Point of View February 13, 2025 – Hour 2 : Thursday’s Headlines

[00:00:04] Across America Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Hope that wasn't too technical, but I think Lathan Watts has a way to actually address some of these issues. And this is going to be, I think, a big constitutional issue.

[00:00:33] What is the limit to presidential authority? That was expanding for a time. It was contracting under Richard Nixon. It was expanding again, certainly under Barack Obama. And, of course, there are all sorts of questions about what the president can or cannot do. A lot of that simply means go back to the Constitution. And as we mentioned just a few minutes ago, there is a commentary coming out on Monday, which is President's Day.

[00:01:00] We're also going to have Jerry Newcomb with us talking about presidents and things of that nature. But the commentary was based on one we've already posted by Yuval Levin on the rule of thumb for executive power debates. I think it is good. Also, I mentioned this one by John Yoo, which is in The Federalist, to help us understand that, you know, the plain reading of the Constitution says that the president does have authority over the executive branch.

[00:01:23] I'm going to get into that in more detail in just a minute and talk about some of the protests and the particular organizations that various groups are trying to defend. We knew this was going to happen. No real surprise. Of course, we will also be covering many other stories as well, as we did yesterday. Talked about an animated series. We talked about a film. So we won't always spend our time on politics, but let's at least address a few things that have happened.

[00:01:52] First of all, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has indeed been confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services. I would like to bring somebody on the program soon. Matter of fact, I'm even going to an event tonight. It might even involve that individual to come on to talk about what that might mean in terms of how could we improve the health of American people. So that's a reasonable goal, even if you don't like some of the stands and some of the things that R.K. has said. I recognize that as well.

[00:02:20] Certainly we're going to cover some other stories. The other day we covered one on J6ers. Well, I just found out a little bit more about an individual that a lieutenant colonel who actually was charged with a felony. Later on, they dropped it, but nevertheless was incarcerated, wasn't even in the building and is writing a book. And so there are going to be some stories that we will certainly be covering in that regard as well. But let's, if we can, talk about at the moment what we do know.

[00:02:48] And that is, as I mentioned last hour, but I'm going to go into it in a little bit of detail because it's one of our articles we've posted. A federal judge in Massachusetts on Wednesday lifted this long pause that was instituted by the Trump administration. If you're not familiar with it, it says, look, you have been working remotely. We want you to come back to work. If that is just too difficult for you, well, that's fine.

[00:03:15] Or if you can't in good conscience implement the various policies under a Trump administration, you can also resign. And you can resign by simply putting the word resign in the subject line. And then you will still be receiving full pay and job benefits to the end of the fiscal year, September 30th. As I've understood so far, and of course we've provided for you a link to the Doge tracker.

[00:03:44] You can go to it yourself. You can see that that number is increasing. And last time I heard, and I haven't checked it today, 65,000 federal employees said, you know what? We enjoyed working offline, but I think it's time for us to resign. And so that has reduced the size and scope of government in some places as well. The judge actually wrote that the plaintiffs here are not directly impacted by the directive.

[00:04:11] Instead, they allege that the directive subjects them to upstream effects, including a diversion of resources to answer members' questions about the directive, and on and on with a lot of words. Basically, what they said is the unions that actually brought the suit and tried to call for a pause in the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, they don't have what's called standing. And I can go into all the details, but I think you get the idea.

[00:04:39] And the order, of course, was one attempt to reduce the federal workforce, cut government costs, and hoping to make the government more efficient. And so that particular case has been overturned.

[00:04:51] Let's come to the other one, which we were referring to, and that has to do with the argument that indeed an individual tapped by the president, in this case Elon Musk, and other individuals, all, by the way, working for free, if you are not familiar with that, that that would be an intrusion and would be a constitution crisis.

[00:05:14] So that particular restraining order came from Federal District Judge Paul Engelmeyer. And yet, interestingly enough, he wasn't even the judge assigned to the case.

[00:05:27] It just so happened that he had what was called emergency duty at 9.30 p.m. on a Saturday night when Letitia James and the attorneys general of 16 blue states filed a lawsuit trying to stop Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

[00:05:47] And so the argument being made is one that's kind of difficult to make, if you think about it, because it's basically, as this article by Dan McLaughlin points out, saying that federal grants, which are made by the Congress, and decisions that are distributed by the executive agencies and departments, are still not to be actually evaluated.

