At the Core is Celebrating Its Four Year Anniversary in July
Walker Wildmon We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions, no matter where they are.
Jeff Chamblee We equip
Rick Green Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.
Brother Don Wildmon We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.
Jeff Chamblee This is At the Core on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon Welcome, to The Core. Glad to be with you on this live edition of the program. And it's been a while. Probably one of my longest stints away from live radio in, several years. Bobby, I'm not going to say the entirety of my career here, which is 10 years, because I haven't done radio the entire time I've been here. Well, but since the Core began, I don't think I've been gone that long. No. Yeah, two weeks. Yeah, two weeks. A year. That's it. A year. It felt like a year, but, I planned on doing the show Monday and then, and then, you know, life happens and so we, we had to drop in a rear. But here I am live. We're coming up on, on our four year anniversary too. Is that right? July 12th. Nice. Yeah. It's a weekend, so we can't celebrate. I think we're also coming up on the 249th birthday of America. Right. Because next year is 250, correct? 250 next year. Yeah. So this July will be 249. A lot of things happening.
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid Proverbs 12 (NASB95)
All right, let's, turn our attention to the scripture and then we'll have a guest on to talk about some ongoings in Washington D.C. proverbs, chapter 12. Listen to this. And, if you're never taken aback or if you're never humbled by scripture, well, you're either not a believer and don't have the Holy Spirit, or you're not reading it enough. One of the two. But this ought to shock everyone or At least wake everyone up to the reality of God's truth. Here's Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. A good man will obtain favor from the Lord, but he will condemn a man who devises evil. That's verses one and two in Proverbs, chapter 12. And if you just got your feeling hurt because I said stupid. Well, it wasn't me. I'm reading from the Bible. Okay, so this is Proverbs chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, the latter part of verse 1. But he who hates reproof is stupid. All right. and then the first part of that is whoever loves discipline loves knowledge. So it is important to God that we be open to discipline, that we be receptive to, to, discipline that is critical for the sanctification of the believer. If you are not willing to be disciplined or willing to be corrected and to, turn from your sin, that runs counter to Scripture and it runs counter to the life of a believer. And so true maturity and true, obedience to God is being receptive and obedient to his correction in our lives. That's Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. And through that we receive knowledge, we receive wisdom.
The House reconciliation bill includes a provision that defunds abortion providers
All right, let's, turn to our guest for this segment talking about a familiar topic that we've talked about in recent weeks, and that is the massive amount of money that the federal government sends to abortion providers that are, providing abortions all around the country, in states all around the country. Kelsey Pritchard's with us. She's state public affairs director for the Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America organization. Kelsey, welcome back to the program.
Kelsey Pritchard Thanks for having me, Walker.
Walker Wildmon Well, Kelsey, I was pleasantly surprised, in a good way, that the, House reconciliation bill that made its way over to the Senate in recent days and weeks had a provision in it that defunded abortion providers, meaning any organization that provides abortions doesn't qualify for federal money. Now, some people may be saying, well, I didn't think abortion providers could get federal money anyway. currently there's a caveat to that is current law says, well, you can't use the money to cover abortions, but we still can send money for other related procedures surrounding, the issue of abortions. So am I on the right track? What have I missed?
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, that's exactly right. So we do have the Hyde Amendment, which, when President Trump entered office again, he reinstated. And that Hyde Amendment says that you can't use American taxpayer dollars to directly pay for someone's abortion. But the abortion industry has long had this workaround since the 1960s where they've been able to get Medicaid dollars. And so Planned Parenthood, for instance, gets about $529 million annually just in Medicaid funding. And that's the, that's the lion's share of the, the public funding that they get. so really what we're doing is we're propping them up and we're subsidizing the number one cause of death in this country. Taxpayers have been forced to do this for decades, and now's the time to finally end this.
Walker Wildmon Let me ask you this, Kelsey. This legislation, it's pretty big. Pretty big piece of legislation, and it's hard to get. and maybe I should read the bill, but it's several hundred pages and I have other things to do. But does this bill actually, block Planned Parenthood from receiving, federal dollars, or is it just a reinstitution of the Hyde Amendment? Because I've been confused on how far this legisl actually goes.
Kelsey Pritchard So this provision in the budget bill only covers Medicaid funding, so they get about $800 million annually. This would address $529 million.
Walker Wildmon Okay, that's a. Yeah, that's a big deal, Kelsey. And I don't want to dismiss what. What the conservatives and Republicans are trying to do here along with the president. That's a lot of money. I mean, so. So, okay, so this provision targets the Medicaid reimbursements. And this provision would. Would. Would basically. It basically states that if you're providing abortions, you don't qualify for Medicaid reimbursements. Is that correct?
Kelsey Pritchard Exactly. So it's not just for Planned Parenthood. It's for any abortion business. You're no longer able to get our Medicaid money.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, that's. This is a big deal, folks. And this is. This is, I'm not going to say a first ever, but it's. It's monumental. To get this provision in the legislation through the House of Representatives, was a big, big, ah, hurdle to cross. let me ask you this. Kelsey, once again, we're, talking to Kelsey Pritchard with the Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America. Do you think, what's the appetite in the Senate? Because clearly there's several Republican senators that don't believe the same that you and I do on the issue of life. And there's Collins and there's Murkowski, maybe a couple others, and they're always coming to the defense of abortion. It's sickening, actually, that they run as Republicans, but then they're very pro abortion. What's the appetite in the Senate for this provision?
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, so we've. Our group has been lobbying on this front since March, and overall, I'd say what we've heard from the GOP has been encouraging, and a lot of them are fired up to get this done. We saw that on the House side with Speaker. The Speaker's leadership to get this through and to keep this in the bill. Senator th. Leader, TH Is also really wanting to get this through in the bill. So that is good and encouraging and just the overall positive response we've seen is very good. Just in light of, if you think of the Dobbs decision, how some Republicans have not been as bold on the issue of abortion as they should be since, people can now have a say on the issue of their abortion through their federal and state representatives. so the fact that we have seen such a groundswell of support for this amongst Republicans, that gives us optimism and hope we can get this done. Of course, you always have your usual suspects. the good news is we can afford to lose one or two in the Senate. and they're not just voting on this. Right. They're voting on the one big beautiful bill. And we know how Trump wants to get this through the Senate soon and how much they're working and pushing to get this done.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, yeah. And this is, you know, I hope I'm optimistic this gets through the Senate. Just looking At it from afar, I think it would, because I just don't think there's enough pro abortion Republicans in the Senate to halt this, provision in the bill. But, making, forcing the issue with the senators in and of itself, making them vote on this, to me is At least an incremental victory here. Because what often happens is these lawmakers that are, you know, wishy washy and we don't know where they stand or they stand on the wrong side unless it's an election season. And then all of a sudden they become very conservative. this puts them on the record of answering the question, are you okay with federal dollars going to abortion providers and forces them to take a position on that issue. Kelsey. So I think all in all, just having this discussion and getting it in front of the Senate in and of itself is some sort of a victory here.
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, that's exactly right. And this would really be the biggest victory since the Dobbs decision. And we had a ton of states pat enact pro life laws. This would be huge for the pro life movement. It's really the next big step in the, the over, you know, the, the long term effort to finally an abortion someday. And so, can't, I mean, we look At the money that President Trump cut off from Planned Parenthood, At least temporarily. He froze Some, some Title 10 funding because of DEI reasons to planned Parenthood. And since then we've seen a number of Planned Parenthoods that have closed because of that or have said that they will close. And that's like, you know, 20 some million dollars we're talking about $529 million, and Planned Parenthood says they're going to close five. They're going 200 facilities if this gets through in the one big, beautiful bill. So this is huge. This could really be the blow to take down Planned Parenthood.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, absolutely.
Kelsey Pritchard has a website devoted to pro-life issues
Hey, Kelsey, tell us where you're, more about your website and how we can read more about the work of, of your group.
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, go to sbaprolife.org you can check us out there. You can also read the latest news on the defunding effort and all other things that we're working on in the pro life movement. We also have a podcast called, Abortion Exposed in America, and you can check that out. We've got a season out now exposing some things in Planned Parenthood.
Walker Wildmon Excellent. Kelsey Pritchard, thanks so much for coming on.
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, thanks. God bless.
Walker Wildmon Absolutely.
