Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to Intersection of Faith and Culture. This is The WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with Tim Barton. David's not with us, but we are live at the Patriot Academy campus. Tim just got here with Gabi, and the girls got moved into the cottage. They, of course, went shopping in Fredericksburg, which is what everybody does in Frederiksburg. I did not. No, no, they did. Yeah, the girls did, the girl did. You came here, immediately went to work. You've been testifying in committee. What was up that you testified as Ronald Reagan? What was the bill? 

Tim Barton [00:00:34] It was on BLM if they have a right to all of the land west of the Rockies, which they've claimed over 70% of it. And I generally don't encourage people to identify as something else or how they want or feel. But I just... 

Rick Green [00:00:52] You were feeling the Reagan vibe. 

Tim Barton [00:00:54] Inspiration mode. I went Ronald Reagan. 

Rick Green [00:00:56] I liked it. You didn't try the impersonation, but you still channeled him well. So, it was good. Okay, first, before we invite students up to ask questions, your impression of just the fact that we have almost 150 students here from across the nation, our largest Patriot Academy ever and there's the legislative process even in the debate as you were talking to them or as you are observing and watching them. Just your thoughts about the importance of training the next generation, which we actually just talked about in the program a week or two ago. 

Tim Barton [00:01:21] Yeah, I absolutely love the fact that you are in a place here on the campus where you are able to do so much more with so many more students. I instantly felt underdressed when I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, and everybody had on suit. And you were not as dressy, but then you had a button up, and you had on your cowboy hat, and you showed on a sports jacket. So I felt a little out of place. 

Rick Green [00:01:43] It was the first time ever though by the way that during you know except at the dinner and the only reason I did it our mutual friend Brody Huff brought a bill to allow for cowboy hats to be worn on the house floor and I thought well, you know what we're gonna have some people in the room. Little bit of a response here and it was a big debate and you know I had to step in as the Rictator and and and rule you know be and say I don't care what the people want. I want to be able to wear my cowboy hat and so then I went and got my cowboy hat and came back. That's why I was dressed up. 

Tim Barton [00:02:13] Well, I definitely appreciate that. But yeah, what you guys are doing here is incredible to see how many students are here, learning some of the basic lift principles. Maybe later we can talk to some students about that. They can clarify for all of the listeners what the lift principles are. But getting a foundation back, I am excited tomorrow. I get to give some sessions with the students. And one of the things I'm going to get into, I just watched a video with a progressive challenging 20 far-right conservatives. On some very basic topics and the lack of knowledge of what these far-right conservatives had on what in my mind were very simple issues was really disappointing. It was quite embarrassing to watch as someone who was a conservative, but I thought it would have been so different if we could have chosen 20 of these students. 

Rick Green [00:03:02] Yes, 20 picture academy students taking on a level. That would be fun, yes. 

Tim Barton [00:03:06] Which at some point, maybe we can set up something like this, but. All that to say, super excited to be able to be here with the group, with the team, so many incredible patriots and people that are pursuing what God asked for them and wanting to be equipped along the way. So whatever arena, whatever field they go into, knowing the foundation of freedom, the foundation of the Constitution, the basic civics that all of us should know. 

Rick Green [00:03:30] You know, we finally figured out a few years ago, because people would come through Patriot Academy, they thought if I go to Patriot academy, I have to go into politics. And we didn't even realize that that was kind of being projected. And so we finally figure it out. We need to talk more about like what you just said, going into all these different areas, because only about 10% of the students actually go into the campaigning or running for office or whatever it might be. And most of them go into business or ministry or the arts or whatever, it might, it may be. So speak to that for a second, just the fact that for them to come here and learn how to be a good citizen. But then to go out into whatever God's called them to. Cause I've noticed just a relief on some of their faces as soon as we say that, and they don't feel like I have to go into politics. No, you need to find what God's got for you. 

