Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. This is the Wallbuilder show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. We appreciate you joining us today. Senator Phil King will be joining us a little later in the program. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton, and we got more good news coming out of Texas this time. David and 10 we've had several, several shows already about state legislation, so even as you know, most people are focused on what's going on at the federal level. And we do talk a lot about that. So much good news out of Washington DC and the executive orders and the agencies and the people hired and the Easter messages. And I mean, the list goes on and on, but also at the state level, because of champions like Phil King. And we've said this before, but a lot of the seeds been planted years ago. And so I just want to say to our audience, thank you. Thank you for all the years of support of sharing the program. Those of you that have been donating, if you haven't pour some more seed in there, man, water those seeds, go to wallbuilders.com today, make that one-timer monthly contribution. And become a part of our team and help amplify these voices, getting even more legislators like Phil King trained and equipped and really just partnering with other legislators from across the country. So anyway, a lot of good stuff guys, and hey, it's our home state today we get to talk about. 

David Barton [00:01:15] Well, you were talking about how that we've had a number of programs on what's happening at the state level and we have and we've got a ton of programs about what's happening with the Trump administration in terms of policies that are not just political policies. They're they're really dynamic type of policies. That will change the way things are done for a good while, not just for this administration, but only the future. And with that, as it turns out, some of that Trump stuff is now trickling down to the state level because the fact that we have really good state legislators. I mean, I had never heard of Doge before shows up in the Trump administration. I didn't know what it was when it first appeared. Now we know what It is. But now states like Texas are saying, hey, we can do that. We can do Doge at the state level and make local government a lot better. So it's a lot of good news coming out of D.C. On down to the state level because we got good people at the State level. 

Tim Barton [00:02:08] Well, and dad, to that point that there was an article when we saw it, we thought, okay, let's get Phil on and talk about it, where Texas has done a version of Doge, uh, and I don't know what all Phil is going to talk about. So I don' want to take anything away from him, we can talk about details afterwards. If there's anything he didn't cover that I really am excited to talk about, but one of the things, dad, to your point of what, what president Trump has done is he has created an atmosphere that has encouraged and incentivize people to do something bold and courageous and actually practical and conservative at the same time. People like Donald Trump, as much as we are grateful to God for giving us leaders like that, he really is a reminder to me of something Bob McEwen would tell us all the time. I feel like almost every time we have Bob on as he's giving us an amazing economic lesson breakdown, he always says it's always about leadership. Any problem can be solved if you have a good leader. And we ultimately are seeing that, and it's worth noting that President Trump didn't create a good leader like Phil King, but Phil King in his wisdom has seen something successful President Trump has done, and President Trump has created a momentum that it's actually encouraged people to support things like what Phil was trying to do. Say, Hey, Texas, let's find areas where there's waste, let let's go in and let's make sure we're not expanding a budget on something. We shouldn't be spending money on the first place. And now not only are we spending money there, we're expanding every year the money we're spending in that area. This is crazy. But the fact he's doing it, it's not because of President Trump. Phil King would have done this kind of stuff regardless of who is president. But I don't think he would have the support to get this done had it not been for the momentum caused by having a leader like President Trump and, and as much as we have had Good News Fridays highlighting all of the good things coming from the White House, I don't think we can understate how significant President Trump has been because so much does determine or it is determined by who the leader is, if you have a bold, courageous leader who incentivizes people, I mean, going back historically, this is, I'm not making a direct parallel, so don't anybody confuse this as I'm going to say this, but, but George Washington was the leader we needed in the American revolution without George Washington, the military doesn't say together We fall apart. George Washington was a leader we needed at the Constitutional Convention. Without George Washington, the Constitution convention falls apart. Winston Churchill was a Leader needed at the outset of World War II. Dwight Eisenhower was a Leader needed for the Allied forces in the European theater, General Patton was the leader needed in some of those significant moments and battles in World War Two. We can go down this list. And the reason I say that is because when you look back at some of the most significant victories. And sometimes even survivals in some cases, so much of it was determined by who the leader was. And if you didn't have a good leader, I mean, Chamberlain again, thinking World War II, Chamberlin was not going to solve any problems. It took in Winston Churchill to be the leader to solve those problems. And it didn't mean Winston Churchill didn't have baggage in other areas. But it's the reality of in that moment, this is a leader you need. And what we are seeing right now is President Trump has has become so much of the leader we need, and guys, not to distract from Phil, but I do wanna just acknowledge really quick, we've talked about this offline. During President Trump's first term, he fought on behalf of what he thought Christians cared about, to some extent. But this time, I don't think he's fighting for an outside group. I think he has, revealed on or had revealed on some level who God is to him And I think God is doing something inside of him dad you could probably speak to this more than Rick and I from having a little more direct contact people the White House. Obviously, we know people there you've had more contact but it's very apparent that Trump is the leader that God has raised up in this moment to help restore so many of these things that have been lost in our nation and it's also clear that especially right now God is doing something in, not just through, but in President Trump that President Trump really does seem to be having some faith moments where he's aware of God, but also wanting to pursue and be open to what God might have him do. 

