Point of View March 20, 2025 – Hour 2 : Thursday Updates

[00:00:04] Across America Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second Hour, today we're going to talk about is it too much to ask for the federal government to have a budget? We're not even talking about a balanced budget. Yeah, it would be nice to have a balanced budget. After all, every 50 of the states have to have a balanced budget.

[00:00:33] Federal government does not have a balanced budget and does not even have to have a balanced budget, unfortunately, because it can also print money. But I think as we go through this particular piece by Senator Ron Johnson, you might say, who is he? He is a senator from Wisconsin, a Republican. He asks a very good question. Is this any way to run a budget? Now, let me, before we get into the details here, give you some background.

[00:00:58] First of all, the House of Representatives has on occasion been able to pass a budget, which is one of the most unwieldy ways to do it because essentially the budget is distributed to 12 different entities and then brought together in one single budget. That is a problem right off the bat.

[00:01:20] And we've had members of Congress on this program talking about how we could simplify and streamline that in a way that other states do that. So at least give partial credit where credit is due that sometimes the House of Representatives has been able to pass a budget. The reality is the Senate has not. Now, most of that happened under Democratic leadership, but you now have Republicans in a position of leadership.

[00:01:47] And unless something changes, we're still passing what are called continuing resolutions, CRs. And that one was passed just the other day. So that at least gets us to September 30th. The other issue that you might remember me talking about, and he says that when he's asked individuals how much does the federal government spend, I hope I've said this enough times now that you have that number in your head, but if you don't, get out something to write with.

[00:02:16] The federal government this year will spend $7 trillion. And, of course, only brings in about $4 or $5 trillion, depending. I've always said about $5 trillion, but I'm seeing one place here where it says maybe closer to $4 plus trillion. And you can, again, just take the zeros off and say, let's use the five and the seven.

[00:02:40] Imagine if you were making $50,000 a year, and every year you were spending $70,000 a year, and you had credit card debt of $360,000. Just take the zeros off, and you can see what we're dealing with, $36 trillion debt. And you can begin to see some of the problems that we have. So with that as a background, let's hear what Senator Ron Johnson has to say.

[00:03:06] He says, unlike the federal government, families and private sector businesses have to keep spending in line with earnings. To do so, they budget, estimating what the income will be and making sure their planned expenditures don't exceed that. He then goes on to say, look, I came from the private sector, and I know the time, effort, and detail businesses put into preparing budgets. If the numbers are good, the budget review meeting can be a breeze.

[00:03:34] If not, managers have a lot of explaining to do. When it comes to spending American taxpayer dollars and money we borrow to cover massive deficit spending, the analysts and oversight by lawmakers is woefully inadequate. He goes on to say that 535 members of Congress, that's 435 members in the House, 100 members in the Senate,

[00:03:55] could be considered the board of directors, the news media as the watchdog auditor of a financial entity that spends more than $7 trillion a year. This is the line that really got my attention. I might even put it in a commentary. When I asked my colleagues, these are fellow U.S. senators and the media, the media covering this, a few years ago during an omnibus spending debate, how much the federal government spent in total,

[00:04:25] no one could offer an answer. These are the people spending your money, and there were people in that Senate meeting, and there were people in the media that could not come up with the answer, which is now $7 trillion. Sleep well, America. That shows you the problem we have right now.

[00:04:46] He goes on to say the lack of attention, and this lack of attention, has allowed spending to soar 63% from $4.4 billion in fiscal 2019 to a $7.2 billion. Actually, I should say $4.4 trillion. He was doing $4,447 billion, but $4.4 trillion to $7.2 trillion,

[00:05:12] and pointing out that there are a number of ways that we can begin to deal with that to actually, if nothing else, return to pre-pandemic level of spending, but that's not what happened under the Biden administration. It began under the first Trump administration and then exploded under the Biden administration.