There are multiple options for clawing back funding for abortion providers
Well, another. Another option here that I just, I want to float this out there, because we need to be thinking about multiple avenues here for, clawing back funding of, of abortion providers. and I say abortion providers because folks, I personally don't like singling out Planned Parenthood. Yes, they're the big bad actor. They're the largest abortion provider in the country. I get it. But I don't like giving the left fodder to make it look like we're just targeting one entity, okay? Because they can do a rebrand tomorrow, and then all of a sudden it's not Planned Parenthood anymore, it's some other entity, and we're having to recreate all of the messaging on this. Okay? So it's abortion providers, any entity that provides abortions. Another route that the Trump administration needs to look At if they haven't already, is I think that Medicaid. I think that rather the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that is a federal government entity under hhs. I think there needs to be a federal investigation into how the Medicaid reimbursements have been distributed to abortion providers. And, is any of that money violating the Hyde Amendment? Because the line here is very thin. Okay. What I'm talking about is the money that goes to, quote, unquote, non abortion services through abortion providers, and then the abortion services and how that billing works. There is some, Some, I can almost guarantee you, some serious overlap here. And there's probably violations of the Hyde Amendment. If this were to be looked into and investigated, then I would almost guarantee you're going to find that they have not, not been abiding by the Hyde Amendment or If they have, they've been using loopholes and this is all under President Trump's authority and this is under the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They're the ones that facilitate Medicaid with the states. They have the authority to investigate. It's not criminal. At least the evidence doesn't suggest that right now. So this isn't probably a DOJ thing. This is probably a Medicaid thing that needs to be investigated. And what you'll find in this, this report could be very helpful in shifting public perception here. But if you find that the federal, without the federal government subsidizing, of abortion providers through Medicaid reimbursements, there is no mega Planned Parenthood. Well, we're, and we're de facto subsidizing and supporting abortion despite the Hyde Amendment. That's the problem here, is we're propping up the abortion providers. We'll be back.
Jeff Chamblee This Easter season. We're offering a special downloadable resource that will inspire you and deepen your faith. He Is Risen is a digital booklet featuring powerful articles from the Stand and AFA Journal that explore the life changing truth of the resurrection, the significance of Easter and how to share the these foundational truths with others. For a limited time only, it's our gift to you for any donation of $5 or more. At the Core podcast are [email protected] now back to At the Core on American Family Radio.
Senate is considering legislation to defund abortion providers; registration is closed
Walker Wildmon Welcome back to the Core Last segment we had on Kelsey Pritchard with Susan B. Anthony, Pro Life America talking about defunding abortion providers. And of course the big bad actor there is Planned Parenthood, most people know about, but there's others as well, abortion providers, some more regional or state abortion providers, that are receiving federal money as well. And so this is going to be an interesting test in the Senate, to see if this will hold in the legislation. And we're actually going to talk pretty extensively here in a few minutes on this legislation on the growing debt and what to do, with the debt and with the spending and the tax cuts coming up. that's in the Senate right now. before I do that, I want to mention a few events. our Activate Summits next week and of course registration is closed. So we look forward to seeing everyone there that has registered and we'll be there next week At the Activate Summit. we'll be looking forward to seeing you. a couple more events. We do have the AFA At the Ark coming up At the end of October, we, are, we're not full, but we're getting close. we're getting pretty close. So, if you wait probably more than a couple more weeks, you're going to miss that window of opportunity there for the ark, encounter and the Creation Museum. We'll have some special sessions back At the hotel as well during that time. That's late October 30th and the 31st, the weekend with AFA. This is going to be our first ever weekend with AFA here in the, in our town of our national headquarters, Tupelo, Mississippi, October 2nd through the 4th. That's the 1st of October weekend with AFA. We're gonna have some pretty good speakers coming in. Jerry, Boyer with Boyer Research. Jerry's been on my show a couple times. He and I work together on shareholder engagement. He'll be here with us. We'll have Tim, Barton, Jenna Ellis and others coming to visit with us in Tupelo with a weekend with AFA and both of those events.
AFA is holding a Ten Commandments Speech Challenge for young people
you can find more [email protected] events afa.net events the last thing I want to mention before we jump back into the news is our Ten Commandments speech challenge. I did, tease this a little bit in recent weeks, and we're going to have on Pastor Joseph Parker on Friday to talk about this extensively. But this is a great challenge for young people for students to participate in. And we'll send some happies as well for just participation. And then of course we've got some pretty, ah, big, gifts that we're going to give for those who actually win the challenge. But this is specifically for children and youth age 7 to 17. They are being asked to write and present on video a three to five minute speech on the topic of the first Commandment. What is the first Commandment? You shall have no other gods before me. Participants may receive assistance from a parent or a sibling to write, record and submit the speech. So must make it a family project. And speeches must be submitted by the end of June. June 30th is the cutoff for this challenge. Anyone who participates, they'll get a Ten Commandments T shirt bookmark and a coupon code for the AFA Resource Center. So we look forward to all the folks that are going to participate in that. Just simply go to afr.netforward/10commands. Ten is spelled out. Afr.netforward/10commandments.
The budget reconciliation bill needs a simple majority to pass in both chambers
All right. The one big beautiful bill. That's what President Trump's been calling it, and I gotta give it to him. From a marketing standpoint, it works pretty good. And that's what everybody else is calling it. So, he, he made a good move on the branding for, for the legislation. in technical terms, it's a budget reconciliation package. It can be done once a year. And all it needs is a simple majority to vote, to pass in the House and the Senate. That's what makes it attractive for the ruling party, is that they don't need the other party to vote for it. This is a Republican only bill, if you will. And, so it's past the House and there's a lot going on here. Okay, but let me just give you some highlights of what's in the legislation. There is funding for enhanced border security, including the wall. All right? That's in the legislation. There is, the president's, tax cuts, the president's, renewal of his tax cuts from 2017, and a couple of the smaller provisions as well. But the problem that people are having with this is really on the spending side. All right? There's not any, Republicans that I'm, reading that have any problem with funding the border or, funding border security are renewing the tax cuts, that. There's pretty much zero opposition to that. Where the concerns begin to arise is with the spending levels. All right? And remember, President Trump was elected partially because of the promise to cut spending. Now, let's give a caveat here. In all honesty, President Trump is not a Tea Party conservative. He never has claimed to be. Okay? So President Trump is not Rand Paul. President Trump is not Thomas Massie from a fiscal worldview standpoint. All right? So it's not as if President Trump is not doing what he said he would do, or misled the voters or isn't keeping his campaign promise. President Trump, I mean, even in his last term, he was a spender. Right? Now he thinks we don't need to spend money in certain areas, like the Green New Deal, but instead we'll spend it somewhere else. All right? So that needs to be stated because, in all fairness, that needs to be stated. The problem is it doesn't matter whether President Trump wants spending cuts or not. We have to have them. All right? This is, this is purely a national interest thing. And I think President Trump would agree that, that, that, that this debt is unsustainable. And he said as such during the campaign. He's probably said as such, since he's been sworn in, the debt and deficit levels are simply unsustainable and that's not, that's not a partisan thing. This is not a, you got to be an economist to figure this out thing. This is, this is like Economics 101. The, the, the level of debt that we're in as a nation and the level of deficit that we are operating under is unsustainable. And nobody can dispute that. All right?
What exactly does it mean to say that debt is unsustainable?