David Barton [00:06:38] Yeah, there's no question that from the founding father perspective and even biblical perspective, freedom starts with the recognition, acknowledgement of God. And while Trump did that in the first term, it was more of a head acknowledgement. It's like we used to talk about what was called a 17 inch conversion. You've had a conversion from your head to your heart. And this time it's more out of his heart that he is. He clearly has internalized and talking to people close to him and just being around and seeing him, he definitely has a heartfelt connection to God and he's growing that you know there's there's no question that he's not matured none of us are as mature as we need to be but his this time it has gone from the head to the heart and it's a whole difference and the other thing i'll throw out that i i think he's doing that is pretty remarkable all of us talk about how the constitution wants limited government that's what it's established that's why we have enumerated powers that's, why the constitution only lets the government do certain things. We all support that. But I don't think that I... For one, understood how much government was into until he started uncovering some of the stuff that he was doing. And, you know, Doge is coming out and saying, and we go, wait a minute, we're doing what? No, we don't need that. And so we've wanted to limit the government, but we didn't understand how deeply government was involved in the minutia and micromanagement in so many areas. And that's the other thing I think is so remarkable about Trump is he's helping us actually see what limited government is supposed to look like, and there's still a long way to go, but my goodness, I don't think we've had this kind of limited government in decades and decades, certainly not since the time of Reagan have we had government pulled out of so many areas. So there's just a lot of good things happening now, and that is going down into the state level, and the guys at the state level are saying we can do this too, and that's just good news for everybody in America to have limited government, which gives us more individual freedoms. 

Rick Green [00:08:35] Yeah, you guys are so right. It sets the tone. I mean, it absolutely sets the tone and that courage becomes courageous. Yeah, that courage becomes contagious. That's what I'm looking for there. And then we see it all the way down into the state and now, even in some cases, the local level. Quick break. We'll be right back. Senator Phil King from Texas, our special guest today on The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:09:59] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Phil King back with us, a state senator in Texas, actually literally in the middle of the final few weeks of the session. So it's a crazy, crazy schedule and we sure appreciate you taking some time, Phil. 

Phil King [00:10:12] Oh, delighted to be here, thank you. 

Rick Green [00:10:14] Well, hey, man, y'all have had some great successes. I mean, the Senate, my goodness, it felt like y' all were done with business in January. Started in January, done at the end of the month. I mean y'll went fast and got a lot of good stuff out and then you've had to wait on the house, still waiting on the House on a lot stuff. But anyway, just wanted to get an update from you, specifically kind of the, some people had asked us about the Texas DOGE and what you guys were doing there. But also want to get update from you on 10 Commandments and just all the different things that you're working on. So appreciate the time. We'll go through them as fast as we can. Go brother, which one you want to talk about first, doge? 

Phil King [00:10:47] Let's do the Doge Bill. 

Rick Green [00:10:49] So right 

Phil King [00:10:50] Yeah, it was Senate Bill 14, and it's passed out of the House and passed out of the Senate. It was the first bill to make it to the governor's desk. So it's already been signed. It is law. The interesting thing was ours isn't focused like Washington's on the financials. Texas's state budget is in great shape. In fact, that's why we have a $30 billion budget surplus. In other words, we have that much extra money in the bank because we don't Spend all the money. What struck us was we started looking and we found that we were the, of all the states, we had the fifth largest number of regulations. Every state agency, whether it's regulating environmental issues, transportation, energy, whatever may be, it's all governed by all the regulations that come up in these agencies just like with the Fed. We had, we're supposed to be the state of freedom and economic opportunity and everything else and we had the fifth largest number of regulations. So this bill, we decided. 

