The World and Everything in It: May 16, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Our names are Larry and Katie Suppan …
BOB: and Bob and Francie Eichelberger.
LARRY: We are enjoying the podcast while on family vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. ALL: We hope you enjoy today’s program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! House Republicans introduce a bill to require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.

JOHNSON: There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Also, why the UK pulled back on puberty blockers for minors, but the U.S. hasn’t. And bringing the gospel to one the harshest climates in the world.

BROWER: He quickly realized there the whole state was open for missionaries.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on Warren Buffett’s misguided advice to raise taxes.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, May 16th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

SOUND: [Plane landing]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Ukraine latest/Putin says he wants negotiated end to war » Vladimir Putin’s jet touching down in Beijing ahead of meetings today with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Among the topics of discussion: Ukraine.

In an interview with state-run Chinese media this week, Putin said he was open to negotiating an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine.

But speaking from Kyiv yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken told reporters:

BLINKEN: I imagine that if Putin showed any interest in seriously engaging in negotiations, I’m sure Ukrainians would respond to that. But what Putin has demonstrated every single day is exactly the opposite.

And the White House says China isn’t helping matters by assisting Russia’s war effort.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:

JEAN-PIERRE: If China purports to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it cannot continue to fuel the biggest threat to European security right now.

The U.S. says Beijing’s been providing non-lethal military assistance while also helping Russia circumvent sanctions.

Supreme Court ruling on Louisiana voting map » The Supreme Court has ordered Louisiana to hold its 2024 elections with a new majority-Black U.S. House district in place for now. WORLD’s Mark Mellinger has more.

MARK MELLINGER: With control of the House a toss-up this fall, the new voting map could result in Louisiana voters sending a second Democrat to Congress.

The High Court reversed a lower court finding that the state’s new voting map relied too heavily on race and needed to be redrawn.

But the justices didn’t address the racial issue. They only stopped the creation of another new map for the November election… which they say could confuse voters.

The High Court’s order may not be the final word on the matter. The justices could still decide to hear arguments on the substance of the case.

Ongoing debate in Washington over Biden’s Israel weapons restriction » House Republicans are moving forward with a bill aimed at forcing President Biden to deliver weapons to Israel without restriction.

Biden has paused shipments of 2,000-pound bombs fearing mass civilian casualties if Israel launches a major assault on Hamas in the town of Rafah.

GOP Congressman Michael McCaul chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee …

MCCAULEY: Congress appropriated with the intent to spend the money on weapons to go to Israel. And yet this president, without any consultation with Congress, has decided to stop and withhold the shipments.

The bill may be dead on arrival in the Senate, but it could pick up support from some House Democrats, turning up the heat on the president.

However, Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar said Wednesday …

AGUILAR: Overwhelmingly, House Democrats will reject this overly political bill that did not come through committee.

The Biden Administration is going ahead with a separate sale of $1 billion dollars in arms and ammunition to Israel.

House hearing on weaponization of government » Also on Wednesday, in a House hearing … Republicans scrutinized what they call a misuse of the legal system.

Jim Jordan chairs the panel on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. He charges that allies of President Biden have turned the courts into a political battlefield.

JIM JORDAN:  None of these cases happened until after President Trump announced he was running for president. Fannie Willis opened her investigation two and a half years, but she didn't announce she was going forward until after he announced it.

Willis is the Fulton County, Georgia DA prosecuting Trump and others for alleged election interference in 2020. The former president is currently on trial for alleged business crimes in New York. The Justice Department is also charging Trump in multiple cases.

Democrats accuse Republicans of running political cover for the presumptive GOP White House nominee.

Emergency spending on AI » While members clashed in the House, a bipartisan group of senators is on the same page when it comes to one matter with big implications for America’s future. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER:  Because AI is so complex and so rapidly evolving and touching every aspect of society, we just couldn't wait on the sidelines or wait several years to see what might happen because it keeps evolving.

