Trump Proposes Huge Budget Cuts, $26.7 Billion and 66 Programs: Good News Friday today on WallBuilders Live! Lately, we have more good news than we have time to share, which is good news in itself! Tune in now to hear about just some of the good things that have been happening in our country recently. In this episode, we discuss things such as good news coming out of the Trump administration, religious protection, and good news for pro-life. 

Air Date: 06/09/2017

Guests: 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.  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 because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Welcome

Rick:

You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture, this is WallBuilders Live! Where we”€™re talking about these hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always looking at it from Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

That conversation here today with David Barton, America’s premiere historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton with us today president of WallBuilders, national speaker, and pastor. And my name’s Rick Green.  I’m a former Texas state representative.

Find out more about us and the organization at our websites WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com.  That’s the radio site where you can get a list of all the stations and also check out some of the archives from the past few weeks.

Today is Friday so we are doing Good News Friday. Today, David and Tim, have a stack of good news to share with us. And I’m just going to guess here.  David, are you up first?

David:

I am up first.

Rick:

Alright brother, go for it.

80% Of Television Reports Are Negative

David:

I’m going to continue what we started last week because there is what I consider to be more very good news from the Trump administration. As we mentioned last week, we don’t hear that. The studies show so far about 93% of the news coverage of the Trump administration has been negative. I guarantee you 93% of what they’ve done has not been negative. But as we saw, and Tim mentioned, 80% of television reports are negative.

But we saw a very recent study just a couple of weeks old now by Harrison Harvard that said, “€œRoughly two out of three Americans think that most news is fake news. Up to 86% of Americans don’t believe they can trust what they see online.”€

And they point out that they think that everybody in the media essentially is following their own partisan agenda. They’re not reporting truth anymore. They’re pursuing what they see their agenda is.

We’ve known that for a number of years.  You go back to the Rothman Lichter studies back in the 80″€™s and 90″€™s and what we called the, “€œBureau Chiefs,”€ 250 Bureau Chiefs in D.C. Every major newspaper has a Bureau Chief in D.C. whether it be the St. Louis paper, or the Dallas paper, the Miami paper ,or whatever it is, they’ve got a Bureau Chief there that feeds them news.   And roughly two thirds of the Bureau Chiefs said that they felt like they had a moral responsibility to convert readers to their point of view.

So they’re not giving you news, they’re giving you their viewpoints on what they want you to believe about that issue. So that’s why it becomes very hard to see good news coming out of the Trump Administration because you’re just not going to hear it. They’re trying to convert you to a different viewpoint.

Good News From The Trump Administration

Well, as I mentioned last week, Tim and I since the election have been in D.C. about once a week at the request of members of Congress and senators and others to work on issues that they have going.

So we’re seeing things from a very different viewpoint. And I’m happy to point out things that nobody else is seeing. Particularly, when I think they’re good news not the least of which is the new Trump budget. In the new Trump budget there are sixty six programs that he has completely eliminated.

Rick:

Wait, wait, wait-

Tim:

You don’t even have to name what those are, that’s already good news.

Rick:

Just by itself, oh wait a minute. A government program that’s gone? I thought they live forever.

David:

Well, he’s eliminated $26.7 billion in federal funding and that’s not very much given the nearly 2 trillion that we have for budget. I mean, this is like one percent but that 1 percent is 66 entire programs.

Here’s a few of them, I don’t know we’re going to survive with these programs. I mean, these are so crucial everybody talks about this every day, you hear about them in the news, everybody relies on these.

Tim:

I bet we do.

Rick:

Yeah, sure.

David:

Out of Agriculture Department $855 million is being cut. That includes the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education.

Tim:

Is that what pays people that eat food when they’re reading?

David:

Hah, yeah,  food for education. I don’t know, who knows. The Rural Water and Waste Disposal Program Account, I think most people know how to take care of wastewater. I mean, we have septic tanks, we have sewers.

