Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilders show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton on a Thursday, which means of course you get to ask the questions out there, so send them in radio at wallbuilders.com that's radio at wallbuilders.com. We call it foundations of freedom Thursday. And it's just a chance to get back to some of those foundational principles. So most of the questions we get are about the constitution or maybe something going through Congress or an executive order or maybe some happening in your state or in your community. With the question being, is this constitutional? Does this seem biblical? What's, how's this, you know, weigh in terms of history? What's happened in the past with something like this? So, send those questions in. We love getting questions on all kinds of topics. And honestly, it's really fun when you ask one, we have no idea what the answer is. We get to go do some homework and research and learn ourselves. So, thanks for doing that. So, the websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilders.show are the place to get more info. Wallbuilders.show for all the radio programming. You can catch up on weeks and months of programming there. Easily share it with friends and family, which I highly recommend because that's being a force multiplier. You're helping to spread the good news and to equip people and educate them and to answer a lot of questions like what we're going to talk about today and then wallbuilders.com that's our main website lots of great stuff there all of our events coming up this summer and through the fall we've got another Pastor's Briefing in the fall as we mentioned earlier this week, we've gotten one in April that there might be a couple of slots for so go ahead and check that out but, for sure the one in the fall. And then we've Got our teachers conference we got our, all kinds of student programming. There's a lot there. So, check that out at wallbuilders.com. All right. And our Foundation of Freedom Thursday for this week is a little different. So instead of a bunch of questions from the audience, we're going to get a bunch of answers from Kevin Freeman, our friend over at Economic War Room. Kevin and Marty Freeman, just great folks got Liberty Hawk Ranch there outside of Dallas and Kevin's show Economic War Room we have on our PatriotU Channel. They're at PatriotU.com and you should listen to Kevin. Listen, he is an expert on currency, on finance, on debt, on all these things. And his presentation at the Pro-Family Legislators Conference a few weeks ago, just amazing. And so, we're gonna, we're going to get essentially listen to him, give that presentation at, at the conference. And then Tim and I will talk a little bit about it and respond to it. But it's one of those things that we all need to pay more attention to. I know we typically kind of, eyes glaze over when we start talking about the debt and money and all those things. But folks, it's essential that we follow Christ's command to be good stewards. And so, Kevin really helps with that and puts a lot of those things in perspective. So, we're going to take a break early in the program here. When we come back, Kevin Freeman at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:04:53] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Here we go. Kevin Freeman speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. 

Kevin Freeman [00:04:59] Five undeniable truths and one constitutional solution. I'm gonna share five things with you that are undeniably true. Number one, we're on a death path that is unsustainable. You know that intuitively. The chairman of the Federal Reserve has said it publicly on 60 Minutes. But the reality of it is it's far worse than anything you can imagine. I wrote this book and you can get a copy at our table out there. It's called Pirate Money. And in this book, two years ago when I wrote it, we had $32.1 trillion in debt, which was horrible. I looked last week, it's 38.2 trillion dollars. We've increased our debt $6 trillion in the past two years. Now that sounds like, what is that? You know it's up $78,000 per taxpayer. If you're a taxpayer, your portion of the federal debt has gone up by $78 thousand in two years. How much is $1 trillion, let alone $2 trillion? That's roughly equivalent to all of the credit card debt of every American. That's how serious it is. And if present trends continue, as they have over the past decade, a hundred percent of everything we pay in taxes will just cover the interest. Nothing else. We're paying a trillion dollars a year in interest. We will be paying 10 trillion dollars a year an interest by the year 2041. Every penny of tax revenue. Do they understand this in Washington? Well, let me introduce you to the chief economist for President Joe Biden, trying to explain about modern monetary theory and how things work. 