Now, here's where disagreement comes. What does unsustainable mean? Right. Does that mean that it's going to be apocalyptic and next year we're going to be in a Great Depression? what exactly does it mean to say that this level of debt is unsustainable? Well, I can't answer that in honesty exactly how this plays out, but what I can say with confidence is it's not going to play out good. All right? And I can give you kind of an extreme example, and then I can give you a more subtle example of how this plays out. But either way, it's not good. Okay? Either way, it's not good. here's the extreme, and then I'll give you the subtle, and then we'll shift to some clips and talk about the specifics of the legislation. The extreme case is what you hear from your Ray Dalios and others, that predict some sort of economic calamity. All right? And Ray d' Alio, he goes back and forth on how apocalyptic it is. But others, the end of the world, Great Depression. we're going to be all eating rice and beans in food lines. America is not the reserve currency. you get the point. And we all, you know, stock market drops 70% and we're all on unemployment and we have to rebuild. That's kind of the apocalyptic viewpoint. This is kind of the prepper viewpoint. Right. Let me stash up my gold bars. Food and water, self sufficiency. That's kind of the mindset there. That's the worst case scenario. play out of continuing down this path of debt. And I don't personally think it will get there. I think the, the downward spiral is going to look a little bit different. It's going to be a little more subtle. But when we get to the other side of it, we're all going to look back going, that was terrible. What were we thinking? Why didn't we do anything? This is a disaster. Okay, the more subtle likely scenario, once again, this is purely my opinion, is this slow but steady degrading of the middle class. And this isn't, this isn't theory, like the apocalyptic Scenario is theory. This right here that I'm talking about is actually happening now, alright? So this isn't what I think might happen in the future. This is what's happening and has been happening over the last three to five years At a rapid pace, really has been happening over the last 20 years At a more slow pace. And that is the deterioration of the middle class. And if you want to look somewhere to figure out, well, what's this look like? California. All right? California is the state of the haves and the have nots. All right? You go to California, and by and large it doesn't have a middle class. Now that's not technically true. They have a middle class, but the middle class is shrinking. Okay? And the point is, is that the upper class and the wealthy, the so called wealthy, I know that's subjective, but the people in the upper percentile of income, they begin accumulating a lot of the wealth and then the people in the middle and the lower income become poorer and poorer. All right, that's how it works. That's how California is today. Obviously that's not good because you've got a massive segment of your population that is becoming worse off and worse off and worse off. And I think that's the likely scenario. And you see that with inflation, with inflation, your average person's dollar that they earn working becomes less and less valuable. You can do less and less with it. The, the higher income class of people, the upper percentile, they've got the whole system figured out. And this is not a bash. The wealthy, being rich is evil. This is not a socialist type viewpoint that I'm expressing here. I'm just telling you this is how it works, okay? This is how the world works. The, the wealthier are the, the upper class of our income society. They, they, they, they have a way more complicate complex financial apparatus. All right? They're invested in hard assets that appreciate that is real estate and maybe gold and, and other other things that, that over time just naturally appreciate. They don't lose value. And then they're in the markets, they're in equities, they're in bonds, they've got savings, they've got high yield savings account. They have multiple homes. So they've got a lot of assets that have appreciated, they probably have some of it paid off. and so when you, when you add all that together, they're not going to be suffering here with this, this high debt, rising inflation, chipping away At the middle class, making the Dollar less powerful. The upper to middle class, are the upper class rather. They're not the ones you need to worry about here in this rising debt, rising deficit, out of control inflation scenario. It's the middle and lower class that just don't have the same financial circumstances as someone who's in the upper percentile. Once again, this is not a bashing of the wealthy, or anything like that, or rich people are evil. That's the Bernie Sanders garbage. I'm just telling you. This is how the economy works. And so when you have this high inflation, high debt, harder, harder to make your dollar stretch economy, it simply hurts the middle and lower class more. And generally speaking, especially your lower income people, they're not gonna have a bunch of hard assets that appreciate. They're not gonna have, you know, three residences, rental property, they're not gonna have a sophisticated portfolio of stocks and bonds and you know, passive income. They're just not set up for that. They just don't have the ability to do that. All right? They're just figuring out how they're gonna pay their bills next week. And so what we need and what we've had historically in this country is an economy that works for everybody who have had an economy that works for everyone. Everyone, through hard work, has the ability, to earn a decent income and to over time build wealth and then, Lord willing, pass generational wealth on to their children and their grandchildren. But this, this, this out of control Washington, D.C. spending spree that we've been on the last 30 years, 20 to 30 years, is making it harder to achieve that American dream that we've been known for around the world.
Some senators and congressmen have serious issues with this budget reconciliation package
All right, so I just gave you pretty much a 10 minute layperson's perspective as to why the spending levels that we're currently doing is unsustainable and why it's bad for the country because it's bad for the middle class and it's bad for the lower class and it deteriorates individual wealth, especially in the middle and the lower class. That's why there are senators and congressmen that have serious issues with this budget reconciliation package, I. E. The one big beautiful bill and where I, said I was going to get to clips, we'll get to them in the next segment. But now there's some people in Congress that whether it's Thomas Massie or Rand Paul that you look At and you go, they're kind of opposed to everything. Every time that Congress wants to do something, they're a no vote. And so I just think they're just blowing steam. But I wouldn't discount these arguments just in blunt. You know, I wouldn't blanket dismiss these arguments that Rand Paul and others are bringing forth, because there's others in the Senate and the House that have the same concerns that are not blowing smoke and they're not grandstanders, and they're usually willing to negotiate. And we're going to play. Senator Ron Johnson, Mike Lee and others, have serious concerns about this legislation and the spending levels. And so something's going to have to be done. I think, I think it's, it's almost certain that some, some legislation is going to get through. I mean, the tax cuts are going to have to be extended. We can't go with a massive tax hike, in this situation that we're in economically. But what passes the Senate and the House is still up for debate. We'll talk more in the next segment.
Jeff Chamblee This is At the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
Ron Johnson: Senate Republicans predicted that passing one bill would be difficult
Walker Wildmon Welcome back to the program here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the show. Let's jump back into this legislation, as President Trump calls it, the one big beautiful bill. I was actually surprised how quickly this thing came to a halt in the Senate. And what I'm talking about is the Senate. The Senate told us, they said, they told the public a m. Couple months ago that when beginning these discussions, that passing one bill is going to be challenging, if not near impossible in the Senate. Now, they have all the reasons of which I can't even articulate, but the Senate Republicans in the Senate, they called this, they predicted it. They said one bill is not going to work. We need multiple bills. Why and how, I have no idea. The rules in the Senate and in Congress are just overly complicated. It's like our tax code. It's unnecessarily complicated. And some of it I don't get. So I'm m not even going to try to go into explaining it. Part of it I know for sure is getting consensus. All right? And when you, when you do multiple pieces of legislation, you can quickly build consensus around one or two pieces of legislation as opposed to bundling it all in one bill. And then everybody's got problems with it, and then the whole thing comes to a screeching halt, which is what's happening now. And so this, this bill is facing some serious pushback in the Senate, which is, is not what President Trump wants to hear, it's not what the White House wants to hear, but that's, that's what's happening. And Senator Ron Johnson went on about a two minute, or about a minute spill on some of the main issues with this, legislation. So this was on cnbc squawk box, talking about the, what Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin calls a grotesque bill. let's listen to his assessment here.
Ron Johnson So the president, the president and Senate leadership has to understand that we're serious. They all say, oh, we can pressure these guys. No, you can't. Okay, again, we're being very respectful. you know, I ran 2010 as part of the Tea Party movement. We were mortgage our children's Future. We were $14 trillion in debt then. Now we're over $37 trillion. We're serious about this. They need to take us seriously. Don't insult us. Work with us. Lay out the numbers. If you, if you can say that our numbers are wrong, fine, let's work through it. But again, every, every, my, every analysis I have, there's greater upside risk to that deficit. Interest rates are moving up. If we go in, increase interest rates 1%, that's another $4 trillion over 10 years. In terms of deficit. If we don't replace, replace the $4 trillion, that's $4 trillion of lost revenue again, and in growing the economy, 3%, it adds to it a little bit, but mostly in the out years. So again, come to the table. Let's look At the numbers. If I'm wrong, prove that I'm wrong. But let's do it with respect, but mainly respect for our children and grandchildren. This is immoral, what us old farts are doing to our young people. This is grotesque, what we're doing. We need to own up to that. This is our moment. I can't accept this scenario. I can't accept it. So I won't vote for it unless we are serious about fixing it.
Walker Wildmon All right, I'm with Ron Johnson. Okay. I haven't, I haven't really came down on either side of this legislation because as, as my buddy Rick Green said when we hosted a couple weeks ago, let's kind of withhold judgment here. Let's give President Trump the benefit of the doubt. And, here, and this is, folks, I just want to, want to be clear. I'm not excusing President Trump or the White House on this because At the end of the day, they were the brainchild behind it. But the way Washington works is what led us here. The way Congress works is what led us here. But let me stay focused. Senator Ron Johnson is right. Okay? Once again, I think that the tax cuts are going to have to be extended. I'm, in favor of that. I think some big bill, some bill is going to have to pass. I think the border security is important. I think a lot of this is important. We just talked about defunding abortion providers. I think that's important.