Tim Barton [00:04:07] Yeah. And it would be a disservice if we were encouraging everyone here to get involved in politics because God hasn't called everybody here to be involved in politics in the way that we think that we're supposed to be on some legislative staff, that we are supposed to be an elected official ourselves. But the reality is most Americans get very frustrated with the process. We see the inactivity from Congress. When you see President Trump saying, we want these things done, and then Mike Johnson can't get the House to do it, and you see the Senate and they can't get the votes in the Senate. And it's very easy for the American people to get very frustrated and go, man, these Republicans are worthless. And even though I agree, some of them probably are. I don't disagree with that. Until you've gone through the process and understand how messy it is to try to wrangle and get that many different ideas in the room onto the same page to get things done, most Americans, in their frustration, they either wanna kinda wash their hands and walk away from it, or they wanna complain, neither of which are good options. But when you understand the way the process works, you understand that significance of what happens behind the scenes, what happens in committee, what happens in private conversations, and to give the rising generation a perspective to understand also the importance and value of what government is and what it isn't. What they should be doing and what they shouldn't be doing also makes a difference, because even though not everyone here is going to run for office, everyone here is going be voting for people that are running for office. And we want to make sure we are able to choose the kind of people that represent the very things that help America be successful going forward. And that certainly is a reflection of knowing what the role of government is and what the rule of government isn't, what they should be trying to accomplish and what they should leave in the hands of the people. 

Rick Green [00:05:49] And even for like, here we have young people, these are 16 to 25 year olds with us this week. In two weeks, we'll have military veterans and constitution coaches of all ages, to your point, exactly what you just said. You get mad at politicians, you get mad when they don't do things, but if you go through this process, you understand it better. So at least you can channel that frustration and anger to the process and understand what it takes to get a piece of legislation passed. I mean, even for you, you were traveling around going to a lot of legislatures this year, testifying on bills that we've been pushing for years and years and years. And then they finally got passed this year. Ten Commandments and a lot of other things like that, but it took time. It took multiple sessions for most of those issues. 

Tim Barton [00:06:23] It did, and it took a lot of legislators in those states to be educated to what the issues actually were. Yeah. Which also, all the students here are learning. Many times on the floor debate, you hear somebody else making a point, you go, ooh, I hadn't thought about that before. And sometimes you get swayed by hearing the conversation from the other side, because even though you might have really solid grounded principles, sometimes we don't realize there are things that align with our principles. That is different than what we thought maybe a bill or position might be. And I say that looking, for example, at Mike Johnson, where people might look at him as a Speaker of the House, and we've talked about this on our show many times before, and I know there's a lot of people frustrated with Mike Johnson for not having more conservative leadership in areas in their mind, but we also recognize it's not because Mike Johnson has compromised on conservative values. It's because he's having to wrangle the cats. He's having try to control the herd as we're going different directions. But the reason it matters is the more you understand the process and the more that you understand that you've chosen principled people to be in that process, then it lets you know what you should be doing, which first of all, when you understand how messy it is, we should be bathing everything in prayer because it needs God's help. What the founding fathers understood, if God's not a part, unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain to build it. If God's not helping, it's not gonna work. But even with the idea we need to be baiting this in prayer, what can we do behind the seats? Well, we can call or email our congressmen, our senators. There are things we can do to even have informed opinions. But part of what's happening at this National Leadership Congress is helping lay out some of what that looks like, what that foundation is, so we have more understanding, so that we're not just frustrated. We actually know some of the answer solutions, almost like the sons of Issachar, men who understood the signs of times, knew the best course for Israel to take. We are literally helping show rising generations what is happening in culture and what are good solutions to take so that whether they run for office or if they just show up at somebody's meeting and they can say, have you thought about this bill before? There's probably gonna be some bills that are discussed this week that very well some of these students might actually take back to somebody who is in office or running for office and they might present it to them. And by the way, everybody in the room. That's something you should think about. Is there a bill this week that you hear that when you go back and you meet with somebody from whatever Republican committee or conservative committee or whatever group you're a part of, even somebody that's in office or running for office, there might be a bill you could pitch to them. And that would be pretty stinkin' awesome. If they ran a bill that you pitched to them from Patriot Academy National Leadership Congress and they ran it, that'd be incredible. But these are the kind of things and opportunities that we are able to do this week helping train the rising generation. How do we get biblical principles, solid foundation, and Christian leaders back involved in this process. 