Unknown Speaker 1 [00:06:35] Definitely prints money and it definitely lends that money, which is why the government definitely prints and then it lends money by selling bonds. Is that what they do? Yeah, they sell bonds. Yeah, they sell bond, right? Since they sell bonds and people buy the bonds and lend them the money. Yeah. So, a lot of times, at least to my ear with MMT, the language and the concepts can be kind of unnecessarily confusing, but there is no question that the government prints money and then it uses that money to, so yeah, I guess I'm just, I can't really talk. I don't get it. I don't know what they're talking about, like, because it's like the government clearly prints money. It does it all the time and it clearly borrows, otherwise you wouldn't be having this debt and conversation, so... I don't think there's anything confusing there. 

Kevin Freeman  [00:07:37] Okay, nothing confusing there here. That's the bad news. That guy was the number one economist for President Biden and when he was vice president. Our current chief economist is Kevin Hassett, who's a friend of mine, has endorsed several of my books. They are beginning to get it and I'll be in Washington on Monday, helping them understand it better. But it's undeniable. Our debt path is unsustainable and they have no idea of what to do about it. Second undeniable truth is, other nations know this and they're targeting our currency. My specialty is economic warfare. I can tell you, I was with in Putin's Russia in Moscow in 2006, and their intention is to destroy our currency. Well, Elon Musk admits this, hey, if we weaponize our currency enough times, other countries will wanna stop using it. And here is Igor Panarin wrote in 2008 in the Wall Street Journal, he says mass immigration, economic decline, moral degradation will trigger a civil war in America and the collapse of the dollar. His theory calls US foreign debt a pyramid scheme and says China and Russia would work together to usurp Washington's role That's called the BRICS nations. That's why they were formed was for that purpose. So other nations realize our currency is in trouble. As a result, what they've done is they've stopped buying US treasury bonds and dollars, which is bad news because we have a lot to sell and they bought gold instead. The largest holding on Central Bank assets and a tier one asset is gold. Third undeniable truth, we've created a lot of inflation because we printed a lot money and it hurts the poor and it increases the wealth gap and that will lead to destabilization. In August, 1971, Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard. I remember it very well. My father came in, I was turning 10 years old that month and my dad came in and said, Nixon just took us off the Gold Standard and I looked at him as a nerdy 10-year-old and said exactly this, but dad, won't that cause inflation? Seriously, I did. My dad looked at me as a stockbroker, and he said, absolutely. And it has caused inflation. In fact, the dollars lost 90% of its purchasing power over the last 50 years. A Hershey bar that cost a dime now costs two or three dollars just for a candy bar. We don't even have pennies anymore as of a couple of days ago. Do they understand this? That they're causing this problem? No, the Federal Reserve says our job is to print money. Listen. 

Unknown Speaker 2 [00:10:01] Simply flooded the system with money.

Unknown Speaker 3 [00:10:05] Yes, we did, so to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. So, it's much more akin, although not exactly the same, but it's more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing. 

Unknown Speaker 2 [00:10:17] You've been printing money. 

Unknown Speaker 3 [00:10:19] Well, effectively. 

Unknown Speaker 2 [00:10:21] Where does it come from? Do you just print it? 

Unknown Speaker 3 [00:10:22] We print it digitally so we you know we as a central bank we have the ability to create money,. 

Unknown Speaker 2 [00:10:28] Digital flooding the system with money. 

Unknown Speaker 3 [00:10:30] Yes exactly. 

Unknown Speaker 2 [00:10:32] And there's no end to your ability to do that? 

Unknown Speaker 3 [00:10:34] There is no end to our ability to do that. 

Kevin Freeman  [00:10:37] So they're gonna continue printing money. It's gonna continue to make the rich richer. This chart from the Federal Reserve itself, you'll see the green line, that is money printing. The red line is the top one-tenth of 1%, the wealthiest. The blue line is at the bottom 50%. The more money we print, the wealthier the wealthy get and the harder it is for the rest of us. That's what they've been doing. They've been creating money out of thin air. The solution is not Mamdani and socialism. The solution to the wealth gap is honest money. Okay, the fourth undeniable truth is our government and other governments have figured out that they can turn money into digital money and they can control people with it. 134 countries around the world have been developing a central bank digital currency. Some more advanced than others. President Trump says not on his watch. But I promise you, there will come a time when our government is trying to force this down upon us. And why? They want absolute control, listen. 