[00:05:36] He gives you all the numbers and points out what Bill Clinton was spending, what Barack Obama was spending, and all the way up. So you can get an idea of all that. But he says, how can we solve the problem? Okay, smart guy, you suggested we've got a problem. How do we solve it? Here's his solution. A group of senators representing various factions of the Republican Conference and a similar group of House Republicans

[00:06:04] should join a budget review panel with members of the administration to listen to representatives of their departments explain every line item expenditure. This has never been done. And it's almost kind of like what some states do with what they call zero-based budgeting. You have to justify what you do each year.

[00:06:30] Now, the problem is, is we always assume that if you spent it, that you would need more. But off the air, we've been talking about some of these budgets where if you don't spend it in one year, the next year they say, well, then you don't need it. Well, no, we didn't have a conference that year. We didn't have a need that year. We didn't have a flood that year. Whatever it might be. And this kind of almost bizarre accounting principle is making it very difficult to have a budget.

[00:06:57] But his suggestion is, and it seems like a lot of work, but he just run the numbers. He says that the 2025 budget has 2,481 individual expenditure line items. These could be reviewed by various congressional committees and get the information needed to draft legislation for rescission packages. We've talked about this before. And a fulfillment of budget reconciliation instructions.

[00:07:25] Yes, I know 2,400 line items is a lot. But if you divide it up among not only 100 U.S. senators, but another 435 members of the House, even just looking at half and half since about half are Republicans and half are Democrats, you could come up with something that then looks like a real budget with people having looked at the line items and actually coming up with a budget that looks something like,

[00:07:54] what maybe you do in your home, certainly those of you running a business that you've done for your business, or for those of you in churches or Christian organizations have done for your ministry. So again, he asked the question, is this any way to run a budget? Maybe it's time to actually get serious about a federal budget. That's another way that we might eventually get to a balanced budget. And it has been a long, long time since we've had a balanced federal budget.

[00:08:24] And if we don't want to keep loading more and more debt on the next generations, this maybe is a way forward. So it's our first article along with the other two articles we mentioned last hour for you to read. And we'll come back and talk about some other solutions to these problems right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. President Trump wants manufacturing reinvigorated by bringing jobs back to the U.S. That is great for America and great for American workers. But who's going to fill those jobs? The latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor statistics show 7.6 million job openings along with 6.8 million unemployed workers. You might ask why those millions of unemployed workers aren't snapped up in those millions of job openings.

[00:09:26] Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs, says that the problem of filling those jobs is twofold. He says we have a skills gap. We also have a will gap. The skills gap is the disparity between the skills an employer expects their employees to have and the actual skills employees possess. It is certainly true that jobs in the medical field require a science degree and jobs in big tech require a computer science degree. But most of the blue collar skills don't require a degree but require some mechanical ability and training.

[00:09:56] Unfortunately, lots of high schools remove shop classes that could have been training the next generation of Americans who like to work with their hands. Instead, students have been convinced they should go to college, take out massive student loans to get a degree that may not even prepare them for a future job. The will gap is best illustrated by what economist Nicholas Eberstadt refers to as the flight from work. His Washington Post op-ed three years ago lamented that at the time there were 7 million men who were not working and not looking for work.

[00:10:25] The number of non-working men has only dropped a percentage point in the last few years. If the president is successful in bringing jobs back to America, pastors, parents and other leaders must encourage the next generation to go to work. I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of genetic engineering, go to viewpoints.info slash genetic engineering.

[00:10:54] Viewpoints.info slash genetic engineering. You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth. Back once again, one of the articles I was going to get to a little bit later, but since we have a news item that connects up to it, I thought I just mentioned that now the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi,

[00:11:16] has now indeed charged three individuals on federal charges for what we're now starting to have people call the Tesla terrorists. And so these three individuals have been charged and I suspect they will be probably very easily found guilty.

[00:11:34] But in addition to that, one of the stories that just came out in addition to those three people being charged is of 80 Tesla vehicles in Canada dealerships that were destroyed and damaged. And so this whole issue of what is oftentimes been referred to as Tesla terrorists has even gone across the border. Now you can understand that some people might be upset.

[00:12:01] You can't justify any of the actions that have been taking place. But it really almost is hard to understand why somebody in Canada upset about something happening in the United States would feel that that was justifiable in destroying 80 cars in a Tesla dealership. And you have to hope that whatever you would call the Attorney General in Canada would actually take action against the destruction of property.