Tim:

And that’s for rural areas?

David:

Wait a minute guys, isn’t that right there like a first item in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, right? That the federal government is to take care of everybody”€™s sewer. Oh no wait, no I don’t think that’s in there.

66 Programs Eliminated In Trump’s Budget

David:

This is going to be a lawsuit for sure because when you have a clear constitutional basis like this one, well, not really. So, you have moving into the Commerce Department $633 million is cut there. In the Education Department $5 billion is cut in education including  Impact Aid Payments for Federal Property. I’m not sure why we’re giving federal assistance to federal property for education. Who knows.

But we are wiping out the International Education Program. Which probably, every other nation is going to be overjoyed about that because America consistently comes in last in international testing. So I’m sure they don’t want us helping mess up their education system like we”€™ve messed up our own.

The Energy Department, they’re cutting $390 million including all these grants that go to innovative technology. Look, if it’s innovative the free market going to fund it. If it’s going to work the free market will fund it. People buy what works. They don’t buy what doesn’t work. The government doesn’t have to fund that.

Rick:

That”€™s right.

David:

There is nearly 5 billion out of health and human services, Homeland Security is $235 million cut. Housing and Urban Development is $4 billion cut. The Interior Department $122 million.

And by the way, we’re wiping out the heritage partnership program. I don’t know how we”€™ll exist without the heritage partnership program. We don’t even know what our heritage is-

Tim:

I was going to say, we can’t even define what that is. So I am sure we’re going to miss it.

David:

Now, here’s one that we think we’re really going to miss. The Justice Department are wiping out $210 million on the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. So if you’re a criminal alien the federal government is paying you to defend criminal aliens.

Tim:

We’re we’re assisting them, as criminals and aliens. Interesting.

David:

Yeah, two illegal things there. Then we have Labor Department $527 million. I love the State Department. I think it’s 31% of the budget of the State Department they’re wiping out. So the State Department goes way down and that’s going to make a lot of our friends really really happy over in the Senate.

Particularly Senator Jim Inhofe. I mean, what the State Department does is an abomination in so many areas.

And the Treasury Department, were actually cutting $43 million in the global food security program. The global agriculture and food security program. Yeah, like we really got to have that.

I mean, you just got through 66 of these programs. Now, here’s kind of a high name items. They’re defined in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If that’s a good program the public will pay for it, it’ll run on its own, you don’t need the government doing that.

They’re wiping out along with that the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, they’re wiping out the legal services corporation. If you don’t know that is, the legal services corporation pays you to sue the U.S. government. That is an entity where we pour millions into these guys to go out and recruit lawsuits against the U.S. government so that we can pay billions more. It’s nuts what’s happening here. So good news.

Rick:

This list is incredible, I mean any one of these items we would have said, “€œOh that’s great news.”€ But all of them together-

David:

Now I wonder why we haven’t heard this on mainstream? Oh wait a minute, mainstream news loves bigger government, loves bigger spending, loves more control centralized.  They’re not going to talk about this kind of stuff because this is limited government. This is constitutional government. This is getting back to the essence where we’re only funding the things that, as Lincoln said, that the people can’t do for themselves.

I mean, this is such a turnaround to actually have genuine budget cuts and they have them at this level, I think again, it”€™s 31 percent of the State Department budget goes away, 28 percent of EPA goes away, and 66 total programs. This is great news.

Rick:

And so now this is this Trump’s proposed budget or is this-

David:

This is your proposed budget. Now, we’ll see what happens. Because to get this through you’ve got to get some Democrats to buy into this because-

Rick:

But we’ve never had this good of a starting point before.  

David:

That”€™s right. So what happens is if they used budget reconciliation then they can force this through with 51 votes. If any of these measures become policy measures and not budget measures then it’s going to take 60 votes.  You invoke cloture at that point, you’ve got to pick up nine Democrats plus you”€™ve got to keep the 51 Republicans.