Rick Green [00:11:56] And you mean like, is that numbers? Like, like the, in other words, it's not just a dollar amount of regulation. It's all these things on the books. So all these you got to spend money complying with. 

Phil King [00:12:06] Yes, yes, it's things that you have to have a compliance office in your company to go with or if you're going to build a house or whatever it may be. And so we really decided to make our DOGE effort, and I chair what we're calling the Doge Committee, it is Economic Development Committee. We decided to look at process as opposed to budget because process is what we need to clean up. And so, we did a number of things. I think they're pretty exciting. One, we created a new. Regulatory efficiency office under our governor and basically we staff it and their job is to go through the regulations methodically of every single agency in Texas, whether it's the one that oversees the beauticians or the plumbers or the electric power industry or whatever it may be, transportation, medical, whatever it is, they're to go through all the regulations, which we found there's things that have been on that book for 50 or 75 years. And they're to go through them all and determine which ones should be taken up and considered to be removed or to be revised or to modified in some way. They're also going to work on 

Rick Green [00:13:18] Does this kind of feel, does this essentially apply the, and I'm saying this out of ignorance because I haven't followed this, does this, essentially take the sunset process that the Texas legislature does, which is maybe a good reason why the budget hasn't gone crazy and needed a doge type thing, and apply it to the regulatory side of it? 

Phil King [00:13:38] Yes. 

Rick Green [00:13:39] Not just the spending, but the actual regulations? 

Phil King [00:13:41] Yeah. 

Rick Green [00:13:41] Am I saying that right? I mean, that's how I'm kind of seeing it. 

Phil King [00:13:44] Yeah, yeah, so theoretically, the way it's supposed to work is every state agency goes away every 12 years, sunsets, unless we reestablish it. What's supposed happen in the two years before that occurs is there's supposed to be this giant overview, review of everything in that agency. But traditionally, what has happened is the regulations just grow. You remember when you were there in the house? That's the time you add on new laws and new regulations into those agencies. And so the sunset process was supposed to be doing this, but it hasn't. And so this is gonna be a new process that a separate group that goes through really working in conjunction in some ways with sunset, but working with each agency. You know, another example is we're now gonna require cost benefit analysis to be done before any new regulation comes into place. Turns out they're supposed to be doing that, but if they don't, nothing happens. We're putting it in there that if you're a business and an agency created a new regulation and then you challenge that and you look in the future and say, hey, they didn't do a cost-benefit analysis, then that's grounds for throwing out that whole regulation. So we're going to be serious for the first time about before you can pass a new regulation. Because what happens is we pass a bill that says we need...  more electric power generation in Texas public utility commission go do this well then they create maybe thousands of pages in a rulemaking of different rules and regulations to accomplish that that's how the stuff happened and so .. Now you can 

Rick Green [00:15:26] You just said something even just cost-benefit analysis even just that phrase is foreign to government way too often, right? That's how they end up requiring just crazy crazy stuff that if you're in business and you're and you want having to do that And it's added to your bottom line and you do a cost-benefit doesn't make sense But as a bureaucrat or as a inspector or whatever you're not the one having to live with the consequence What you're saying is this is a way for for the the the representatives that the elected representatives of the people to essentially require their bureaucracy to do that cost-benefit analysis. 

Phil King [00:15:58] Absolutely. And if they don't do it, the regulation could get thrown out. Another thing, one thing we found was that people were saying, look, I'm in the trucking business. I can't figure out in all these different codes what applies to my business or I want to, I want a move in from out of state and I want open up an air conditioning and heating business repair business. What do I do for licensing? What regulations apply? Well, okay. We have AI now we're going to have a one stop portal. Where you can come in and that one portal and you'll type in whatever the parameters are and it's gonna pull up every regulation anywhere in the state of Texas in any agency that has any thing to do with your business or industry or your inquiry. And so we think it's kind of a one-stop shopping so you can figure out what the regulations are, what you have to comply with or what you have to fight may be the case. 

Rick Green [00:16:50] Interesting. 