[00:06:15] And it's like, wait a minute. Yes, you provided the funds for it, legislative branch. Now you gave it to the administrative branch to implement that. But the actual aim, as he points out, this is his direct quote, the actual aim of the lawsuit is to prevent DOGE from informing the president, the treasury secretary, and the voters about who receives the public's money as a result of those executive decisions.

[00:06:41] And as he points out, there are, I think you could say, grave constitutional issues with Congress attempting to hide from the president where the executive branch is spending the money. Do you see the point? We sort of now have, in the mindset of a lot of individuals, including some of the Democratic protesters out there on the streets, that we really have four branches of government. You've heard me talk before about Hivik Ramashwamy. There aren't four branches of government. There are three.

[00:07:10] And the idea is, as Congress allocates the funds, then the administrative branch spends those funds appropriately, sometimes with direction from Congress, sometimes not. But this particular lawsuit suggests that the president and people that are associated with the executive branch, including the president and the treasury secretary and a number of others, can't know where the money is being spent. Does that make any sense to you?

[00:07:38] Only in the bizarro world that we find ourselves in right now. And so, again, this is a very significant issue. You can go on and find the article because then it also points out that there's trying to make a distinction between civil servants and political appointees. But once a person is appointed and confirmed, they're like a civil servant. So that one doesn't work very well.

[00:08:00] Also, the order was calling for, that is, Elon Musk and those associated with Doge to immediately destroy any records they had in their possession. When, obviously, whenever there's been a controversy in the past, we always wait to destroy any records because there might be an appeal.

[00:08:24] And so this order really very quickly, I don't think, passes constitutional muster. And if you want to read more about it, that's why we've posted this article by Dan McLaughlin, who, as I said, looks at it one way. Jonah Goldberg looks at it a little bit different. But either way, both of them are saying there's not a constitutional crisis. Everybody needs to calm down. Anyway, we're going to move on to some other issues right after these important messages.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. America keeps spending more and more money on public education, and those tax dollars don't seem to make a difference. Schools keep flunking. The National Assessment for Educational Progress is often referred to as America's report card. But this isn't a report card you want to show anyone. The latest report shows that fourth and eighth grade reading scores declined by two points on average since 2022.

[00:09:25] Even more concerning is the fact that a third of eighth graders scored below basic on the reading exam. This is a record low. Math scores for eighth graders were eight points lower than in 2019. Also concerning was evidence that the achievement gap has increased. High math performers in both grades scored better last year, while low performers did worse or the same. Test scores for students scoring in the upper percentiles in reading improved since 1992,

[00:09:53] but they declined for students in the lower percentiles. The reason for this decline doesn't take an expert, but the Wall Street Journal editors quoted an education expert at Harvard who talked about three problems. Student mental health problems, less test-based accountability, and increased screen time. The head of a teacher's union suggested that schools needed smaller class sizes, good ventilation, and 21st century technology.

[00:10:17] The editors responded, sorry, children aren't doing worse because of bad air filters or old computers. They scored better without 21st century technology. Public schools are flunking. That's why educational choice is a hot topic today in many states, so that parents can take their tax dollars to better schools. And that's why more parents are looking at private schools, Christian schools, and homeschooling. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Loneliness, go to viewpoints.info slash loneliness. That's viewpoints.info slash loneliness. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let me, for just a few minutes here, talk about some of the agencies

[00:11:08] that have been kind of the center of controversy, agencies that certainly Elon Musk or the Department of Government Efficiency or even members of Congress would want to reduce the size and scope or funding of those agencies. I wanted to mention at least two of those. And then we'll go on to talk about really some of the biggest challenges that Donald Trump is going to face in the next about 60 to 90 days.

[00:11:37] This goes back to something I was doing during even the campaign, and that is I, from time to time, did some articles, some commentaries, even some comments here on the program of the kind of challenges that any president is going to have to face, whether it ended up being Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or Donald Trump. And these are sort of intractable, more, some of them are legislative issues,

[00:12:05] some of them are economic issues. So those are some challenges that whoever is in the Oval Office will have to face, and some of them are pretty significant. So we'll get to those in just a minute. But let me come back to recognize that two of the agencies that have really been in the news, if you go and watch any of these videos, you will see people wanting to support USAID, which, again, is the U.S. Agency for International Development.