After completing a yearlong review, that bipartisan group released a report urging more than $30 billion dollars in emergency spending on artificial intelligence.

GOP Sen. Mike Rounds:

ROUNDS:  If we invest now and we use AI the way that the experts in these fields tell us that it can be incorporated, the quality of life for Americans will improve. 

The group says Congress should take action to tap into AI’s potential for things like stronger cancer research, but also to tackle the risks that it poses such as disinformation and threats to jobs.

Presidential debates » Donald Trump said Wednesday, “Let's get ready to Rumble!!!” as he prepares for a rematch with President Biden.

AUDIO: [2020 debate clip]

Audio there from the contentious first 2020 debate.

And the two candidates have just agreed to square off in two between now and Election Day.

Trump has been challenging Biden to debate ever since he effectively clinched the nomination in March. And in a video message this week, the incumbent clapped back:

BIDEN: Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. And since then, he hasn't shown up for a debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice.

CNN will host the first debate on June 27th in its Atlanta studios with no audience present. And ABC will host the second on September 10th.

Pro-life activist sentenced » A pro-life activist who blocked access to an abortion facility has been sentenced to years in prison.

A federal judge sentenced Lauren Handy to 4 years and 9 months behind bars for violating the 1994 FACE Act which made blocking abortion business entrances a federal crime.

In 2020, she led the live streamed blockade of a late-term abortion business in Washington, DC.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Voter registration safeguards. Plus, church collaboration in Alaska.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 16th day of May, 2024. Thank you for listening to WORLD Radio. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up on The World and Everything in It: election integrity.

That requires balancing ballot access with election security. One tool to accomplish that is verification of citizenship.

Last week, House Republicans introduced a bill that would require states to ask for proof of citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections. So what’s it mean for the 2024 election?

BROWN: WORLD’s Washington Bureau Reporter Leo Briceno brings this report.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: Arizona, like all states, has a set of criteria for registering first-time voters. Here’s a tutorial their election center provides online.

VOTER EDUCATION SERIES: Registering to vote in Arizona is quick and easy … you must be a citizen of the United States, at least 18 years old by election day…

Federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in the United States, but how can states be sure that voters actually are citizens?

Arizona requires registering voters to provide some sort of documented proof of citizenship. That can look like a passport, an in-state driver’s license, a birth certificate, or the like. Kansas has a similar law, and Tennessee is considering one, as well.

But those laws only apply to in-state contests. What about national elections?

PBS: Today, Supreme court arguments pitted a national law against the state law, Arizona's 2004 voter registration statute.

Arizona used to have a law requiring proof of citizenship as part of voter registration, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down in 2013 saying it violated the National Voter Registration Act.

Then in 2022, Arizona tried again with a different approach. Instead of passing the requirement as a ballot measure, the state passed the bill through the state legislature.

Here’s Doug Ducey, Governor of Arizona back in 2022.

DOUG DUCEY: We think it’s good legislation. We think it protects the voters and protects citizens to ensure and not dilute their vote. And if someone on the left wants to challenge it, have at it.

Well, his law was challenged and has never gone into effect. The case is before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Many opponents of Arizona’s law believe it runs counter to the National Voter Registration Act—the law that places restrictions on what kind of information states can request while registering voters.

Back in Washington, House Republicans don’t think proof of citizenship should be a controversial requirement.

MIKE JOHNSON: We are here this morning for a very important reason as you all know. There is currently an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system. And that is the threat of non-citizens and illegal aliens voting in our elections.

That’s U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson last week as he unveiled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or the SAVE Act. It’s the most recent effort by conservative lawmakers to shore up federal voting requirements ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.

Congressman Chip Roy from Texas believes that if states can’t really enforce the law against non-citizen voting, what good is that requirement?

