Transcript

We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out convictions

>> Rick Green: We inform religious freedom is about people of faith being able to live out.

>> Speaker B: Their faith, live out their convictions no.

>> Rick Green: Matter where they are. We equip sacred honor is the courage to speak truth, to live out your free speech.

>> Speaker B: We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character. This is At the Core on American Family Radio.

Rick Green welcomes Mark David Hall to At the Core

>> Rick Green: Welcome to At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. Thanks for joining me today. Got some more great interviews for you today, starting with Mark David hall from Regent University. Fantastic professor, author, tons of books and research and just great work on the Founding Fathers, which, let's be honest, is hard to find in professors. No offense to professor hall, but typically the ivory tower types, they're detached, detached from reality and frankly often detached from history. They do not choose to teach actual history. They choose to teach whatever fits their worldview, which for most professors is left wing ideology, complete, Marxism. With most of these folks, not Marc David hall, he was out at George Fox University for years. Used to have him on wallbuilders quite often, there. And now he's at Regent and doing a great job, there with our friend Michele Bachmann and others. Love what they're doing at Regent University. And anyway, we're going to get him on to talk about. We had a question on our Wall Builders radio program about some of the Madison papers and some of the things Madison had said at one point. And so this is going to be one of those really cool intellectual conversations to defend, frankly, the faith of the founders and the view of the founders that faith should be a part of not only our private but our public life.

Mark David Hall helps mentor graduate students at Regent University

So let's jump in. Mark David hall, our special guest. So many times we get listener questions and the first response from me or David or Tim is we got to get Mark David hall on to answer that man. So anyway, hey, by the way, catch us at Regent now and, things going well there? Tell us what's going on.

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: Yeah, so Regent began a PhD program about two years ago and they brought me in to help mentor graduate students. So, yeah, I'm there. Loving it. It's a great place to be. And anyone interested in pursuing a doctoral degree or MA should contact me.

>> Rick Green: You know, it's interesting, Michele, Bachman and I've been talking now for about two years about me getting my, doctorate with you guys. So, and at some point I'm hoping to be Studying with you, brother. I really do want to do it. Just no time, right now. But, man, you guys have such a good program, and we're just so thankful for the people that you're training. I've had quite a few Patriot Academy grads go through there and, just phenomenal experiences. So thrilled to have you there, brother.

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: Well, we'd love to have you there as well.

James Madison wrote memorial and remonstrance against religious tax in 1785

>> Rick Green: Well, here's, here's the today's question, that we got. This came from a listener who said, hey, could you please explain the memorial and remonstrance against religious assessments by, James Madison, June 20, 1785, written in response to proposed tax in Virginia. the listener said, I'm, ten pages in, and even though it's written in English, I don't understand what he's. I can't even announce the name of it, Mark. So this listener's at least trying to read through the whole thing. is he for or against it? What was the tax? I don't get it. Thanks for what you do. So, as it is with a lot of these, founders writings, it's, sometimes hard to. I call it hard slogging. And David Barton always reminds me, Rick, most of this stuff was written for the average upstate New York farmer. So you're way behind anyway.

>> Speaker B: Mark, what do you think, man?

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: Yeah, sure. So to take a step back, the Anglican Church, so it's the Church of England, had been the established church of Virginia. And among other things, that meant that everyone was taxed to support the Church of England in Virginia. So Baptists were taxed, Presbyterians were taxed, Methodists were taxed. Now, during the war for American independence, the government of Virginia was busy doing a lot of other things, and so they ceased taxing everyone to support the Church of England. And you had a lot of Baptist and Presbyterians who really did not like paying taxes to support the Church of England. And so there were practical reasons for not attempting to tax them. And so basically, the government got out of the business of taxing people to support and established church. Now, this really was worrisome to Patrick Henry. And so after the war for American independence, he said, look, guys, religion is really important. And by religion, he meant Christianity, of course. Christianity is very, very important. And so we need to come up with a scheme to tax people to support ministers. Otherwise, the best and brightest young men will become attorneys or merchants or doctors. They won't go into the ministry. And so he proposed a general assessment bill, which basically would tax people to support the church they chose attend. So if you think about it, that's not actually all that oppressive. If you're Baptist, you're taxed to support the Baptist church, Presbyterian tax to support the Presbyterian church, and Anglican, you're taxed to support the Anglican church. And so this was not an unreasonable plan. However, there were people opposed to it and James Madison was one of them. And so he wrote the memorial and remonstrance against this plan. And basically his argument was that any government control of or support of the church is bad for the church. And so we ought to reject this general assessment plan and just get the government out of the business of religion altogether. And so his remonstrance was against Patrick Henry's plan. Now sometimes secular historians treat this as an objection to supporting religion, but it was not. Madison's argument was that government support of or control of religion, by which he meant Christianity, is actually bad for Christianity. We need to get the government out of the business of Christianity and leave that to the church. And ultimately Madison won the day. Patrick Henry's general assessment bill was lost and the government got out of the business of supporting religion in Virginia, that is supporting religion through tax dollars. Madison, late in life reflected on this. It was something like 1820s in there. He wrote a letter saying that basically this getting the government out of the business of religion was excellent for Christianity. Christianity was flourishing in Virginia in a way it never had done before in the 1820s, 1830s. So yeah, so ultimately Madison was against Patrick Henry's general assessment bill, but he was against it because he understood it to be bad for Christianity. More important than Madison's, memorial and remonstrance though was an evangelical petition written in the same context. And basically this petition argued that Christianity was far more pure before Constantine established it as the official faith of the Roman Empire and that Jesus Christ himself did not require government support. We need to get the government out of the business of religion and then Christianity will flourish. And so basically Madison, these evangelicals and most right thinking Virginians I think were against government control of and support of religion. And by support, I mean tax support, of religion. So the monstrance was against government taxation to support Christianity. but I think the reasoning was exactly correct.