[00:12:31] Again, I know that there is no sanity when people become so angry that they can't even see the logic or the illogic of what they're doing. But even if you disagree with what Elon Musk is doing, and I think most Americans applaud what he is doing, how in the world can that be justifiable in terms of destroying one of the most premier car companies in the world?

[00:13:01] And yet that is going to affect not Elon Musk. He's a billionaire. But it's going to affect the jobs and the owners and the mechanics and all of that associated with Tesla. So nevertheless, the issue that came out the other day from the Attorney General is Molotov cocktails and gunfire at a facility in Las Vegas. Resist was spray painted on the side of a building.

[00:13:27] And this is where the Attorney General Pam Bondi said, this is clearly a case of domestic terrorism. She then posted a number of things. We have charged multiple people. Get ready. More is coming. The funding is one thing we're looking at. That's the big question. Who's funding some of this? We're coming after you. We believe these are organized. These are not individuals that are out there on their own. And so, again, that is part of the argument.

[00:13:57] So we're going to certainly follow that story. Matter of fact, one of the articles I have for our guests around the roundtable tomorrow, which will be Kelly Shackelford and Liberty McCarter, is just where does some of this anger come from? We're not just talking about Tesla here or even Elon Musk.

[00:14:17] Think about all the anger about the pro-Hamas of various supports, all the way back to the burning of so many different buildings and police stations and everything. And this is, I think, again, a real significant issue that we're going to have to address for some time. The good news is that the Attorney General, and it looks like the Justice Department, is willing to take some action. And we'll see where that takes us in the future.

[00:14:46] But while I was quoting from Pam Bondi, who's, of course, the Attorney General, I thought I'd quote also from the Secretary of Treasury. That's Scott Bessett. And one of the lines here is, who knew that the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessett, was a comedy comedian and was so funny?

[00:15:07] Because one of the questions that came was about an interview that he did with NBC's Kirsten Welker, who had at the time asked if the Treasury Secretary could guarantee that there won't be a recession. His response was, no, I can't.

[00:15:26] But I can't guarantee that her news program is going to be on a year from now, which is sort of becoming one of those very sad gags about what is happening to some of the legacy media. But in the process of that interview that he was doing, he also pointed out something that maybe hasn't been very well covered. And that is you had a couple of these whistleblowers that worked with the Internal Revenue Service. And here's what he said.

[00:15:55] The special agents at the Internal Revenue Service who blew the whistle on the Biden administration's preferential treatment towards Hunter Biden during an investigation into the former first son's tax returns will be promoted to a key leadership position within the U.S. Department of Treasury.

[00:16:15] These IRS whistleblowers are Gary Shapely and Joseph Ziegler, whose testimony really helped squash Hunter Biden's sweetheart deal. You remember that sweetheart plea deal, which was, I think, so outrageous.

[00:16:34] And so they are scheduled to start work this week as senior advisors for I.S. reform to the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett's office. So just another one of those little pieces of information that maybe you only hear here on Point of View. You might have heard it on Fox News, but probably isn't being covered anywhere else. Which brings me to something else I wanted to focus on. If you were listening a couple of days ago, I pointed out the concern.

[00:17:04] That came from some Christian groups that were saying that because President Trump actually paused some of the foreign aid coming out through USAID, that that was hurting a few of those organizations. And I mentioned was that I think I mentioned food for the poor. Wasn't it one of those? One of those was world relief. Well, another one affected was Samaritan's Purse.

[00:17:31] And I have in front of me now this post that came from the CEO, Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham, in which Samaritan's Purse has now confirmed that the $19 million that they were supposed to receive in USAID funds have now been released to their ministry. So some of the concerns about how this is affecting ministries have been resolved.

[00:17:55] Samaritan's Purse, if you're not familiar, and I was unfamiliar with some of this myself, actually have funding grants that come from USAID. Here's what happens. Samaritan's Purse goes overseas, in this particular case, providing life-saving aid to people in Sudan.

