An Update on the State of the Government: Our black hero segment today is on Lemuel Haynes. Later, we have Congressman Josh Brecheen, representative from Oklahoma, on to discuss the state of our federal government. How are things progressing now that the house has new rules? What is happening regarding our relationship with China? Is anything going to be done about our out-of-control spending? All of this and more!

Air Date: 2/15/2023

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

Guest: Congressman Josh Brecheen

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Transcription:

Rick Green
Welcome to the intersection of faith in the culture. This is the WallBuilders show. We appreciate you joining us. You can find out more about us at our websites WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com. I’m Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Later in the program, Congressman Josh Brecheen will be with us. But Tim, we’re still sharing heroes of history for a couple more weeks, who is our hero of history today?

Tim Barton
Well, this one is Lemuel Haynes, and Lemuel Haynes noted for several reasons. He was a pastor. Now it’s Black History month, he was a black pastor, but he was the pastor of largely white congregations. And there’s even some interesting details for some of the different churches he pastored, one he pastored for nearly 30 plus years. He was removed, because during the War of 1812, that was considered by many to be Mr. Madison’s War, his congregation was in favor of seceding away from the union because of what James Madison had done. And he said, guys, this is crazy. We’re not going to do that. That’s a bad position. His church got angry, and they voted him out because he was not in favor of secession. Nonetheless, if you back up and look at his full story, so many fun details along the way, which if we start from the very beginning, sadly, he was abandoned by his family. When he was just a baby. He was adopted by the David Rose family, they raised them as their own. He ended up getting an indenture to work on a farm when the indenture finishes. It’s the beginning tensions of the American Revolution. So he signs up to be a Massachusetts Minuteman, which I also think is super cool. When we think of the Massachusetts Minutemen as kind of your initial first responders, those doing the initial training, getting ready to stop the tyranny, the oppression, if the British military came in, and to think that there was, at least in this case, at least one black man was part of Massachusetts Minutemen, and we actually think there was more than that, but this is one we can identify for sure. No question. Lemuel Haynes was part of the Massachusetts Minutemen, as the course of the revolution goes on. He’s part of the military and serves, actually, in some noted battles under Ethan Allen, who was pretty… a pretty noted Commander, the leader of the famous Green Mountain Boys, was in some noted battles, but then he actually got sick had to leave the military, because he contracted typhus. And a lot of people have died because of this infection, he gets out of the military. The military… the war is still going on. But he’s no longer in the military, decides he’s gonna go a different direction with his life.

David Barton
So what he does is he gets into ministry related stuff, and like a lot of college graduates back then he could speak all these different languages. He also studied Hebrew, as well as Greek and Latin. And so as a minister, he was well educated, which is common back in that day. And so as Tim mentioned, he pastored these white congregations. He pastored, in Vermont, and New York, and in Connecticut, and Massachusetts, etc. And it’s interesting because of his service in the military, his commander in chief had been George Washington, and boy did he love Washington. And so in his churches on Washington’s birthday, he would preach a sermon about George Washington as commander in chief, and he would talk about his military exploits and the revolution as well. And even through life, he just remained a fan of Washington. So as a result, he joined what was called the Washington Benevolent Society. And that’s a group that really promoted George Washington’s Farewell Address the greatest political speech ever given by President. It’s what Washington gave to say, Hey, if you want to stay on track, here’s what you need to do. And so he promoted those principles all over the nation, which is one of the reasons he didn’t like Andrew Jackson as president, because he thought Andrew Jackson violated those principles, religion, morality that Washington was pushing. And so he’s just a really super cool guy. And by the way, he had sermons that were published now, back then you wrote out your sermons, you didn’t preach extemporaneously, you wrote it out, and you read your sermon on Sunday, and he wrote out over 5500 sermons, and if your sermon was really good, and the people really liked the sermon, they would say, Hey, would you, would you print that? The whole town wants it. And so to have a printed sermon is just absolutely a remarkable stamp for any minister back then. And he had sermons that were printed and reprinted and one was reprinted over 70 times over several decades. So it’s just remarkable stuff that he had. He was a great scholar, great leader. Lots of good stuff about him.