>> Rick Green: Yeah. So such an important take home message there that like you said, a lot of times people will try to say this means he was, you know, against religion itself or against faith having an important role in our public and private lives. And really it was an argument over what's the Right way to support. And I did not realize that the early tax was literally taking money. You were literally taxing people of other denominations to support a particular denomination. So I could totally understand why their knee jerk reaction certainly would be if we get government involved then whoever controls the purse strings is going to direct the money to the sect of their choice. And it should be that the, the individuals get to direct that money where they want it to go, which is essentially what we have today.

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: Yeah, that's exactly right. So let me tell you a fun piece of trivia. So it's often assumed that when Patrick Henry's bill was defeated and Thomas Jefferson's bill to establish religious liberty was passed in 1786, that is a formal end of religious establishment in Virginia. But it's not. In 1784 Virginia passed a law telling the Anglican Church in Virginia how it would govern itself. Now think about that. The government of Texas passing a law to tell the Southern Baptist Church in, in Texas how to govern itself. Right there. Greater intrusion. this bill was not repealed. This law was not repealed until 1787. And so I would say that is when the Anglican Church was formally disestablished in Virginia. And again, I want to highlight, you know, some governments are better than others. I much prefer your government in Texas to mine in Oregon. But in any government, I, I do not want any government controlling my church. I think the church is far better off when the government keeps its of it.

>> Rick Green: And you know, that's, I think when most people hear even the phrase separation of church and state, when they hear that kind of stuff, I think that's what they're thinking is that's what they're for is to say we don't want the government controlling our church or telling our church when it can open or what it has to believe, or how it governs itself or what its membership is going to look like, or what it spends its money on, or how it builds its buildings or any of those things that makes sense, that's the separation that we want. Unfortunately, a lot of the times the people that are, that are pushing that narrative, they actually want the other way. They want the church people to not be involved in the state at all. And so having that distinction and explaining this history is so important for a right understanding of the proper role in the proper spheres of jurisdiction here.

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: I think that's exactly right. And ah, I've come really to dislike that phrase separation of church and state because you're exactly right. There's a proper Understanding of it. The church and the state are separate institutions and the state ought not to control the church and the church ought not to control the state. But, at prefer to focus on the words of the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. And now by extension the states, Texas, Oregon, shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The reason I like those words, it's crystal clear that's a one way barrier. It's a restriction on the state, on civic rulers. It is not a restriction on the people of God. Religious people have every right to be involved in matters of state, to be lobbying to end slavery, to end Jim Crow legislation, to end abortion and that sort of thing. In no way, shape or form can the establishment clause be understood as a restriction on the people of God. Whereas a phrase separation of church and state can be misconstrued in that way.

>> Rick Green: That's so good, Mark. And that's.

Mark Twain: The First Amendment is not prohibiting the free exercise of religion

And of course the second half, the free exercise clause right there with it, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. When you take them together, you really do understand these are restrictions on the state, not on the church or on individuals or on people, of faith. So important, man, to be on a, fly on the wall and to have been able to hear some of the debates between Henry and Madison, whether it was at the ratific, convention for the Constitution or hear later on these kind of issues would have been, oh, would have been so cool. I wish we had a time machine. If you run across one, would you, would you invite me and we can go back and watch some of those debates?

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: Yeah, that would be great. I agree with you 100%.

>> Rick Green: Hey, thanks for coming on. Appreciate you being back with us, Mark.

>> Dr. Mark David Hall: Hey, thanks so much.

Rick Green: We have an incredible opportunity with the 250th anniversary of Independence