[00:18:13] And so they pay for the supplies, they pay for the staff in advance, and then the plan is for the government to reimburse them to the order, in this case, of $19 million. And actually, Time Magazine at the time had reported that only about $13 million of that had been frozen. So some of that had actually been available.

[00:18:38] But this was allowing them to continue to doing their work in Sudan, in South Sudan, and in the Congo. So anyway, I just wanted to point out that some of the concerns I raised earlier in the week are starting to be resolved. And that makes sense, because if nothing else, that's what you would expect.

[00:18:57] I've also been a little bit surprised, because those of us that give to these different ministries maybe naively assume that not only did 100% of our dollars go to relief, but that we were the primary or maybe even the exclusive source of those funds, and we're finding out some things we didn't know before. So let me again just mention that that particular issue that I raised earlier in the week from a couple of individuals, Matthew Sorens and a few others,

[00:19:27] that seems like it is now being resolved. And that's good news, because for every one of those particular grants from USAID that went to really questionable things, there were other funds that went to very responsible things. And that's why I'm excited that when you have the now Secretary of State overseeing USAID, that would be Marco Rubio,

[00:19:53] I think that's going to be an improvement that will last for many years. Just before I take a break, let me again mention that my commentary today is about the worker gap, just the whole issue of not only having a skills gap, but a wills gap, and a real need for us to maybe spend more and more time talking about what is a biblical view of work. I've already offered our booklet on Islam.

[00:20:21] I certainly could mention we've had in the past a book on the subject of work. But I think we're even going to perhaps do a future Outlook magazine on this topic, because after all, President Trump has been somewhat successful in bringing some manufacturing jobs back to this country. Some automakers are saying now we'll build some of these cars here in the United States because of the threat of tariffs.

[00:20:45] But if we bring the jobs back to America, we need Americans to do those jobs. Make sense? So that's why we'll be talking about that in the future. It will be a future Outlook magazine. And one more reason for you to click on that button that says Anchored to Truth, because next week is Truth Team, which we'll be talking about the fact that one of the benefits of supporting Point of View, you'll receive the Outlook magazine.

[00:21:10] And if you join at dollar a day, $30 a month, you'll receive not only the Outlook magazine, but also the booklets that we send out on a monthly basis. Let's take a break. We have a lot of things to cover still. I'll come back with that right after this. Well, Truth Team Week is just about here, and we need your help.

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[00:22:57] 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. Final half hour. If you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Next thing I want to talk about is Mike Huckabee. First of all, Mike Huckabee's been on the program many times before.

[00:23:23] He has been selected to be the ambassador to Israel. And yet, some people are saying, why hasn't he been confirmed? And I think, in some respects, the piece by Star Parker that I've posted illustrates the problem. He has been postponed in large part because of pressure from the Democrats. What's the problem? Well, number one, he's an evangelical minister.

[00:23:51] And number two, he likes Israel. So that's kind of the one-two punch. And I thought it would just be helpful because it illustrates right now that, again, there is a real difference, even in the United States Senate, between Republican senators and Democratic senators. And I think this illustrates only so well. Star Parker says, look, confirmation of President Donald Trump's nominee to the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has been held up in the Senate.

[00:24:19] The word now is the hearings will be held next week. What's holding things up? Pressure from Democrats, of course, she says. Now, if you're not familiar with him, of course, he is probably very well known as an individual that's been on TV. And certainly the father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was the press secretary for Donald Trump. I guess that's a third strike against him, too. So you can see he's got a lot of problems because, indeed, he was a two-term governor. He ran for the presidency. He's an evangelical Christian. He's a minister.

[00:24:47] But more than that, he loves the state of Israel because she talks about the fact that he's had countless missions to Israel. And she's even been on one of those. So what's the problem with the Democrats? He says, she says, the problem is that Mike Huckabee is a friend of Israel and many Democrats are not. What's driving this schism, she says? Open any news commentary site these days. You find a number of soul-searching columns trying to figure out what's wrong with the Democratic Party.