[00:12:34] So you've seen USAID a number of times. You've also probably seen some people holding signs that see CFPB. And unless you're just really into some of the politics, you might say, I don't even know what that is. Well, it turns out it's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it's something that has been really in the crosshairs in terms of funding from an individual who's now at the Office of Management and Budget, and that is Russell Vaught.

[00:13:03] Russell Vaught's been on this program a couple times, interestingly enough. He was the president of the Center for American Restoration. He is an evangelical Christian. By the way, he's a graduate of Wheaton. And the other day, as a matter of fact, when Wheaton College actually congratulated him for getting this position at OMB, some of the more radical,

[00:13:28] and this shows me again what's happening at Wheaton, professors there were outraged that, because he's seen as a conservative, outraged that Wheaton College was actually congratulating one of the Wheaton graduates. And you might remember that even in his confirmation hearings, at one point he had written a letter supporting some actions that Wheaton had taken, and you might remember Bernie Sanders actually got critical of him for even writing the letter.

[00:13:57] So I'll get into that in just a minute. But first of all, USAID, by now you've probably heard of the long and growing list of things that have actually been supported through grants through USAID. Although, as I pointed out the other day, a few of those that have been attributed to USAID, U.S. Agency for International Development, were actually grants given by the State Department.

[00:14:24] So even though that's technically incorrect, I don't care whether the State Department funded some of these functions or whether USAID did. It's all, again, of great concern. And perhaps the best article I've seen on this subject is one we posted the other day, which was written by Senator Johnny Ernst. And she is, of course, a member of Congress. And she has been investigating that for some time.

[00:14:52] As a matter of fact, she's the chairwoman, interestingly enough, of what is called the Senate Doge Caucus. She is a Republican from Iowa. And she refers to USAID as a rogue agency. And the article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal just goes on and on about how many times USAID repeatedly rebuffed her requests for information, list of recipients,

[00:15:17] later on received threats that even trying to pull information from a public database about the funding of USAID, the agency fired that by divulging this information from a public database would maybe violate federal laws, including the Economic Espionage Act. So I guess we shouldn't have been surprised that there was such an enormous pushback to that, especially since we began to find out where some of the money was going

[00:15:45] and how sometimes it almost looks like it was a piggy bank for some of these progressive causes. So that's the first one. You probably have seen signs, you know, do not defund USAID. Of course, right now it's been placed under the State Department, under Marco Rubio. The other one is a little more difficult to understand. And the other day when I started seeing some of the protests, I was even saying to some people, should I even talk about it because it gets you into the deep weeds?

[00:16:14] But you're an intelligent audience, so let me take it on. And that is we're talking about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is something that was really pushed through by Elizabeth O. Warren. And Senator Warren wanted to make sure that it would not be accountable. So as a result, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is not funded by Congress. It's actually funded, if you can believe this, by the Federal Reserve.

[00:16:44] Now, that means that there was probably nothing that Donald Trump could do about it. It maybe was nothing that Elon Musk could do about it. And you would think there was nothing that the head, now the incoming head, Director of Office of Management and Budget, Reshvat, could do about that. But you would be wrong because he figured out that what, since it is indeed funding,

[00:17:09] he said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will not take its next draw of unappropriated funding. And as a result, it notified the Federal Reserve that that funding is not reasonably necessary to carry out its duties because the Bureau currently has a balance of $711 million, which is in excess of its current fiscal environment.

[00:17:34] And so this has been a way in which he's been able to essentially stop some of the actions that it has been taking. We could go into some detail about some of the use and abuse and all of that of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But really, all you need to know is that in order to prevent Congress and the president,

[00:17:58] any other future president, from having any oversight over the CFPB, that's hard to even say, CFPB, they actually tried, that is, Elizabeth Warren and others, to craft it in such a way that it would not be accountable. And as some people have said, right now, the Department of Government Efficiency is actually still pretty much a Department of Government Accountability.