Phil King [00:16:51] Yeah, another thing we ran into is we want to make sure we have good reciprocity on licenses. So if you're a licensed electrician in Ohio and you say, hey, Texas is where all the jobs are. That's where they're building all the buildings. I want to move to Texas. Well, you come here and even though you've been an outstanding electrician up there, a master plumber, whatever, for the last 15 years, your license may not work in We may not have reciprocity because there's all these barriers. And frankly, those are barriers that that the electricians and the plumbers have gotten into law over the years because they don't want competition. It's just the way things work. And so part of this Doge process is to dramatically lighten the load on that and increase and examine how we can have reciprocity with all other states on their license. So if you're a plumber and you want to move to Fort Worth, Texas, great, when a Fort Worth Texas company hires you, they know that the license you had in California. Has reciprocity at a work here in Texas. You don't have to go through a long process of, an expensive process of getting a Texas. 

Rick Green [00:17:57] That's so good, Phil. And that also, I mean, for, for people that are listening right now, what they should hear when they w w when you're saying that, that what they should hear is lower cost in housing. I mean that's because that's what it does. It, it creates a, uh, when, when you have all these barriers, it creates, it increases the cost of a house or whatever the product is, is being made by this person that has this license. And when you say, listen, you've already been doing that in another state, you already got that expertise and the market will kick you out. If you're not good at it anyway. Uh, it, it allows us to lower the cost of housing. I think Donald Trump said, president Trump said back in January, something like 32% of the cost, of a house now is essentially regulation. And so you guys are really tackling that with this, uh, with this effort. 

Phil King [00:18:39] I mean, if you're going to build a house, you're looking at materials, you're look at labor costs, and then you're looking at the regulatory costs. And, uh, and part of that labor cost is we don't have enough plumbers. have enough electricians, et cetera, et. And so, but if you, and if, if that plumbing company hires you out of Ohio and you come down here and, Hey, you were supposed to be a good master plumber. If you're not doing a good job, they're going to fire you, right? 

Rick Green [00:19:01] That's right. 

Phil King [00:19:02] So they're gonna be determining, but because all the states have different Licensing, professional licensing requirements. You know, if you're working as a master plumber in Ohio, you ought to be able to work as a Master Plumber in Texas. And if you don't do a good job, your new boss is gonna fire you. 

Rick Green [00:19:17] That's right. What was that? What was the, there was some, there was some beautician license that was a big deal a few years ago that finally kind of pointed out how far we we'd gone way too far with this licensing thing. I think it was like braiding hair. 

Rick Green [00:19:30] Where they plucked eyebrows, remember that? 

Rick Green [00:19:34] And you gotta have a license to do it, unbelievable. 

Phil King [00:19:37] Yeah. Yeah. And there was another one on some type of special hair. I forget what it was, but yes. And you know, the way this has historically happened. Okay. So you're, you're in an industry and you don't want a lot of competition. So, you go out and form an association and then your association starts offering training courses. And then you come to the legislature and say, Hey, nobody should really get to be doing this type of practice unless they've been through training courses, so they establish some minimal training standards. And they come back of years later and they say, you know. Really everybody ought to be licensed. Well, that's creating an artificial barrier to people who know how to do the job, coming in to do it. And that's just how things have evolved in every state for the last, you know, 100 years or so. 

Phil King [00:20:20] That was true. I, I remember man, when I was there with you, I had a great friend from my district that would do all of my auctions at my fundraisers and, just a great guy, but man, he pushed me and pushed me, pushed me wanting licensing for auctioneers. And I would always say, Jim, I don't understand why you, if you, if you can do the thing and people hire you to do the thing, then why do we need to license you? I mean, the thing like, you know, where they go really fast. Anyway, I just, it's a perfect example of that. And we've done it with dogs and breeding and everything you can think of. So yeah, anyway, so you guys, I hate to, I hate to rush you here, bro, but I know you got to get to the floor for some votes. And, and,  I wanted to get an update on the, on the 10 commandments bill that you carried. And, the David and Tim came into and testified for, and it seemed like that was another one I was going to ask you about, but yeah, take commandments. What about that one? 