Tim Barton
Well, he’s somebody you can find more about going to WallBuilders.com you can find these bios you can read along with us every day. These are people that we should recognize and celebrate when you’re talking about someone who was part of the Massachusetts Minutemen, served in the military, becomes a pastor, a black pastor of white congregations, has sermons published this was a noted important person that today we know so little about, but if you want to learn more about Lemuel Haynes, go to WallBuilders.com and find out more information.

Rick Green
Alright guys, we’ve got Josh Brecheen joining us here in a few minutes on the program. Of course new Congressman from Oklahoma, we’ve already had him on the program once and just really impressed by him. And so we’re going to catch up on what’s been going on the first few weeks of this new congress.

David Barton
Yeah, Josh, we know of as a state senator. He’s been a great guy all the way through. And it’s interesting. He is such a biblical Christian in so many areas. And he is just fixated with economic issues. And it’s really good to have a biblical worldview as an economic guy. His thing is getting the budget under control, getting the deficit down, getting the debt paid off, he is so fixated on that, but he’s good in every area. But he’s a great worldview guy.

Rick Green
Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with Congressman Josh Brecheen is our special guest here on WallBuilders.

David Barton
Okay, so we’re back with Josh Brecheen. And Josh, you’ve now had several weeks in Congress, you’ve been through all the stuff. Matter of fact, you were center piece in helping get those rules changes made, so just kind of get an update over the last month. First off, kind of… what’s your response to China? What you see there, what’s going on with China?

Josh Brecheen
Well, I think that… I think most people realize that we projected weakness, we now in the last eight days have had four objects shot down, the first one being the one over South Carolina that came over the interior of the United States, again, projection of weakness, and it should have been dealt with over the Aleutian Islands. Or even over big sky country in Montana, and it was sending the wrong signal for people that are prodding around the edges to figure out… In America are we decisive, or are we not? And I am grateful that we’ve been making some decisive decisions in the last, in the last three scenarios. And it’s so important that we project strength to China.

David Barton
Yeah, I heard one of the Pentagon officials actually suggesting we might be in a hot war with China, but 2025, from where you sit, is that a plausible thing? What stops that? What causes that to happen?

Josh Brecheen
Well, I believe most people, you hear, come speak and we’re in an economic war. I think that China looks at what we’re doing to tie our hands on, on the global climate alarmist, front. And I think they’re laughing at our lack of energy dominance, where we had it a few years ago. And I believe that economic strength is national security strength for us. And I think the best thing we can do, based in China, is in addition to sending a strong signal having a prepared military is getting our fiscal house in order. And China, as most people know, is one of the largest holders of our of our national indebtedness, the foreign ownership of our debt.

Tim Barton
Well and Josh, you I think I heard this week that China’s bought up like 15 tons of gold. So it seems like they are shoring up themselves. So if they move to some kind of digital currency, or if they try to be kind of the world standard for currency, they can say, look at all this gold, we can back it up. The US has all this external debt. So I think to your point, that that’s certainly something we’re seeing. I’m also curious though Josh, with all the we’re seeing happening, as you mentioned over the last roughly two weeks, all these encounters we’ve seen with finally the military engaging some of these things in our airspace, whether they have been a balloon or these unidentified objects that at this point, the government has not given identification of what those are. But President Biden said, Hey, guys, it’s not really a big deal. It’s not a problem. Is this something that… I think a lot of Americans are very curious right now. Is this something that, do we assume that President Biden is still the one calling the shots? Is there someone in the Pentagon who’s monitoring this saying, Hey this is a major problem is, is President Biden not acknowledging what maybe his advisers are telling them? Or is it something that his advisors are saying, Guys, it really is not a big deal, leave it alone, even though they’ve already identified the escalation coming up with China?

Josh Brecheen
So I think the Constitution gives the ability as commander in chief to direct our military. And so the President unto himself, and given he has a different ideology than the majority of the House Republicans, is keeping information unto himself and many of us are not privileged to. Now I do… any member of Congress has top security clearance and can go into what’s called a SCIF, which is a secure facility and gain information from permission of the Chairman. I’m actually on the Homeland Security Committee. Got my very first briefing last week, had some questions that I’m asking, but even Speaker McCarthy… and I think China does this on the weekend because they know most members of Congress are home on the weekend for a Saturday or Sunday. And so most members of Congress that they can’t get into a SCIF and get to that secure facility are having to wait until a few days later to get information. And as you remember, Speaker McCarthy was requesting the Gang of Eight, when the Chinese spy balloon was, you know the first one, was floated across the Intercontinental United States. And ultimately, it’s the commander in chief who holds the authority over our men and women in uniform. Now, of course we appropriate the funds. That’s a part of our constitutional duty. But this is why who we put in the White House matters. And if there’s someone who is decisive and operates a position of strength, it makes a huge difference.

