The World and Everything in It - May 12, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Biden Administration proposes a massive expansion of government along with the requisite price tag.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also, World Tour.

Plus a small coffee business run by Christians that serves up a whole lot more than espressos and Americanos.

And what happens when words lose their meaning.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, May 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

Now time for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: U.S. job openings soar to highest level on record » U.S. job openings have soared to their highest level on record.

The Labor Department on Tuesday reported job gains increased only modestly, even as employers lament a severe shortage of workers.

The news comes as several states have announced plans to end so-called enhanced unemployment benefits. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster he’s heard from many businesses with ‘Help Wanted’ signs in the window.

MCMASTER: They’re looking for people to work, and the people just won’t come to work because they’re getting as much money, or more in some cases, by staying home.

The $300 per week federal boost to unemployment aid started at the height of COVID-19 shutdowns. But the Republican governor said companies are now open for business, and it’s time to end that program. His state will do so next month, as will at least eight other GOP-led states.

The Labor Department reports that job openings rose to 8.1 million in March. That’s a gain of nearly 8 percent, the most on record. Yet overall hiring rose only 4 percent.

A separate survey of small businesses by the National Federation of Independent Business found that 44 percent had jobs they couldn't fill. That’s also a record high.

Still the White House maintains that enhanced unemployment benefits aren’t the reason. Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the president believes the real cause is …

PSAKI: A range of issues, including primarily the fact that we’re continuing to fight a pandemic. And there are a lot of implications of that. One of them is people being fearful about being safe if they’re not vaccinated. One is childcare.

Tuesday’s report follows a far weaker than expected jobs report on Friday.

Some gas stations run out of fuel following pipeline shutdown » More than 1,000 gas stations in the Southeast have reported running out of fuel this week.

Analysts say the sporadic shortages are due to panic-buying among drivers after news that a cyberattack forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline.

That pipeline delivers almost half of the fuel consumed on the East Coast.

Government officials waived environmental rules to speed the delivery of fuel by truck, ship or rail. But motorists may still feel a crunch because it takes a few days to ramp up operations.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at the White House Tuesday that by the end of the day today…

GRANHOLM: Colonial will be in a position to make a full restart decision. But even after that decision is made, it will take a few days to restart operations. This pipeline has never been shut down before.

Experts don’t expect a significant increase in gas prices as long as the pipeline is back up and running soon, as expected.

Republicans to vote on removing Liz Cheney from leadership » House Republicans will vote today on whether to remove Congresswoman Liz Cheney from her leadership post.

Cheney is the number three ranked Republican in the House. But her ongoing feud with former President Donald Trump has placed her politically on very thin ice which may now be giving way.

Other GOP leaders are worried about alienating Trump supporters ahead of next year’s election.

North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy seems to speak for many Republicans right now. He called Cheney a respected friend, but…

MURPHY: What I think the conference believes right now is that she’s not the best one to move forward. And I think there’s a lot of support that’s gathering around Elise Stefanik to be that messenger, to be that uniter.

New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik could soon replace Cheney in House leadership.

But some GOP lawmakers stand with Cheney and plan to vote “no” on removing her.

Violence escalates in Israeli-Palestinian conflict » Violent conflict continued in the Middle East on Tuesday. Hamas militants fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. And the Israeli military unleashed new airstrikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Stip.

SOUND: GAZA NATS

An unknown number of people died in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas rocket attacks killed at least three people in Israel.

The conflict appeared to be some of the most intense fighting between Israel and Hamas since their 2014 war.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden’s team is engaging “intesively” with senior Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

PSAKI: His team is communicating a clear and consistent message in support of deescalation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the fighting would continue for some time. In a speech Tuesday, he said Hamas and Islamic Jihad “have paid, and will pay, a heavy price” for deadly attacks in Israel.

At least nine people dead after school attack in Russia » At least nine people are dead, including seven children after a gunman attacked a school in Russia. WORLD’s Leigh Jones has that story.