>> Rick Green: That was Mark David hall, of course, Regent University. And, just great wealth of information. This is one of those things that I keep coming back to. I keep saying we have this incredible, incredible opportunity with the 250th anniversary of the nation, 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence. We have an entire little over a year to be able to educate people on these very things. Exactly what this conversation was about. Because if you step back from just one guy or one founding father, one founding mother, just one of these people in their faith, if you step back and look at the whole thing, the big picture, it was the atmosphere they were breathing, that Christianity was the atmosphere that they were breathing, like we said, and the impact of biblical principles on the formula for America to produce the greatest nation in the history of the world cannot be lost. In fact, must be emphasized. It must be this window we have. If we're going to celebrate the birthday of the nation in this window, we have to remind people what we're celebrating. Why did America make it 250 years? Why did we become the most powerful, most free, most benevolent nation in the history of the world, the wealthiest nation in the world? Why did our economics work better? Why did our system of elections and constitutional republic limitations upon government, itself and the people that we put in office? Why did all of that work so well? So this is a tremendous opportunity where the, where people are paying attention. Maybe not so much right now, today, but over the next year. Trust me on this. Eyes are gonna be open. You just watch. In the next few weeks, President Trump's gonna be making some major announcements about the 250th. It's gonna get people thinking about it. It's gonna get them, you know, focused on what we're doing between now and July 4, 2026. We're gonna be pushing big time here at American Family. We're gonna be pushing big time at Patriot Academy and Wallbuilders and all these different organizations. In fact, our goal at Patriot Academy, 100 other organizations, to equip them with the Constitution classes, the Declaration of Independence, education, the history and the fun, entertaining history of our country so that those organizations can then train their people. We're not gonna be able to train everybody here at American Family Radio. We're not gonna be able to train everybody through Patriot Academy or Wall Builders. This can take a concentrated effort with all of these great organizations. Moms for Liberty, Moms for America, Trail Life, American Heritage, all the family policy councils around the country, Turning Point, Faith, Salt and Light Council, Liberty Pastors, I mean, you name it. All these different groups are gonna have to be locking shields together for this effort. And if we don't do that, we're gonna miss the best opportunity in my lifetime for sure. Maybe the best opportunity of the last hundred years to meet the need that is actually right before us. The need being that the American people have lost patriotism. They've lost an understanding of why we wave the flag. When Ronald Reagan. Reagan warned, he said, I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that would lead to an erosion of the American spirit. That's exactly what happened. And he told us what to do. He said, we need more civic ritual. We need to teach more American history. Well, civic ritual is what the 250th is all about. So the window of opportunity is there now. Let's dive in. Let's shove that window open and dive through and seize the day. Carpe diem, folks. Let's do the most with this that we possibly can. My book is not out available for the public yet, but do make sure you're on the email [email protected] because this new book, a Blueprint for Rebuilding Liberty, Just in time for America's 250th, is about to be available. And I want to make sure you know about it so that you can help do this in your community. Stay with us. We'll be right back. You're listening to At the Core with your host, Rick Green

>> Speaker B: At the Core podcasts are available @ afr.net now back to At the Core on American Family Radio.

Rick Green talks about tariffs with Bill Federer

>> Rick Green: We're back here on at the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green. And I was just talking before the break about the importance of this moment and us getting educated about what we're all about. Well, part of that sometimes goes deep and today we're going to do that in this segment with Bill Federer. We're going to talk about tariffs and the history of tariffs and try to get our hands around this particular issue that we frankly hadn't paid much attention to for years and years. And that's why we've been so taken advantage of on this. And Donald Trump's trying to set the table, and correct that, reset the table. so Bill Federer, our special guest, we're going to be talking about the history of that. He's got an entire book on this. And, and of course, you know, Bill is one of the best guys on the planet to, to talk about these kind of things. Bill, thanks for coming on, man.

>> Bill Federer: Well, hey, Rick, great to be with you.

>> Rick Green: Oh, man, I'm telling you, this is going to be a fun topic today because normally when we're talking economics or taxes, everybody's falling asleep. But right now, tariffs has everybody's attention. And so David Tim said, man, we got to get Bill Federer on. They'd seen some of the things you had already given some of the history on, tariffs and all that said, man, let's get Bill on and, and get an education.

Bill Federer: Are tariffs constitutional and are they good or bad economically

So I, bro, I'm just going to throw it at you a real easy one. I mean, tariffs, are they constitutional and are they good or bad economically? And take it away, bro.

>> Bill Federer: Yeah, well, they are constitutional. Article 1, Section 8 authorizes the federal government to collect duties and imposts to pay the debts, provide for the common defense and the general welfare of the United States. Duties and imposts is another name for tariffs. Tariffs. And this was the number one way the federal government raised its money for a century and a half. Matter of fact, the second bill George Washington signed was the Tariff act of 1789, which imposed a 5% tariff on all imports. And, Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of treasury. And what's he supposed to do? Raise revenue for the federal government. And since revenue came from tariffs and you had foreign. Foreign governments wanting to avoid the tariffs, they would smuggle stuff into America by taking their ship to, another place instead of going into a port. And so Alexander Hamilton started the Coast Guard to catch these smugglers. And since the fastest ship of the day was called a cutter, these were called revenue cutters because they were chasing down revenue to support the federal government. Government. Now, Industrial revolution England used coal. Coal mines would fill up with water. In 1769, James Watt discovered or invented a steam pump to pump water out of coal mines. It quickly turned into the steam engine and it ran factories where they made textiles like cloth and shoes and leather items. And so the factories, were in England. And the British discouraged manufacturing in the colonies because they wanted a market for these goods that are manufactured. And once we became free from Britain, we wanted to have factories here. And so Thomas Jefferson in 1816 said, it may be the duty of all to submit to this sacrifice to pay for a time and imposed on importation of certain articles in order to encourage their manufacture at home. So it's like, okay, we're going to have Jefferson. Yeah. You know, we may have to suffer, paying a little bit extra for a while, but it'll give our country a chance to catch up. We'll build our own factories and then we won't need to import stuff. And so it worked. We saw this mushroom, this explosion of factories. Now, admittedly, most of them were in the north, but they had steam powered spinning jennies. What's that? Well, they would take, wool, like from sheep, and if you put it under a microscope, it has these little barbs and hooks and if you, they would hook together. And if the, the more you pull it, the tighter it gets and it gets thinner and turns into thread. And so they, instead of a woman sitting at a one of those wheels, you know, spinning the thread. Thread. The, the spinning jennies would do this really fast. And then they would weave with looms. L O o m m s and they could make the bolts of cloth. And this had the effect of freeing women up from menial tasks, like sitting there, spinning thread, weaving cloth, sewing clothes. Now, you could buy an entire bolt of cloth really cheap, or you could even buy ready to wear clothes. Clothes. Imagine that. And then instead of washing clothes in a washtub and hanging them on clotheslines, the women could have a washer machine and a dryer. And instead of carrying water in buckets from a well, you could have pipes manufactured in factories, bringing the water right into your house. So instead of going to an outhouse, you could have indoor plumbing. These things basically freed women up from these menial tasks.