CHIP ROY: We’re here for the simple proposition supported by the vast majority of the American people that only citizens of the United States should vote, that we should have documentary proof, that we should have a system to guarantee that only citizens of the United States vote in federal elections where we have the clear authority under the constitution of the United States and our laws—as congress—to set the terms of those elections. That is what we are doing.

The bill would require states to verify proof of citizenship before registering voters to participate in federal elections. If someone registering cannot provide proof of citizenship through the forms of documentation laid out in the bill, states would create processes to verify citizenship by other means, supported by a signed affidavit of a state official. The bill also makes it a crime to assist in fraudulent voter registration.

Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah supports the bill.

MIKE LEE: It’s legislation that really ought to pass unanimously in both houses of Congress very, very quickly. Because the only reason to oppose this that I can think of would be if you’re comfortable with or somehow even want non-citizens to vote. And non-citizens, in some cases, to influence the outcome of elections and make them different.

Critics of the bill say that the threat of non-citizen voting isn’t as large as Republicans are making it out to be. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based out of Washington, D.C., found just 24 convictions for noncitizen voting between 2003 and 2022.

All the same, House Republicans continue to look at reforms at the federal level, and a handful of states will put the issue before voters this November. Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Wisconsin all have ballot measures asking if the voters want to require proof of citizenship in order to vote.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Reversing course on gender dysphoria treatments.

South Carolina is expected to pass a law to protect children from medical attempts to change traits of their sex. That’ll be the 24th state to do so.

Transgender activists challenge many of these laws in court, claiming denial of healthcare. But over in the United Kingdom, a recent report says so-called “gender-affirming care” lacks supporting evidence.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Last month, Dr. Hilary Cass submitted her final report on the UK’s gender identity services. Her four years of research led her to recommend that England’s National Health Service, or NHS, stop giving children puberty blockers.

The UK stopped prescribing the drugs for gender confusion and shut down the only NHS gender clinic in the country.

REICHARD: What’s changed in the UK since the Cass Report, and can the US follow suit? WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Camille Kiefel’s struggle with gender identity started after her best friend was sexually assaulted in the sixth grade. Kiefel, an American, started feeling uncomfortable in her body and didn’t want to be seen as a woman.

CAMILLE KIEFEL: I was in a lot of pain, like I wasn't functional, like I had to have my mom help me out of bed in the morning.

Doctors recommended a lot of medications and therapy, but none of it helped.

So, in college, she started identifying as non-binary. And by the time she was 30, she decided a double mastectomy would be a good next step.

KIEFEL: It was, I think, June, when I reached out to my doctor, and by August 27, 2020, the surgery was performed on me.

Now, four years later, she’s detransitioned, and she’s suing the doctors who performed the surgery. She says they should have addressed other underlying concerns before they started cutting.

KIEFEL: If I said, “I think there's something wrong with my heart, I need heart surgery.” Like the doctor would be like, “Okay, let's let's investigate this. Let's look and see if this is actually really your issue.” And that's really the doctor’s job to investigate it. But this isn't happening in this case.

Dr. Hilary Cass, who wrote the Cass Review, saw the same issue in the United Kingdom. She told the BBC that children presenting with gender confusion were immediately referred to the UK’s Gender Identity Development Service, or GIDS.

BBC, HILARY CASS: Rather than doing the things that they would do for other young people with depression or anxiety or perhaps undiagnosed autistic spectrum disorder, they’ve passed them on to the GIDS service.

Cass says doctors didn’t have guidance on gender confusion and were afraid that if they tried to address underlying issues, they’d be criticized for not affirming their patients’ identity.

JULIE MAXWELL: The Cass Review has really, really clearly highlighted the lack of evidence that the basically the whole treatment of gender questioning children was being based on.

Julie Maxwell is a pediatrician in the UK.

She says increasingly, parents and children come to her with their own diagnoses and expect her to affirm them.

For the most part, it’s okay if she disagrees, but there’s a different attitude around gender confusion.