Phil King [00:21:10] Tencom is, it's passed the Senate, passed early. It is, uh, SB 10, which we thought was kind of clever, but to Senate bill 10. It's over in the Senate over in house. I'm sorry. Before the session even began, the speaker of the house told me Phil will pass it. 

Rick Green [00:21:25] Cool. 

Tim Barton [00:21:25] And, uh. Interestingly, I just got a text message from him about an hour ago said, when do you have time to talk about Senate bill ten? So I think they're fixing to take it up. I don't know if they,  they may want to make some changes in it. Obviously, we can't add or take away from commandments, so we'll see what it is. But he's committed to passing it. It's going to become law. 

Phil King [00:21:48] Excellent excellent good news. Well brother appreciate you I know you got a lot of other bills going but also know you gotta go vote on some new ones. Not new ones, but some additional ones. We'll get you back after session maybe? Get a get a post-op see kind of a debrief on how it all turned out 

Phil King [00:22:03] I will tell you one aside funny, if I can, on the ten com bill. I had one, one, I won't say who it was, but one official very seriously asked me if we could remove one of the commandments. 

Phil King [00:22:18] You're kidding me. 

Phil King [00:22:21] I'm dead serious. And of course, you know, I said, well, I mean, you know they are the 10 commandments. And we talked about it a little bit. And then one of my staff members pointed out to me a little while later and said, yeah, and they literally were written in stone, right? But we kept all 10, so we're good. 

Phil King [00:22:46] Wow, that's a great one to end on. They literally were written in stone. No,. 

Phil King [00:22:51] Isn't that funny? Isn't that funny?

Phil King [00:22:53] I'm glad you didn't name them. We'd be getting a lot of interesting mail and they'd have a really interesting campaign next week. Oh, no, no. 

Phil King [00:22:59] We got it all worked out. 

Rick Green [00:23:02] Good deal. Well, Phil King, Senator from Texas, appreciate you coming on, man. We'll get you back right after session. 

Phil King [00:23:07] Thanks Rick, see ya. 

Rick Green [00:23:08] Stay with us. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton

Rick Green [00:24:18] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Senator Phil King for joining us. Guys, so it sounds like not just the Doge efforts at the state level, but also the Ten Commandments bill, which you guys have been a big part of throughout that whole process moving. And we're in the last few days, I guess the last couple of weeks of the session. So we'll get Phil back in a couple of week for three weeks and get a report on the final pieces of the of the section. But man, looks really positive on those two fronts

David Barton [00:24:44] Well, even as Phil was talking about how well Texas is doing with budgeting and spending in so many areas, the fact that we're number five in the nation in the amount of regulations was just, I would never have guessed that. But the reason that's significant is, depending on which regulations you're talking about, somewhere between 14% and 45% of all items you purchase, the price of that is from regulations. It's business people having to comply with regulations or do things or you have to do more kinds of insurance or whatever it is. And so the fact that Texas is already economically sound and the fact that we're trying to get rid of regulations and get down to fewer regulation, I love the fact that we sunset thing every 12 years. You got to prove you should still be alive as a government agency. There's no eternal life in Texas for government agencies, which is great. But the fact that you can get the regs out of that means even more savings for citizens in a state. So there's just, I mean, this whole thing should have been a good News Friday today because there's just a lot of good news not only from federal but also state level as well 

Rick Green [00:25:50] We had a good news Monday a couple weeks ago. We could have a good new Wednesday. Nothing wrong with that. We'll call it good news Wednesday. Yeah. Yeah Tim. I guess uh, it's got you know, you we gotta send you to more states I mean every time you go testify somewhere we get a piece of legislation passed. How many signing ceremonies have you been in now? 

Tim Barton [00:26:05] Well, not as many as we would like, because unfortunately there were some states earlier in the year, that, that voted down some of these really positive things, in the house, but it's because some states don't have the courage to lead if other states did at first it say, oh, well I can do what Arkansas and Texas and Louisiana did, but there are some states that had the courage lead and that's been really exciting to be part of those. And obviously when you have guys like Phil King, he is not scared to lead on these issues. 

Rick Green [00:26:32] Alright folks, we'll open this tomorrow, we will have Foundations of Freedom Thursday taking your questions. Send those in to us at radio@wallbuilders.com and then of course this Friday, all good news on our Good News Friday program. Thanks for listening to the WallBuilders Show.