This spending package operates under the assumption that Republicans retain control for 10 years
Here's where. Here's where the White House is wrong. The White House is wrong. Because under the best case scenario, spending is reduced by 1.5 trillion. Okay, let's just say, let's just round up 2 trillion over 10 years. Once again, under a best case scenario, according to the White House's own numbers, spending is reduced by 2 trillion. And I'm way rounding up here over 10 years. It's really one. It's really 1.5 trillion. 2 trillion over the course of 10 years. All right? Two assumptions here. The first assumption is that a Republican, that Republicans keep the White House and both chambers of Congress for 10 years. All right? That's a big assumption. This spending package, the numbers associated with the spending projections here and the cuts, operates under the assumption that Republicans retain control of the White House and both chambers of Congress for the next 10 years. And I know many of you are laughing right now, it ain't gonna happen. All right? I hope it happens. It's not gonna happen. not the, not the trifecta, okay? We might can keep the White House, maybe the Senate, back and forth. You're not gonna keep all. You're not gonna keep the trifecta. I'm not sure that's actually ever happened in our history, where one party keeps the trifecta for 10 years. But, so that's the first assumption. the second assumption is, Okay, let me stay on these numbers. All right? Two trillion. There's so many places I could go here. Two trillion in cuts is the base assumption here in this legislation. If you do the math, over 10 years, that's $200 billion a year, all right? In cuts, when you look At the deficit we're running, which is the problem. The deficit is the problem, all right? Which of course, gets back to spending. We're running in FY 2020. Now, this was Covid. So take it for what it's worth. $3 trillion deficit. This means that we spent 3 trillion more than we brought in in tax revenue. This is where the Treasury Department prints money. And in 2025, they change numbers on an excel sheet. They don't even print the money. All right? In fiscal year 2023, the deficit was 1.7 trillion. Alright, so it went down, got a little better. I hate using the word better here, but it got a little better. In fiscal year 24, the deficit was 1.8 trillion. And then right now, just through April, through nine months, I'm sorry, seven months, we're At 1.3 trillion. So we're gonna, we're gonna be At 2 trillion easily by the end of this fiscal year. because we're seven months in, we're already At 1.3. You do the math on that. my point is $200 billion. Best case scenario, best case scenario, $200 billion on a 2,3 trillion dollar deficit is not enough. It's not enough. And what's shocking to me is that we can't find, we can't find more money to cut. Our federal government is so big, it's so big you can't find more than $200 billion a year to cut. I mean you could, you could cut like some sub agency, not even an agency, you could cut some sub agency and save $200 billion. Furthermore, this legislation doesn't, doesn't truly reform are, get rid of these horrendous Obamacare, standards that, that are, that are, that are allowing Medicaid expansion of which we've talked extensively on this show about. they continue basically the Obamacare model in this legislation. But to me the deficit is, is the, is, is the issue with capital. The, it is the issue.
Jamie Dimon on the risk in the bond market becoming unstable
All right, let's play a couple more clips here. this is Jamie Dimon talking about the bond market. And I'm probably going to interrupt you Bobby, because this is three minutes and I don't have three minutes. But let's go ahead and start this clip. This is Jamie Dimon on the risk in the bond market becoming unstable.
Jamie Dimon These are very large numbers. you've seen it a little bit. You know, you had the crack in the bond market and Covid a little bit. You know, the government did the right stuff. Then they massively over did both spending and QE. We borrowed and spent $10 trillion from 2020 to today. Okay, that and you heard the numbers before. We also bought 4 trillion of your securities on top of the fortune we bought in the first go round. Those numbers are true globally, not quite as big as ours, but the QE of us was 8 trillion. The QE of the rest of the world is another 8 trillion. Something like that. You're talking about huge sums of money. We don't really know the full effect of that. And you know, the Baughan dealers, which Gary mentioned, you know, inventories are much smaller than they used to be, partially because of rules, regulations, and you are going to see a crack in the bond market. Okay? It is going to happen. And I tell this to my regulators, some of who in this room, I'm telling you it's going to happen and you're going to panic. I'm not going to panic. We'll be fine. We'll probably make more money. And then some of my friends will tell me that we're, that we cause we like crises because it's good for JPMorgan Chase. Not really. You know, I tell people in Credit Suisse went bankrupt At the First Republic. It was terrible for the banking industry. I think we can make everything better, including that by just changing and modifying certain rules and regulations, letting market makers intermediate more in the market. But to give you a number that just JP Morgan alone buys and sells $3 trillion a day. And we move $10 trillion a day of money and we're probably a tenth. So the money moving around the world, is 100 trillion a day. The money moving around in the investments. You know, this is stocks, bonds, corporate governments, derivatives, credit, you name it, FX, sovereign debt around the world, 30 trillion. The people who set those long term rates, are those people including you in the room. It's not the Federal Reserve. Yeah, they can try to manipulate the long term rate. They can do the, what's it called, you know, they, they do the twist or whatever. It doesn't work for that long. So if you look At economic history, bad things happen when those tectonic plates shift. It's very hard to see in real time. It is shifting.
Jamie Dimon says other countries are buying U.S. debt
Walker Wildmon All right, so that's Jamie Dimon. And the last point he said there, he's talking about who basically who's buying the debt here. All right? And what he was getting At is that it's, it's you and me, it's the public, and it's other countries that are buying U.S. bonds. And up until now they've been buying America's debt. Right. Other foreign countries and individuals have been buying into U.S. bonds, servicing or basically, enabling the debt snowball that we're in. But we can't assume that that's always going to be the case. And we can't assume that people are going to always be giddy about buying U.S. debt. And this gets into our credit rating, this gets into interest rates. But now who knows if JP Dimon is going to be right or not. I don't know. Scott Besant. We don't have time to play the clip. He disagrees with Jamie Dimon. He thinks he's being apocalyptic. but, but the point is, is that there are consequences to sustaining the deficit and debt that were the trajectory, that we're on. That's it. And we have the trifecta. Republicans have the trifecta. And we've got to do better than this. If I had to sum this up in one sentence, that's it. Republicans have the trifecta. both houses of Congress and the White House. This is it, right? This is it. We're in a debt spiral. Inflation is eating our wallets alive. And we can't not, not, not do enough. We can't, we can't just kind of settle for less here. Status quo. This is not going to cut it. If we're truly about actually fixing this stuff now, if we just want to get reelected, that's a whole other conversation. All right, then it's like, yeah, status quo, let's help our buddies, whatever we got to do to get elected. But that shouldn't be what this is about.
To reduce deficit spending, Congress must raise taxes or cut spending
All right, let me explain this issue. Let me read something for you as we wrap up here. I thought if you had to sum up this in like a couple paragraphs. Here it is. We'll link to this on the show notes. I'll send it over to Bobby here. This is from the Kobeissi letter. Adam Kobeissi runs it. He's an economist, and very, very brilliant. And they're making a killing in the stock market because of his predictions and his outfit. But I just follow this on X and there's a lot of truth here and it's not, it's not a partisan issue. So listen to this. This is what the Kavosi letter put out. The real issue with deficit spending is this short term and long term incentives in the U.S. political and fiscal system are misaligned. Over the near term, Congress is incentivized to spend more and cut taxes to appeal to constituents for reelection. However, over the long term, this creates a financial conflict of interest which we are now dealing with as U.S. debt is up, 13 trillion in five years. in other words, to reduce deficit spending, you must either raise taxes or cut spending, both of which are wildly unpopular for reelection. Over a long enough time frame, this situation results in bankruptcy or 100% of the time, which is what Elon Musk has been talking about. The future of America will be determined by this single issue. This per, this, this outfit ended that's it. That's it. If we don't reduce spending, we don't survive as a country as we know it. And in order to reduce spending, you have to be an adult and you can't care about re election and you just have to care about doing the right thing. And if I could snap my finger and have one dose of medicine go into the Potomac river in Washington, it would be people up there that simply do the right thing. Don't talk to your, your lobbyist or your consultant about your campaign. That's in two years. And what you need to do to get reelected. Do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. That's what got our country where we are today with our founding fathers and that's the kind of people we need in Washington D.C. if we learned anything from this election, it's how important it is for us to fight, fight, fight. We also learned how desperately the left wants to fight to take babies lives. Which is why everyday Preborn ministries fight for the babies. Preborn's network of clinics are positioned in the highest abortion areas. Fighting for mothers deciding between life and death of their child. Preborn welcomes these women with God's love and offers them a free ultrasound to introduce their precious baby and hear the beautiful heartbeat. This amazing encounter gives her baby a fighting chance and the majority of the time she will choose life. Would you join PreBorn in the fight for life? One ultrasound is just $28 and $140 will sponsor five ultrasounds. Babies are worth fighting for. To donate, dial pound 250 on your cell phone and say the keyword baby. That's #250 and say the keyword baby. Or you can visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr all gifts are tax deductible and PreBorn has a four star charity rating. Fight, fight, fight for the babies.
Jeff Chamblee The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.
At the Core is Celebrating Its Four Year Anniversary in July
Walker Wildmon We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out their faith, live out their convictions, no matter where they are.