LEIGH JONES, REPORTER: The attacker opened fire at a school Tuesday in the city of Kazan, about 400 miles east of Moscow. In addition to the dead, at least 21 others are hospitalized, six in grave condition.

Authorities arrested the attacker, identified only as a 19-year old former student at the school.

Investigators found violent posts from the attacker on a messaging app. He reportedly vowed to kill a large number of people.

President Vladimir Putin reacted by ordering the head of the country's National Guard to revise regulations on the types of weapons civilians are allowed to own.

The Russian government announced a day of mourning on Wednesday and canceled all classes in Kazan schools.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leigh Jones.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Breaking down the president’s latest multi-trillion dollar spending plan.

Plus, Janie B. Cheaney on the consequences of redefining concrete terms like infrastructure.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 12th of May, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up: spending, spending, and more spending.

After signing the near $2 trillion dollar American Rescue Plan into law in March, the president unveiled another $2 trillion spending package. This one centered on infrastructure and many other things.

And two weeks ago, before a joint session of Congress, the president told lawmakers he’s just getting warmed up.

BIDEN: We can’t stop now. We’re in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century.

The president unveiled another near $2 trillion dollar spending package, which he calls the American Families Plan.

The proposal would extend expanded tax credits, pay for child care, and paid family leave. The plan also includes free college tuition, pre-kindergarten education, and much more.

He has proposed paying for the spending with tax increases, he says, on wealthy Americans.

REICHARD: Joining us now with insight on the president’s proposal is Professor Jeffrey Miron. He is an economist with the Cato Institute and teaches the subject at Harvard. Professor, good morning!

MIRON: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

REICHARD: Well, to start with, let’s run though what’s in the proposal. It would extend child tax credits passed under the American Rescue Plan back in March, correct?

MIRON: Yep, that's correct.

REICHARD: It would also pay for child care and family leave. What can you tell us about that?

MIRON: Let's start with the family leave. That's sort of a significant expansion of federal intervention in the family medical leave area because it's actually providing subsidies to help pay for that. The childcare and pre-K is, again, introducing the federal government in areas where it's had relatively limited intervention. So far, the pre-kindergarten in particular, is offering to pay for anyone to be able to send their children to pre-kindergarten, which is a very significant expansion of the government's role.

REICHARD: Talk about how is that fair when it's across the board? In other words, wealthy families could afford to pay for their own preschool. And yet here we have a bill that's going to apply money to all families?

MIRON: It's going to go to all families. I presume the reason for that is politics. If it only goes to low income families, middle and upper income families are less likely to support it. Whereas if it goes to everyone, then a much broader fraction of voters are likely to support it.

But as you indicate, it's kind of crazy to be paying for pre-kindergarten for middle and upper income families, because they have the resources to do that. They are mainly already doing that in one way or another.  So it just doesn't make sense. From that perspective, it's also hard to, there's not much evidence that doing that has any particular impact on the children. For the vast majority of families, the evidence that expanding pre-kindergarten has been limited to looking at very poor families and to very high and very expensive pre-kindergarten programs. But this is going to be an expansion that's much broader and not to the people where it particularly makes sense.

REICHARD: And then talk about the family leave aspect of the plan.

MIRON: Economists have a bit of a puzzling perspective on paying for family or medical leave, similar to their puzzle about having government pay for a large range of benefits. What we'd emphasize is those are not nearly as good for the recipients as they might think because employers are going to respond to those policies by trying to cut wages.

They know that if families are getting this paid family leave, that compensation is in addition to what the employers had been paying them. That means employers can probably get them to work at a lower wage rate. And so some of the benefit that families are getting is going to be offset, or at least over a few years, by smaller pay increases or wage reductions that offset the benefits they get from the paid family leave and medical leave. In particular, there's going to be redistributions across different types of families. If you've already had kids and the family leaves are not relevant, then you're not getting the benefit. Hey, so there's going to be cross subsidization across different types of workers, depending on whether you're eligible or likely to take advantage of those types of leave policies.