Rick Green [00:09:14] Men and women of Issachar that understand the times and know what to do. That's what we're raising up here. All right, we got questions from the audience, from our Patriot Academy students. Elijah is up first. Elijah, what's your question for Tim Barton? 

Elijah Penn [00:09:25] Hello y'all. You were just standing in front of the candy tray. That's why it's really 

Rick Green [00:09:29] You're just coming over here to get candy? Oh, we're in the way. 

Elijah Penn [00:09:32] I do have a question for you. So my question is, should government, especially local government, have any place in charity or rehabilitation organizations? 

Rick Green [00:09:44] So proper role of government, Tim. We've been talking about this a lot. And of course, we give them the talk on timeless principles of liberty, limited government jurisdiction. So really Elijah's question is to that jurisdictional question. And he was very careful with how he worded it because it's so easy for us to always say, no, the federal government should not. But he said local government and specifically to, you said charity and what was the other? 

Elijah Penn [00:10:03] Rehabilitation. 

Rick Green [00:10:04] Rehabilitation. All right, what are your thoughts, Tim? Notice I punted to Tim and didn't give an opinion. 

Tim Barton [00:10:09] I was quickly going to say, Rick, this is a topic that you have covered many times. And so you get a back clean up. I'm the lead off batter on this one. So the founding fathers are pretty clear on this position that one of the things, the quote was attributed to Jefferson, repeated by Abraham Lincoln, that the government should only do for us we cannot do for ourselves. And one of the unfortunate things in kind of modern American culture is we rely on the government to do so much more that people are capable of doing themselves. And this is not to say that there is not a need for some of these areas, but this is what used to be recognized as the role of the church. I actually had a pastor just in the last week or two, maybe, and he was talking about, it's interesting, before the 1900s, there was no counseling or psychology profession in industry, right? Like this is a new idea. And it's interesting that the more that counseling psychology has grown, it's actually changed people's view even of the church. Because it used to be, we didn't have some of these institutions. Why? Because you went to the church, the pastor is the one you got the counseling from. The pastor is a one that helped in these situations. And the more we've shifted it to the government, the more secular we've made our nation. The founding fathers were super clear that our nation only works with a moral and religious people. So the more circular we become, that the worse it is for our nation. And even if you go to the Bible, answering this even as a Christian perspective, there's over 200 verses in the Bible that talk about the poor and the needy. And the only thing the Bible ever tells the government about the poor and needy is, do not show favoritism on their behalf or against them. Give them justice in your court. That's it. That that's all the Bible says. So according to the bible, the role of government is to give blind justice to not show favoritism, and according to the Constitution... The only role of the federal government is what the enumerated powers are, which does not go down to helping individuals, and even the idea from the declaration that the role of government, their primary purpose is to protect our inalienable rights. Well, if that's the primary role of Government, I don't see the connection where protecting our inaimable rights means the government providing something on a monetary level for us. 

Rick Green [00:12:20] Yeah, and now you channeled Reagan earlier. I thought for sure in your answer, you were going to say Ronald Reagan's favorite book other than the Bible was that printer of Udell. It had this huge influence on him when he was young. And it was all about exactly what Tim just said. How when the church receded and was not taking care of people, government moved into that space and did a terrible job at it. Has never been good at it, can only write a check, cannot actually meet the need or help and actually be a helping hand. And so we actually did a book at WallBullers, I don't know, what was it? 15 years ago that talked about the study where when you do things through government to help the poor, for instance, when you talk about charity like that, or even rehabilitation, it's about 30% that gets to the person in need. But when you it through the church or through a private organization, it's 60%. So it's twice as effective to do it God's way through the individual or private organization. And man, we used to talk about the prison ministries and all of the different church-run organizations. That took care of that rehabilitation and how much more effective it was. So really long answer to your question, but absolutely the local government does not do it as well, but the church has to step in. You need a safety net. I'm not against a safety in the culture, in the society, but it's the church's fault for stepping away and not doing those things. That's the reason government ended up getting so involved. I forgot to tell everybody, tell us your name and where you're from. So Elijah, where are you from? 