Jeff Chamblee We equip
Rick Green Sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.
Brother Don Wildmon We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character.
Jeff Chamblee This is At the Core on American Family Radio.
Walker Wildmon Welcome, to The Core. Glad to be with you on this live edition of the program. And it's been a while. Probably one of my longest stints away from live radio in, several years. Bobby, I'm not going to say the entirety of my career here, which is 10 years, because I haven't done radio the entire time I've been here. Well, but since the Core began, I don't think I've been gone that long. No. Yeah, two weeks. Yeah, two weeks. A year. That's it. A year. It felt like a year, but, I planned on doing the show Monday and then, and then, you know, life happens and so we, we had to drop in a rear. But here I am live. We're coming up on, on our four year anniversary too. Is that right? July 12th. Nice. Yeah. It's a weekend, so we can't celebrate. I think we're also coming up on the 249th birthday of America. Right. Because next year is 250, correct? 250 next year. Yeah. So this July will be 249. A lot of things happening.
Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid Proverbs 12 (NASB95)
All right, let's, turn our attention to the scripture and then we'll have a guest on to talk about some ongoings in Washington D.C. proverbs, chapter 12. Listen to this. And, if you're never taken aback or if you're never humbled by scripture, well, you're either not a believer and don't have the Holy Spirit, or you're not reading it enough. One of the two. But this ought to shock everyone or At least wake everyone up to the reality of God's truth. Here's Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. A good man will obtain favor from the Lord, but he will condemn a man who devises evil. That's verses one and two in Proverbs, chapter 12. And if you just got your feeling hurt because I said stupid. Well, it wasn't me. I'm reading from the Bible. Okay, so this is Proverbs chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, the latter part of verse 1. But he who hates reproof is stupid. All right. and then the first part of that is whoever loves discipline loves knowledge. So it is important to God that we be open to discipline, that we be receptive to, to, discipline that is critical for the sanctification of the believer. If you are not willing to be disciplined or willing to be corrected and to, turn from your sin, that runs counter to Scripture and it runs counter to the life of a believer. And so true maturity and true, obedience to God is being receptive and obedient to his correction in our lives. That's Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. And through that we receive knowledge, we receive wisdom.
The House reconciliation bill includes a provision that defunds abortion providers
All right, let's, turn to our guest for this segment talking about a familiar topic that we've talked about in recent weeks, and that is the massive amount of money that the federal government sends to abortion providers that are, providing abortions all around the country, in states all around the country. Kelsey Pritchard's with us. She's state public affairs director for the Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America organization. Kelsey, welcome back to the program.
Kelsey Pritchard Thanks for having me, Walker.
Walker Wildmon Well, Kelsey, I was pleasantly surprised, in a good way, that the, House reconciliation bill that made its way over to the Senate in recent days and weeks had a provision in it that defunded abortion providers, meaning any organization that provides abortions doesn't qualify for federal money. Now, some people may be saying, well, I didn't think abortion providers could get federal money anyway. currently there's a caveat to that is current law says, well, you can't use the money to cover abortions, but we still can send money for other related procedures surrounding, the issue of abortions. So am I on the right track? What have I missed?
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, that's exactly right. So we do have the Hyde Amendment, which, when President Trump entered office again, he reinstated. And that Hyde Amendment says that you can't use American taxpayer dollars to directly pay for someone's abortion. But the abortion industry has long had this workaround since the 1960s where they've been able to get Medicaid dollars. And so Planned Parenthood, for instance, gets about $529 million annually just in Medicaid funding. And that's the, that's the lion's share of the, the public funding that they get. so really what we're doing is we're propping them up and we're subsidizing the number one cause of death in this country. Taxpayers have been forced to do this for decades, and now's the time to finally end this.
Walker Wildmon Let me ask you this, Kelsey. This legislation, it's pretty big. Pretty big piece of legislation, and it's hard to get. and maybe I should read the bill, but it's several hundred pages and I have other things to do. But does this bill actually, block Planned Parenthood from receiving, federal dollars, or is it just a reinstitution of the Hyde Amendment? Because I've been confused on how far this legisl actually goes.
Kelsey Pritchard So this provision in the budget bill only covers Medicaid funding, so they get about $800 million annually. This would address $529 million.
Walker Wildmon Okay, that's a. Yeah, that's a big deal, Kelsey. And I don't want to dismiss what. What the conservatives and Republicans are trying to do here along with the president. That's a lot of money. I mean, so. So, okay, so this provision targets the Medicaid reimbursements. And this provision would. Would. Would basically. It basically states that if you're providing abortions, you don't qualify for Medicaid reimbursements. Is that correct?
Kelsey Pritchard Exactly. So it's not just for Planned Parenthood. It's for any abortion business. You're no longer able to get our Medicaid money.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, that's. This is a big deal, folks. And this is. This is, I'm not going to say a first ever, but it's. It's monumental. To get this provision in the legislation through the House of Representatives, was a big, big, ah, hurdle to cross. let me ask you this. Kelsey, once again, we're, talking to Kelsey Pritchard with the Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America. Do you think, what's the appetite in the Senate? Because clearly there's several Republican senators that don't believe the same that you and I do on the issue of life. And there's Collins and there's Murkowski, maybe a couple others, and they're always coming to the defense of abortion. It's sickening, actually, that they run as Republicans, but then they're very pro abortion. What's the appetite in the Senate for this provision?
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, so we've. Our group has been lobbying on this front since March, and overall, I'd say what we've heard from the GOP has been encouraging, and a lot of them are fired up to get this done. We saw that on the House side with Speaker. The Speaker's leadership to get this through and to keep this in the bill. Senator th. Leader, TH Is also really wanting to get this through in the bill. So that is good and encouraging and just the overall positive response we've seen is very good. Just in light of, if you think of the Dobbs decision, how some Republicans have not been as bold on the issue of abortion as they should be since, people can now have a say on the issue of their abortion through their federal and state representatives. so the fact that we have seen such a groundswell of support for this amongst Republicans, that gives us optimism and hope we can get this done. Of course, you always have your usual suspects. the good news is we can afford to lose one or two in the Senate. and they're not just voting on this. Right. They're voting on the one big beautiful bill. And we know how Trump wants to get this through the Senate soon and how much they're working and pushing to get this done.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, yeah. And this is, you know, I hope I'm optimistic this gets through the Senate. Just looking At it from afar, I think it would, because I just don't think there's enough pro abortion Republicans in the Senate to halt this, provision in the bill. But, making, forcing the issue with the senators in and of itself, making them vote on this, to me is At least an incremental victory here. Because what often happens is these lawmakers that are, you know, wishy washy and we don't know where they stand or they stand on the wrong side unless it's an election season. And then all of a sudden they become very conservative. this puts them on the record of answering the question, are you okay with federal dollars going to abortion providers and forces them to take a position on that issue. Kelsey. So I think all in all, just having this discussion and getting it in front of the Senate in and of itself is some sort of a victory here.
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, that's exactly right. And this would really be the biggest victory since the Dobbs decision. And we had a ton of states pat enact pro life laws. This would be huge for the pro life movement. It's really the next big step in the, the over, you know, the, the long term effort to finally an abortion someday. And so, can't, I mean, we look At the money that President Trump cut off from Planned Parenthood, At least temporarily. He froze Some, some Title 10 funding because of DEI reasons to planned Parenthood. And since then we've seen a number of Planned Parenthoods that have closed because of that or have said that they will close. And that's like, you know, 20 some million dollars we're talking about $529 million, and Planned Parenthood says they're going to close five. They're going 200 facilities if this gets through in the one big, beautiful bill. So this is huge. This could really be the blow to take down Planned Parenthood.
Walker Wildmon Yeah, absolutely.
Kelsey Pritchard has a website devoted to pro-life issues
Hey, Kelsey, tell us where you're, more about your website and how we can read more about the work of, of your group.
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, go to sbaprolife.org you can check us out there. You can also read the latest news on the defunding effort and all other things that we're working on in the pro life movement. We also have a podcast called, Abortion Exposed in America, and you can check that out. We've got a season out now exposing some things in Planned Parenthood.
Walker Wildmon Excellent. Kelsey Pritchard, thanks so much for coming on.
Kelsey Pritchard Yeah, thanks. God bless.
Walker Wildmon Absolutely.