REICHARD: All right now, what about free community college tuition? What is the president proposing there? And how much is that going to cost?

MIRON: Well, that's roughly another 300 billion. It's useful to remember that almost any government program ends up costing more than as originally allocated. So as to allow free community college of several years for basically all Americans has some of the same features that we've already discussed. Many people are already obviously going to community colleges and paying for it through the resources or their parents' resources. So this is basically a transfer from the taxpayer broadly to those families that want to take advantage of it. It's also, should address the question of whether it's desirable, whether it's beneficial for anyone to be encouraging people to get more college education. That's clearly true for some people. It's not necessarily true for all people, knowing that it's paid for by someone else might in fact lure some people into thinking it's necessarily good, when it isn't necessarily the right thing for every person. And so it doesn't seem like a compelling expenditure of government funding.

MR: Okay. We’re going to focus here on the potential impact on the economy and on the national debt. So let’s start with the latter. Again, the president insists that he is not proposing any deficit spending. He wants to pay for it with tax hikes. What kind of tax increases does he want? And would it really cover the entire cost of this plan?

MIRON: The particular tax hikes that the President's proposing are meant to target people who are very wealthy. So it includes things like increasing the rate of taxation on capital gains, which currently pays a substantially lower rate than wage and salary income. It includes some changes in the way capital gains are paid when people pass assets on to their heirs. It includes some modification in the tax rates on very high earners in the existing income tax schedules. So that will undoubtedly raise some revenue.

The history of tax proposals is that they almost always raise substantially less revenue than promised, because the people who are subject to the higher taxes find ways to avoid being subject to those higher taxes. So people who might be hit by say, the capital gains tax increase, will delay realization of those capital gains. And so at a minimum, those extra revenue from the higher rate won't show up in the next year, or two, or five, or 10. And there are other ways in which people can try to avoid those. So on paper, the tax increases pay for a substantial fraction of it.

But economists also don't quite like to think of it that way. Because we don't think that we should be tying particular spending and particular sources of that spending. The additional taxes can go to pay for anything. And so it's not doesn't make economic sense to say they're paying for this new bill. They're just extra tax revenue. So they're paying partially for national defense, partially for Medicare, partially for all the things that the government does. And the real question is, can the government collect enough revenue to pay for its spending, not just in the next few years, but over the long haul? And that's where many economists are becoming increasingly dubious that we're on a sustainable path.

REICHARD: I wonder what you'd say to this—the White House contends that any dent that those tax increases might put in the economy will be more than offset by the benefits. What do you say?

MIRON: I find it very implausible that these policies are going to do anything to stimulate the economy in a way that generates extra productivity, extra GDP and therefore extra tax revenue. These are mainly transfers from some taxpayers to other taxpayers. In part, they're transfers to current taxpayers from future taxpayers. Because presuming that the debt is eventually kept under control, that the expenditures eventually paid for somebody who's going to pay for fire hazard, higher taxes in the future, including, of course, some of the same families which are getting the benefits of these, this increase expenditure now. But it's also not at all obvious how these particular proposals like spending more on pre-kindergarten leads to extra GDP or productivity. You can tell stories. You can say that if more people have paid pre-kindergarten, they'll spend more time in the labor force that could add to GDP. That is possible. It's plausible. It happens to a modest degree, but seems extremely unlikely to me it would come anywhere close to paying for this expenditure.

REICHARD: Well, Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has tried to downplay fears that this spending might lead to inflation. I wonder what your take is on that? Should we be concerned about inflation? And how might it affect people?

MIRON: I wouldn't focus just on this bill, or even the set of bills that the administration has adopted, or even the full set of stimulus packages that we've adopted over the last year starting under the Trump administration. Those are factors which might contribute toward inflation. But the US economy has had a path of expenditure coming from Social Security and Medicare that are increasing the debt sort of year by year, throughout the foreseeable future. And so those are fundamentally giving us an unsustainable debt path. And those are fundamental and why we should be worried that the Fed will eventually try to monetize the debt, or that interest rates will spike. And we'll be suffering from some sort of fiscal meltdown or something like that.