[00:25:16] They were defeated across the board in 2024. Now Democrats are trying to regroup, to rebuild. In order to do this, they need to understand what's wrong. And the point is, is that here, she says, is where Republicans, at least in the Senate and in the House, and it's also true, I think, in the House, between Republican and Democrats, part company. One word, religion. She says, more and more Americans are leaving behind the principles of the Bible. That's true.

[00:25:43] For Gallup in 1960, 2% of Americans said they had no religion. In 2023, that was up to 22%. The so-called nuns of the unaffiliated certainly are the case. But here's the difference. According to Gallup, 61% of Republicans say they are religious compared to 37% of Democrats.

[00:26:06] So twice as many by percentage of Republicans have some kind of religious commitment compared to Democrats. And as she points out, Democrats have become the party of woke, transgender, abortion, and big government. And she says, of course, anyone is free to choose what they believe. But, again, to think this means there is no truth. Well, sorry about that. And she says, okay, back to Mike Huckabee and Israel.

[00:26:32] The reason Democrat support for Huckabee is weak is because Democrat support for Israel is weak. And Democrat support for Israel is weak because Democrat support for religion is weak. And so, in some respects, although I'm using Mike Huckabee as the visual illustration of that, you can see that an individual that I don't think would have been that controversial maybe even a decade ago

[00:27:02] in the Republican or in our Democratic Party, certainly not in the House or Senate, is kind of intriguing about that. And in the latest Gallup poll of February 2025, so taking the most recent one, 33%, one-third of Democrats said they are mostly favorable to Israel compared to 83%, 8 out of 10, of Republicans. And 45% of Democrats said they are favorable to Palestinians compared to 18%.

[00:27:32] And she says, let's be clear, when you say you're supporting Palestinians, you're really thinking about Hamas. So this schism that we have seen for some time, first on religion and second on Israel, and I think the two overlap dramatically, are one of the reasons why Mike Huckabee is still waiting for his confirmation hearings.

[00:27:53] And this has been basically slowed down and maybe even stopped by the Democrats in the United States Senate. So we'll see where that takes us. But I use Mike Huckabee not necessarily as one example, but of a larger issue that we need to understand in terms of religion and in terms of Israel. And that is showing its head once again in the U.S. Senate.

[00:28:22] Let me also go to my last article here. And after our break, we'll get into some other topics. And this one by Selena Zito, I quoted from her the other day, but this one is very interesting. Rebuilding the Rust Belt one company at a time. Again, if you go to the website today, recognize that I'm talking about the desire by this president, Donald Trump, to bring jobs back to the United States,

[00:28:47] or in some cases to build working opportunities here in the United States, and use the tariffs to bring that back. And so this one is from the state of Pennsylvania. And if you go to the Keystone State, one of the stories is of a man by the name of Joe Mastronagelo. I think that's how he says his name. And he's talking about this energy storage business that he has been building in western Pennsylvania.

[00:29:16] And the plan was originally to build the batteries in China and then ship them back to the United States. But he said, we quickly changed that to moving all the manufacturing back to the United States. By the way, does that sound familiar? Because it would be easier for us to scale up production. We ended up building a whole supply base to the point where 90% of the product made here comes from the United States. I think that's good news.

[00:29:44] He then is standing in the middle of one of the buildings in this massive 92-acre manufacturing site. And he says that for nearly 100 years, the building was occupied by men and women who worked at the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. Now, if you're not familiar, this was the site where you had Westinghouse and Tesla.

[00:30:10] This would be Nikola Tesla, not the company, but the individual for whom the company is named, who are actually the ones that actually built this whole electronic function. Westinghouse, by the way, was the individual that convinced this Serbian by the name of Nikola Tesla to come and develop this induction motor for that.

[00:30:36] And so today, in some of those same warehouses, safe, efficient, and sustainable zinc-based, long-duration energy storage systems are being built. And this is an attempt to produce them here in the United States. And it's also where 100 years ago, some of them were making semiconductors. And now you, of course, see them making their batteries. But they are different because he points out that our battery keeps running.