MAXWELL: I have had the situation where people have come to me with children with, you know, questioning their gender. And I have raised questions about it. And that has resulted in in complaints, actually.

Some of Maxwell’s colleagues have gone along with gender dysphoria diagnoses to avoid those complaints, but she says that’s changing in the UK.

MAXWELL: They are now able to, say, “the Cass Review states,” and quote the evidence that’s in the Cass Review.

So could something like the Cass Review prompt changes in the U.S.?

Dr. Andre Van Mol is a family physician in California. He says the way Americans view their doctors has changed over the past few decades.

ANDRE VAN MOL: People very much expect the healthcare professional to be the vending machine that gives them what they want.

He says that’s not the case for every area of medicine, but it is growing, and it’s often true of gender-confused patients.

VAN MOL: Part of the problem here is false expectations built up in people that things that aren't shown to be safe or effective, in fact, are and, you know, then if they come in expecting that, and you're not forthcoming with it, they view that as obstructionist or, you know, they're not getting proper care when in fact they are.

In the UK, the Cass Review has helped dispel the idea that transgender treatment is safe and effective. But Van Mol says the U.S. has been one of the main drivers of so-called gender-affirming care.

VAN MOL: It is a combination of big ideology meets big industry.

Since the U.S. doesn’t have a centralized medical system, several activist and medical groups have created the guidelines for transgender treatment.

Van Mol says these groups are unlikely to change their stance, but if the industry weren’t lucrative, clinics wouldn’t be able to operate anymore.

VAN MOL: We're seeing lawsuits from different parts of the country – several from California, Oregon, Texas, the East Coast, challenging these big organizations and these big names.

Van Mol says insurance premiums for gender clinics are already forcing some to shut down and as more people like Camille Kiefel bring lawsuits, it will only cost more.

VAN MOL: Insurance actuarials don't care about ideology, they care about math and dollars. And they see the writing on the wall. They do the calculations. And the insurance rates are going up for these clinics, because what they're doing is not benign. And it's going to be rewarded with lawsuits for what they've done to these kids.

Reporting for WORLD I’m Mary Muncy.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: A bar in Kyiv had a special guest this week…the American Secretary of State.

BAND MEMBER: Antony Blinken! [Applause]

Blinken met with leaders in Ukraine about American military aid, but he also had a message for the music crowd.

BLINKEN: The United States is with you. So much of the world is with you. And the free world is with you too. So maybe we can try something?

Turns out the Secretary of State has a thing for electric guiTAR, so he led the band in playing Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World.

SOUND: [Blinken and band playing]

Not everyone was nodding to the beat, though…Social media lit up with messages calling the jam session tone-deaf, given what’s happening on the frontlines.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Maybe Blinken should’ve just “Let it Be”?

BROWN: It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 16th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

This week on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast: lessons learned. Hosts Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes discuss social media, technology, and discipling the whole person with Amy Auten. Here’s a preview:

AMY AUTEN: Have you guys noticed this, when you surf YouTube, the commercials that come on before the video you watch are targeted to you, the individual? And mine, are “what if you have a house fire?” And then and then the the other one is like you're trapped in your car and it's sinking in water. And so I thought, okay, you're trying to scare the daylights out of me so I'll buy a product, because, apparently, I seem nervous or something. 

So I, as I'm watching it, I thought this could really wreck me right? I can be motivated nonstop by fear and insecurity. And then I started to think, how is that fear insecurity shaping my understanding of vocation and how I coach my children towards vocation? How is that understanding of fear and insecurity shaping my understanding of how I approach their education, how I approach social media technology, everything we've touched on, identity, home life, community, is it driven by what the ads are going after fear and insecurity? Or is it anchored in: you’re created in the image of God?

REICHARD: You can hear the entire episode of Concurrently today wherever you get your podcasts. And find out more at concurrentlypodcast.com.

BROWN: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: bringing the Gospel to the north.