Now, is there inflation imminent? There are a number of indicators which suggest inflation is sort of on the verge of heating up. Does the Fed have time to do something about it? Probably, but it's hard to get that timing on those anti-inflation measures. Exactly. Right. So do we have a problem? Yes. Is it fundamentally due to the recent fiscal stimuli? Not so much. It's much more due to policies that have been placed for 45-50 years going back to Medicare and even farther than that for social security? And should we be worried about it? Yes, we should be worried somewhat about it because if inflation gets higher—and more importantly, if it gets more unpredictable and out of control—then that seriously disrupts the economy.

REICHARD: Professor Jeffrey Miron has been our guest. Professor, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

MIRON: My pleasure. Thank you.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Orthodox leader denounces violence in Tigray—We start today here in Africa.

AUDIO: MAN SPEAKING AMHARIC

The head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church has accused the government of carnage in Tigray. Abune Mathias says government forces are targeting civilians in an effort to destroy the Tigray people.

AUDIO: MAN SPEAKING AMHARIC

Mathias recorded a 14-minute video message in April and asked an American friend to smuggle it out of Ethiopia. He said government officials have blocked his previous attempts to speak out about the violence.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into the northern Tigray region six months ago. He claimed the once-dominant Tigray ruling party had attacked army camps in retaliation for losing political influence. He continues to insist troops are only targeting members of the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

AUDIO: MAN SPEAKING AMHARIC

On Monday, Ethiopia’s deputy attorney general dismissed claims that a November massacre involved civilians. He said the “great majority” of those killed in the attack were rebel fighters.

But that conflicts with reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Both watchdog groups say hundreds of civilians died at the hands of troops from neighboring Eritrea, who are fighting with the Ethiopean military.

Victory Day in Russia—Next we go to Russia.

SOUND: DRUMS, MARCHING

Troops and tanks marched through the streets of Moscow Sunday to mark the 76th anniversary of victory in World War II.

PUTIN: MAN SPEAKING RUSSIAN

President Vladimir Putin used the annual Victory Day military parade to highlight Russia’s commitment to its own defense. But he also attempted to rewrite history, by suggesting that Russia defeated Germany by itself. He said Russia was, “alone on the path to victory.”

He made no mention of the country’s Western allies.

Colombia protesters call for more rallies—Next we go to South America.

AUDIO: WOMAN SPEAKING SPANISH

Protest leaders in Colombia are calling for another day of strikes after talks with government officials failed.

SOUND: PROTESTS

Protests began on April 28 over a proposed tax hike. Lawmakers abandoned that bill but the protests continued. Now the National Strike Committee is demanding reforms on a long list of social issues.

They have also denounced police violence against the protesters. According to the government, 26 people have died and 800 have suffered injuries. But human rights groups say the real numbers are likely much higher.

China defends rocket reentry—And finally, we end today over the Indian Ocean.

AUDIO: There she is…

A 100-foot-long piece of a Chinese rocket reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Sunday. It blazed a trail across the sky over North America and the Middle East before burning up over the Maldives.

U.S. officials criticized Beijing for the rocket’s uncontrolled reentry. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said China failed “to meet responsible standards" for handling space debris.

But Chinese officials dismissed the criticism. They insisted the rocket posed no threat and called U.S. concerns hypocritical. They noted debris from a SpaceX rocket landed in parts of Washington and Oregon in March.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A small Missouri town held an election last month that ended in a most unusual way.

Officials in a small town near Joplin evidently found enough interest—they collected sufficient signatures to place before voters the following question: should our town join the fire protection district of another nearby small town.

Now, this was the only question on the ballot, and the answer was inconclusive, you might think.

Because it ended in a tie vote. The total tally, zero to zero.

Nobody voted.