 

And when you have people like Collins up in Maine and you have folks like that, there’s two or three more.  There is Murkowski out of Alaska.  They’re much more left than they are right. So you’ve got to be able to hold two or three Republicans, keep them from falling off. Then pick up nine more Democrats.  That’s really hard and probably not going to happen.

But if it can be done in the budgeting process if this can be capped as, “€œThis is just spending money, this is not policy changes, then probably a whole lot of this can get done.

And there is the main street partnership in the House which is about two dozen moderate Republicans out of the — What are there?  230 or so– there’s about two dozen. Which keeps the Republicans from having a majority because of those two dozen.  It”€™s kind of the tail that sometimes wags the dog which is why Republicans don’t always look very conservative because you don’t have quite enough conservatives to get the 218 votes and so you have to get some moderates in there. And so they often hold out and don’t give you what you need. And so to get the vote you have to give the moderates some bones to chew on.

And so that’s why I doesn”€™t always look like the Republicans are conservative. But man, you look at this budget coming out of Trump and there’s going to be a whole lot in the House and the Senate that are going to take this and say, “€œAmen, and let’s cut some more while we’re on top of it.”€

Rick:

Yeah, oh man that’s fantastic news. What a great starting point, now we need to put pressure on our members of Congress to keep these cuts in the budget. We”€™ve got to take a quick break.  We’ll be right back here on WallBuilders Live.  It”€™s Good News Friday.

America”€™s History

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Since the Ten Commandments have formed the basis of civil law in the western world for over 2,000 years and an individual is more likely to find a copy of them in a government building rather than a religious one. Yet, amazingly, numerous rulings over recent years now make it unconstitutional to display the commandments in many public arenas.

Consider what Founding Father John Adams said about this, he declared, “€œThe moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, anarchy, and tyranny commence. If “€˜thou shall not covet”€™ and “€˜thou shall not steal”€™ were not commandments of heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.”€

John Adams believed that no society could remain civilized if separated from the Ten Commandments. For more information on God’s hand in American history contact WallBuilders at 1 800 8 REBUILD.

Good People In D.C

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live.  Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday, so much in that first segment guys. We could have had a Good News Friday entire program on each of those items, David, that you listed out of the Trump budget. All of those cuts, things we”€™ve talked about in our Constitution Class and on this program that the federal government has no business doing.  Certainly no constitutional authority to be doing. And finally a president that’s willing to say, “€œno”€ and start those budget talks saying, “€œWe’re going to completely get rid of these things.”€ Great news. Alright, Tim, you’re up buddy.  What’s next?

Tim:

Well, let me back up and point out that also indicates the good people that are around Trump. And we’ve talked about this before, but certainly, Trump is not a constitutional expert. Trump doesn’t have the details of this budget worked out.

But that means he has people around him that understand Article 1 Section 8, and understand the limitations the Constitution puts on the federal government and on budgeting.

It’s such a good indication, not just that we’re taking a step constitutionally, but that there are people in the White House administration that understand enough to go, “€œWe shouldn’t be funding this. We shouldn’t be doing this. We don’t have the authority for this.”€ So it’s good news on so many more levels than even what we just initially identified.

But again, just positive things that we have good people up in D.C. now. And so that’s just another thing where I’m thankful as I identify some of these things that they’re doing.

But a couple of articles I have in front of me now, this one is from Texas. Actually, I have a couple from Texas. But this one is dealing with religious liberty, specifically pastors in Texas.

Governor Abbott from Texas just recently signed into law a bill that would stop the state from seizing pastor’s sermons related to moral issues. And this is kind of a throwback I guess, it was 2014 when there were several pastors, I think five pastors from Houston, Texas who there was a lesbian mayor and they were speaking out against the transgender issue. This mayor was trying to say that all of Houston was going to embrace transgender bathroom deal where guys and girls go what ever bathroom you feel like. And these pastor spoke out.