Unknown Speaker 4 [00:11:33] For example, in cash, we don't know, for example, who is using a $100 bill today, we don t know who is a 1,000 pesos bill today. A key difference with the CBDC is that Central Bank will have absolute control over the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of Central Bank liability. 

Kevin Freeman  [00:11:59] When they create money, they will have absolute control of where you spend it, how you spend and so forth. You've all been educated on central bank digital currency the past few years. I cover it in the book, Pirate Money. Here's the last one, money is changing. Regardless of what we do, money will change. Why not go back to the constitution, which says that no state shall make anything other than gold and silver coin a tender and payment of debts. You have the authority and right to do it. I can show you the court cases where the Supreme Court has said the legislature at the state level has a right that the federal government cannot take away. No court, no Congress, no president. You have that authority. We can help you do it, not eliminating the U.S. Dollar, but giving your citizens the chance and opportunity to transact in gold and silver. A hundred years ago, if I gave you a $20 gold coin or a$ 20 bill and you held it and passed it on. Which would you rather have today? $20 bill or a $4,000 in value, one ounce of gold. Okay, the role the states have is the three T's. You can increase trust in the system by saying, if you want to transact in gold and silver, you have to meet minimum standards. The gold has to be of a certain purity. It's got to have, have audits. It has to have insurance. It has to be in a state approved facility. If you want to own gold, you can own it anyway, anyhow you want in a ring or a coin or whatever, but if you want it for transactional purposes, here's the rules of the game. Trust. The second thing is, I'll be in Washington talking to the White House on Monday about eliminating all capital gains taxes on state-level transactional gold and silver. So, we can eliminate taxes. And the third one is we can prevent the federal government from taking. I want to give a shout out here to Arkansas, actually, the first two passes, Senator Stratton and Representative Ivory passed it in Utah first, but it was vetoed by the governor. It went to Arkansas and governor Sanders signed it and Representative McElligand and Senator Dotson, led the charge because they saw us last year at this conference. Representative Bankson in Florida was next passed unanimously They invited me to speak at the signing ceremony. Then Louisiana Representative Cruz led that and then Texas Representative De Razio and Senator Hughes and it was signed by Governor Abbott and he tweeted about it. And then Missouri, Senator Mike Moon.  I think he's here and they passed in Missouri five states five and a quarter trillion dollars of economic activity We want 20 more states next year you can learn more at transactionalgold.com. If you go there you can sign up to get the legislative toolkit. We have a lot of grassroots that support it. We're big in supporting it. Be sure and get a copy of the book Pirate Money. And God bless you all. Thank you very much. Let's make America gold again. God bless. 

Rick Green [00:14:57] All right folks, that was Kevin Freeman over at the Pro Family Legislators Conference, which by the way, you need to tell your legislators about and get them to join us this fall. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, Tim Barton and I will talk a little bit about what Kevin was sharing with the legislators and how we can do something about that locally in our community. Stay with us. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:16:23] We're back on the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks again to Kevin Freeman for speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference. Again, you can get some of those other talks at our website, wallbuilders.show available to you right now. I had a couple of those, I guess, earlier this week and last week. So just search right through wallbuilders,show. Back now with Tim Barton. And of course, Tim, Kevin always takes, he does with economics what we all do with the constitution, right? It's like, he takes these complicated topics that I normally glaze over and don't care about. And he actually makes it kind of fun to learn about it. 

