Thank you guys for all the good commentary. You've been listening to the Wallbuilders show.