So she goes against the pastors.  She subpoenas their sermons.  Which you know the joke around here for a while was she really doesn”€™t understand pastors if she thinks she needs to subpoena them to get their sermons. Most pastors are trying desperately to get people to take their sermons. Really, she probably didn’t need to subpoena them in this.

Rick:

And a few of them mailed her all of their sermons.

Tim:

Tim Brooks has been on the program before. And he said, “€œHey, you can have all my sermons.”€ And so there were a lot of pastors that started mailing their sermons down and they were inundated. I mean really, it was kind of a fun positive thing on the backside.

But those pastors said at that time that one of the pastor spoke out and said, “€œHey, we’re not going to back down because we did nothing wrong. We just speak the Word of God on moral issues and we fight for the safety of women and girls.”€

Which of course is is the position those pastors and all pastors should take. Well, Governor Abbott signed a bill that says, “€œGovernment cannot compel the production or disclosure of a written copy, or audio, or video recording, of a sermon delivered by a religious leader during religious worship or compel the religious leader to testify regarding the sermon.”€

So protecting the pulpit saying that if they do something in the church the government can’t come after you and say, “€œHey, give me that.  Come testify about this. You have to give a defense for what you said.”€ So it really is a religious liberty protection.

So, it’s good news that we have a state that’s saying, “€œWe’re going to do that.”€ Hopefully all 50 states will follow suit. Maybe some will even be stronger than what we did in Texas.

But it is really good news that we are taking a step in the direction of saying, “€œWe’re going to protect pastors. We’re going to protect religious liberty and moral values in the pulpit from that Christian perspective.”€ Which was initially called into question by that Mayor down in Houston, Texas.

Rick:

That’s great news. Hopefully other states will follow suit.  They’ll see this and say, “€œHey, has the right thing to do”€  A lot of our listeners across the country could get that in the hands of their legislators and encourage them to do the same thing.

Quick break.  We’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live!

Avalon Project

Tim:

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders. I know you hear my dad and Rick talk a lot about our Founding Fathers about the original intent of our nation, a constitutional heritage that we have. And really we’ve seen how far we slipped away from that. And I know a lot of us as we hear my dad and Rick talk think, “€œI wish there was a place that I could go where I could see these documents and I could read and learn about the Founding Fathers firsthand.  See the things they did.”€  

I want to give you some websites today that can help you accomplish that very thing. If you get online you can go to places like Library of Congress and you can look under their century of lawmaking or historical documents. You can go to the Avalon Project, to the Founders Constitution, Google Books, or even the internet archives.  

Or you can just go to WallBuilders.com. We have a section for our WallBuilders Library. And under that section we have different subgroups for historical documents, historical writings, even a place where you can get helpful links to find out more information about other websites.  Where you can do research for yourself and find the truth for yourself. Friends, this is the time that we need to know who we are and where we came from. WallBuilders.com is a great place to go.

Rick:

We’re back on WallBuilders Live! Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. David Barton is up next with more good news. Go ahead, bro.

David:

I’m going to deal with the election integrity. There’s been a lot of charges over the last 15 to 20 years of voter fraud. Whether it be from illegal aliens-

Tim:

We don”€™t need voter I.D. laws. You’re just trying to make it hard on people of different ethnic backgrounds and you are against immigration and you guys, you just make up these things because you hate people.

David:

I knew you were going to be a vicarious liberal for a little bit because that’s what they keep saying.

Tim:

And actually, that wasn’t very vicarious liberal because I was actually pretty peaceful when I said that. I wasn’t yelling, cursing, and screaming and being really bigoted hateful and intolerant. Does that seem weird coming from a liberal-

Rick:

Yeah, you we’re way too nice.

Tim:

I was too much, too calm to be actually mimicking liberal. But those were some of the words they say about this issue.