There are multiple options for clawing back funding for abortion providers
Well, another. Another option here that I just, I want to float this out there, because we need to be thinking about multiple avenues here for, clawing back funding of, of abortion providers. and I say abortion providers because folks, I personally don't like singling out Planned Parenthood. Yes, they're the big bad actor. They're the largest abortion provider in the country. I get it. But I don't like giving the left fodder to make it look like we're just targeting one entity, okay? Because they can do a rebrand tomorrow, and then all of a sudden it's not Planned Parenthood anymore, it's some other entity, and we're having to recreate all of the messaging on this. Okay? So it's abortion providers, any entity that provides abortions. Another route that the Trump administration needs to look At if they haven't already, is I think that Medicaid. I think that rather the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, that is a federal government entity under hhs. I think there needs to be a federal investigation into how the Medicaid reimbursements have been distributed to abortion providers. And, is any of that money violating the Hyde Amendment? Because the line here is very thin. Okay. What I'm talking about is the money that goes to, quote, unquote, non abortion services through abortion providers, and then the abortion services and how that billing works. There is some, Some, I can almost guarantee you, some serious overlap here. And there's probably violations of the Hyde Amendment. If this were to be looked into and investigated, then I would almost guarantee you're going to find that they have not, not been abiding by the Hyde Amendment or If they have, they've been using loopholes and this is all under President Trump's authority and this is under the center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They're the ones that facilitate Medicaid with the states. They have the authority to investigate. It's not criminal. At least the evidence doesn't suggest that right now. So this isn't probably a DOJ thing. This is probably a Medicaid thing that needs to be investigated. And what you'll find in this, this report could be very helpful in shifting public perception here. But if you find that the federal, without the federal government subsidizing, of abortion providers through Medicaid reimbursements, there is no mega Planned Parenthood. Well, we're, and we're de facto subsidizing and supporting abortion despite the Hyde Amendment. That's the problem here, is we're propping up the abortion providers. We'll be back.
Jeff Chamblee This Easter season. We're offering a special downloadable resource that will inspire you and deepen your faith. He Is Risen is a digital booklet featuring powerful articles from the Stand and AFA Journal that explore the life changing truth of the resurrection, the significance of Easter and how to share the these foundational truths with others. For a limited time only, it's our gift to you for any donation of $5 or more. At the Core podcast are [email protected] now back to At the Core on American Family Radio.
Senate is considering legislation to defund abortion providers; registration is closed
Walker Wildmon Welcome back to the Core Last segment we had on Kelsey Pritchard with Susan B. Anthony, Pro Life America talking about defunding abortion providers. And of course the big bad actor there is Planned Parenthood, most people know about, but there's others as well, abortion providers, some more regional or state abortion providers, that are receiving federal money as well. And so this is going to be an interesting test in the Senate, to see if this will hold in the legislation. And we're actually going to talk pretty extensively here in a few minutes on this legislation on the growing debt and what to do, with the debt and with the spending and the tax cuts coming up. that's in the Senate right now. before I do that, I want to mention a few events. our Activate Summits next week and of course registration is closed. So we look forward to seeing everyone there that has registered and we'll be there next week At the Activate Summit. we'll be looking forward to seeing you. a couple more events. We do have the AFA At the Ark coming up At the end of October, we, are, we're not full, but we're getting close. we're getting pretty close. So, if you wait probably more than a couple more weeks, you're going to miss that window of opportunity there for the ark, encounter and the Creation Museum. We'll have some special sessions back At the hotel as well during that time. That's late October 30th and the 31st, the weekend with AFA. This is going to be our first ever weekend with AFA here in the, in our town of our national headquarters, Tupelo, Mississippi, October 2nd through the 4th. That's the 1st of October weekend with AFA. We're gonna have some pretty good speakers coming in. Jerry, Boyer with Boyer Research. Jerry's been on my show a couple times. He and I work together on shareholder engagement. He'll be here with us. We'll have Tim, Barton, Jenna Ellis and others coming to visit with us in Tupelo with a weekend with AFA and both of those events.
AFA is holding a Ten Commandments Speech Challenge for young people
you can find more [email protected] events afa.net events the last thing I want to mention before we jump back into the news is our Ten Commandments speech challenge. I did, tease this a little bit in recent weeks, and we're going to have on Pastor Joseph Parker on Friday to talk about this extensively. But this is a great challenge for young people for students to participate in. And we'll send some happies as well for just participation. And then of course we've got some pretty, ah, big, gifts that we're going to give for those who actually win the challenge. But this is specifically for children and youth age 7 to 17. They are being asked to write and present on video a three to five minute speech on the topic of the first Commandment. What is the first Commandment? You shall have no other gods before me. Participants may receive assistance from a parent or a sibling to write, record and submit the speech. So must make it a family project. And speeches must be submitted by the end of June. June 30th is the cutoff for this challenge. Anyone who participates, they'll get a Ten Commandments T shirt bookmark and a coupon code for the AFA Resource Center. So we look forward to all the folks that are going to participate in that. Just simply go to afr.netforward/10commands. Ten is spelled out. Afr.netforward/10commandments.
The budget reconciliation bill needs a simple majority to pass in both chambers
All right. The one big beautiful bill. That's what President Trump's been calling it, and I gotta give it to him. From a marketing standpoint, it works pretty good. And that's what everybody else is calling it. So, he, he made a good move on the branding for, for the legislation. in technical terms, it's a budget reconciliation package. It can be done once a year. And all it needs is a simple majority to vote, to pass in the House and the Senate. That's what makes it attractive for the ruling party, is that they don't need the other party to vote for it. This is a Republican only bill, if you will. And, so it's past the House and there's a lot going on here. Okay, but let me just give you some highlights of what's in the legislation. There is funding for enhanced border security, including the wall. All right? That's in the legislation. There is, the president's, tax cuts, the president's, renewal of his tax cuts from 2017, and a couple of the smaller provisions as well. But the problem that people are having with this is really on the spending side. All right? There's not any, Republicans that I'm, reading that have any problem with funding the border or, funding border security are renewing the tax cuts, that. There's pretty much zero opposition to that. Where the concerns begin to arise is with the spending levels. All right? And remember, President Trump was elected partially because of the promise to cut spending. Now, let's give a caveat here. In all honesty, President Trump is not a Tea Party conservative. He never has claimed to be. Okay? So President Trump is not Rand Paul. President Trump is not Thomas Massie from a fiscal worldview standpoint. All right? So it's not as if President Trump is not doing what he said he would do, or misled the voters or isn't keeping his campaign promise. President Trump, I mean, even in his last term, he was a spender. Right? Now he thinks we don't need to spend money in certain areas, like the Green New Deal, but instead we'll spend it somewhere else. All right? So that needs to be stated because, in all fairness, that needs to be stated. The problem is it doesn't matter whether President Trump wants spending cuts or not. We have to have them. All right? This is, this is purely a national interest thing. And I think President Trump would agree that, that, that, that this debt is unsustainable. And he said as such during the campaign. He's probably said as such, since he's been sworn in, the debt and deficit levels are simply unsustainable and that's not, that's not a partisan thing. This is not a, you got to be an economist to figure this out thing. This is, this is like Economics 101. The, the, the level of debt that we're in as a nation and the level of deficit that we are operating under is unsustainable. And nobody can dispute that. All right?
What exactly does it mean to say that debt is unsustainable?