The small town of Barrow, Alaska lies 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. It’s the northernmost settlement in the United States, right on the frozen shoreline of the Arctic Ocean. Locals call the town by its indigenous name, Utqiaġvik

REICHARD: No roads lead to Utqiaġvik, so a plane arrives daily from Anchorage with supplies. The town has one post office, one library, one elementary school…but one thing Barrow has a lot of? Churches! Nearly a dozen.

WORLD Feature Reporter Grace Snell recently caught a flight up north to learn more.

SOUND: [Generators humming, snowmobile passing]

GRACE SNELL: A great, white stillness swallows the town of Utqiaġvik, Alaska. It’s a snowy silence broken only by the whirring of generators and the putter of the occasional snowmobile.

Nearby, an old man stands on a sagging, snow-covered porch. It’s minus twenty degrees, but he still tugs off a glove and extends a hand.

BROWER: Come on in.

SOUND: [Stairs squeaking, feet stomping]

The man’s name is Charles Brower, and he’s the new interim pastor of Utqiaġvik Presbyterian Church, the city’s oldest house of worship.

BROWER: This used to be the church, the only church. Now we have the Assembly of God church, we’ve got, across the street, the Seventh Day Adventists, we’ve got the Baptist Church...

But, lots of church buildings doesn’t mean a thriving Christian community. Brower says many houses of worship stand empty across the North Slope region, simply because there’s no one to pastor them.

BROWER: Kaktovik doesn’t have a pastor, Nuiqsut doesn’t have a pastor, Anaktuvuk Pass doesn’t have a pastor, Wainwright doesn’t have a pastor, Atqasuk doesn’t have a pastor.

That shortage is why Brower moved back here to his hometown in March. And it’s the reason Brower—a Methodist—is now pastoring a Presbyterian church.

BROWER: The search committee offered me a half-time position, or position just fill in while they’re looking for a full-time pastor.

It’s a spirit of cooperation—born of necessity—that’s marked Christianity in the region since its earliest days. Believers have to band together for survival here in one of the world’s harshest climates.

Brower says it all started back in 1885, when the Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson set up shop as Alaska’s first general agent of education.

BROWER: He quickly realized there the whole state was open for missionaries. But then he realized very quickly as well that the Presbyterian Church was not big enough to handle all the mission possibilities throughout Alaska.

Jackson set out to recruit missionaries from other denominations. They divvied up Alaska between them.

BROWER: Barrow, Wainwright and Anaktuvuk Pass were selected by by the Presbyterian Church. The Episcopals picked up Point Lay just on the coast. And then other places like Kotzebue region with friends church was there. Kodiak with a Russian Orthodox there, but the Russian Orthodox been here since the 1700s when the fur traders first came.

After that, Brower says, the gospel spread like wildfire. His grandfather told him stories about those days.

BROWER: It was very easy to believe the stories of Jesus, these healings, the casting out of demons…

The shamans of the region, told similar stories…

BROWER: Folks here were kind of familiar with weird things being told, weird things happening. And so I think they were very willing to switch over to Christianity.

SOUND: [Keys jingling, porch creaking, footsteps squeaking]

Brower leads the way outside, across a snowy yard and over to the historic church building. It’s a classic, white-steepled structure marked with a cross.

SOUND: [Snow crunching and squeaking underfoot]

A signpost out front points to far-off destinations like New York and Hawaii—both over three-thousand miles distant. A few feet away, is a sign mimicking the city’s iconic whalebone archway—a classic tourist photo-op. It reads: “Utqiaġvik Presbyterian Church. Established Easter 1899.”

SOUND: [Stairs squeaking, lock clicking, door closing]

Inside, wooden pews and stained glass windows line the sanctuary. It looks pretty much like any other small town church—But a few telltale signs hint this isn’t your average First Presbyterian on Main Street.

SOUND: [Footsteps echoing, snow pants rustling, faint talking]

Things like the long, bristly piece of whale baleen adorning the back wall.