David:

And particularly interesting is they demean this and said, “€œThere’s no need for it, there’s no fraud going on, and year, after year, they say, “€œNo fraud.”€ And yet we know Catherine Engelbrecht who started Trude the Vote pointed out, I think it was-

Rick:

I think it was 10 thousand.

David:

Yeah, found 10,000 illegal, certified illegal votes in one congressional election. “€œOh, voter fraud doesn’t happen.”€ And then here in Dallas we just had a big one uncovered of another huge voter fraud.

“€œNo, voter fraud never happens.”€ And all over the nation there are hundreds of stories of voter fraud that have been confirmed.

You have prosecutions going on confirming voter fraud and still the other side says, “€œNo, this is just an attempt to disenfranchise voters. This is just an attempt to disenfranchise minorities. There is no voter fraud. You guys are trying to-“€

Well, what President Trump has done is he has created a commission on Election Integrity that”€™s looking into voter fraud. Look, if I lose the election that’s one thing, but if I have it stolen from me because people voted who were not allowed to vote or they voted 15 times each or whatever. That’s a whole different thing. I can live with losing an election if it’s an honest election.

But when the books are cooked to get something that’s not there. And this goes back to LBJ Box 13 way back 50 years ago, where they always cooked the books in that particular box. He would win all the elections, if he needed 200 votes they would suddenly discover 233 ballots that they’d forgot to count. So this is an old-

Rick:

It started in his Senate races, right? In Texas and I wonder how much of that happened across the country after that.

David:

Well, it happens all across the country. And again, the mantra on the left, because two-thirds of the media wants to convert you to their viewpoint it”€™s, “€œNo, all election voter integrity laws are bad, they’re racist.”€ And all the stuff that Tim just expressed. That’s that’s their lines.

Well, guess who he picked to head this new Commission on Election Integrity? Any shot at this? Anybody know?

Secretary Of State Kris Kobach Convicting Voters Fraud 

Tim:

I do.

David:

Oh, you already know?

Rick:

I don’t know.

Tim:

It”€™s our friend.

David:

It”€™s our friend Secretary of State Kris Kobach in Kansas.

Rick:

Oh, yeah, that spoke at the Legislators Conference.

David:

That’s right. Kris is probably the top guy on this. And guess what, as secretary of state in Kansas he has just successfully prosecuted some election fraud cases there. People there have been criminally convicted for doing that and still the other side says, “€œNo, there’s no examples out there, Election Fraud doesn’t occur.”€  

So they put the secretary of state, this is probably the best expert on Election Integrity in the United States whether that be from people who vote too often, or from illegal aliens voting, even from criminal felons voting who aren’t supposed to be, but whatever the source is this is, the best guy for so this. This is really good news that Kris Kobach is now the head of this agency.

What a great guy he is and he is a guy who is a bulldog for truth. He will pursue this, he will get to the bottom of it, and so to create a commission to look into election fraud which the other side says, “€œDoesn’t exist.”€ If it doesn’t exist then why are they scared of looking into it?

I mean, if this is something that doesn’t exist then they are not going to be scared of it. But the ACLU, head of the Voting Rights Project said that this is nothing but a pretext for disenfranchising Americans.

Well,  how? If voter fraud doesn’t exist then how does that happen? And here Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senate minority leader says, “€œPutting an extremist like Mr. Cole back at the helm of this commission is akin to putting an arsonist in charge of the fire department.”€

So the hyperbolas already rolling, man. The rhetoric is really loose on this. But there’s not a better guy than Mr. Trump could have put over that commission than Kris Kobach.

Rick:

Yeah, he’s going to burn up their fraud activities, that’s what he’s going to take care of. You”€™ve got a guy that’s become known for being effective at it. We need it at the federal level and the Democrats are scared to death because they’ve used it so often to win elections, use the fraud. And it happens, I’m sure there are bad people on both sides. But man, it’s been a serious tool on the left.