Now, here's where disagreement comes. What does unsustainable mean? Right. Does that mean that it's going to be apocalyptic and next year we're going to be in a Great Depression? what exactly does it mean to say that this level of debt is unsustainable? Well, I can't answer that in honesty exactly how this plays out, but what I can say with confidence is it's not going to play out good. All right? And I can give you kind of an extreme example, and then I can give you a more subtle example of how this plays out. But either way, it's not good. Okay? Either way, it's not good. here's the extreme, and then I'll give you the subtle, and then we'll shift to some clips and talk about the specifics of the legislation. The extreme case is what you hear from your Ray Dalios and others, that predict some sort of economic calamity. All right? And Ray d' Alio, he goes back and forth on how apocalyptic it is. But others, the end of the world, Great Depression. we're going to be all eating rice and beans in food lines. America is not the reserve currency. you get the point. And we all, you know, stock market drops 70% and we're all on unemployment and we have to rebuild. That's kind of the apocalyptic viewpoint. This is kind of the prepper viewpoint. Right. Let me stash up my gold bars. Food and water, self sufficiency. That's kind of the mindset there. That's the worst case scenario. play out of continuing down this path of debt. And I don't personally think it will get there. I think the, the downward spiral is going to look a little bit different. It's going to be a little more subtle. But when we get to the other side of it, we're all going to look back going, that was terrible. What were we thinking? Why didn't we do anything? This is a disaster. Okay, the more subtle likely scenario, once again, this is purely my opinion, is this slow but steady degrading of the middle class. And this isn't, this isn't theory, like the apocalyptic Scenario is theory. This right here that I'm talking about is actually happening now, alright? So this isn't what I think might happen in the future. This is what's happening and has been happening over the last three to five years At a rapid pace, really has been happening over the last 20 years At a more slow pace. And that is the deterioration of the middle class. And if you want to look somewhere to figure out, well, what's this look like? California. All right? California is the state of the haves and the have nots. All right? You go to California, and by and large it doesn't have a middle class. Now that's not technically true. They have a middle class, but the middle class is shrinking. Okay? And the point is, is that the upper class and the wealthy, the so called wealthy, I know that's subjective, but the people in the upper percentile of income, they begin accumulating a lot of the wealth and then the people in the middle and the lower income become poorer and poorer. All right, that's how it works. That's how California is today. Obviously that's not good because you've got a massive segment of your population that is becoming worse off and worse off and worse off. And I think that's the likely scenario. And you see that with inflation, with inflation, your average person's dollar that they earn working becomes less and less valuable. You can do less and less with it. The, the higher income class of people, the upper percentile, they've got the whole system figured out. And this is not a bash. The wealthy, being rich is evil. This is not a socialist type viewpoint that I'm expressing here. I'm just telling you this is how it works, okay? This is how the world works. The, the wealthier are the, the upper class of our income society. They, they, they, they have a way more complicate complex financial apparatus. All right? They're invested in hard assets that appreciate that is real estate and maybe gold and, and other other things that, that over time just naturally appreciate. They don't lose value. And then they're in the markets, they're in equities, they're in bonds, they've got savings, they've got high yield savings account. They have multiple homes. So they've got a lot of assets that have appreciated, they probably have some of it paid off. and so when you, when you add all that together, they're not going to be suffering here with this, this high debt, rising inflation, chipping away At the middle class, making the Dollar less powerful. The upper to middle class, are the upper class rather. They're not the ones you need to worry about here in this rising debt, rising deficit, out of control inflation scenario. It's the middle and lower class that just don't have the same financial circumstances as someone who's in the upper percentile. Once again, this is not a bashing of the wealthy, or anything like that, or rich people are evil. That's the Bernie Sanders garbage. I'm just telling you. This is how the economy works. And so when you have this high inflation, high debt, harder, harder to make your dollar stretch economy, it simply hurts the middle and lower class more. And generally speaking, especially your lower income people, they're not gonna have a bunch of hard assets that appreciate. They're not gonna have, you know, three residences, rental property, they're not gonna have a sophisticated portfolio of stocks and bonds and you know, passive income. They're just not set up for that. They just don't have the ability to do that. All right? They're just figuring out how they're gonna pay their bills next week. And so what we need and what we've had historically in this country is an economy that works for everybody who have had an economy that works for everyone. Everyone, through hard work, has the ability, to earn a decent income and to over time build wealth and then, Lord willing, pass generational wealth on to their children and their grandchildren. But this, this, this out of control Washington, D.C. spending spree that we've been on the last 30 years, 20 to 30 years, is making it harder to achieve that American dream that we've been known for around the world.
Some senators and congressmen have serious issues with this budget reconciliation package
All right, so I just gave you pretty much a 10 minute layperson's perspective as to why the spending levels that we're currently doing is unsustainable and why it's bad for the country because it's bad for the middle class and it's bad for the lower class and it deteriorates individual wealth, especially in the middle and the lower class. That's why there are senators and congressmen that have serious issues with this budget reconciliation package, I. E. The one big beautiful bill and where I, said I was going to get to clips, we'll get to them in the next segment. But now there's some people in Congress that whether it's Thomas Massie or Rand Paul that you look At and you go, they're kind of opposed to everything. Every time that Congress wants to do something, they're a no vote. And so I just think they're just blowing steam. But I wouldn't discount these arguments just in blunt. You know, I wouldn't blanket dismiss these arguments that Rand Paul and others are bringing forth, because there's others in the Senate and the House that have the same concerns that are not blowing smoke and they're not grandstanders, and they're usually willing to negotiate. And we're going to play. Senator Ron Johnson, Mike Lee and others, have serious concerns about this legislation and the spending levels. And so something's going to have to be done. I think, I think it's, it's almost certain that some, some legislation is going to get through. I mean, the tax cuts are going to have to be extended. We can't go with a massive tax hike, in this situation that we're in economically. But what passes the Senate and the House is still up for debate. We'll talk more in the next segment.
Jeff Chamblee This is At the Core on American Family Radio with your host, Walker Wildmon.
Ron Johnson: Senate Republicans predicted that passing one bill would be difficult
Walker Wildmon Welcome back to the program here on American Family Radio. Glad to have you with us on the show. Let's jump back into this legislation, as President Trump calls it, the one big beautiful bill. I was actually surprised how quickly this thing came to a halt in the Senate. And what I'm talking about is the Senate. The Senate told us, they said, they told the public a m. Couple months ago that when beginning these discussions, that passing one bill is going to be challenging, if not near impossible in the Senate. Now, they have all the reasons of which I can't even articulate, but the Senate Republicans in the Senate, they called this, they predicted it. They said one bill is not going to work. We need multiple bills. Why and how, I have no idea. The rules in the Senate and in Congress are just overly complicated. It's like our tax code. It's unnecessarily complicated. And some of it I don't get. So I'm m not even going to try to go into explaining it. Part of it I know for sure is getting consensus. All right? And when you, when you do multiple pieces of legislation, you can quickly build consensus around one or two pieces of legislation as opposed to bundling it all in one bill. And then everybody's got problems with it, and then the whole thing comes to a screeching halt, which is what's happening now. And so this, this bill is facing some serious pushback in the Senate, which is, is not what President Trump wants to hear, it's not what the White House wants to hear, but that's, that's what's happening. And Senator Ron Johnson went on about a two minute, or about a minute spill on some of the main issues with this, legislation. So this was on cnbc squawk box, talking about the, what Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin calls a grotesque bill. let's listen to his assessment here.
Ron Johnson So the president, the president and Senate leadership has to understand that we're serious. They all say, oh, we can pressure these guys. No, you can't. Okay, again, we're being very respectful. you know, I ran 2010 as part of the Tea Party movement. We were mortgage our children's Future. We were $14 trillion in debt then. Now we're over $37 trillion. We're serious about this. They need to take us seriously. Don't insult us. Work with us. Lay out the numbers. If you, if you can say that our numbers are wrong, fine, let's work through it. But again, every, every, my, every analysis I have, there's greater upside risk to that deficit. Interest rates are moving up. If we go in, increase interest rates 1%, that's another $4 trillion over 10 years. In terms of deficit. If we don't replace, replace the $4 trillion, that's $4 trillion of lost revenue again, and in growing the economy, 3%, it adds to it a little bit, but mostly in the out years. So again, come to the table. Let's look At the numbers. If I'm wrong, prove that I'm wrong. But let's do it with respect, but mainly respect for our children and grandchildren. This is immoral, what us old farts are doing to our young people. This is grotesque, what we're doing. We need to own up to that. This is our moment. I can't accept this scenario. I can't accept it. So I won't vote for it unless we are serious about fixing it.
Walker Wildmon All right, I'm with Ron Johnson. Okay. I haven't, I haven't really came down on either side of this legislation because as, as my buddy Rick Green said when we hosted a couple weeks ago, let's kind of withhold judgment here. Let's give President Trump the benefit of the doubt. And, here, and this is, folks, I just want to, want to be clear. I'm not excusing President Trump or the White House on this because At the end of the day, they were the brainchild behind it. But the way Washington works is what led us here. The way Congress works is what led us here. But let me stay focused. Senator Ron Johnson is right. Okay? Once again, I think that the tax cuts are going to have to be extended. I'm, in favor of that. I think some big bill, some bill is going to have to pass. I think the border security is important. I think a lot of this is important. We just talked about defunding abortion providers. I think that's important.