Elijah Penn [00:13:41] My name's Elijah Penn, I am from Tampa in the great state of Florida. 

Rick Green [00:13:45] We have way too many Floridians here, Tim. I think we should require them not to be able to answer any more questions. All right,. 

Tim Barton [00:13:50] If we would do a better job in Texas, we wouldn't be insecure about Florida. 

Rick Green [00:13:53] Oh, so true. I know the Floridians in the room are going to like that. Yes, yes. All right, same thing, Wyatt, where you're from and then ask your question. 

Wyatt Jefferys [00:14:00] Absolutely. My name is Wyatt Jeffreys. I'm from the greatest state in the Union, Texas. And it's going to be a great thing to be able to speak with the two of y'all. I do have a question. With a lot of the economic situation that's going on in the media and the younger generation having trouble being able to buy a simple home, some of the things that have come up is the idea of changing how we're getting our taxes. Tariffs have come a lot lately, so I'd like to get y'alls opinion on income taxes versus tariffs, excisements, and the more... Old-school way of gaining income. 

Rick Green [00:14:32] Good question, man. Don't you love, Tim, that we've got, how old are you, Wyatt? So he's 24 years old. And I love the fact that they're thinking about, look, I want to provide for my family. I want it to be able to do well. And I know government's taking this chunk. We're big fans of the transaction tax rather than being taxed for what you own. Property tax punishes you for your owning your own piece of Texas. And if you improve your piece of Texas, they're gonna punish you for improving and make you pay more. Whereas a tariff or a sales tax is at that transaction. And I will say we, you know, Tim and David and I had a lot of questions on Trump's tariffs. And we even said, you know, we're going to have to see what this ultimately does, but certainly the founding fathers weren't opposed to tariffs and they were more for a transaction tax or an excise tax than for a property tax as well. And I actually said, you know when he first started doing the tariffs, I was like, okay, probably gonna take a year before we really know whether or not they're going work. I had no idea. I'd be telling you two months after he did it. Wow. Look at how many countries have capitulated. And give it in and stop doing the tariffs against us or reduce them. Look at how well it's working to bring in money and how it has not ended up hurting our economy like everybody thought that it would. So it's been really interesting just to look at the results, specifically on Trump's tariffs, but in a short answer to your question, I'm always in favor of a transaction tax rather than taxing your ownership of property because then you only pay it when you choose to buy, right? So you can factor it into your buying decision in that case, Tim? 

Tim Barton [00:15:58] Just one thought to add to it. The story where Jesus is asked about taxes and he ultimately tells Peter, right, go down, catch a fish, pull the corn out of its mouth, pay our taxes, but it's interesting the way it's phrased. In Matthew 17, just verse 25, easy example, he said, yes, and when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him saying, what do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes. From their sons or from strangers?" And Peter answered and replied, from strangers. Jesus said to him, then the sons are free. He said, nevertheless, unless we offend them, go catch a coin, fish out of his mouth, or go catch fish, not catch a coins, catch a fish, take the coin out of his mouth. But it's interesting, Jesus raises this rhetorical question as if the answer is obvious. But he says, well, who do the kings tax? Their sons or the foreigners? But the reason it matters is because so many of us were like, well, that's a crazy concept that we're going to tax goods coming in. No, it's literally the question Jesus asked rhetorically because it was so obvious. Well, what do kings do? We don't tax our own. We tax the people that are bringing in goods to sell to us. And I'm not saying this to give a blanket for all tariffs. And maybe there's not some strategy or some wisdom in different versions of tariffs and how that goes. But it's things like this, I think, a lot of times, too, as we even navigate our economic positions, the Bible gives far more insight in a lot of areas that we give it credit for. And even the Bible doesn't seem to indicate a negative view of tariffs. And we've talked about a lot too on our program before, Rick, where it depends on what Trump does with the tariffs. If this is gonna be a forever tariff, that might be a problem, big picture long term. But what he's done far more is use them as a negotiating tactic and strategy to help bring prices down. And with all this being said, it is a very real valid concern. What we've seen with inflation, what we've seen with housing markets and interest rates. When I bought a house 15 years ago, I sold it for three times what I bought it for 10 years later. It's stupid, and I get how ridiculous it is, but I do think what President Trump is doing will have positive effect in the long term. I think part of what his strategy is, is also limited by what he can get through Congress. Because he can do some things, but he's very, very limited without having a congressional legislative action done. But I do think what he is doing now is definitely benefiting America. 