So because none of the town’s 70 residents cast a vote, the ballot initiative failed.

That gives new meaning to the phrase “every vote counts.” Even the ones not cast. Because if no one votes, the answer is no! And it’s unanimous.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 12th.

You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you are!

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Java time.

Coffee is big business in the United States. More than 37-thousand coffee shops. They bring in $45 billion dollars a year!

EICHER: A growing number of these shops are owned by Christians who use the communal nature of coffee to reach their neighbors. WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg recently visited a shop in Southern California.

SOUND: TROLLEY BELLS

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: The San Diego trolley squeaks to a stop in Chula Vista…a large suburb. Commuters pour out onto the platform. Some walk from the station to their work. Others have a taxi waiting.

But before heading off for the work day, many of them have a stop to make.

SOUND: SOUND OF HISSING ESPRESSO MACHINE

CUSTOMER: Can I just do a medium iced Americano?

ALEJANDRO WELTI: Something else for you?

Cool Down Coffee is located right next to the platform, so it’s convenient for the commuter crowd.

Alejandro Lopez Welti and his family own and operate the shop.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: We start actually, like, nine years ago.

After nearly a decade, the family is a well-oiled machine. Alejandro runs the cash register and takes orders.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: Cash or card? Umm, cash.

Alejandro’s wife, daughter, son, and daughter-in-law manage the kitchen behind him.

Oldest son, Alex, makes the shop’s bagel sandwiches.

SOUND: BUTTERING BAGEL

Their most popular is a jalapeno bagel with eggs, queso and pesto.

ALEX WELTI: The pesto spread is our house recipe. We make it here and people really like it.

Alex’s wife, Lynette, manages the espresso machine…

SOUND: HISSING ESPRESSO MACHINE

She’s still working on perfecting her latte art.

LYNETTE WELTI: I can make some nice lobs or like lopsided hearts. [LAUGHING]

Daughter, Sofia helps Lynette make the drinks quickly.

SOFIA WELTI: I wash the jars, though. I clean everything.

Mom, Laura, is usually in the office managing the books, but today, she’s providing more backup, washing dishes and frying up eggs.

LAURA WELTI: We enjoy this. Like, I'm happy that my kids wants to be with us.

This used to be what Cool Down Coffee was about: making coffee and food as a family and doing it well. But seven years ago, Alejandro Lopez Welti realized he had an even more important job to do.

The family is originally from Central Mexico. They came to the United States in 2008. But because of the recession, the U.S. company that had given Alejandro a work visa laid him off.

In order to stay in the country, Alejandro needed to start his own business. After a couple of business ventures, he settled on opening a coffee shop at another location. It was a difficult time. But it was also a turning point.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: Well this entire situation, the economy, you know, family troubles. I read the Ten Commandments basically, and then I realize how sinner I was. And then I realized that that was the reason why my life was like a mess, right? Everything started changing.

After a couple of years, the family moved their coffee shop here. The building needed a lot of remodeling. So for two years, the family sold coffee from a cart out front. Alejandro began to notice that a lot of customers … just wanted to talk.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: It looks like I have a message in my front that says like ask me or told me your history o, tell me your problems. The people come to me and start talking to me. And I didn't know what to say to people.

Alejandro felt comfortable listening but talking about his faith was a struggle.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: But then I found a nice ministry, who do evangelism. I was learning how to share my faith. And then, well, the next Monday I started sharing the gospel. And I remember that I shared with someone, and then that people left and came back with another friend and say, "Share with them what you told me." And it was so beautiful.

When they finally moved back into the shop, the Weltis decided they wanted customers to encounter Scripture here. Verses are scrawled on two large boards by the entrance.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added on to you.

Verses are also written around the table edges—and Christian music plays over the speakers. Alejandro says these things get people’s attention, but they aren’t what will make a lasting impression. It’s how customers are treated when they step inside.

