The Biden American Family Plan And Its Consequences – With Mary Szoch – Nuclear families are part of the centerpiece of a thriving culture. Biden’s American Family Plan will wreak havoc on the family and will destroy the very foundation of a God honoring and biblical worldview in our culture. Join us today as Mary Szoch shares about this horrific plan and its consequences.

Air Date: 05/24/2021

Guest: Mary Szoch

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, we’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. You can learn more about us on our website wallbuilderslive.com. You’ll find a list of our stations across the country where we can be heard. And you’ll also get some archives where you can dial back into some of those previous programs in the past few weeks if you missed the program.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I’m here with David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian, our founder at WallBuilders. And Tim Barton’s with us, he’s a national speaker, and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Again, wallbuilderslive.com, for more information, and that’s also the place you can make that one-time or monthly contribution. Any help is greatly appreciated. As a listener-supported program, we appreciate all of you listeners out there that have been supporting us and those of you that would like to start, we’d love for you to do that at wallbuilderslive.com.

Every dollar that you donate to WallBuilders Live is an investment in freedom. It allows us to reach more people out there and have a broader audience, equip more individual citizens to become the catalyst for restoring biblical values in their community, and restoring our Constitution. So make that contribution today at wallbuilderslive.com.

Guys, later in the program, we’ve got a special guests who talk about Joe Biden’s new proposal, America’s family plan. It’s more like a separate family’s plan. It’s not good, of course. It’s government getting in the way and trying to micromanage the family and actually replace parents. We see that often from government. So today, let’s just kind of start with the idea of the nuclear family and the importance of that being the core element in our communities. If we want to be a strong nation, we’ve got to have strong families.

Tim:

You know, guys, it’s crazy to think about, we are at a time in American culture, where to say that having a family with a mother and father is a controversial topic. And yet to say that there’s a mother and father also would imply that there’s genders of male and female. And that perhaps is the best way to do things.

It’s seemingly ludicrous that this is even a debate that’s happening right now. There’s so much data, there’s so much evidence, so many statistics to point to the fact that kids raised in a home with the biological mother and father is the best center for those kids. Obviously, there are scenarios where things happen, and there’s broken homes and divorce. But then kids raised in a home where there’s still a male and a female role model and influence and leader, they still do better than being raised in a single parent home.

There’s something significant about recognizing the structure that God put in place. And, you know, it’s interesting, even going back to the Founding Fathers, when they talked about that our Constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people, that it was wholly inadequate to the government from the other. When John Adams is expressing that sentiment, and one of the things that they understood to be true is that families are largely the ones that help promote the religion of morality in the home. Obviously, that was also done in education, because the Bible was the number one textbook that kids used. And that’s where you learn so much of the value structure and system.

But with all this being said, they understood that strong families help build strong societies and strong societies don’t need a big overreaching government. You can have a limited government when you have a strong family unit. Today, we have a federal government that doesn’t encourage the same notion of a strong family unit, because truth has become subjective, is become a relativistic: that well, we think that you can have just as much success if you’re a single parent. Or maybe you don’t even need to raise your kids, you can just have more money from the federal government, you can go put your kids in whatever kind of school program, before school, during school, after school program, you don’t even need to even see your kids very much. That’s okay. You can evolve in the workforce, things that would seem crazy to say just a mere decade or two ago is exactly what the federal government is proposing today.

David:

I would say to add into this, that we try to approach things from a biblical perspective. And let me just back up to say a precursor to that is we should all have a love of the truth. And once we know what truth is, once we find it, we need to embrace truth, even if it causes us to have to change what we have been believing up to that point. Anywhere you find truth, you need to go with truth. The scripture, God says I am truth. Jesus says, I’m the way, the truth, the life. So whenever you find truth, you have found God and you found a reflection of God in that sense.

And one of the things that we have learned across time statistically, and Tim, you mentioned a number of studies, but something we’re told in the Bible in Deuteronomy 6 and in Joshua 1, he says, everything I tell you to do is for your benefit is so that you can prosper and be strong. And he just goes through and says look, because I love you, I’m telling you to do this stuff. And if you do, it really works right.

One of the things that he told us to do right at the beginning in Genesis 1 was mother, father produced children, replenish the earth. If we do that, if we have that family situation, is for our good, for our benefit, for the benefit of society. And this is where Tim, as you point out, there are not dozens, but hundreds of studies. And whether they come from the left or the right, they keep reaching the same conclusion that when you have this nuclear family, and the more emphasis you put on having a strong family, a good relationship between mother and father and children, it’s better for the family, and it’s better for the country as well.