>> Bill Federer: And so America saw the fastest rise in the standard of living in human history, and it worked. And so by the, 1812, the tariffs were on 12%. And then they went up to 25% after the war of 1812. Right. We had the war.

>> Rick Green: Hey, Bill, let me ask you a question. Were those. Do you remember if those were across the board? Was it, a, straight up tariff across the board for anything coming in, or did they pick certain products?

>> Bill Federer: back then, it was pretty much for everything. Everything.

>> Rick Green: Yeah.

>> Bill Federer: now, they did have another small tax called an excise tax, and that was on specific items like salty tobacco, alcohol.

>> Rick Green: Okay.

>> Bill Federer: and today we call them sin taxes. So you would do want to discourage people from buying alcohol or cigarettes. You tax them to make it more expensive. And. But, but the big bulk of income was from tariffs. And so it was 60% tariffs by the time just prior to the Civil War. so Ben Steelman wrote In Commentary magazine, March 1962, an article, Tariffs, the Kennedy and Politics. He says, in the early years of the republic, all but about $20,000 out of the $4.5 million of treasury income stemmed from tariffs on levies, goods from other countries, countries up to the Civil War. In fact, over 90% of the federal government's receipts came from tariffs. And then, of course, you have.

>> Rick Green: Wait, wait, wait, Bill, you got to repeat that, man. That's huge. That's not just in the fat. Not just like, right after we got the Constitution or, you know, 10 years into being a nation. Up until the Civil War, 90% of the federal revenue came from terrorists. Did I hear you right on that?

>> Bill Federer: Right. Right now, now, the. The. It gets a little bit into the weeds that the north benefited from the tariffs. And they had factories, every little town and village in, you know, Massachusetts, and had some fact, but the south didn't. The south was agricultural. So the south was having to either buy stuff from Europe, more expensive, or stuff from the Northern factories. And at one point, most of the income was paid for by tariffs collected at Southern ports. And so from time to time they would threaten not to collect. Collect it. And that's when Lincoln sent the troops to Fort Sumter to say, no, you're going to continue to collect these tariffs. And it started the Civil War. So once the south broke away, the north didn't have any income. And so Abraham Lincoln pushed through an emergency income tax to raise $750 million to pay for the war. After the war, the south is now part of the Union. We're collecting tariffs and, and by the early 1900s, 95% of the federal government, was financed through tariffs. It was a 95% tariff.

Woodrow Wilson had an income tax during the emergency of World War I

And and it was called the Gilded Age. It, it worked. We were producing stuff. If, if you've ever been, I'm sure you have to. The capital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it was built during this time in the early 1900s, right after the, you know, world's, fair and so forth and Chicago ago. And the it's, it's gilded everything. It's like so ornate. There was an opulence and wealth that the country had. And so this was, great. But then you have Woodrow Wilson pushes through the first income tax as 1% tax on the top 1% richest people. He actually tacked it onto a tariff bill. and the, the problem was German immigrants. Immigrants were coming over and they had been infected with Marxism and they would work in factories and unionize and they would say redistribution of wealth. And the the government tried to stop it, stop it, stop. And then finally says, okay, look, we'll, we'll push through this income tax on the wealthy. it, it would be today only taxing the George Soros, the, the Bezos, the Zuckerbergs, Larry Fink with BlackRock. It wasn't going to tax the people, just those, what they would call robber barons. but they weren't rich because they're stupid. They're rich because they know how to handle money. So as soon as the income tax passed, they created tax free foundations, educational foundations, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation. So they didn't pay the tax anyway, but the tariffs were still the main source of income. 1921, you, have George, Washington Carver, the peanut farmer from Tuskegee. And on January 21, 1921, he goes to Washington D.C. at the request of the United Peanut Growers association to lobby the U.S. house Ways and Means Committee for what a Tariff on peanuts imported from China. They were bringing them in from China so cheap it was undercutting the Southern farmers. And, and so George Washington Carver lobbies, and he's successful. And they passed the Fordney McCumber Tariff Bill of 1922, and then a short time later, the Smoot Hawley Tariff Bill, 1930. But, but tariffs were the main source of income for the federal government for the first century and a half. Then Woodrow, Wilson.

