The World and Everything in It: November 1, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. Hi. My name is Molly Schultz, and I live in Laramie, Wyoming. But today I'm walking on the beach in Oregon, looking out into the water, thinking about the vastness and majesty of our great God. My kids are back in Wyoming watching WORLD Watch. We hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! President Biden signed an executive order on artificial intelligence. Is he getting ahead of Congress?

NICK EICHER, HOST: We’ll talk about it on Washington Wednesday and tell you about a potential spoiler in the presidential race.

Also today, World Tour and helping at-risk families get a lift on the road out of poverty.

AUDIO: Typically if they’re coming to us for help on a vehicle, likely gonna be that there’s lots of areas in their life that they’re in need.

And commentator Cal Thomas on House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposal for a bipartisan panel to cut spending.

BROWN: It’s Wednesday, November 1st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

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

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Homeland hearing » FBI Director Christopher Wray is warning that the risk of terrorist attacks against the United States is the highest it’s been in many years.

WRAY: One terrorist organization after another calling for attacks.
LAWMAKER: We should wake up.
WRAY: It is a time to be concerned. We are in a dangerous period.

Testifying to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Wray said the threat level was already elevated this year.

WRAY: But the ongoing war in the Middle East has raised the threat of an attack against Americans in the United States to a whole ‘nother level.

Wray said Hamas' rampage inside Israel could serve to inspire new attacks against the West.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also testified, telling lawmakers that some groups are at particular risk.

MAYORKAS: We have responded to an increase of threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab American communities and institutions across our country.

National security hearing » Meantime, just down the hall at the Capitol, other top U.S. officials were urging lawmakers to approve funds to support Israel and Ukraine, among other things.

The White House is asking for just over $100 billion dollars in a supplemental package.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken told the Senate Appropriations panel:

BLINKEN: We now stand at a moment where many again are making the bet that we are too divided, we’re too distracted at home to stay the course. That’s what’s at stake with President Biden’s national security supplemental spending request.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified alongside Blinken, telling lawmakers that America can’t afford to hesitate in defending freedom.

AUSTIN: And if we fail to lead, the cost and threats to the United States will only grow. We must not give our friends, our rivals or our foes any reason to doubt America’s resolve.

House Israel aid proposal » But House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to debate support for Israel and Ukraine separately. And he said House Republicans are crafting a bill that would send nearly $15 billion dollars to Israel.

JOHNSON: My desire in the first draft of this bill is to take some of the money that has been set aside for building and bulking up the IRS right now. We’ll try to take the $14.5 necessary for this immediate and urgent need.

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said taking those funds from the IRS is a non-starter.

SCHUMER: The new speaker knows perfectly well that if you want to help Israel, you can’t propose legislation that is full of poison pills.

Speaker Johnson said the aid needs to be paid for, rather than racking up more debt.

Fed and inflation » American workers got slightly bigger paychecks and better benefits in the quarter ending in September. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher reports.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: The Labor Department says wages and compensation grew 1.1 percent from July through September. That was up just a touch from 1 percent even in the previous quarter.

Higher wages can fuel inflation. But Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell isn’t worried.

He says the current annual wage growth of around three-and-a-half percent … is in line with the Fed’s goal of cutting inflation to 2 percent.

With that in mind, Powell is expected to announce today that the central bank will leave interest rates right where they are for now.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Hawaii Bodycam footage » The Maui Police Department has started releasing officer body-cam footage of the department’s response to the deadly wildfire in August.

The footage showed officers frantically pounding on doors urging residents to evacuate.

AUDIO: [Officer pounding on door “come on, come on, theres a fire, is there anyone else in here?” Resident: “No, its just me” Officer: “Come on, come on.”]

SOUND: [Officer yelling at people to go and crashing through gate]

The wildfire killed roughly 100 people and incinerated nearly the entire town of Lahaina.

Maine shooter » Authorities in Maine say the family of the gunman who killed more than 18 people in a mass shooting last week alerted the local sheriff five months ago that they were worried about his mental health.

The 40-year-old U.S. Army reservist was treated at a psychiatric hospital in July.

Local police attempted to make contact with the gunman in September but were unable to locate him.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Washington Wednesday. Plus, getting a used car ministry into high gear.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the first day of November, 2023.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up on The World and Everything in It: Washington Wednesday.