Tim Barton
Yeah. So Josh, with that being said, I’ve also heard people over the weekend, there was a massive train derailment, and then a huge fire that went on with it. And the media has covered this very, very little. There’s been a lot of talk about UFOs, or aliens or China and these balloons, and there’s some that are speculating that it could be trying to distract from maybe what’s going on in Ohio. I don’t I don’t even know if you saw the train derailment, the fire. Is that something that we should pay attention to? Is that maybe a bigger deal than what the media is letting onto right now? Or was it just an unfortunate accident? Did you have a thought on that?

Josh Brecheen
I don’t know the answer to that. I would be speaking above my knowledge base, to comment.

Tim Barton
Okay well, and I appreciate you having the character to not be a politician and just make something up, when you don’t know that. And there is a lot of speculation. So maybe at some point, if story breaks a little further, we might have you back on and ask you some questions as much as you can tell us civilians who don’t have maybe the clearances we need. But Josh, one of the things we’ve talked a lot about, my dad, Rick and I have talked about, some of the Biden policy positions, and even some of the stuff that was laid out a couple of weeks ago, in the State of the Union, where he, you know, said some things like, hey, Republicans want to take away Social Security and Medicaid. And of course, there were some boos in the chamber. They… Congresswoman call them a liar. With all that President Biden said in the State of the Union, do you have any strong thoughts or any responses, any counterbalance to some of what was said that would be important for the American people to know?

Josh Brecheen
Yeah I… look, I think there was theater on display. I think anyone in public office has to continually do a self examination, and ask yourself the question, Am I operating out of conscience, and what is truth? Or am I just projecting to my own image management benefit? And I think there was a whole lot of image management benefit. I think any person with common sense, if they would make themselves have a bipartisan viewpoint, would look at that and say, you’re gonna bring up fentanyl, and its destructive nature? And the fact is the leading cause of death between 18 and 45 year olds. 100,000 deaths last year. And we know approximately 75% of those were fentanyl related in America. And you’re not going to talk about the correlation between the amount of drugs that are coming across an open border? It’s, it’s disingenuous. So I mean, so that is one place where we the theater is worse to talk about the Chinese spy balloon, and to talk about it in terms of it being a victory was total political spin. It was weakness. It was not strength. And when we talk about the economy, the State of the Union, and we don’t look at and recognize that this $31.5 trillion national debt as the Congressional Budget Office tells us within seven years, with no change, within seven years, we are going to be spending the exact same amount on interest payments, annual debt service, money flushed down the toilet, as we are in defense of our country. That’s where we’re headed in seven years. We spent 859 billion last year on military defense of our country, DOD. And that’s where we’re headed within seven years on just annual debt service payments. And so the fiscal state of our nation is one where we had bought into the idea of debt is wealth mentality. The Bible says the borrower’s a slave to the lender. And this debt is wealth mentality is reflected in, in private, and we keep electing people that have bought into it publicly. If we don’t get our fiscal house in order, as one economist said, we all know this can continue forever. And anything that can continue forever will come to an end. So I’m greatly alarmed about my country. Republicans and Democrats have to take ownership and their parts. Interesting study, guys, I ran across it on justthefacts.org And if you look from 2009 to 2020, the average congressman, Republican congressman, the House of Representatives, advocated for a trillion dollars more in debt spending over that over the timeframe 2019 to 2020, the average Democrat in that timeframe advocated for $14 trillion more in debt spending. Now, when you get to the Senate side, it’s a little different. The Republicans on the Senate side, the average Republican senator, advocated for about 5 trillion in 2009 to 2020. Well, the average Democrat in the Senate advocated from about for $10 trillion more in debt spending. And so both parties have to take ownership. It’s true that Republicans have spent more then they have seen coming into the revenue coffers. But Democrats are unlimited in their spending. And if everyone was to pick guilty, and Republicans will start living up this fiscal responsibility, there’s hope for our nation. But we’ve got to go back to Biblical principles as…. If we go back to the biblical principles and constitutional principles, there’s hope for our nation. If we don’t, then we’ll go the way of history.