Tim:

And we’re not saying anything to downplay the fact that there’s probably some single parents out there listening to us, whether they are widows or widowers, whether they’ve gone through a terrible broken family divorce scenario. We’re not saying anything to disparage people who are doing the best they possibly can in their scenario. But it’s recognizing that God’s intent was for there to be a man and wife together in a union, and together they raised the family. That was the design God had, that was the best plan for humanity. And yet today, there’s so many people questioning or challenging that notion, and not the least of which is now the federal government.

David:

Yeah, it’s really strange that the new Biden American family plan takes so many direct shots at what God has said is best for the family. And it’s as if well, we don’t care what God said, we don’t care about the hundreds of studies, we don’t care of the fact that this has been proven true for 5,800 years, we’re going to do something different in America. And just right off the top, we should say, you know, that’s not likely to work, because we have all the studies that when you do things the way God says, you’re going to get Gods results, which are for our betterment and our benefit.

And so looking at the Biden plan, I mean, the details on this, he kind of announced that when he had that joint session of Congress where he gave the speech there, but as you get into the details, it is absolutely amazing how much it undercuts what has been the traditional role of the family in America.

Rick:

Well, Mary Szoch from Family Research Council will be with us when we come back from the break, we’ll dive a little further into it. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American History. Too often today history education excludes great black heroes from the American founding, such as Lemuel Haynes. Haynes, abandoned as a baby pioneer churches across upper New England. He became the first black American to pastor a white congregation, to receive an honorary master’s degree, and to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination, the Congregationalists. He was a soldier during the American Revolution.

And in his churches on George Washington’s Birthday, he regularly preached sermons honoring George Washington. Even late in his life, he expressed his willingness to go back to battle if necessary to protect America, which he called a Sacred Ark. American history is filled with numerous examples of black heroes who are largely ignored by mainstream education today.

For more information about Pastor Lemuel Haynes and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Man, it’s good to see a defense of the family happening whenever there’s such an attack from the federal level. And of course, the good folks over family research council always stellar at that. Mary Szoch is with us from Family Research Council. Mary, thanks for some time today, just appreciate what you guys do at FRC. Pre-K

Mary:

Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

Rick:

Yeah, you bet. Well, you had a great article, I think, it was in Breitbart on Biden’s Pre-K proposal, you know, billions and billions of dollars, of course, as always, or trillions, like I lose count, you know, when we talk about Pre-K as we dive into this topic. I remember back in my legislative days, I mean, if you were against Pre-K, people thought you were against children, when in fact, you’re just saying, hey, there’s a better way here, the kids really ought to be with mom and dad during those early years. So what made you decide to take on this topic? I guess, let’s just first hit that. Why is Pre-K not always a good thing?

Mary:

Well, so Biden’s plan, it actually goes even worse than just Pre-K. You know, his “American Families Plan” is all about disrupting American families and separating American families. It’s about separating children from their parents as early as possible without the American family having any say in that decision. It’s about subsidizing childcare for families and universal Pre-K as part of that, but even earlier, subsidizing childcare beginning much earlier as early as 12 weeks, 6 weeks.

And the frustrating part for me in this is that it incentivizes parents to be separated from their children. And it doesn’t actually take into account anything that parents actually want. And it doesn’t allow parents to be the decision makers for what type of care their child will get. So there’s a lot of major issues with this plan. And as a new parent about to give birth to my first child, a month or two…

Rick:

Congrats.

Mary:

Thank you. Thank you. I thought this plan was very disturbing.

Rick:

Yeah, this hits home for you in a big way. I’m actually set back a little bit here. Because every time I’ve thought about Pre-K and even this proposal, and I should have read the fine print, I think in terms of 4 or 5, 6 years old, 12 weeks, I cannot imagine. I mean, this literally goes back to the Hillary Clinton “cradle to the grave” mentality of government’s role in literally taking over Parenthood, I mean, taking over the job of raising our children.

Mary:

It does, and it’s, you know, this subsidy, it’s estimated to be about $14,000 that it would save a family. And what President Biden said in his proposal, we don’t have the actual text yet, but what he says in his proposal is that it’s with the goal of getting parents and particularly women back into the workforce as quickly as possible. And we know that women are valuable in the workplace. But women should be able to work with their husbands to decide what is best for their family. We shouldn’t be trying to create a family that serves the economy, instead should be trying to create an economy that serves the family.

Rick:

Oh, I’m so glad you said that. Because when I read his quote in your article, let me just read it for everybody real quick, “When a parent drops out of the workforce, reduces hours or takes a lower paying job early in their careers, even temporarily, there’re lifetime consequences.” And of course, you took that and flipped it very well to the point that yeah, there’s lifetime consequences because the children don’t get their moms during those early years.

But the way he said it, it sounded like something from Communist China basically saying, get back to work, we need you in the workforce, you know, they don’t be staying home with those kids and messing around with his family thing. You know, the state is what matters, the economy is what matters. I mean, that’s a scary, scary philosophy being foisted upon us with $225 billion in childcare subsidies. That sounds more Chinese communist to me than American.