[00:18:25] Yes, it saved a few billion dollars here amongst friends. That's great. But some of the greatest savings will come as they begin, as they're starting to do, looking at the Defense Department and also looking at Health and Human Services and a number of others. But here, just an attempt to say, if you're receiving, whether it's tax dollars or funding from the Central Bank of the United States, known as the Federal Reserve,

[00:18:56] we still can exercise oversight over you. By the way, talking about the military, I said this the other day, but some people had not heard this, and that is the military recruiters are having an incredible couple of months. It turns out that in December, the Army had the best recruiting that they'd ever had in the last 12 years. Then in January, the Army had its best recruiting numbers in the last 15 years.

[00:19:25] And, of course, we still have a couple of weeks to go, but I suspect we will have great numbers not only for Army, but for many others in the military as February comes to an end. And in case you're wondering, again, we just finished 2024, but if you go back and look at 2023, the Pentagon, that's for all military services, missed its recruiting goals by 41,000 individuals.

[00:19:54] And so as a result, that has been really significant. And so, again, we will be looking not only at sort of the recruiting numbers, we'll also be looking at, of course, whether or not some of the overspending, waste and fraud and abuse can be actually taken out of some of the Defense Department budget as well. My commentary today is about schools keep flunking.

[00:20:21] And if you aren't receiving my Viewpoints commentaries, click on that button that says Read Now, and then click on the button that says Never Miss a Viewpoints Commentary, because it's a reminder that as you look at the National Assessment for Educational Progress, oftentimes referred to the America's report card, we are not doing well. And Karen actually put a picture that is a summary of how poorly students have been doing grade four

[00:20:51] and then in grade eight, both in mathematics and in reading. All the material that I am writing can be easily seen in the chart that she's posted there, so I would encourage you to look at that as well. At a time when especially we're going to be talking about this issue of educational choice and educational savings accounts and the rest tomorrow, I think it's appropriate to look at some of those numbers and recognize that we're not doing well

[00:21:19] in the schools, in the public schools of America, and something needs to change. Let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the challenges Donald Trump faces. We'll be right back. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:21:48] London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

[00:22:16] Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net. Every weekday, in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash sign up right now. pointofview.net slash sign up.

[00:22:47] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, let me just give you a little bit of an overview about tomorrow,

[00:23:17] and that is we will have Penna Dexter and Kelly Shackelford. Kelly will be talking about a couple of issues. One, just again, sometimes it's hard to believe these are true. When he posts these, you're thinking, this has to be Babylon Bee or the Onion. But nevertheless, there was a chaplain that was actually censored and fired because of something he said in a sermon. And I'm like, what? Don't we believe in the First Amendment?

[00:23:44] And don't we expect chaplains to, in some respects, really challenge those issues? I think very quickly it's going to be resolved, we hope, because of the new incoming head of the Department of Veterans Affairs. But we'll talk about that with him. Also, as we mentioned yesterday, we will get into this issue of some of the school choice debates

[00:24:07] taking place not only at the state legislative era, but also, again, a case that they won. I mean, we talked about a couple of cases. One that Alliance Defending Freedom won in Colorado. One that First Liberty Institute won in Maine. You would think that would be enough, and you would be wrong. And so, again, his piece is Treat Children Fairly, Let Parents Choose. It also relates very much to this case from the Beckett Fund.

[00:24:35] Aren't you glad we have all these great Christian organizations that are standing up for parental rights and a variety of other things? So we'll be talking about that with him. Then we'll get into one of the real big challenges that has come against Elon Musk is you're saying all this, but you aren't providing proof. Now, that's hard for me to even say with a straight face because over the last couple of days, we've had a link that you can use, and I'm not sure where to find it at the moment on the website,

[00:25:05] but you can simply type it in yourself, D-O-G-E, Doge-Tracker, and up comes all the information you need, and there's all sorts of documentation. Anyway, this particular article is just a reminder that one of the individuals in that impromptu press conference, if you will, which was in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and his two-year-old, it's still hilarious, all the things that he, the young boy, was doing,

[00:25:35] that they didn't provide proof. Well, nobody asked for it, and besides, the proof is right there. You can click on any one of those and check it out. So the way in which the media has been irresponsible in some of this is not helpful, and I think, again, it's important to ask for proof. And I shared with you yesterday, as we're sharing again, that one point he was challenged about the allocation for, I hate to use it, but it was for condoms,

[00:26:03] and that he said, no, okay, that one did not come, I think it was attributed to USAID, and it was not. And he said, I was wrong, we don't always get it right, we won't always bet 1,000, it was wrong, we need to correct that, and you have every right to challenge me on that. And I thought, when have I heard a government official say that? So we'll be talking about this. We'll talk about, interestingly enough, I always like to quote from people who wouldn't necessarily agree with us.