Tim Barton [00:16:52] When Kevin gives a breakdown, not only is there like a little bit of nerd involved, which probably is why we like it so much as the history nerds that we are, constitutional nerds, but also it's not the most encouraging when he's like, hey, there's $78,000 of debt now for every American and it's growing every day as spending increases. So certainly, there's a great breakdown he gives, But, it's not always... It's like going to the doctor, like sometimes it tells you what you need to know. Like, hey, don't eat certain foods anymore. It's not good for your cholesterol. And you're like, well, I really like those foods though. But you're right. Kevin does such a good job of giving a breakdown, with some of the big picture financial stuff where our nation is. And the reason that he came into the legislator’s conference, we've, we've known and worked with Kevin on various things for years. All of us have. And I mean, really for decades, he is one of the guys who doesn't just identify problems. He is very much interested in finding what are good solutions and what are things practically that we can do to save the nation. So just like for us, where at WallBuilders, we're trying to re-educate people and Rick, specifically, not only are you educating people at Patriot Academy, but you're training people and engaging people and Kevin's doing a lot of the same things, just aren't economic front. And so he is one of our friends that we do a lot work together with and I love the fact that again he's not just identifying there's a problem because most Americans could identify we have a spending problem Well, maybe not most that's why we maybe have a spinning problem A lot of Americans could identified we have a spitting problem. But not a lot Americans would come up with maybe positive solutions other than like the Dave Ramsey plan of don't spend more than you make, which by the way is not a bad plan. If Congress would just do that, it would solve a lot of problems. And maybe we could hire Nick Shirley, the viral sensation, for those that might not connect the name, he's the one that first went to Minnesota, exposed all of the Somali fraud. He's been in California, exposing fraud there. He has really started a bit of a firestorm exposing fraud. So, if we stop spending money, on these bogus programs and really just stop spending more than we make, it could help. But I love the fact that Kevin didn't just say, don't spend more than you make, even though that would have been solid advice. He has some creative ideas and really, it's kind of an interesting thought and we've seen this already applied in several states. So, it's already gaining ground and traction. 

Rick Green [00:19:27] Well, and Tim, just from a, you know, because we always say, biblical, historical, constitutional perspective, I mean, from a biblical perspective, this debt problem is not just an inconvenience. I mean we're literally disobeying and essentially putting ourselves in the category of getting the curses instead of the blessings, right? 

Tim Barton [00:19:45] Well, yeah, there's a lot of things we could add to that. And Rick, I appreciate that you're just softball tossing me right now. But certainly the Bible talks about that not only is the borrower servant the lender, so they control you, but you can go further where God tells the Israelites one of the blessings is that they would be able to loan to many nations and they wouldn't have to borrow. So there... there is something to say that God wants you to live in a way, as much as you can, you're striving for it, where you're living in the blessings of the Lord, where when you have a savings account, we could go through some of the basic financial stuff, which is not totally the point of the talk today, but it's worth highlighting for people that, you know, when I first get money, I'm going to tithe and I'm gonna save and I may be going to give and try to be generous in areas, but when there's some basic things that you do financially to have responsibility. To not overspend and then rack up all kinds of credit card debts, and this is not a criticism for people that are in that situation, maybe trying to navigate your way out. That would be the time, go look up the Dave Ramsey program, right? Like this is some really good thoughts you can do. But I'll go further. One of the things the Bible says in Proverbs, where it says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. And right now, certainly the inheritance is being left to the children of America is not what the bible was referencing would make somebody good man with a bible says a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. It's referring to something that's going to bless them, that's gonna help enhance their life etc. And actually, right now my dad is on a plane i just got off a plane I’m in an airport so if people hear surrounding noise and people walking by that's why, I'm not a studio right now. We are recording this as all of us are traveling so much right now. By the way, though I am super excited for Good News Friday tomorrow being able to highlight some of the Founders thoughts on the resurrection on Easter. I'm it's gonna be a fun Good Friday program not that I grasp my dad's on a plane right now and I do want to honor him in and even some of connection to this verse, because one of the things that my parents have been very intentional about Is over the last several years, I have two daughters, I have siblings, I have nieces and nephews but my parents when they have given some kind of gift to their kids they often give a bigger financial gift to the grandkids. And it's not, they're coming up to my two little girls and giving them a big check but specifically give it to me and my wife and say hey we want you to put this in a savings account, investment account for. the future, whether it's education or car or wedding or whatever it is. But it's interesting because my parents are very intentionally thinking, not necessarily about what is going to benefit their life or enhance their life right now in this moment. They're literally thinking about their kids and their grandkids and how they can help them even once they are gone by some of what they're doing. That is what the Bible is referencing. And my parents have been very intentional about not doing things that would necessarily enhance their life right now in this moment, but literally thinking about how can they bless not just their kids but also their grandkids for the future. And so, when we talk about the Bible giving financial advice and I'm just scratching the top of the surface right now, cause there.... Jesus taught more parables that dealt with money than really any other topic. And you can go through so many places in the Old Testament that there's plenty of guidance the Bible gives on good economics but specifically that this is something that should not be confusing and debt should not confusing because it's not confusing in the Bible of what God intended when he was gonna bless people and what was actually part of the reflection, the curses for people that rejected God's ways and standards that was part of what, Rick, I think you said in Deuteronomy 28 of what God laid out. And so certainly the Bible is far more clear on these issues than I think most Christians acknowledge or recognize. And certainly, different than what our congressional leaders are doing with so many of their spending bills and packages. 