Rick Green
But just You read my mind on the next question, and that is, you know, basically how much willpower is there? How much desire is there even on the Republican side of things in the house with the majority now to do that? And how much can you do, having only you know, one half of one branch? And is this something where it’s a finger in the dike for the next two years? While we work towards getting a better… bigger majority, and then, of course, the Senate and the White House.

Josh Brecheen
So, you know, I… We look at history, talking to WallBuilders, right? You look at history, and we know that history can inform us. And so when you look at what happened under a Democrat, President Clinton, in 95, and the House of Representatives, they use debt ceiling increase as leverage, you can get some proactive things done, you can actually bring about a change on work requirements, you can actually look towards bringing about a balance on spending. It was in 2000, we had very first balanced budget, but you had people that were fixated on it. And my hope is, you know, and why I was one of the 20 in the Speaker’s debate, that was saying I’m not willing to hand the gavel over absent fiscal restraint commitments, is because we know that leverage, when you have leverage, and you don’t use it, you will continue in politics, you will continue with the same result. And so we exerted leveraging. Republicans as a whole can exert leverage in this debt ceiling issue. This is… and the President knows that. It’s why he’s trying to confuse the American people for political posturing and talking about Medicare and Social Security cuts. Because that’s not what Republicans are talking about. We’re talking about discretionary spending, we’ve increased discretionary spending in four years, $300 billion 30% increase in discretionary spending. Those are things outside of Medicare and Social Security. That’s the woke culture inside… you know, DOD, that is the climate alarmist community and this green technology. It’s all the grants. We are not operating in common sense. And I think what person out there says that you’re spinning millions of dollars in grant forms to advocate an LGBTQ type ideology in foreign countries, which we are. Why wouldn’t we rein in that type of expenditure and get our fiscal house in order on discretionary spending? And that’s where Republicans are aiming. And the President knows that that’s something the American people believe in. It’s why he’s trying to confuse voters in what he was trying to do in State of the Union to talk about Medicare and Social Security versus discretionary spending.

David Barton
So Josh, with other stuff going, you guys, have you kind of thrown down the gauntlet in some areas. Now that you’ve got half of one branch, as Rick said, what’s your agenda? What are you guys going to do to try to create some change? I mean, right now, you’ve got a great bit of sunlight going, you’re bringing a lot of things to light that people didn’t know about. The hearings are out there the stuff going, what’s kind of your agenda on the Republican side for what you guys can do with one half of one branch.

Josh Brecheen
So we’ll use the the leverage of the debt ceiling. One of the things that I’m grateful to Speaker McCarthy and in his agreement, if we go back to the 2022 spending levels, that’s 130 billion in savings. Now out of a almost $6 trillion spend, people look at that and go, you know, how big is that any opportunity to long term turns the trajectory of this thing, we have to take advantage of and we do have to, you know, understand, and we’ve got two thirds of the government that are under democratic control. But McCarthy’s commitment’s to go to 2022 levels. We believe we can hold defense harmless, potentially. Now that doesn’t include the woke culture that needs to be gone after within the DOD. But there are ways to go in look at the 2019 levels of discretionary spending under Republican control and ask people, do you really notice the difference in discretionary spending four years ago, In terms of what programs that you’re seeing? Or if you categorize that there’s $130 billion of custom we’re talking about, and almost 100 billion of that is money that was advocated for, and is not been even spent under the COVID era. We got $100 billion that was obligated, but it’s not been even directed to where it’s supposed to go. So there’s some, there’s some real easy pickings, if we’ll have the courage to do it. And I’ll end with this- since 1985, the 11 spending… greatest spinning reform measures have always occurred up next to a debt ceiling discussion. So if we use your leverage, we can get some some transformative change.

Rick Green
Hey, Josh, can you walk through that timeline for us? You know, as far as when that all happens? Has that already come to a head? Is there still time to negotiate? I’m kind of lost on when that is all done.