That’s why the shop does small things like keep their restrooms open to anyone—the homeless or commuters. Customers or not.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: Basically God gave us this place. And the people need to use them. This is the only restroom available.

SOUND: ALEJANDRO SPEAKING WITH CUSTOMER

An hour after opening, a man ordering coffee shares with Alejandro that his father is sick. After a few minutes, they pray together.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: It's nice to pray with someone. God in His providence he managed everything to create encounters...

Each day, the family prays that God will send them people who are ready to hear the Gospel.

Tonight son Alex and his wife will host a Bible study in the coffee shop for anyone who wants to join.

But sometimes father Alejandro says the family’s biggest challenge isn’t loving their customers. It’s loving each other—when order mistakes happen or disagreements over shifts arise.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: It's easy to be Christian with the people that we don't know. But here's where our character is growing...

Running a small, family business can be a grind. But because Alejandro's work visa is tied to operating Cool Down Coffee, even if he wanted to, he can’t really do anything else.

He says that’s ok. He knows he’s supposed to be here.

ALEJANDRO WELTI: For Jesus, He gave us the privilege to share. He can do it by himself, but he decided to use us to share the gospel. So I saw that like a privilege and His providence is perfect.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg in Chula Vista, California.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. The Bible says that the Lord hates a lying tongue. WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney applies that to the way we’ve now redefined words.

JANIE B. CHEANEY, COMMENTATOR: When the Biden administration introduced an infrastructure bill, the plan received a lot of criticism for what it wasn’t—an infrastructure bill. That is, it’s only nominally about infrastructure. Anywhere from 5 to 20 percent goes to roads, bridges, and utilities—what we generally consider infrastructure. And so does the dictionary. It defines infrastructure as: “The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications.” Concrete, asphalt, steel, and wire, and the maintenance thereof—that’s what infrastructure traditionally is.

The Biden administration is thinking creatively. I’m not going to argue about the virtues of the bill or why Congress should allocate $2.3 trillion dollars for it. I’m more interested in the terminology. To road-and-bridge maintenance, the administration adds:

• “Care infrastructure”: money for elder and child care.

• “Educational infrastructure”: money for building new schools.

• “Human infrastructure”: money for job-training and union organizing.

• “Research infrastructure”: money for universities and think tanks (to come up with conclusions the government likes, says my cynical side).

• “Environmental infrastructure”: money for incentivizing electric cars and phasing out gasoline engines.

We can argue about each item on the list and whether government bureaucracy is the best way to facilitate them. But being a language person, I’m most interested in the way administration officials found so many applications for the word “infrastructure.” They stretched it to embrace anything the administration wants to do, making it practically meaningless. This shapeless blob of a word has spread from the broad consensus about its meaning to overlap union handouts and family relationships. As Senator Kristen Gillebrand tweeted, “Paid leave is infrastructure. Child care is infrastructure. Caregiving is—” … well, you get the idea.

The same elasticity is at work in the American Families Plan. The president touted that in his address to Congress in April: “Families” are about free college tuition and soaking the rich. And there’s an environmental plan coming too—will that be about Indian heritage museums and transgender studies?

Such terminology blurs distinctions and definitions. That slide into meaninglessness is a feature, not a bug, of postmodernism. It pretty much denies any objective meaning. As an academic theory, postmodernism mostly harms teachers and students. As a governing philosophy it harms everybody.

Another problem with these everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bills: They turn humans into commodities. We are buying units to purchase desired products, workers to be trained, young minds to be conditioned, old people to be sidelined. American citizens become part of American “infrastructure.” And what does that do to freedom?

The “Infrastructure” bill isn’t about asphalt and wire; it’s about forcing American society into a model favored by one end of the political spectrum. If everything is infrastructure, everything is subject to restructuring.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: small-town banks. More and more of them are closing. We’ll tell you what that means for businesses and families.

And, Brexit. We’ll tell you about the latest developments in the great European breakup.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

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The Bible says: "Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body." (Prov. 16:24)

Go now in grace and peace.

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