>> Rick Green: And that just, just to review on those numbers, because it really is hard to get your head around, around 90%, roughly the Civil War, and then up to 95% in that, in that early 1900s. And then like, like everything else, all bad things come from Woodrow Wilson, I think. So then he brings in the, the progressive income tax. And, and, and then it was it a little while before they started really reducing the amount that would come from terrorists because of, like you said, the, the, the, the little, you know, the, the few that they were trying to tax with the income tax at that time. Time found ways to evade it so that it just didn't bring in much money.

>> Bill Federer: Right. So, it was the, it was Franklin Roosevelt. So Franklin Roosevelt expanded the income, tax to the entire country. And it, even. It was during World War II. So we have an income tax during the emergency of the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson had an incomes tax during the emergency of World War I. And here's FDR having an income tax during World War II. It was part of the Buy war bonds. Uncle Sam needs you, and pay your taxes. Fight the Axis. so this was this government campaign. And John F. Kennedy in 1961, April 20, says, in meeting the demands of war finance, the individual income tax moved from a selective tax imposed on the wealthy to the means by which the great majority of our citizens participate in paying.

>> Bill Federer: Kennedy saying, it used to just be a selective tax imposed on the wealthy, but during the war, the majority of the citizens, but people made about $5,000 a year and they did not save up money to pay an income tax at the end of the year. And so nobody's paying. And so Beardsley Ruml is the chairman of Macy's department store. You know, the Thanksgiving Day parade. He becomes the director of the New York Federal Reserve, and he gives FDR an ID idea called paycheck withholding. Oh, no, we'll just take a little bit out of the paycheck and nobody will notice. And it worked. Kennedy says. April 20, 1961. Withholding on wages and salaries was introduced during the war when the Income tax was extended to millions of new taxpayers. It's like, so whenever you see your paycheck and there's something withheld, you can thank, Franklin Roosevelt about.

>> Rick Green: And Bill, we were just talking. My family and I were just sitting around over the weekend talking about it as everybody's, you know, filing their taxes, getting ready to go. And, and my oldest son Trey, that was exactly his point. He was like, if everybody else had to do, what his siblings were having to do, which is file, you know, 1099, so they're paying it all at the end of the year. He said, if everybody else had to do this, we wouldn't put up with the amount of money that the government takes from us. But because it's hidden in the check every month, they actually think they get a refund at the end of the year. Oh, I didn't realize, realize that that came from the guy at Macy's Now, Now I have a new target for my, not my love, let's put it that way. Anyway, go ahead, brother. Sorry.

>> Bill Federer: So there is a fallout from taxes. It's called outsourcing. And so after World War II, we're rebuilding Germany and Japan, Marshall Plan. And they had, have brand new factories with really cheap labor. And so when FDR raises the taxes really high, the business owners are successful. They know financial stuff. They said, look, let's just open up a factory overseas. And we will, we'll have cheaper labor, won't have to worry about unions and wages, and we won't have to worry about lawsuits and government red tape. And we can produce stuff cheaper. And then with all of our profits, we can donate to politicians so that we can get them to vote to lower the tariffs even more. More so we can bring more stuff into America. And this is called free trade. And so what happens is as the, foreign goods come in, it undercuts the American made goods and puts the factories out of business. And then we have unemployment. And then the foreign countries realize, hey, we can now pressure U. S. Foreign policy because if they don't do what we want, we can threaten to withhold our products or our, rare earth metals or something. The computer chips from China that because we've had several generations of not manufactured. So John F. Kennedy says this, he says, I've asked the secretary of treasury, this is February 6, 1961. I've asked the secretary of treasury to report on whether the present tax laws may be stimulating an undue amount of flow of American capital to industrial countries abroad. It's like, you Squeeze the sponge, the water goes out. You raise the taxes on business owners, they're going to move their business where there's the least resistance. Kennedy said April 20, 1961. In those countries where income taxes are lower than in the United States, the ability to defer the payment of US Tax by retaining income in subsidiary companies provides a tax advantage for companies operating through overseas subsidiary carries that is not available to companies operating solely in, in the United States. So that was John F. Kennedy saying, okay, we got this problem. We're raising taxes and all the businesses are leaving, and then they're getting the profit, we're getting more, unemployment, and then they can pressure us when it comes to negotiating foreign policy. And so Kennedy's answer was to cut taxes. And so, Reagan basically adopted Kennedy's plan.

A tax cut means higher family income, higher business profits and a balanced federal budget

Kennedy said this Sept. 18, 1963. A tax cut means higher family income, higher business profits, and a balanced federal budget. Every taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a new car, a new home, new convenience, education and investment.

>> Rick Green: Hold that thought, folks.  We'll be right back. You're listening to at the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green.