[00:31:05] You know, a lot of the batteries we're using right now are lithium batteries. And we've talked about the concerns about the fact that getting lithium, you need to get it from China, from Africa, other places. These batteries keep running. They don't degrade. They're fully recyclable, non-flammable. And there are no toxic materials. Whereas, of course, the lithium batteries are primary power sources for electric cars and trucks and things of that nature.

[00:31:32] But they're also used to store excess energy from solar panels. They're also used to power medical devices, electric bikes, scooters, hoverboards, drones, all sorts of things. But again, most of those batteries are made where? In China. You heard us talk about China yesterday. We're going to talk about China again tomorrow, interestingly enough. And so one of the things they're trying to do is produce batteries in the United States,

[00:32:00] which perhaps are safer, recyclable, and most importantly, non-flammable. Have you seen how some of these, again, these Tesla terrorists have set fire to these various Tesla batteries that have been in some of the cars and especially in the Tesla trucks?

[00:32:18] So again, I just thought we'd end this segment with just the fact that we do see the possibility of bringing these jobs back to the United States. Maybe the rust belt will no longer be a rust belt. Maybe we will once again make things here in this country. But if we're going to do that, those of you that are on school boards, those of you that are taxpayers for the public schools,

[00:32:48] need to talk to your high school counselors, your administrators, your faculty. It's time to maybe bring some of these shop classes back to the United States, to the high school areas, and to develop some of these trade schools and all the rest. Because if we're going to build things in this country, we need to have individuals who work with their hands, that have really good skills,

[00:33:14] mechanical ability and training so that we can do what we have been sending overseas for two or three decades. It's time to bring some of these jobs back to America. And it's also time for us to tell some of the younger Americans, it's time to go to work. Let's take a break. We have a lot more to cover. We'll do that right after this.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for just a few more minutes. And first of all, I want to ask if you have ever seen the movie Big Short. Perhaps you've read the book Big Short by Michael Lewis. And that is what we're going to talk about for just a minute. Because some people are starting to suggest maybe we're getting back into the same situation that was so economically devastating in 2008.

[00:34:24] Now, a lot of this comes from a viral video that is out there. And it comes out through TikTok. And I'm not really a TikTok person. But it turns out that my daughter is. Sent it to me. Then I've seen other people quoting it. It's by Tiffany Cianti. And I think, again, we don't know enough yet. I'm going to suggest that we need to know more about this. But it does have a cause for concern.

[00:34:53] Turns out Tiffany Cianti was actually looking at a very interesting phenomenon. We're seeing a number of companies that are making money. And they're still filing for bankruptcy. Now, the one she was actually first looking at was Hooters. Okay, I know this is not a Hooters crowd. So, got that. But it is also true for Joann's, if you like fabric and things like that.

[00:35:20] Or Party City, you like going there for parties. Or Big Lots. These are all the same kind of companies that are generating income. And they're all filing bankruptcy. And she is convinced that what she's uncovered is maybe similar to what happened in 2008. Okay, let me try to explain that for just a minute without getting into the deep weeds.

[00:35:45] And that is that these various companies have actually wanted to get what's called private equity. They get loans. And so those loans are something that is sort of the cost of doing business. But it turns out those loans are what are called adjustable rate loans. Well, when you get an adjustable rate loan and the interest rate is 1%, no problem.

[00:36:13] When the interest rate is four times what it was just a year, a couple years ago, because we've raised the interest rates. Who has done that? The Federal Reserve has raised the interest rates. You are starting to have a situation in which you're making money. Money is coming in the door. But you don't have enough to pay off your adjustable rate loans. Does that make sense? That's sign of Economics 101.

[00:36:38] Well, the level, according to her, of these adjustable rate loans, these private equity loans, is $3.8 trillion. With a T, $3.8 trillion. And so for the last three years, these interest rates have come up higher and higher and higher. And so you have a situation. You may not care whether Hooters goes out of business. But I suspect many of you might be upset.

[00:37:07] I just went to Joanne's website, going out of business, bankrupt, party city, big lots, whatever, going out of business. Again, you may not even go to some of those particular establishments. But you should be concerned because what begins to happen is a series of dominoes fall.