Rick Green [00:18:29] All right, we're gonna take a quick break. Our next question, I can already tell, it's like a Texas versus Florida thing the whole time, because the next person in line is a Floridian. So we'll see what the, do what? Oh, wait, you were speaker of Florida. How'd you pull that off? Oh, via the boyfriend. She was speaker of, I didn't, how did I miss that? Okay, so good. No more Florida, though she was governor of Florida the year before, no, governor, yeah, two years ago and speaker this year. Okay, quick break, we'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show. . Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. We are at the Patriot Academy campus for the biggest National Leadership Congress ever. And the students are right here in the room with us, Hey guys, thank y'all for joining us. And governor slash speaker, I am so sorry for insulting you by saying you're from Florida because you're actually from Missouri. So I know I knew I'd get a boo out of that from the Floridians. Okay, so show me state, what's your question? 

Chikaina Lintz [00:20:28] Hi, so my name is Chikaina Lintz and I am from southwest Missouri. I wish I was from Florida and so anyways first of all I'm so grateful to you both and WallBuilders i remember my dad showing me WallBuilders when i was like 13 or 14 and I was so inspired that I read two treatises of government and I remember I didn't understand half of it but I just I remember like we had these in-depth conversations that it was amazing and you guys are so inspiring so Anyways, um. 

Rick Green [00:21:01] But by the way, before you ask your question, remind me when we get back out on the house floor, Tim and David gave me a 1764 version of Two Treatises to the Government and I actually have it here with me. So I'll show it to you. 

Chikaina Lintz [00:21:12] Okay, that's so cool!  

Rick Green [00:21:14] what's cool is to find students that are excited about seeing a book that's 300 years old. 

Chikaina Lintz [00:21:19] Okay, and my question to you is Locke versus Burke, who wins? 

Rick Green [00:21:25] Goodness well I don't know if you can both great influence I don't know what do you think I mean Locke's probably more biblical and and you know Burke would maybe maybe be more libertarian so yeah probably Locke 

Tim Barton [00:21:35] And, you know, when the study was done by the professors from the University of Houston, Donald Letts led that study back in the 1980's

Tim Barton [00:21:42]  You're measuring it in terms of who had more influence. 

Tim Barton [00:21:45] Right. Yeah, so the book Origins of American Constitutionalism, there's a group of professors that went back to review who had the greatest influence. John Locke was the most cited individual in the American Revolution period. Some of the ideas of inalienable rights, Locke is the one really that gets a lot of credit. Now, Blackstone did too, because the laws of nature, nature's God, and he talked about inalienneable rights as well in his commentaries on the laws in England, but John Lock, I would say, is probably more foundational for America. Then, Burke, just buy that influence on the Founding Fathers. 

Rick Green [00:22:18] Yeah, good answer and great questions. She kind of thank you. All right, who's up next? We got five minutes, so we'll try to get in two more questions if we can. 

Sam Barnett [00:22:23] So my name is Sam Barnett and I'm from the Panhandle of Texas and I have another economic question for you. So how much involvement should the government have in the economy and or the free market with a specific emphasis on the use of federal subsidies for businesses? 