>> Speaker B: At the Core podcasts are available @ afr.net now back to At the Core on American Family Radio.

>> Rick Green: We're back here on At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution coach. Jumping right back in with Bill Federer. Where we left off before the break.

>> Bill Federer Every businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash register or put it to work expanding or improving his business. And as the national income grows, grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenue. So it's like.

>> Rick Green: What was it? What was this Republican's name again? What was. Oh, oh, oh, wait. Democrat John F. Kennedy. Yes. Yes. That's good stuff, man.

>> Bill Federer: Yeah, it's like, cut taxes, people have more money. What are they going to do with the money? They're going to buy stuff.

>> Rick Green: Yeah.

>> Bill Federer: So the factories will have to hire more people to meet the increased demand, and then the business owners will have more money. They're going to invest it in their business, and they'll be able to hire more people. People. And so the caveat is, you give the tax cut to the companies operating on American soil. It's not just for any business. It's the businesses that are operating on American soil. So it was effectively doing the same thing that Trump is doing now with the tariffs. Kennedy said this January 17, 1963, lower rates of Taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased flow of revenue to the federal government. So he says it might take a couple years, but we're going to catch up. And and then Kennedy said November 20, 1962. It's a paradoxical truth. The tax rates are too high, tax revenues are too low. And the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut tax rates. Now cutting taxes is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve a more prosperous, expanding economy. Economy that can bring a budget surplus. So that's the, the situation for 150 years. Tariffs were the main source of income, an emergency one during the Civil War because the southern ports were not collecting tariffs and giving it to the North. After the war we're back to tariffs. We have this Gilded Age industrial revolution. We have the highest rise in the standard of living. and then we have Woodrow William Wilson and he pushes through this 1% income tax, but it was just to soak the rich one. I mean there is a question as to whether or not it was ratified correctly, but really the attitude of most of the people in the country was yeah, go for it. We're tax those rich guys, you know, the Rockefellers and Carnegie's and J. Paul Gettys and Astors and Flaglers and Harriman's and Melons. But then it was FDR raised the taxes and that caused outsourcing. And then this thing called free trade. But it's not really free trade. It's undercutting the American businesses. And and so Trump's wanting to go back to what we had during the period where we had the fastest rise in the standard of living.

>> Rick Green: It's so interesting that they, when they, you know, they use the terminology free trade because they knew that would play on our free enterprise love, right? So we want free enterprise. But they, they use this, created this term free trade. and if it was actually free enterprise and free trade, it'd be different. And you know, it's just, it's interesting to see the table being reset in such a powerful, powerful way. But if we don't know that history, then it's it's very easy to fall for some of the arguments and things that people are making right now as they're criticizing what President Trump's doing. Bill Federer, God bless you man. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for the hit history, where I know you've got a book on the income tax. The history of the income tax, where can people get that?

>> Bill Federer: Yeah, yeah, it's called the interesting history of income tax.

>> Rick Green: And do you cover tariffs in that as well?

>> Bill Federer: Yes, yes. And okay, there's a, a whole, there's a debt stimulated economy that John Maynard Keynes came up with where if the government goes in debt, spends money in the private sector to create jobs, the jobs will pay taxes, the taxes will pay the debt. But it never worked because every politician funnels money to their district, district, you know, goes more in debt, but they never want to raise the taxes to pay for it. And so now we got a 36 trillion dollar debt with no way of paying it off. And so Trump's doing emergency surgery. debt is fat to the body politic. You know, you have a body, you, you eat stuff you shouldn't and it turns into fat. And you got to carry it around. It's not brain tissue or muscle tissue, doesn't, doesn't add anything to you, but you got to carry it around. Well, what's debt? You spend money you don't have and then you got to pay interest on it. I mean here we are giving billions to foreign countries that we don't have. We're just creating, we're putting this debt under our kids. So this debt stimulated economy is something that I talk about in the book and then the last part is I did a book called Endangered Speeches. It's a play on words. Endangered Speeches. How the ACLU, IRS and LBJ threaten extinction of free speech. Speech. And you think, what's that? Well, LBJ is the one who pressured the 501C3 status. So I get into the whole thing of Bolshevik revolution. So the Carnegie's and so forth, when they raised that 1% tax, they funneled their money into Tax free foundation so they could avoid paying the tax. when FDR raised the taxes, they sent their factories overseas. But when Woodrow Wilson raised the taxes, they just put their profits into tax free foundations so they could still control it. But then you had the Bolshevik revolution and communists were forming the 501c3s, educational foundations to overthrow America. And that's when the government says, oh, we're going to limit these 501C3s. And as I get into that whole history. But maybe that's an interview for another time.

>> Rick Green: Yeah, we will, we'll cover that another time. And and I'm going to remember the whole cutters, the revenue cutters, which Elon Musk is, as hopefully Going to lead the charge on that one, Bill Federer. God bless you, man. Thanks for coming on.

>> Bill Federer: Thank you, Rick.