[00:26:30] And so one of the other articles I've posted for tomorrow to talk about is from Matt Taibbi, again, probably best known as a reporter originally with the Rolling Stone magazine, and in there he talks about the fact that, look, I grew up as a Democrat in a Democratic home, but sometimes there was, if you will, Republican misinformation, but I didn't, you know, go off with my hair on fire. I mean, I just figured we needed to counter some of that misinformation.

[00:26:58] And so anyway, I think it was a very good piece. And then we have some things about immigration by, again, Gregory Conte. I think you'll appreciate that. So it's going to be a fully packed Friday program, but I want you to know about it. And let's, if we can, now talk about a couple of major challenges that Donald Trump will face, but even if Kamala Harris was elected, she would face. First of all, he's doing pretty well right now,

[00:27:24] because this piece by Karl Rove reminds us that 70% of the people in the CBS poll believe that Donald Trump is doing what he said he was going to do. 69% called him tough, 63% energetic, 60% focused, 58% effective. So anyway, doing pretty well. But now the tough tests come. In some respects, some of that was low-hanging fruit by signing an executive order.

[00:27:51] Now he faces, and Karl Rove goes into this in some detail, the five legislative tests that Donald Trump will face, which probably in some cases as we get closer to these tests might put that as one of our action items. The first is we are facing, in the federal government, a shutdown on March 14th.

[00:28:15] If Congress doesn't approve a spending bill for the balance of this fiscal year, which runs to September 30th. So the 2025 fiscal year needs to be funded. So that's the first thing. That's not going to be easy, given the fact that you have a very narrow margin that Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, is dealing with.

[00:28:39] Number two, the Senate and House must approve a budget resolution for the fiscal year. So that means not only does the House have to pass it, then now that goes over to John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, to pass it in the Senate. Number three, then, if indeed both of those are passed, then you have a budget resolution that needs to take place in the conference committee. And so that's always an issue.

[00:29:06] And if that's not enough, those first three kind of have to have bang, bang, bang before what? March 14th, which is a very short amount of time when you talk about Congress. There are two others. That is, number four, Congress must raise the debt ceiling because we've already hit the debt ceiling of $36.1 trillion on January 21st.

[00:29:31] That was hit, interestingly enough, the day Donald Trump was sworn into office. And so the Treasury Department says right at the moment it's using what are called extraordinary measures to avoid breaching that amount. And again, that bag of tricks is going to run out pretty quickly. And so that's going to be an issue. And then finally, if that's not enough, I've given you one, two, three, four.

[00:29:59] Now, number five, Congress should be working now on setting the budget and appropriation levels for the 2026 fiscal year because that's also supposed to be completed by April 15th. So you have the March 14th date, which all those things that I mentioned, getting a bill through House, getting a bill through the Senate, then getting a conference committee, a resolution, all between now and March 14th.

[00:30:30] And at the same time, Congress needs to be setting budget and appropriation levels, and that has to happen by April 15th. So you can see there are some real challenges. And so as a result, Karl Rove, after setting those challenges, makes a couple of other points. He says even passing budget resolutions and reconciliation, which require only simple majorities, will be difficult. House and Senate Republicans disagree, especially on what's called reconciliation.

[00:31:00] Why is that? It turns out that Senate Republicans want two reconciliation measures, one focused on border spending and defense, and one later focused on tax cuts. The leaders in the House, that would certainly be Mike Johnson and others, Congressman Scalise and others, will favor one reconciliation measure, thinking, I think wisely so,

[00:31:26] that bundling all of those together in one bag makes it easier for members to accept something that might be politically unpalatable in one of those provisions. And so as a result, this is going to be something that needs to not only happen in Congress, but there needs to be leadership for sure from the president, and that would be President Donald Trump. His intervention, I think, is going to be very key.

[00:31:51] And then Karl Rove goes on to say, the president needs a strategy to settle the differences between House and Senate Republican leaders and aides who might steer the legislation in the right direction. And so, again, you can't, as he said, be saying, well, I'm going to set a deadline like you did for, for example, Hamas, and expect that's going to work very well.

[00:32:14] And so, finally, Karl Rove, who isn't necessarily the greatest fan of Donald Trump, you think, nevertheless says, look, Donald Trump is off to a good start, but the easy things he's faced so far are giving way to the harder ones. If the president is adept as a dealmaker and a leader, he must prove it soon, because much hangs in the balance for him and the country's economy.

[00:32:38] After the break, we're going to talk a little bit about the economy, but if you would like to at least get a sense about what now are the challenges facing Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, John Thune. I'm mentioning, of course, the president, Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader. This Five Trials of Trump 47 by Karl Rove, I think, is a very good summary of the kind of challenges that he's facing.

[00:33:04] And even if Kamala Harris were the next president, she'd be facing some of the same. Matter of fact, if indeed the other two houses were Republican-led, it would be one of the great challenges that she would have faced if she was in the Oval Office. Donald Trump's in the Oval Office, and this is what he's going to face politically. When we come back, I want to talk about some of the economic challenges he faces as well. If you'd like to find any of these articles, they're available at our website, pointofview.net.

[00:33:32] And today we've certainly gone into a little bit of Government 101, but since a lot of other media outlets aren't covering it, I figured we need to cover it here on Point of View. We'll be right back. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] Back for a few more minutes, we're going to talk about some of the economic challenges that Donald Trump is facing. As a matter of fact, one of the articles I was going to post for tomorrow is the lead editorial today in the Wall Street Journal about Trumponomics and rising inflation. Decided maybe to postpone that since we certainly with Penne Dexter and Kelly Shackelford have enough to talk about. I'll just postpone some of that conversation until Monday. But let me give you a preview now by looking at this piece. It is the last piece we've posted on our website by Byron York.

[00:34:30] Byron York, of course, writes on all sorts of political and economic matters. He is the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner. And he points out that the former president has left a very terrible legacy, as he calls it. Certainly the border catastrophe, chaos and disorder, increased crime, oppressive wokeness, and on and on, all sorts of things like that. But he wanted to focus just on the economic policies.

[00:34:56] He says inflation took away 20% of the people's purchasing power in a short period of time. Even when the rate of inflation slowed, it still is rising. It went from 2.9% to 3%. And, of course, you've heard me say before that is based upon the Consumer Price Index, which I think is actually making inflation look better than it really is because of all sorts of reporting. We talked about that before.

[00:35:22] And so, again, he points out that the New York Times called an unusually large downward revision in the number of jobs we thought were created in Biden's final year. And that is the case. Almost every time they would say we've created this many jobs under Joe Biden. And then later they revised almost every one of them down. You have to wonder how much of that was politically motivated.

[00:35:47] But, nevertheless, he takes us through a reminder of the federal spending that took place over the last four years. And these are some very significant numbers because when you add them up, no wonder we've all lost so much purchasing power because of inflation. He says, first, Congress passed the $900 billion COVID relief bill just after Christmas 2020 as Trump was heading out the door.

[00:36:18] Biden, then President-elect, strongly supported it. Once Biden was in the White House, he pushed Democrats to pass his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. So we have $900 billion. Add to that another $1.9 trillion. And, again, as he points out, $1.9 trillion. Did the economy really need a stimulus of that size? It's pretty clear that it did not.

[00:36:45] Well, you may say, well, Byron York probably isn't all that much of a fan of Joe Biden. So let's go to an individual who was Treasury Secretary under a Democratic president. That would be Lawrence Summers, who at the time wrote that this stimulus was completely out of kilter. He said the gap between actual and potential output of the economy will decline by about $50 billion a month at the beginning of the year to $20 billion a month at its end.

[00:37:13] This proposed stimulus is in the neighborhood of $150 billion. Or, in other words, put it a different way, this is three times the size of the output shortfall. So even a former Treasury Secretary who was under Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and then later President of Harvard University was warning of the dangers. He's also the one that warned that this would lead to inflation. He was right.

[00:37:38] But then, after this, they passed the bill anyway, spending $150 billion a month to fix a $20 billion a month problem. And then you think, okay, certainly at that point they would have stopped. And you would be wrong. Because, as you well know, if you remember all of this, Joe Biden hoping to be kind of the next Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted to go on.

[00:38:04] And then, in 2021, signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. This one made possible in part by a minority of House and Senate Republicans who joined Democrats in that regard. And then, if that was not enough, you also then had one of the biggest spending extravaganza, because that was the $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act,

[00:38:31] which would spend on everything from climate change to welfare, housing assistance, Medicaid, just everything. And by the time the House passed a version of that bill, inflation had already reached 6.8%. Later, it would reach 9.1% in June 2022. Some Senate Democrats, nervous about some of that spending, forced some reductions in the Build Back Better Act.

[00:38:55] So then it was downsized to $750 billion, including about $370 billion in what's called climate spending. And, as a result, that wasn't going to pass. So, Joe Biden then referred to it as the Inflation Reduction Act. You've heard us talk about that before. And it would be pretty cynical to say, here's a bill that was supposed to actually deal with inflation that actually made it worse.

[00:39:23] And, again, you can go to all sorts of people, but I'll just quote one here. The Cato Institute, quote, The Inflation Reduction Act was initially touted as a deficit-neutral bill with its 10-year energy and climate-related provisions projected to cost about $370 billion offset with tax increases. However, as you can point out here, it turns out that that is not going to be the case.

[00:39:50] And as a result, some of those subsidies are what are called unkept. And so, in some respects, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act is even worse than many of the critics at the time thought it would be. And so, in some respects, as he puts it, this particular one, the Inflation Reduction Act, created a perpetual spending machine.

[00:40:16] And it's, as he said, possible some of the people voting for it in Congress didn't even understand that's what was going to happen. If you were saying, well, maybe it did some good. Well, let's just take one line item. There was allocated $7.5 billion, with a B, not million, $7.5 billion, to build tens of thousands electric vehicle chargers. More than three years later, only a few dozen had been built.

[00:40:45] And so, that is the case. And so, again, when you start looking at what the current president has inherited from the previous president, this is difficult. Because, as he says, what Byron York argues is, President Biden and the Democrats in the House and Senate passed money faster than anyone could possibly use it, even though they raced to shovel more cash out the door in December and January, millions of billions remain unspent.

[00:41:15] And this is why there's really a desire on the part of Elon Musk and Donald Trump to even pull back some of that spending. And, of course, the biggest issue of all is that, even though this was done with the idea of, maybe I can be something like the next FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, probably did a lot of damage to the standard of living for most Americans. He refers to it as the Biden economic hangover. Whether you're affected by it or not,

[00:41:45] this is the reality that now the current administration has to deal with. And so, of course, when people are already criticizing Donald Trump for the price of eggs, and he's only been in office, what, three weeks? Something like that. I think you have to recognize where some of the blame belongs. And this article, I think, helps you understand a little bit more about that. So, major challenges. So, I wanted to end not only with the Karl Rove piece about some of the challenges that he and Congress will face,

[00:42:15] just to meet some very important deadlines, and then some of the economic challenges going forward based upon this economic hangover that has been dumped in the lap of the current administration. So, if you'd like to know a little bit more about some of these articles, many of them have references and links. So, if you say, Okay, I heard what Lathan Watts said, but I want to read it for myself. Or, I want to see what Jonah Goldberg or Karl Rove or Byron York are documenting.

[00:42:45] Well, those links exist on those articles as well. But that's all we have for today. I am looking forward to our Friday weekend edition. We're going to try to cover a lot of great material then. Most importantly, though, I want to thank, as always, Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. Go to the website, pointofview.net, and we'll see you back here tomorrow, right here on Point of View. At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer.

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[00:43:41] Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage. Each week, you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide, and a free resource to equip you in further action. We encourage you to not only pray with us each week, but to share these prayers and the resources with others in your life. Join the movement today.

[00:44:09] Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top. That's pointofview.net. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.