BROWER: So, in the mouth of a bowhead whale, they got 700 of these things in the mouth and they take them off all the water, use their tongue, push it up, trap all the krill…

Whale hunting is an integral part of Iñupiaq culture, and in April the church hosts a blessing service for hunters about to embark in sealskin kayaks.

But not all aspects of local culture meshed so seamlessly with outside influences. Missionaries also introduced boarding schools, which Brower says caused a lot of damage. He attended several of these schools during his own childhood.

BROWER: Many of us did not come away from that experience with good role models for parents. So many of us did not know how to parent very well and that continues on today.

Other problems came with the close of the missionary era…

BROWER: There’s still probably about 100 communities that used to have pastors, but the church building is empty because the missionaries are gone.

It’s hard to get people to stay here. The temperature stays well below freezing most of the year, and the city plunges into “polar night” —where the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon at all—between November and January.

That leaves pastors across the North Slope region scrambling to meet their community’s needs.

BROWER: When somebody dies, there’s nobody there to do the funeral, they call here, the Presbyterian Church, “We need help.”

Brower says that makes it more important than ever for different pastors and churches to work together.

BROWER: How do we do things together, like offering summer camp for kids Vacation Bible School, do it as a group instead of just fighting for small numbers of kids who might be around.

It’s why Brower’s here in one of the most remote corners of the earth, pastoring Utqiaġvik Presbyterian. And it’s why the 125th year of the city’s oldest church won’t be its last.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Grace Snell, in Utqiaġvik, Alaska.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on solving America’s debt crisis.

CAL THOMAS: Many people have made money by following the advice of Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. His recommendations about which stocks to buy, which to sell and where to invest have earned him the title “Oracle of Omaha.” I prefer a modern cultural version: “the Taylor Swift of Capitalism.”

Recently, Buffett predicted the government will have to raise taxes if America’s massive $34 trillion debt is to be reduced. He said nothing about cutting spending which remains the real problem. It does not take an economist to conclude that Buffett has it backwards.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said this month: “In the first seven months of Fiscal Year 2024, spending on net interest has reached $514 billion, surpassing spending on both national defense…and Medicare....Spending on interest is also more than all the money spent this year on veterans, education, and transportation combined.”

Does anyone believe that allowing the Trump tax cuts to expire at the end of next year will help? Everyone knows the main drivers of the debt are Social Security and Medicare. Few politicians want to touch this “third rail” because they fear they may lose their precious seats in Congress or be defeated in a presidential race.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation notes, “Rising debt reduces business investment and slows economic growth. It also increases expectations of higher rates of inflation and erosion of confidence in the U.S. dollar.”

This should be beyond debate, but we can’t get a real debate on the economy because so many people rely on government to do for them what they mostly once did for themselves. By that, I mean save and invest wisely, live within your means, be responsible for yourself, and if you must look to government for help, make it last on your list, not first.

The Congressional Budget Office has forecast a rise in federal deficits to 8.5 percent of GDP in fiscal 2054 from today’s 5.5 percent. Remember, that’s only deficits, not debt. Deficits are added to the debt. When politicians claim to have reduced the deficit, they’re usually doing nothing to reduce the debt.

I have previously argued for the necessity of a complete audit of the Federal government. Members of an audit committee could be appointed by Democrats and Republicans. They would have to be nonpartisan and serious about the task assigned to them. This is what the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure Commission did in 1988. Some politicians howled as outdated bases in their districts were closed, but it worked and saved money.

A similar approach could also work for the national debt. The last thing we need is for the productive citizens to be taxed at greater rates so that politicians can continue to misspend the money.

A true prophet must be right 100 percent of the time. Warren Buffett is right most of the time, but he is no prophet because he thinks we can ignore spending cuts and still solve our economic crisis.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. And, John Krasinski’s new film titled IF, about imaginary friends. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Myrna Brown.

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.

The Bible says: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:6, 7

Go now in grace and peace.

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