This spending package operates under the assumption that Republicans retain control for 10 years
Here's where. Here's where the White House is wrong. The White House is wrong. Because under the best case scenario, spending is reduced by 1.5 trillion. Okay, let's just say, let's just round up 2 trillion over 10 years. Once again, under a best case scenario, according to the White House's own numbers, spending is reduced by 2 trillion. And I'm way rounding up here over 10 years. It's really one. It's really 1.5 trillion. 2 trillion over the course of 10 years. All right? Two assumptions here. The first assumption is that a Republican, that Republicans keep the White House and both chambers of Congress for 10 years. All right? That's a big assumption. This spending package, the numbers associated with the spending projections here and the cuts, operates under the assumption that Republicans retain control of the White House and both chambers of Congress for the next 10 years. And I know many of you are laughing right now, it ain't gonna happen. All right? I hope it happens. It's not gonna happen. not the, not the trifecta, okay? We might can keep the White House, maybe the Senate, back and forth. You're not gonna keep all. You're not gonna keep the trifecta. I'm not sure that's actually ever happened in our history, where one party keeps the trifecta for 10 years. But, so that's the first assumption. the second assumption is, Okay, let me stay on these numbers. All right? Two trillion. There's so many places I could go here. Two trillion in cuts is the base assumption here in this legislation. If you do the math, over 10 years, that's $200 billion a year, all right? In cuts, when you look At the deficit we're running, which is the problem. The deficit is the problem, all right? Which of course, gets back to spending. We're running in FY 2020. Now, this was Covid. So take it for what it's worth. $3 trillion deficit. This means that we spent 3 trillion more than we brought in in tax revenue. This is where the Treasury Department prints money. And in 2025, they change numbers on an excel sheet. They don't even print the money. All right? In fiscal year 2023, the deficit was 1.7 trillion. Alright, so it went down, got a little better. I hate using the word better here, but it got a little better. In fiscal year 24, the deficit was 1.8 trillion. And then right now, just through April, through nine months, I'm sorry, seven months, we're At 1.3 trillion. So we're gonna, we're gonna be At 2 trillion easily by the end of this fiscal year. because we're seven months in, we're already At 1.3. You do the math on that. my point is $200 billion. Best case scenario, best case scenario, $200 billion on a 2,3 trillion dollar deficit is not enough. It's not enough. And what's shocking to me is that we can't find, we can't find more money to cut. Our federal government is so big, it's so big you can't find more than $200 billion a year to cut. I mean you could, you could cut like some sub agency, not even an agency, you could cut some sub agency and save $200 billion. Furthermore, this legislation doesn't, doesn't truly reform are, get rid of these horrendous Obamacare, standards that, that are, that are, that are allowing Medicaid expansion of which we've talked extensively on this show about. they continue basically the Obamacare model in this legislation. But to me the deficit is, is the, is, is the issue with capital. The, it is the issue.
Jamie Dimon on the risk in the bond market becoming unstable
All right, let's play a couple more clips here. this is Jamie Dimon talking about the bond market. And I'm probably going to interrupt you Bobby, because this is three minutes and I don't have three minutes. But let's go ahead and start this clip. This is Jamie Dimon on the risk in the bond market becoming unstable.
Jamie Dimon These are very large numbers. you've seen it a little bit. You know, you had the crack in the bond market and Covid a little bit. You know, the government did the right stuff. Then they massively over did both spending and QE. We borrowed and spent $10 trillion from 2020 to today. Okay, that and you heard the numbers before. We also bought 4 trillion of your securities on top of the fortune we bought in the first go round. Those numbers are true globally, not quite as big as ours, but the QE of us was 8 trillion. The QE of the rest of the world is another 8 trillion. Something like that. You're talking about huge sums of money. We don't really know the full effect of that. And you know, the Baughan dealers, which Gary mentioned, you know, inventories are much smaller than they used to be, partially because of rules, regulations, and you are going to see a crack in the bond market. Okay? It is going to happen. And I tell this to my regulators, some of who in this room, I'm telling you it's going to happen and you're going to panic. I'm not going to panic. We'll be fine. We'll probably make more money. And then some of my friends will tell me that we're, that we cause we like crises because it's good for JPMorgan Chase. Not really. You know, I tell people in Credit Suisse went bankrupt At the First Republic. It was terrible for the banking industry. I think we can make everything better, including that by just changing and modifying certain rules and regulations, letting market makers intermediate more in the market. But to give you a number that just JP Morgan alone buys and sells $3 trillion a day. And we move $10 trillion a day of money and we're probably a tenth. So the money moving around the world, is 100 trillion a day. The money moving around in the investments. You know, this is stocks, bonds, corporate governments, derivatives, credit, you name it, FX, sovereign debt around the world, 30 trillion. The people who set those long term rates, are those people including you in the room. It's not the Federal Reserve. Yeah, they can try to manipulate the long term rate. They can do the, what's it called, you know, they, they do the twist or whatever. It doesn't work for that long. So if you look At economic history, bad things happen when those tectonic plates shift. It's very hard to see in real time. It is shifting.
Jamie Dimon says other countries are buying U.S. debt
Walker Wildmon All right, so that's Jamie Dimon. And the last point he said there, he's talking about who basically who's buying the debt here. All right? And what he was getting At is that it's, it's you and me, it's the public, and it's other countries that are buying U.S. bonds. And up until now they've been buying America's debt. Right. Other foreign countries and individuals have been buying into U.S. bonds, servicing or basically, enabling the debt snowball that we're in. But we can't assume that that's always going to be the case. And we can't assume that people are going to always be giddy about buying U.S. debt. And this gets into our credit rating, this gets into interest rates. But now who knows if JP Dimon is going to be right or not. I don't know. Scott Besant. We don't have time to play the clip. He disagrees with Jamie Dimon. He thinks he's being apocalyptic. but, but the point is, is that there are consequences to sustaining the deficit and debt that were the trajectory, that we're on. That's it. And we have the trifecta. Republicans have the trifecta. And we've got to do better than this. If I had to sum this up in one sentence, that's it. Republicans have the trifecta. both houses of Congress and the White House. This is it, right? This is it. We're in a debt spiral. Inflation is eating our wallets alive. And we can't not, not, not do enough. We can't, we can't just kind of settle for less here. Status quo. This is not going to cut it. If we're truly about actually fixing this stuff now, if we just want to get reelected, that's a whole other conversation. All right, then it's like, yeah, status quo, let's help our buddies, whatever we got to do to get elected. But that shouldn't be what this is about.
To reduce deficit spending, Congress must raise taxes or cut spending
All right, let me explain this issue. Let me read something for you as we wrap up here. I thought if you had to sum up this in like a couple paragraphs. Here it is. We'll link to this on the show notes. I'll send it over to Bobby here. This is from the Kobeissi letter. Adam Kobeissi runs it. He's an economist, and very, very brilliant. And they're making a killing in the stock market because of his predictions and his outfit. But I just follow this on X and there's a lot of truth here and it's not, it's not a partisan issue. So listen to this. This is what the Kavosi letter put out. The real issue with deficit spending is this short term and long term incentives in the U.S. political and fiscal system are misaligned. Over the near term, Congress is incentivized to spend more and cut taxes to appeal to constituents for reelection. However, over the long term, this creates a financial conflict of interest which we are now dealing with as U.S. debt is up, 13 trillion in five years. in other words, to reduce deficit spending, you must either raise taxes or cut spending, both of which are wildly unpopular for reelection. Over a long enough time frame, this situation results in bankruptcy or 100% of the time, which is what Elon Musk has been talking about. The future of America will be determined by this single issue. This per, this, this outfit ended that's it. That's it. If we don't reduce spending, we don't survive as a country as we know it. And in order to reduce spending, you have to be an adult and you can't care about re election and you just have to care about doing the right thing. And if I could snap my finger and have one dose of medicine go into the Potomac river in Washington, it would be people up there that simply do the right thing. Don't talk to your, your lobbyist or your consultant about your campaign. That's in two years. And what you need to do to get reelected. Do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. That's what got our country where we are today with our founding fathers and that's the kind of people we need in Washington D.C. if we learned anything from this election, it's how important it is for us to fight, fight, fight. We also learned how desperately the left wants to fight to take babies lives. Which is why everyday Preborn ministries fight for the babies. Preborn's network of clinics are positioned in the highest abortion areas. Fighting for mothers deciding between life and death of their child. Preborn welcomes these women with God's love and offers them a free ultrasound to introduce their precious baby and hear the beautiful heartbeat. This amazing encounter gives her baby a fighting chance and the majority of the time she will choose life. Would you join PreBorn in the fight for life? One ultrasound is just $28 and $140 will sponsor five ultrasounds. Babies are worth fighting for. To donate, dial pound 250 on your cell phone and say the keyword baby. That's #250 and say the keyword baby. Or you can visit preborn.com afr that's preborn.com afr all gifts are tax deductible and PreBorn has a four star charity rating. Fight, fight, fight for the babies.
Jeff Chamblee The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.
The Kobeissi Letter on Deficit Spending
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