David:

And by the way, on the WallBuilders YouTube as well as on our Facebook we’ve got some short videos up showing Democrat tactics of the 1850″€™s, 1860″€™s, and 1870″€™s that sound exactly like today. We did nothing but take newspaper articles from the newspapers back then showing how the Democrats were committing election fraud.

Not to say the Republicans don’t do it but they’re not the ones that’s the source of most of the convictions and the problems. It invariably is time, after time, Democrats doing that.

But there’s some cool short 1-2 minute clips that are up there that Tim and I have done on this topic that you’ll really find interesting where we pull out old documents from the library and show you that voter fraud is nothing new, this is something that’s been going for a couple of centuries in America. We have to fight it today just like they did back then.

Rick:

We”€™ve got to take a quick break.  We’ll be right back for our final segment of good news today.  You”€™re listening to WallBuilders Live!

Biographical Sketches

Hi friends! This is Tim Barton of WallBuilders.This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heros of the faith. I know, oftentimes as parents, were trying to find good content for our kids to read.

If you remember back in the Bible, the Book of Hebrews it has the Faith Hall of Fame, where they outlined the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity and our faith as well.

I wanted to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called, “€œThe Courageous Leaders Collection“€ and this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers.

There’s a second collection called, “€œHeroes of History“€ in this collection you read about people like Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, the list goes on and on.

This is a great collection for your young person to have and read. And it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live, Good News Friday today. We”€™ve got time for a little bit more of good news and I don’t know who’s up. Tim, David, who”€™s taking this last segment?

Tim:

I’m going to take this one, Rick. We’re going to Michigan. We talked about our friend from Kansas who’s looking into this voter fraud stuff. We have another friend up in Michigan a state senator up there, Patrick Colbeck and he’s another guy-

David:

I think Pat is going to be running for governor up there.

Tim:

That’s what he’s saying, that”€™s what my recollection is, yeah. He’s a fantastic guy, a huge advocate for family values, traditional values-

Rick:

Solid vote.

Tim:

Yeah, if we lived in Michigan we”€™d be campaigning for this guy the whole time his campaign is going on. Really great guy, one of the things he did for his state is actually, he’s responsible for some legislation that’s going to Governor Rick Snyder his desk after the House voted to approve it. And it is to allow Michigan, well really Michigan drivers, to have the option to get license plates that will have on them “€œchoose life.”€

They can pay $35 and get this done. Anytime you do something that’s pro-life or pro faith it it becomes a source of contention for many on the other side. “€œWait a second, you can’t have this bias, you can’t do that.”€ Even though we have all these bumper stickers and all these things you put on cars.

David:

Well, really it’s not the purpose of the government to protect free speech. We shouldn’t have the right to free speech. Government should tell us what we should believe and what we get. So we don’t want an open forum where you can actually express pro-life.

Rick:

Because there’s nothing that we could point to in the constitution where it would guarantee free speech.  

David:

This is a concoction of those on the on the radical right.

Tim:

It does seem like the left is a little off base in that argument.

Rick:

We may have some new listeners that have no idea we were being very sarcastic there.

David:

That’s right.

Tim:

Well, one of the things that Patrick points out is that the proceeds will go to a special Choose Life fund that would support life-affirming services such as the services that you find in a pregnancy resource center-

David:

Oh, you mean Planned Parenthood?

Tim:

That affirmed life, not death. So a little different. They take care of mothers facing unplanned pregnancies, provide for daily needs, etc. So this is something that Michigan has done largely in part to our good friend Senator Patrick Colbeck because they want to support this life movement. So really good news coming from Michigan on this issue of life.

Rick:

Good stuff all the way around guys. Lots of great news today. And there’s more at our website. If you get a WallBuildersLive.com click on the archives, click on those Friday programs, you’ll get more good news. Little bit of good news throughout the week but Friday is packed full of all kinds of stories across the nation and around the world. Thanks so much for listening today to WallBuildersLive.