[00:37:26] Now, if you've ever seen the movie Big Short, that was illustrated in one way by having a Jenga number of pieces and pulling out some of the Jenga pieces. And eventually the thing goes. Now, at that time, of course, they were talking about all sorts of other issues related to that. Some private loans and all the rest.

[00:37:48] I think really to understand that, I think the film Big Short did a pretty good job of explaining what was going on. Well, if you go back to 2008, we're talking about 1.1 trillion loans that were subplime. You had another 1.3 trillion that were in housing, 3.8 trillion that were in home ownership.

[00:38:10] And you recognized that those could begin to affect the economy in some very significant ways. Just a few minutes ago, you heard me quote from the Treasury Secretary who was asked at the time by NBC, can you predict whether or not there's going to be a recession? He says, I can't even predict whether NBC is going to be on the air next year, which I thought was a great line. But nevertheless, it illustrates the problem.

[00:38:35] Now, if you watch the video, it's almost worse than what Tiffany Siani put together because she's pointed out that a lot of these companies are going bankrupt, and that's going to affect the retail stores. But there's another issue that you have to think about, and that is these stores rent space in commercial real estate malls and shopping centers, retail districts and all the rest.

[00:39:05] And if they go bankrupt, the landlords that hold the rents for all of those, guess what? They aren't able to pay their bills because they aren't getting any kind of payments. And so, again, there's, what is it, $2.7 trillion in commercial real estate loans that were due this last year and have to be refinanced.

[00:39:30] And, of course, the other day I talked about the need in some of this of refinancing even the national debt. Is it possible we're in the midst of some kind of really, again, perfect storm, although I'd want to call it an imperfect storm? And so there is a real concern about this nationwide. If you look overseas, it's even worse because we have a global economy right now that's in turmoil

[00:39:59] about $5.5 trillion that was wiped out of some of the stock market. But just recently you read that Germany had to change its constitution so that it could print another trillion, I guess it would be Deutschmarks, in new debt. And so this is a time in which, again, you should be praying for the president, pray for the Secretary of Treasury, and, of course, I even talked about the Secretary of Commerce.

[00:40:27] These individuals find themselves having to have inherited a lot of things that were not there doing. But, nevertheless, as I oftentimes, as we went through the 2024 campaign, the 2024 campaign said no matter who is president in February and March and April, these are some issues that the next president, whether it's Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, is going to have to address.

[00:40:56] And this is just one more of those issues that has surfaced. So we should be in prayer for our president and recognize how very fragile some of our economic circumstances are right now. And even though the stock market probably will go up, the price of eggs is going down, unemployment is down a little bit, inflation is down a little bit, there are some very concerning thunderclouds in the distance.

[00:41:25] And so all the more reason for us to pray for those in authority. And that's all the more reason to point you to a piece that we have on our website today, Pray for America. We have the most recent one coming out. And if you sign up, we send to you a prayer target every single week. And we would encourage you to find out more about that. We, of course, have the viewpoints commentary I just mentioned.

[00:41:50] And one last time, just thought I would mention that we do have our link to Anchored to Truth, as you've been hearing us talk about. Next week will be our truth team. I'm looking forward to some of the great interviews and some of the guests that Steve Miller has put together for us. But most importantly, we're off to a great start, but we can't do it without you. So if you want to join with us even before we actually announce that on Monday, it's a great opportunity for you to do so as well.

[00:42:19] If you would like to know a little bit more about a couple of these issues, we've talked about what you need to know about Ramadan. Very good piece by Dr. Homo Sariot, also one by Agostina Vergara Chachid about infectious diseases. Of course, this piece by Senator Ron Johnson about is this any way to run a budget? Some pieces about the Tesla terrorists.

[00:42:44] The need to confirm Mike Huckabee, bless his heart, and even rebuilding the Rust Belt. Just a few issues we talked about today here on Point of View. As always, I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow on our weekend edition right here on Point of View.

[00:43:11] At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer. And that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign, a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis.

[00:43:35] You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails. 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.

[00:43:59] 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. 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.

[00:44:27] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries. Point of View Ministries. Point of View Ministries.