Josh Brecheen
So the debt ceiling… we actually in… mid January, went over. We actually went past what was allocated. But we’re going to… Janet Yellen is saying that we’re going to use extraordinary measures that gets us to June. And so as we… I’m on the budget committee. As we’re putting forth a budget, again, in tandem with what the speaker committed to those of us of the 20 that were, you know, advocating for changes before he was handed the gavel. To the Speaker’s credit, and to our budget Chairman’s credit, we are looking at the 2022 spending levels. That is what we’re looking at. And so as we move forward in, you know, how we obtain getting there, the budget committee will be running through those numbers. But we know we’re going to start initially with $130 billion worth of savings. And that is what the Speaker is going to be, you know, in discussion for president… and maybe, you know, my hope is it’s a to a greater level than that. But we know the speaker is committed to that level already.

Rick Green
Hey, Josh, if I could just… I want everybody to catch the victory there, right, and realize, because you and the other 19 stood firm, you got the concessions. And now we are living out those concessions. We have a chance at real savings here. And finally stopping the insanity and at least maybe freezing it like you’re saying where we were in 2022. But but at least having some significant movement in the right direction. I just… I want our listeners to pause for a second, soak that in and enjoy the fact that we had that victory and say, you know, a big thank you to the Lord and a big thank you to you and the other 19 for taking your stand.

Josh Brecheen
Yeah, it… look, I will tell you that there was a large group of that 20 That every day was was praying. And so I don’t want to, you know, dramatize it and… to a greater level than it is the fruit has to bear out. But it has put us on a trajectory where even I would claim even people have a perception of or are moderate are talking about we’ve got to have spending cuts. Just the revelation of… People are awakened to the reality we cannot continue to spend like this. And I think even the moderates among our conference are getting it. And I’m grateful to the Speaker of taking that three day, four day negotiation seriously. And leaders apart from him are talking about, we’ve got to look at cuts.

David Barton
Josh, just going with that, looking forward, what do you think that the Senate is gonna do with that? Well, they try to sit on it and just come back with the CR, or will they actually try to make cuts over there? I know, you don’t have control over there. What do you think will happen when you guys deliver your budget over to the Senate?

Josh Brecheen
Well, one of the great ideas that came out among the speaker’s concessions was that we would send them a continuing resolution, potentially, you know, that we could say, hey, here you go. And would be at a 1% – 2% cut level and force them to respond. But, you know, if we end up with a continuing resolution my hope is we will lock shields on the House side, and demanded the reduction, that it won’t just be a strong charge at the first, and then everyone roll over. My hope is that we will stay committed to spending reductions, whether it’s a CR or actually we could pull off what many of us hope and that is returned to 12 appropriation bills. Which is what the budget committee is assigned to doing under, you know, setting some guardrails, spending cap levels, that maybe we can return back to the days of the 95 to 2000 era, era when we balanced the budget, where we actually go through 12 appropriation bills, and we deliberate to a great level and say is this a priority? Or is it not a priority, line by line?

David Barton
We sure appreciate you man. What you’ve done, what you’re doing, the change you brought from the time you stepped through the doors there in DC. I mean, the rules changes are just amazing. I don’t think people understand how much that meant to the country overall. But thank you, thank you for being one of those warriors. We appreciate it brother. We look forward to catching up with you down the road.

Josh Brecheen
Thanks guys. God bless y’all appreciate y’all.

Rick Green
That was Josh Brecheen on the phone. appreciate him calling in for the program today and guys that should give people hope we can get more and more members of Congress just like him. And that means getting good things done just like those 20 did. And we need to celebrate when they get a victory like they’ve done.

David Barton
And I love the fact that he is so principle driven that he points out how bad Republicans have been in spending in the Senate worse than the house. Now, Democrats are way more, but he doesn’t give anybody a pass on this. He thinks the principles are right, you should be principle driven. I love the fact that he’s really working on getting back to last year’s budget, which as he said, that’s only 1% to 2%. But man, if you can do that, for 10-15 years, you’re cutting the budget in a significant manner. So it is really good to hear him fixated on things like that. And he’s in a position where they’ve… and I love the fact they’re already talking about what to do to get the Senate over to their side. What do they need to do to get the Senate to agree to budget cuts, as opposed to letting the Senate drive the ship, which is what’s happened way too many times. So there’s just a lot of good stuff that Josh has covered there. It’s good to hear it’s really encouraging.

Rick Green
Well, folks, you can expect more interviews like that throughout the year because we’ve got a lot of great leaders now at the local and state and federal level and we’re gonna bring them to you and give you a chance to hear from them and be encouraged. we sure appreciate you listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders.