Point of View February 27, 2025 – Hour 2 : Thursday’s Headlines

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. And now, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. I want to thank those of you that called in this last hour when we had Lane Lawson Craft in studio. I think she's probably heading back to actually go out of town.

[00:00:33] I believe that the National Religious Broadcasters Convention is winding down, although I think they do have a dinner tonight. And it's always a great opportunity to see and meet some of the individuals. As a matter of fact, some of the radio stations that carry us. I saw somebody from WPEO will be up there in Peoria, Illinois, for one of their actual celebrations taking place for their radio station. Saw some people from Good News Network and a variety of others that I can mention along the way.

[00:00:59] But let's get back into the news because there are some things that need to take place. If you do actually receive my Viewpoints Commentary, and I highly recommend it because my Viewpoints Commentary come out free of charge. Monday through Friday, we send Pentadectors out on Saturday. And these, of course, air in about 600 radio stations across the country. But the one that I did for Monday was entitled Trump's Political Challenges.

[00:01:28] Tuesday was on Trump's Economic Challenges. And one of those political challenges was passing a budget and passing the actual reduction that needs to take place in terms of spending and the tax issues. So this I think you're going to find helpful. And so that is our first article we've posted here. It comes from the Wall Street Journal.

[00:01:54] And I thought it was interesting because they titled it, this comes from the editors of the Wall Street Journal, The House Republican Hangs Together. And that's the old line, either we hang together or we hang separately. And the subtitle says Democrats and Republican Thomas Massey endorsed a $4.5 trillion tax increase by voting against the budget resolution. I'll get into the details of that in just a minute.

[00:02:17] But the point they make is, is that what some people thought might be a major hurdle actually is one that the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, was able to clear. And he was able to corral at least a narrow majority. It's oftentimes been said, especially for a Republican who is a Speaker of the House, more so than a Democrat who's Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi had a better time of it.

[00:02:44] But certainly for the Republicans, it was like herding cats. And the budget resolution passed 217 to 215, which means that all Republicans except the Republican from Kentucky, Thomas Massey, voted for it. He voted no along with the Democrats. And so as a result, this budget bill now goes to the Senate. We will be talking about it in the future, no doubt.

[00:03:10] And there, because it's under what is called budget reconciliation, and we'll get into the technical details there, all it needs is 51 votes. And this is a way to extend the tax cuts that were implemented in 2017. So this is going to be important. And this, if you go back and read my Monday commentary, you can see that this is the first step. But there are many other steps that need to take place. Pass the House, needs to pass the Senate.

[00:03:41] Then they have to do a reconciliation that takes place, ultimately put it on the desk of Donald Trump. And I'm sure he will sign it. There's no question about that as well. Now, if the Republicans had failed, this article goes into detail, which said this would mean a $4.5 trillion tax increase and zero spending restraint.

[00:04:04] This was an attempt to address many of these issues simultaneously in kind of a significant budget bill. Now, did everybody like it? No. As a matter of fact, this is where Mike Johnson had to pretty much herd some cats because, frankly, I don't like all the things that happened.

[00:04:24] But this was necessary to at least extend the tax cuts because it also expanded the standard deduction, which would have reverted to roughly $16,000 for married couples from about $30,000 now. So that means your taxes would have gone up because the deduction that you receive now of $30,000 would drop to $16,000.

[00:04:52] So everybody, including the so-called middle class and even the lower middle class, would be paying more in taxes. There's something else that I didn't really think need to be implemented here, and that is what's called the blue state subsidy, which allows individuals to actually get a deduction for their full deduction for their state and local taxes.

[00:05:19] And in certain states, and I'm calling out New York, Illinois, California, other places where those taxes are so high, essentially people in other states, especially those that don't even have state income tax, Florida, Texas, state of Washington, whatever, Nevada, would be, in a sense, subsidizing others. But, you know, that's where it was. And, of course, national defense would also get some cash infusion, about $100 billion.

[00:05:48] Is it the perfect bill? No. If you have heard me say it once on this program, I will say it probably again and again and again. You can never let the perfect be an enemy of the good. You recognize that any time you try to pass a budget bill in Congress, I can understand why, in some respects, Representative Thomas Massey says, well, I'm not going to vote for that because that's a big messed up budget bill. Yeah, it is.

[00:06:16] But do you want to keep the tax cuts going that you are enjoying right now? I think the answer probably for most of you would be yes. And so that's one of the things that sometimes the tradeoffs aren't ones that you necessarily like, but that's just the way it is actually implemented. And it's an illustration of the fact that oftentimes people say it's sausage making. You don't like to see how sausage is being made. You don't really like to see how Congress actually puts together a budget.

[00:06:46] But what they actually have put together, I think, is better than anything else we might have imagined. And so when we come back, I want to spend a little bit of time also talking about this issue of a constitutional crisis. J.T. Young, interestingly enough, I don't know much about him, but he has written a book called Unprecedented Assault, How Big Government Unleashed, America's Socialists Left. And he has been working in Congress and Department of Treasury, Office of Management and Budget.

[00:07:15] So I don't really know him, but he wrote a very good piece in which he says, if we have a constitutional crisis, it was narrowly averted by the U.S. Court of Appeals. And it's something where really, if the Democrats were concerned about a true constitutional crisis, they would be applauding. We're really not.

[00:07:34] And he illustrates the fact that there are some really important challenges to the Constitution, which, because of partisanship, Democrats aren't even looking at. And so he raises that issue in a very significant way. Then I want to kind of pick and choose a couple of other small stories along the way here that you need to know about as well.

[00:07:57] What about the interaction between Donald Trump and the actual president of Ukraine? What about this minerals and reconstruction issue? What about the nasty things both of them have said about each other? Again, we can get into President Zelensky. We can get into President Trump and talk about some of the back and forth.

[00:08:21] But more importantly, where does this move in terms of the Ukraine war and all the other issues? And then by the next hour, we'll get into some of the issues. Joe John Stossel talks about some of the dumb things socialists promote. And even our friend Larry Sand, who's been with us before, uncivil education. A lot to cover this hour. We'll try to get back to most of it right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. The future of TikTok is uncertain. ByteDance was given a 75-day extension to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner. But Melissa Henson of Parents Television and Media Council believes parents should pay attention right now to the dangers on the platform. She explains that social media platforms aren't innocent. The reality is that predators target children online to sexually exploit or extort them.

[00:09:26] Social platforms have harmed teens' mental health and exposed teens to sexual harassment. Children and teens have been targeted by powerful algorithms with eating disorder and other harmful content. Parents should be aware that their children are being targeted by a powerful algorithm that is designed to keep them hooked on the platforms. This isn't mere speculation. There are internal memos and documents that reveal the goal of attracting and keeping young children on the platform.

[00:09:54] Children are falling into patterns of addiction, depression, and sexual exploitation. That is why 14 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against TikTok. You might want to read the article by Melissa Henson or even follow the link to the lawsuits that have been filed to see how graphic and deviant some of the content is on this social media platform. At this point, you might be tempted to argue that TikTok has some redeeming value. If it were merely junk, it probably wouldn't exist.

[00:10:22] My adult daughters sometimes find a good TikTok video and forward it to me, but that shouldn't negate all the negative influences found on this social media platform. TikTok is a mixture of good and bad or light and darkness. Parents and grandparents need to be aware of the dangers of this social media platform. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of intelligent design,

[00:10:50] go to viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. Viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. One of the individuals we enjoy interviewing on a regular basis is Lathan Watts. You might remember last time Lathan Watts was with us. He said, you know, some of these individuals that are leaders in the various Democratic Party

[00:11:17] or in the bureaucracy or whatever, they maybe just never read the story about the boy who cried wolf. And the argument he was making is this. If you say fascist long enough, if everything is fascist, nothing is fascist. If everything is Nazis, nothing is Nazi. If everybody's a dictator, then nobody's a dictator. And the argument he was making at the time was, if you keep using the phrase constitutional crisis, eventually it has no meaning.

[00:11:45] And I thought that was kind of an insightful way to look at that. And it brings us to our second article by J.T. Young, in which he points out that the U.S. Court of Appeals, he says, just averted a real constitutional crisis, not one that is just shouted from the housetops. And he says, if anything, Democrats should be relieved. The point he makes is, is this was an attempt from the U.S. Court of Appeals, the eighth court of appeals,

[00:12:12] to prevent the attempt previously by former President Joe Biden to shift billions in debt from college students to the general taxpayer. And that should, if anything, be a constitutional issue. And the point he makes is, is that the Supreme Court had ruled that he could not cancel, for example, $430 billion in debt for under the HEROES Act.

[00:12:41] But undeterred, he goes on to remind us, that on multiple occasions, former President Joe Biden tried to stretch other laws to shift college debt. By the time he left the White House, he was trying to cancel $184 billion in debt, owed to taxpayers by approximately 5 billion borrowers. And he said, there was a very definite Supreme Court ruling,

[00:13:06] followed by repeated attempts by the president or the former president to circumvent this. And the judicial branch determined that this could not be done. And the executive branch, in particular, president or former president Joe Biden did so. And he said, if there were ever the makings of a constitutional crisis, this would seem to have it. For weeks, Democrats, he says, have been echoing the mantra of a constitutional crisis

[00:13:32] over the Trump administration's doge efforts to cut spending personnel and regulations. And here, when you had a real action that was a deliberate and continuous threat to the Constitution, we see that was actually never even mentioned by some of the people now that are making a big deal about the fact that we're in the midst of a constitutional crisis.

[00:14:01] He goes on to then say that the president was using an executive action, not even seeking legislation from Congress. And despite the fact the highest court blocked it, it didn't seem to ever bother some of the individuals now screaming about a constitutional crisis. The point he's making is simply this. If you're going to even try to argue that what Elon Musk or Donald Trump is doing is a constitutional crisis,

[00:14:30] and I'm open to hear the arguments. After all, we'll see what you think about those. There seems to be a need to acknowledge that there were some of those in the past. And you certainly will gain my attention sometimes if, indeed, you will say, OK, I recognize that not everything Barack Obama did, not everything that Joe Biden did, but I'm still concerned about Donald Trump. You know, I think you've gained a hearing.

[00:14:56] There was another issue that he points out, and I'll just mention that before we move on, that the president's attempt to actually circumvent the judicial decision and the legislation and to shift that debt to the general taxpayer from college borrowers is something that should have concerned other Americans because only 38% of Americans have earned a college degree,

[00:15:22] and yet all Americans would have, in one way or another, have dealt with that burden. And he goes on to point out that the Biden administration was running up, this number is just amazing, $7.5 trillion in deficits over fiscal year 2021 through fiscal year 2024. Those numbers, just again, are amazing to me. One of the things when I was doing a TV interview,

[00:15:52] I was in front of some of the individuals in the audience that had really never heard us talk about the kinds of things we talk about here, $36 trillion in national debt, the fact that this year we'll have more than $2 trillion in deficit alone. In other words, we run up a trillion dollars of deficit about every six months. And, I mean, you could just see people just kind of their eyes open up, their mouths drop a little bit. And, of course, we've talked about this before.

[00:16:21] But if you haven't heard that, it illustrates a point. If you are really upset with whatever Elon Musk is doing, whatever Doge is doing right now, you can see why some people would be upset if they don't even think there's a crisis. As I've said on this program many times before, you can't fix a problem if you don't know there is a problem. And, of course, the other day in front of the cabinet, Elon Musk said, you know, if we continue down this road,

[00:16:49] we really are going to bankrupt America. I think that's a little bit of hyperbole, but just barely. But anyway, it goes on to say that this Democratic leadership will only see a crisis when they can attribute it to Donald Trump, but never see it in the other way. And I think we have to call balls and strikes and say, look, there are some things that were done, whether it was by George W. Bush or Donald Trump or Republicans

[00:17:13] or things that were done by Bill Clinton, Barack Obama or Joe Biden, Democrats. And when an individual, whatever that individual does, violates the Constitution, I think we should speak to that issue as well. Let me just real briefly recognize that probably over the next week, we'll probably get into this in more detail. There's been a lot of back and forth between the United States and Ukraine. There have been a lot of angry words.

[00:17:43] We talked about some of the things that Donald Trump has said. I think I've mentioned in passing what some of President Zelensky has said. But in the midst of this, at least now we have the tentative agreement that one of the arguments being made by Donald Trump and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is, hey, we've been paying for all of this military engagement there in Ukraine.

[00:18:10] Whether you believe some of the statements being made by President Zelensky or some of the statements being made by President Trump, the bottom line is if there are minerals that are there in Ukraine that could be helpful, that could only maybe be mined by Western companies, can we at least have a draft deal on using that? And there's been, of course, times when President Zelensky,

[00:18:37] in a meeting with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio agreed, and then went out and said, no, I told them no to their face. And a lot of people said, you know, you're not even telling the truth. But nevertheless, there may be a way to try to find some resolution to the battle between Russia and Ukraine that also would provide some benefit, if not to the United States, to the Western world in terms of some of those minerals.

[00:19:04] Let's also acknowledge, if I could be the skunk of the party, sorry about this, that some of those minerals are presently in places where the Russian army is. So even though you can agree that, yes, we might want to mine those very important strategic minerals for the 21st century, some of where the borders are are going to be issues as well. But I just thought I would mention that in passing.

[00:19:31] Before I take some phone calls after the break, let me also mention that one of the things I thought was so interesting is what is happening right now with the White House Press Corps. Now, if you were ever in high school or middle school, remember when you had the cool kids and you had the cool kids table? Everybody remember that? Of course you do. And for a long time, the White House Correspondents Association, they were the cool kids, and they only let certain people be at the cool kids table.

[00:19:59] And so they determined who was going to participate in the presidential press pool. And so the legacy media, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, they get to sit in the front row and they get to be there. But we're going to exclude a lot of other people. And one of the things that we used to do when Point of View was tied to the USA Radio Network is we were able to work with Connie Lon, who was a White House Correspondent, and actually had access to that.

[00:20:28] But a lot of the conservative media never had access to the White House Press Corps. Well, that changed, and the current White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levitt, announced that the White House Press team, not the White House Correspondents Association, would now determine who would be part of the White House Press Corps. And so the other day, I think we're a little bit later going to even play an audio from actually what took place in the cabinet meeting.

[00:20:58] If you watch the cabinet meeting, you're going to see there was for the first time the senior politics editor from Blaze Media and also the individual who was the TV correspondent with Newsmax. So, all of a sudden, some of the conservative news outlets now get to sit at the cool kids' table with all the legacy media. Quite frankly, I think that's a good thing.

[00:21:23] But the hue and cry you're hearing from the White House right now is all those that can't believe that happened. We'll be right back. The Bible tells us not to worry. And yet, there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray. But sometimes, even knowing what to pray can be difficult.

[00:21:53] And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation. Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others. We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand.

[00:22:22] Will you commit to Pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:52] 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, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212.

[00:23:18] As a program note, let me just mention that tomorrow we'll have Dr. Merrill Matthews and Jeremy Dice with us. We'll get an update on a variety of different issues from some of the religious liberty cases that Jeremy has been dealing with. A couple of very good commentaries by Dr. Matthews, as well as maybe a few things I won't be able to get to today just because it's become quite a packed program. Let's go back to the phones, though. And in California, KNLB. Kathy, thank you for joining us today here on Point of View.

[00:23:48] Yes. I was wondering, during Clinton's time, people needed to go back to school or whatever college. The way that they could do it was through school loans. Right. And a lot of people wound up with school loans. And then Obama comes along, and he did the same thing.

[00:24:14] Everybody needed to – a lot of people were out of work, and a lot of people couldn't find jobs. And then when you went in to apply for a job, you – or online, you would get called by somebody saying, well, let's see what level are you, and let's see what we can do to get you into college again, and loans and stuff. How many people received loans that, you know, they're trying to forgive now?

[00:24:44] Because, like, I didn't have the – I had gone to culinary school and paid my loan off. Right. Because I got a federal loan. How many people wound up with federal loans that now they're trying to forgive, that they knew a lot of people were still out of work, that they knew that they weren't going to get the money back. Yep. And now they want to forgive them.

[00:25:10] There is a difference between Clinton and Obama, and one of the most significant was the decision by Barack Obama to, in a sense, nationalize the loans. Let me use me as an example. When I went to college, I actually got a loan, but it actually came through Wells Fargo. Now, there is a value in that because then they can look at you and begin to evaluate, as they would if they were going to loan you money for a new business,

[00:25:40] if they were going to loan you money to build a house, whatever it might be. And in some respects, those kind of eyes would have actually been maybe a little better scrutiny over those individuals. When it became nationalized and you just apply and you get it, whether you're going to engage in maybe some kind of rather ineffective, unproductive loan,

[00:26:09] because it is an unproductive and maybe obscure degree, you can see kind of the problem. And so there were a lot of things going on, Kathy, at the time. One of those is, of course, people were out of work. Got that. We have actually had a situation when Barack Obama comes into office. We had the Great Recession of 2008. And so a lot of people said, well, maybe I need to go back to school since I can't find a job.

[00:26:38] But again, there needs to be some level of scrutiny to say, when I give you a student loan and you're going to go into computers, you're going to go into engineering, you are going to go into medicine and you have a great opportunity. I can see you're going to do well in pre-med and you're probably going to make your way to medical school. You're going to be able to pay off those loans. If you take a class in history, philosophy, basket weaving, as we always jokingly said, gender studies,

[00:27:06] your chances are not as good. And I think that's part of the issue there as well. So I recognize that student loans are obviously something where we want to be somewhat compassionate. But you also illustrate, Kathy, a perfect illustration. That is, you paid your off. I paid mine off. I think a lot of us remember the day we paid off our student loans. That happened the day before I put my kids in braces.

[00:27:36] I mean, I remember these days vividly. These are significant days. And now for people to say, look, I just can't pay off my loans. And I just want you as the taxpayers to pay off my loan. That does strike me as unfair. But there are all sorts of other issues. But you raised some good questions. But I thought I'd throw that in real quickly because there was a difference in some respects between taking out loans under Bill Clinton when his administration was in existence

[00:28:03] and taking out loans later on under Barack Obama. Let's take another phone call out in California. David, thank you for joining us today. Oh, hey, Kirby. Yeah, I was interested in the concept of Jubilee. And I'd tie it, actually, to what you were just talking about with the student loans. I don't know if you're familiar with it. But, you know, of course, America's money doesn't rest on gold anymore. It hasn't since before World War II.

[00:28:32] And when the International Monetary Fund was developed, a nation that was utterly poor could increase its collateral value by improving its schools. So if a country was poor as hell but they had good schools, then that was seen as an asset and that the nation would get better trade relations.

[00:28:58] And so the idea that – and this is the fight between Republicans and Democrats – that the Republicans don't like that, but the Democrats do. What is that? I don't understand the that part. What do they not like? That the value of the nation can be improved by education. I think everybody would agree with that. I don't see that division. But, okay, go ahead.

[00:29:25] Well, the Republicans for years have been trying to kill the Department of Education. Well, and again, I'll get to that in just a minute. But that actually would improve education rather dramatically because then you wouldn't have all the federal edicts out of the national government because education in, say, Tupelo, Mississippi is very different than education in Detroit, Michigan and all sorts of issues.

[00:29:49] By the way, my commentary, which we may or may not get to today on uncivil education from Larry Sand gets into that. So let me just real quickly address the first issue because it's a big issue. And some people have said, could we not have a biblical jubilee? And if you're not familiar with the concept, you had, of course, the idea of the sabbatical. You had six years of planting and the seventh year in which you would have the land rest.

[00:30:19] And so you would have seven sevens or 49 years and you have a 50th year of jubilee in which what would we do? In that particular Old Testament theocracy, we would actually have something that would forgive the debts. Now, the unfairness of that is, first of all, structurally, we are not a theocracy.

[00:30:41] Second of all, people didn't enter into debts in the United States expecting that there's going to be a jubilee in the future. The Old Testament Jewish nation understood that only so well. And so, first of all, there's the obvious structural problem. We're not an Old Testament theocracy. We're not a Jewish nation. We're an American nation. But bottom line, there's another issue.

[00:31:07] And that is, OK, let's say we want to forgive those debts because we talked about forgiving loans and the rest. Most of the debts, not all, but most of the $38 trillion is money that is tied up in treasuries.

[00:31:23] In other words, there are people who buy these T-bills, these treasuries, and they expect that then when the T-bill matures, that then they will receive their investment back plus whatever interest that is there. Who owns those T-bills? Well, there are all sorts of people that own those T-bills. But a lot of them are just basic American people.

[00:31:49] So when you kind of wave a wand, and I've done a commentary on that, but David, I'm glad you brought that up. It's about time, especially some people said, why can't we just wave a wand and actually have these debts go away? I mean, we owe it to ourselves. Yes and no. First of all, we don't owe all of it to ourselves. I mean, you've got China, Japan, the United Kingdom, all sorts of people that have bought those T-bills as well. But, OK, a good portion of it is owned by the American people.

[00:32:18] But if you forgive the debts, how many of you out there have a pension fund that has money that's tied up in the T-bills? Most of you probably would raise your hands. How many of you maybe own some T-bills? You can see that you would hurt the American people who are expecting to get a return on their investment. So as good as this idea of a jubilee, a biblical view of jubilee is, first of all, you're not going to implement that because I can see all sorts of people saying,

[00:32:47] well, that was in the Old Testament. That's not the United States of America. That was an Old Testament theocracy. That's not ours. Number two, at least people that lived in Israel knew that there was supposed to be a jubilee. There's some question whether or not that was ever really implemented, but I'll leave that on the table. But at least they knew it was a possibility.

[00:33:09] And the biggest issue is that as much as we'd like to just forgive all the debt, whether it's student loan debt or whether it's national debt, that especially national debt is tied up in treasuries. And the people that own the treasuries, if you don't directly own them, I guarantee you probably indirectly owe them in some way with pension funds and the rest. So it's a good question. Probably need to do another commentary on it. So, David, thanks for the suggestion.

[00:33:39] We'll come back. We'll take some more phone calls right after this. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] In fact, once again, I might just mention on our list here of some articles we probably won't get to today, and I'll just postpone them until tomorrow. Dumb Things Socialist Promise by John Stossel. And, again, I think that one is very well done because it talks about some of the various issues that are being promoted right now on a number of different social media sites, including TikTok, which is my commentary today. And then we just talked with David a minute ago about education, and that one gets to Larry Sand, Uncivil Education,

[00:34:30] which he talks about the Department of Education and really the educational performance. But we'll just postpone those to tomorrow because I wanted to get to Martha in Arizona, KNLB. And, Martha, I think you wanted to tell the story about your daughter. So go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for taking the call, Kirby. My daughter's been in school for eight years, and she'll graduate in June with her master's in theology.

[00:34:55] And when she started this school, she was taking psychology, and she changed to theology because she didn't just want to provide medication for people's problems, and she wanted to learn about God. But the whole time she's been in school, she's found ways to work. And so she worked as a 911 dispatcher on shift work for five years, and now she's doing pharmacy technician at Walmart. And her point was that it's about personal responsibility.

[00:35:24] So when they put the pause on people's loans during COVID, she doubled up on payments. And now for the last couple of years, she's been doing pay-as-you-go because she paid off her debt on a master's degree before she ever graduated. Yes. And, again, first of all, I want individuals to hear me carefully.

[00:35:49] I think it is great that you can major in philosophy, theology, psychology, whatever it is, sociology, because education is to help develop the mind. But I also recognize that your chances of being able to pay off your loans, unless you're a diligent person like your daughter, are less than an individual that, let's say, one of the highest-paid people in the area of medical is anesthesiologist.

[00:36:15] I mean, they run up some incredible debts, but they are some of the highest-paid, and cardiologists, some of the highest-paid doctors. So they pay them off pretty quickly, too. So it's a battle there. But I think, first of all, she illustrates only so well. Most of us had to work through college. I needed a loan just to kind of even see my way clear to be able to not have to work all the time and be able to graduate on time and all that.

[00:36:42] And I just think anybody that's been able to pay off their loans surely has got to be just a little bit offended that other people who didn't work so hard to pay off their loans should be now having their loans forgiven. So I think your point's well taken. Thank you. I appreciate you calling in. And, again, there are some really important issues that we will certainly get to in the future.

[00:37:04] Let me just real quickly give you kind of an overview, because tomorrow we will get into this piece by John Stossel, in which he talks about the fact that there are, again, about a third of American adults who view socialism positively. We've talked about this before. I have a booklet that we've made available on capitalism and socialism, and then did one just whole booklet on some of the issues associated with socialism.

[00:37:29] But I thought it was very interesting that he took the time, and I'm going to turn this into a commentary, you might gather, about this TikTok star that actually says socialism is working better than capitalism 93% of the time. You're going, where does that come from? Well, that's actually written by self-described Marxists in the Journal of Health Services. And then another one that says that socialism increases life expectancy, and then he gives you some facts and figures on that.

[00:37:57] And a variety of others, socialism gives you better home ownership. And most of these are people in TikTok. So it is interesting that my commentary today is about some of the dangers of TikTok in terms of how that affects young people's self-image and the rest. But this also just points out some of the facts that are just incorrect and presented in some of the social media platforms. So I think we'll get into that. Also, we'll get back to this issue of education.

[00:38:27] Larry Sands' piece we'll talk about really gets into how so many of these schools right now still use this book. I'll hold it up right now. I'll mention it tomorrow. Howard Zinn, The People's History of the United States, in which he says too many government-run schools are getting bad Marx, meaning Karl Marx, and how many ideas, kind of Marxist ideas are still being used in the college classrooms and even in the high school classrooms. And a while back we did an interview.

[00:38:56] I'll hold this book up by Mary Graybar debunking Howard Zinn because that is still one of the most used textbooks, and it really is promoting Marxism. So we'll talk more about that probably tomorrow. But I thought we might just wind down today by actually having you hear the first prayer given to the cabinet meeting. The other day, Donald Trump was able to pull together his entire cabinet.

[00:39:23] Now, the cabinet, of course, includes any cabinet officer, and one of those cabinet officers is a man by the name of Scott Turner. Scott Turner, we've known for many years. He was an athlete at J.J. Pierce High School just down the road from us here. His first job was washing dishes at Spring Creek Barbecue.

[00:39:43] Later went on to University of Illinois, individual that ran track and then actually was an outstanding cornerback and went into the NFL. Later was a Texas representative, a representative of the Texas House of Representatives, sat in the chair across from me. And then, interestingly enough, was tapped by Ben Carson to serve in the first Trump administration in housing and urban development.

[00:40:10] Well, he is now the secretary of housing and urban development. And here's the prayer that he offered in front of the cabinet. Before we begin the cabinet, I'd like to have Scott and a couple of people say a few things. But most importantly, where are you? This is a gentleman who's going places, the head of HUD, and he's going to say, you all know him. And you're going to say grace, and they will have our meeting, right? Thank you very much.

[00:40:40] Thank you, Mr. President. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this awesome privilege, Father, to be in your presence. God, thank you that you've allowed us to see this day. The Bible says that your mercies are new every morning. And, Father God, we give you the glory and the honor. Thank you, God, for President Trump, Father, for appointing us. Father God, thank you for anointing us to do this job. Father, we pray you'll give the president, the vice president, wisdom. Father God, as they lead.

[00:41:09] Father, I pray for all of my colleagues that are here around the table and in this room. Lord God, we pray that we would lead with a righteous clarity. Father God, as we serve the people of this country in every prospective agency, every job that we have. Father, we would humble ourselves before you. And we would lead in a manner that you called us to lead and to serve. Father, the Bible says that blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Well, Father, we today honor you.

[00:41:36] And in your rightful place, Father, thank you for giving us this opportunity to restore faith in this country and be a blessing to the people of America. And Lord God, today in our meeting, we pray that you would be glorified in our conversation. In Jesus' name, amen. So again, that was the prayer given by Scott Turner. One of the people in one of the networks afterwards said, well, I don't know if he's a Christian or not. First of all, people that pray like that, you pretty much know they're a Christian.

[00:42:03] By the way, Scott Turner, for a while was also considered one of the pastors at Prestonwood Baptist Church. So I just thought sometimes we don't hear these things from the secular media. So I thought it would be good for you to hear the first prayer given before the cabinet meeting began under Donald Trump. And that is Scott Turner. And as, again, President Donald Trump said, he's going somewhere. I think he is.

[00:42:29] And Scott Turner is holding the same position that Ben Carson was holding in the first term. And I think you're going to hear more from Scott Turner in the future. Nothing else. Just wanted to end with that positive note. If you've wondered what are the spiritual inclinations of some of the cabinet, that gives you a little bit of an idea right there. That's all we have for today. I would encourage you to listen tomorrow. We're going to have a roundtable discussion. We'll see if we can get a few more of these ideas and issues in front of you.

[00:42:57] And I hope that you'll visit the website, pointofview.net. Most importantly, I want to thank Megan for her help grabbing that audio and engineering the program. I'm Steve. Thank you for producing the program. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow right here on Point of View. Are you confused about changes happening in Washington, D.C.? Well, you're not alone. Are you frustrated that you can't get the full picture of what's happening from the mainstream media? You are not alone in that either.

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