Rick Green: It's been a good year. I've just, you know, it's,

>> Rick Green: Good stuff. We're going to jump right over to Barbara Ehart. She's a state rep out of Idaho, doing incredible things there. And just a lot of good news to catch you up on. So this is going to be good. Great to have you back on. We, we did a show, I don't know, a year or so ago when you were working on getting those guys out of girls sports, but you had a lot of victories this session, so appreciate you coming on and giving us an update, Rick.

>> Barbara Ehart: You know, it's so good to be here. I'm such a fan of, wall builders and you guys, so I'm happy to be here. It's been a good year.

>> Rick Green: Year. Well, we're a fan of yours, so doing great work. I've just, you know, it's, it's such a great time to be alive right now and just see this rebirth of, of respect for the principles of liberty and just getting back to some basic ideas. I mean, so many of the things that you're working on. Who would have thought 10 years ago or 20 years ago that you would have to spend time in the legislature getting these things done? but, wow, common sense without the window. And so you did. You had to stand up, up. And, and, of course, you know, the fight against, you know, guys taking over girl sports has, has been a big part of your time.

27 states have passed fairness legislation for women's sports

But there's some other victories we want to talk about as well, but let's start with that one. apparently there's been some court victories upholding your legislation. So just kind of catch us up on what's happened since we had you on last time, man.

>> Barbara Ehart: You know, when, when we spoke last, I think that, we didn't have that many states that had passed it. As of right now, we have 27 states that have passed the fairness women's sports. Obviously, we know that we have the battle kind of raging at the federal level, even, you know, the funny thing is Democrats, this is supported by over 80%, they say 79. Our numbers have long been higher than that, and that means Democrats support it. But, you know, as soon as this gets politicized and you look at those who support Democrats politically, you can't have it because you're talking the ACLU, Human Rights Commission, all sorts of facets of the LGBT, you know, groups. And so they won't let the Democrats support this kind of legislation, which hopefully will get them unelected soon. But you know, aside from that, we definitely have had some, some victories for, for us. Actually right now my legislation had been held up. Yes, go ahead. Yes.

>> Rick Green: Hey, Gun. I just want to drill down on that real quick on, on what you just said because I think people have missed this. The Democrats digging in on this just continues to hurt them. And they, it's like you would think they would see that. They used to be so smart politically, you know, you know, the James Carville's of the world that masterminded all these campaigns and they kind of could feed, they could read what the people wanted. you know, on the upside for them, they were, you know, basically just cared about power. So they were willing to be whatever they had to be. It wasn't about principles, it was about what was popular. But now, I mean, they're losing this battle over and over and over again and most Americans are against them and yet they still dig in. It just shocks me.

>> Barbara Ehart: Right. And again, I really think it's because of the people with whom they're aligned. Aligned. So this year, let me just give a, case in point. This year, at the beginning of the session, I don't know who knows, but I was the one behind the Boise State. They were, they weren't the first, but they were the one. We knew about Boise State women's volleyball pulling out of the match. Volleyball match against San Jose State. And they, they, Now Southern Utah had done it in a tournament earlier in the year. Nobody really understood why. But with Boise State it was because they'd be playing against a man. And in the, in the conversations with that, then that led, you know, you know, we were able to get Utah State to pull out and University Wyoming to pull out. And then Icons had also been working with Nevada because the gal said, hey, we're not going to do it. Even though administration said, yeah, we're going to. So at the beginning of the year I ran a resolution to. It was a, you know, first, first, main piece of legislation honoring our women's volleyball team at Boise State. Right. They're right next door to the Cast Capital. And as, as we were doing that, I had many. Now we only have nine Democrats on, on the House side. They came quietly into my office to say, hey, you know, we want to support this. But they, they didn't speak up during, when, when it was being presented there. You know, my, my colleague Heather Scott was also presenting something basically, going against Obergerfeld with, with marriage and you know, bringing that back to the states. But they didn't speak up. And because of that, they. The Democrats got blasted. And who did they get blasted by? I mean, just blasted by the LGBT group. So they didn't really say anything against it, but they. They. Some. They came into my office saying they wanted to support it, and they couldn't. That's a true statement. So this is indicative of, the groups that have such power and influence over the Democrats, and they're all aligned with the LGBT and the silly LGBT agenda. You know, the. That those who are LGBT in. In my life, they don't buy into this stuff. They just want to live their life. This isn't. This isn't some political statement they want to make. And that's what's so frustrating.

>> Rick Green: Oh, yeah, they've had, you know, it's been really interesting to see. and of course, we all kind of thought about that, the LGBTQ thing and just, you know, lesbian, gay. but, man, the transgender thing. Wow. Even you have so many lesbian and gay groups that are against this whole transgender thing because they see just how insane, insane it is. So it's been really, really interesting to see.

You had a lot of big pieces of legislation passed this session

Okay, I'm so sorry. You were about to talk about, some of the new legislation this session, and I derailed us. So let's go back to some of these other victories you've been working on Free speech. You've been working on. On the campus free speech. You've been working on the, you know, opted out of sex ed. You had a lot of big pieces of legislation in this session that you've been working on for years. And. And, it takes time, on a lot of these big issues to get it done. It takes several sessions to win over enough colleagues. And so you've had some great victories. This session goes for it.