Mary:

It does. And certainly, we know that the reality is that some families cannot have a parent stay at home, that it’s just not possible in some cases. And there are single moms who have to work. But in the surveys that have been done, when we look at the middle, the lower, the working class families, those families would prefer to spend more time with their children. They would prefer to have flexible working hours.

And so it seems to me that if President Biden’s plan wanted to actually value American families, he would allow those families to be the ones making the decisions on where their child is cared for, whether it’s cared for by grandma, cared for by an aunt, cared for by the mother herself. The parent is the one who knows their child best. And so the parent is the one who’s best equipped to make that decision.

And these government certified or government approved “high quality childcare centers” they’re just not the solution for every single family. And that’s not to say there aren’t some families who would choose to use them. There might be. But every family is different. And every mom and dad should be able to work together to decide what is best for their child.

Rick:

I just had this eerie throwback to the book a Brave New World when you were describing these government approved or even maybe, in some ways, managed childcare centers and little kids being turned over to them and literally being raised by the state. And I know some people will say, oh, you’re exaggerating, Rick, and it’s helping to fund the childcare and blah, blah, blah. But I mean, this is, I cannot imagine handing over a 12 week old. I can’t imagine handing over a one year old. This is not good for the future of our country when the family is the nuclear unit. Isn’t that the real point is getting missed here by the Left that you, of course, raise it in your article? But I mean, it’s we’re forgetting what actually creates a strong society. And what you’re arguing is look, make it possible for these families to stay together, have more choices, but let moms be moms for as long as they choose to be moms or the dad, but I mean, not have the state come in and say, handle your children at the earliest possible date.

Mary:

Right. Right. And what we’ve seen is that those first few years of a child’s life are critical for their development for the rest of their lives. You know, the famous quote from Aristotle, “Give me a child up until seven, and I’ll show you the man.” And we know that this is actually true. But the children, the relationships that they build during those early years have such a profound impact on not only their mental health, but their physical health as well.

We’ve seen that children who are separated from their parents at earlier stages are more likely to develop autoimmune diseases. Children who are in daycare at a very young age are more likely to have sinus infections. There’s all sorts of physical needs that are filled by the parents. There’s also the emotional and mental health aspect of bonding with parents. We know that when a father is around a child is significantly less likely to be aggressive in later years, girls are less likely to get into abusive relationships in later years if they’ve had a strong relationship with their father. And so this decision to prioritize the economy over the American family is one that will have horrific effects on our next generation.

Rick:

I can’t remember if you covered this in the article or not. But a lot of people immediately, when people like you and me start saying these things, they go well, but you just don’t understand this situation. And then they go to the extreme situation. Like you said, there’s definitely single parents in difficult situations. But it seems like we immediately go to those examples and we make national policy based on that, rather than like you’re saying, leaving the choice up where I would think most parents would prefer to be able to spend more time with their kids.

So how do we address that part of it, where what they’re trying to solve is a limited situation and they’re making national policy that’s actually discouraging that time with the kid, and wrong word I know, but enabling parents to have both parents in the workforce instead of somebody with the child?

Mary:

I think we need to do a better job of promoting families. We have a crisis in America because there’s a culture of fatherlessness. And Biden’s American families plan tries to fix that problem by creating a culture of Motherlessness, which is just not the solution that we need. What we need is for fathers to step up to the plate. But we also need to stop prioritizing the needs of wealthy urban elites who are overwhelmingly the ones who support this type of policy of this type of childcare subsidy, where the studies show that it’s men and women who are upper class who typically do not have children who think that this type of childcare policy is what’s best. Wow.

And it’s very sad that their desires are going to be subsidized by your average American taxpayer who doesn’t actually want this. So we need to stop acting like the wealthy urban elites have more worse than the rest of the American population. They can’t be the people that are dictating our policies: we need to take everyone’s views into account.

Rick:

So well said, yeah, man, and when, of course, we haven’t even touched on the fact that there is nothing anywhere in the Constitution that authorizes the federal government to spend money on this. It’s not a federal issue at all. This should be at the state and local level. So just the fact that the federal government is proposing this was it, $225 billion in this arena that disrupts the American family on its faces is unconstitutional, shouldn’t be done. But that’s a whole another topic. I appreciate the way that you address it in the article from the standpoint of what’s best for the family itself.

And Mary, I know Family Research Council, of course, agrees with us on this. I mean, everything that’s happening in the State House, in the White House is important, but not as important as what happens in your house. And so individuals can still make good decisions on their time with their family and with their children and investing in those relationships, especially as you said in those early years, when so much is decided about that child’s future. And that’s what you guys do a Family Research Council has helped to encourage folks to do that. ‘

I appreciate so much what you’re doing. Appreciate bringing awareness to this particular bill. Before I let you go, is that something that is moving quickly? Do you think at this point, is it just a proposal from the President or is there legislation already filed and on its way?