Rick Green [00:23:59] Yeah. And, and the good thing is, I mean, a lot more people are waking up to it and wanting representatives that, you know, recognize these things and are willing to make the tough cuts. So, you, it's still, it still, it's, it'll swamp. It's still a, you know, a system that rewards them for bringing home the bacon and promising everything and continuing to spend in, into debt. But there's a much greater civic awareness, I think, among just the citizens and they're, and they're asking for better stewardship. 

Tim Barton [00:24:26] Yes, and I want to say something as an encouragement. Even as we are getting ready, Good Friday tomorrow, when we remember the crucifixion of Jesus and the penalty that He paid, when Jesus died on the cross, even though He had told his disciples, right, alluding to the fact that the Son of Man is gonna lay His life down, but that three days later He's gonna be resurrected. There were all these things He told the disciples. They did not fully get it. And when Jesus' died, it could have looked like the most hopeless situation ever. The discouragement of the disciples. There's so many things we could talk about, but the reason I say that is because one of the things that I hope we remember this weekend as people of faith, but even I think is relevant for us right now, is, Rick, one of challenges that I am seeing are there's a lot of people that in their frustration, they're getting discouraged, and they feel like, man, it doesn't matter. It doesn't who we vote. Everybody's corrupt. Everybody is the wrong thing in D.C., and the whole message of the gospel, the Christian faith. Is that there is a God that, in the midst of hopeless moments, can do incredible things and bring redemption and restoration, etc. And we want to make sure that, as Christians... That we stay engaged in this process. We don't get discouraged. We don't get frustrated. And then like take our ball and go home. We're not playing this game anymore. We have to stay engaged. And I say this knowing there's a lot of primaries coming up. There's a of opportunities all over this nation for people to go vote, have their voice heard. And just because we are frustrated with the leadership we have right now in many ways does not give us an excuse to not keep showing up and doing the right thing because Rick, to your point, there are people that starting to get this and understand it and argue in better ways than we've heard in a long time. And so certainly a reason for us to stay engaged. 

Rick Green [00:26:11] No doubt, man. And then of course, at the local level, same thing in our, in our local county governments and city governments and our own family, our self-government applying all these same principles. It's a, it's, it certainly, just, you know, basic, timeless principles of biblical principles of liberty. That, that if we apply them personally, we apply them in the country, we get good results. So really appreciate Kevin Freeman speaking at the Pro Family Legislators Conference, don't forget folks, if you go to wallbuilders.com, then you can send the link to the legislators’ conference to your state rep or state Senator and encourage them to attend as well. Appreciate you listening. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.