Rick Green [00:22:37] Oh boy, well- We're kind of laissez-faire around here. I mean, we want the government out of the way. Tim's family, so the Bartons and the Greens are both entrepreneurial families, have had a lot of businesses in our background. We want government out the way and let the market decide. At least that would be my answer. Especially the federal government, get them out of way. And Jefferson, of course, said, you're gonna be the most thriving when you're left the most free to make your own decisions. Leave the free market to make those decisions. Tim? 

Tim Barton [00:23:00] Yeah, and I would say the only addition, and Rick, obviously, if you disagree or have different thoughts, I would add to that is I am not opposed to tax incentives, but tax incentives based on what you have produced. Because if you are producing more, you're bringing more to the state, you're creating more jobs. And so then giving a tax incentive, but it's very different from the current tax structure we have today. So I would, say if we reverse some of the tax structure, it would make more sense from a government standpoint. But that would be legislative action more than anything else and so that would be leaders representing the people but certainly i would think changing some of the tax code where biblically speaking whether you look at the parable of the talent in Matthew 25 the parables of the minus in loop 19 um right the ones who are the most productive were rewarded with more why because you're doing the most and anybody that's productive and is creating they're not like doing a scrooge mcduck having this big you know pile of gold coins are swimming in no they're reinvesting that in the market. They're doing startups and so they're doing things that make sense that they should have some tax incentives based on what they are producing and how they are helping individuals. And so I think even from a biblical standpoint, there's a lot of support for changing that tax structure for sure. But other than changing the tax structure, Rick, I'm with you, the laissez-faire makes sense. 

Rick Green [00:24:15] Yeah, and I always think of something else when Tim starts talking. Two things, real quick, one would be, because you mentioned the minus, part of the problem with doing the subsidies or any involvement for the federal government is they start picking winners and losers, and then they start micromanaging the relationship. I love the parable where, I mean, Jesus is basically saying it's my money, and if I want to pay this person this amount and this other person this amount, and they agree to that, everybody else should just get out of the way. It bugs me to know in that the Department of Labor at the federal level or our state departments of labor, get involved in the relationship, if you would If you want to hire me and I'm willing to come for $100 an hour or $10 an hour, that's between us and government should not be involved in that. And then the other thing is just a Milton Friedman quote. He talks about those subsidies as being friction in the market because then it basically manipulates or, you know, confuses what the market really wants because now you got some politicians saying, you now, instead of the free market, what he would say is instead of the free-market telling us what people want, this is the government telling us what people should want. And that's never a better outcome. Okay, we might be able to squeeze one more in. We got a minute and a half. How about if you ask a question? Sam, thank you. Ask a quick one. 

Sam Parsons [00:25:17] Thank you for being here. My name is Sam Parsons. I'm from Fayetteville, North Carolina, and I was wondering your beliefs on whether or not the Senate should be representative of population size per state, like the House of Representatives. 

Rick Green [00:25:27] Oh man, so not a 17th amendment question. It's not whether or not, I thought you were going there probably, going back to the legislators. Should you have more senators if you're a bigger state? I'll let you answer that one in 30 seconds. 

Tim Barton [00:25:37] Well, I mean, my thought really is more to the 17th Amendment because when we do it based on population, they cease to be as reflective of the defense of the state, which is what the point of the Senate really was. And so we've really lost the 10th Amendment, because of that. And I don't see the adding more senators help solve that problem. And, so I would not be supportive of that only because the Senate, really should be defending the state's rights position more than anything else, I would think. Rick, anything else? 

Rick Green [00:26:04] No, I totally agree and I think part of the issue is that those small states, they do need that additional representation and it's hard for them and I just can't imagine that the great compromise, that we can make it any better than what they were, what they had to do back then. So I hate that we're running out of time. We got a lot of students that wanted to ask questions. Tim, we might have to do this tomorrow. Sam, thank you for that question. We might have do it again. Thank you so much for listening today, folks. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show. Be sure and visit our website, wallbuilders.show, to catch up on the radio programs and wallbuilder.scom for all those other great materials. Tim, thanks for doing this live with the students and students, thank y'all for joining us today.