Mary:

Well, at this point, we have just seen the proposal. We don’t have a timeline, thank goodness, right. And I think we’d all like to see that the American family plan never come into being. So right now we just have the proposal, would you have a number of conservatives who have proposed counter plans to this? And so those are out there with offering various solutions to the struggles that American people face in trying to raise their children. And those various plans make an effort to put the American family first. So we can be on the lookout for those, but as of yet we don’t have actual legislation accompany Biden’s AMERICAN FAMILIES PLAN.

Rick:

Alright, we’ll keep an eye on it, gets back whenever that it gets filed to see where it goes. If it’s okay, I’m going to rename it though, it’s the “American Separate Families Plan” by Joe Biden that’s being pushed out there. Mary, God bless you, appreciate FRC and all that you guys are doing. Let’s get you back soon.

Mary:

Thanks so much for having me.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

CONSTITUTION ALIVE!

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution, but just felt like man, the classes are boring, or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago, or I don’t know where to start? People want to know, but it gets frustrating because you don’t know where to look for truth about the constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive! With David Barton and Rick Green. And it’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders’ library, where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the Quickstart Guide to the Constitution, because in just a few hours through these videos, you will learn the citizen’s guide to America’s constitution, you’ll learn what you need to do to help save our constitutional republic. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive! With David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now at wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks to Mary Szoch for joining us for Family Research Council. Back with David and Tim now, and just like you guys were saying at the beginning of the program, I mean the more you dig into this, the more you realize the damage it will do to the family, the opposite effect of what politicians typically say that they’re trying to do, the very people that tried to help, they tend to harm when they get more government involved in especially this area where they’re literally getting in between parents and children.

David:

Well, tell me how it’s going to be good when you start taking children away from parents at 12 weeks old and letting the state raise them? I mean, there’s nothing good in that plan. And I love what she said. What they’re trying to do is replace fatherlessness with motherlessness. I mean, you’re losing the influence of both parents, and putting these kids in a situation where the state becomes their parent.

Tim:

Well, guys, as Mary pointed out, one of the things that Joe Biden said even introducing this was that the goal is to get women back in the workplace as quickly as possible, as if that is the greatest value that mothers have is to go to a 9-5 job and have some level of productivity at a 9-5 job, instead of recognizing no, no one of the greatest things you can do in all of life is to be a parent, right? We would say okay, priorities in life: get saved, get married, be a parent, those are things that will dramatically change the way you live your life, going from living life for you to living life for somebody else.

And even though life becomes more difficult, then a marriage, it becomes better in a marriage. When you become a parent, life is so much more difficult, it becomes that much greater, and that much more rewarding. And yet the federal government now was saying that the most important thing you can do as a parent is not to be at home with your kids spending quality time with your kids, is to get back in the workforce. We’ve totally had a value shift in the way we see parenthood here in America.

David:

One of the great progressive voices in the 20th century was certainly Woodrow Wilson. Progressive thinking had been coming along in the late 1800s. But as you get in the early 1900s, and Woodrow Wilson, he certainly as a leading advocate for progressivism. And one of the things that he said was he said the purpose of university should be to make a boy as unlike his father as possible. Now notice this, we want to get you away from your parents and get you in university so we can make you unlike your parents. And now you’re talking 12 weeks old?

We’ve seen that so much of the fruits of public education has been the secularization of society, the turning against traditional morality, traditional family structure. And now we’re going to add to that by lowering the age down to 12 months? This is not a good plan for the culture, not a good plan for society, no matter how much money you attach to it.

Tim:

Well, dad, as you pointed out, Woodrow Wilson leading in this vocalization of the progressive movement, saying that the goal of education should be to change children from being like their parents. As much as possible, back then, right, maybe the argument was from the progressives is that well, our parents don’t have all these different gifts and abilities and whatever else and we want to increase your ability. But the progressives took that mantra and they run with it and so far now, that this is why you see when students go off to college and they come back and their parents are like, what happened? We’re having these arguments and disagreements, and they think totally different. This is exactly the monitor the university has embraced.

And this is why it is dangerous when the federal government is advocating that as parents, give your kids us, let us as the government take care of them, you go back to work, don’t worry about it, we got it. No. Well, we need to remember is one of the highest callings God has ever given us is to be a parent, is to pour into and love our kids, to raise them up and the fear and admonition of the Lord. That’s a great calling from God.

Rick:

Well, that’s it for today, folks. There is more information on our website wallbuilderslive.com. We greatly appreciate you listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.