>> Barbara Ehart: Well, well, let me just say also this session, Idaho, we. We probably had the most conservative session that we've ever had. Not probably. We did and got, you know, got some good people elected and. And, that definitely helped. But, yeah, from my. My first day at the Capitol, I started working on sexuality.

>> Rick Green: Opt.

>> Barbara Ehart: in, because we have an opt out, right. Which. Which basically purports to say that you're in unless you decide to be out. And the only way you find that out is if you find out what's being taught. But you don't know what's being taught because they're not being told what's being taught. So you're basically in. And the kids, even in Idaho, are, being exposed to things. I mean, that the parents don't want. And this is what the fight is nationally, right? Whenever you listen to the school board meetings, it's always about this kind of stuff. And so I presented a definition of human sexuality that could, not be taught, that was pretty all inclusive of you know, basically all the things that we wouldn't want taught. And the irony of that is I got that definition from the human, health organization. You know, as they talked about what sexuality was, I'm like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. So we got that passed. And I'll tell you, there's there honestly, the Lord's hand was in that. As a matter of fact, the Lord's hand was in a few of these things. We were able. I had also been working on campus free speech for five years, years. And you know, that and Idaho, believe it or not, we just had a case close and it was from the University of Idaho just over a year ago where they had shut down. And it's always the conservatives, right? They had literally shut down three Christian conservatives voices, gave them a gag order and then included a professor with that, and you know, right on campus. Because campuses, universities like to think that they can control political speech, political, speech zones, speech zones and codes. And they don't. You don't lose your First Amendment when you walk on, you know, that campus. So that was another victory. And then the other one that a lot of people are becoming more and more aware about. And you know, I had more. But the ones that you guys are probably interested in would, would have been the safety and privacy for women. Meaning men can't go in our women's prisons, men can't go in our women's domestic violence shelters, in our juvenile cities centers. And the big part, this is where the battle was. I included the universities, meaning men's men can't be in our women, only dorms. So they.

Barbara Ehart: The 9th Circuit upheld our anti-gender bathroom ban

You don't send your daughter. And lo and behold, she finds out for the rest of the year she's going to have a roommate that identifies as a woman but is really a man.

>> Rick Green: Wow.

>> Barbara Ehart: Has access to the showers. And so. But the battle there is. Once we included the university, that meant we had to include the bathrooms on the university, including at games. And, and that doesn't. Anyway, there's a whole nuance to that. But in my fai. And again, one of the miracles that happened with this held up in the 9th Circuit for the last two years was SB 1100 from our art stuff two years ago, which basically said that K through 12, the boys can't go in the girls restroom. We have boys going in all our girls restrooms. It's terrible. K through 12. And we have. We have football stadiums on our. On our, high school campuses. We have basketball. So the ninth circuit unanimously upheld that for us. It was amazing. And it happened just as my legislation is being debated, trying to, you know, with the Democrats saying, oh, this won't work, and what happens about the football games? And then, lo and behold, it's like the same thing. What happens in the high school. You have to have a policy, you know, and, and. And then you have to, you know, work to catch that person. But anyway, it all got upheld. It all got passed. It's been absolutely amazing. Some of the things we've been able. We've been able to do. And, you know, that's just some of the things that I was able to get done this year. It was incredibly productive. Prayer was such a part of this nation's founding of, of our presidents, of, you, know, not just days of prayer, but prayer and fasting. So we're trying to do it right, Rick. We're trying to do it right. And we have seen his hand in. In that. Which we've been doing on the campus. I mean, at the capital. Good.

>> Rick Green: So good.

>> Barbara Ehart: So thank you.   Yeah.

>> Rick Green: Well, God bless you and, and thank you for all that you're doing. I know your session just ended. Hope you get some good rest and get back in the fight. And, let's connect offline because I'd love to. I sure love to have you come speak at Patriot Academy when we're at the capital. I hate for you to have to go back to Boise in the summer, but if the schedules work out, I know the students would love to hear from you. We just appreciate you so much. Just know we're praying for you and we're thankful that you're such a warrior.

>> Barbara Ehart: Thank you so much, and I'd love to do that.

>> Rick Green: That's it for today, folks. Thanks for listening to At the Core with Walker Wildmon and Rick Green. Little things can make a difference. A little note, little smile, the small stone that David hurled at Goliath. And precious little babies. When you sponsor an ultrasound at preborn, your gift, no matter how small, makes a difference in a big way. Who will this little baby become? What giants will this baby slay? How about the mother who was spared from unspeakable sorrow because of you? You never know the difference. You're going to make with a donation of just $28 to introduce a mother to her child through ultrasound. Ultrasound. It doubles a baby's chance at life. All you have to do is take a few small minutes to make a life saving donation. Preborn will take it from there as their network of clinics rescue 200 tiny babies every day and share God's love with mothers. Preborn has a 100% charity rating, so you can give with confidence. Get involved today by dialing #250 and say the keyword baby. That's #250 baby. Or go to preborn.com that's preborn.com

>> Speaker B: Views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.