Today, a conversation about President Biden’s executive order on Artificial Intelligence.

BROWN: But first, an update on presidential politics. Over the weekend, a Republican candidate dropped out and a Democrat jumped in.

Former Vice President Mike Pence announced the end of his campaign last Saturday. And on Friday, Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman out of Minnesota, announced his bid to challenge Joe Biden for the nomination.

AUDIO: I do so not in opposition to President Biden, who has my affection and my gratitude, rather with two core convictions: that I am the Democratic candidate who can win, who can win the 2024 election. And second, it is time for the torch to be passed to a new generation of American leaders.

EICHER: Well, we’ll see about that. If you go by the polls, it seems likely that 2024 will be a rematch of 2020 with Joe Biden running against Donald Trump.

BROWN: But there’s at least one candidate aiming for a remix of 1992 when Independent candidate Ross Perot cost President George H. W. Bush reelection.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his campaign as a Democrat back in April. But then last month, he switched his affiliation to run as an Independent.

KENNEDY: People stop me everywhere at airports, hotels, malls. They remind me that this country is ready for a history-making change. I’m here today to declare myself an independent candidate.

EICHER: Does Kennedy have the funding to stay in the race through next November, and if he makes it, is he more likely to be a spoiler for Biden…or for Trump?

Our Washington Bureau reporter, Leo Briceno, has analysis.

LEO BRICENO, REPORTER: Kennedy, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, had previously pulled some surprising numbers when stacked up against President Joe Biden. While R-F-K’s support is not as strong as the support of his other uncle—Ted Kennedy—and what he was able to do in his 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter. The younger Kennedy has been polling between 16 and 20 percent according to Fox and CNN, respectively.

In any case, President Biden has essentially ignored Kennedy, and that’s frustrated the lifelong Democrat.

KENNEDY: And Part of having a democracy is that the public gets to pick the candidate. It’s not picked by the party, it should be picked by the people. The best way to pick them is to have debates, town halls, to do retail politics, because otherwise we have politicians who are living inside of a bubble.

In case you’re wondering, the reason Kennedy talks like that is because he has a rare voice disorder called Spasmodic dysphonia. In any case, while RFK can’t speak as clearly and compellingly as previous members of the Kennedy family, he had hoped to continue the family business as a Democrat. Not anymore.

But what if he could run against Biden from outside the party and draw support from across the political spectrum?

After all, his platform includes elements that appeal more to traditional Republicans than Progressive Democrats. That includes things like limited government power, oversight for federal agencies, and skepticism about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.

More recently, his support for Israel—and reservations about America’s continued involvement in Ukraine—mirror what Republicans have been saying. Here he is speaking with Fox News back in October.

KENNEDY: Israelis have wanted to trade peace for land and again and again the Palestinians in leadership have betrayed their own people by refusing to even negotiate or make a counter offer - so there’s a long history.

What about fundraising? How does Kennedy stack up?

Well, early on, Kennedy got off to a slow start. On April 19th—the day that Kennedy announced—his disclosed FEC filings show that he raised just $20 thousand dollars. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, by comparison, raised $1.5 million dollars just in the few hours after his announcement.

But Kennedy’s small-donor donations have slowly picked up. His single largest contributor has only given $10,000…but in June he raised almost 3 million dollars in gifts ranging in size from one to thirty-three hundred dollars. He’s just behind Nikki Haley, whose presidential campaign has received $18 million.

Derek Willis isn’t surprised, but wonders about RFK’s staying power.

WILLIS: His last name is Kennedy. That's a good name to have in politics. I think it’s also pretty clear that his fundraising does indicate that there is a desire for some alternative among a certain set of donors. I think the issue is whether that desire can be sustained as this campaign becomes less abstract and more real.

Willis explains that Kennedy has a bit more lease on life than maybe some other Republican candidates. He doesn’t have to compete for air in the race for the party’s nomination.

WILLIS: The good news for independent candidates is that I could see him staying in until the very end. Unless he runs out of money, he could still run a zombie campaign in the sense that all he really needs to be is on the ballot.

If he reaches the end, the question isn’t really whether Kennedy himself would have a shot at the presidency, but rather, how does he change the odds for the two other nominees?

A recent poll by USA Today and Suffolk University puts RFK in a hypothetical race against Biden and Trump. The results had Biden and Trump tied at 37%, with RFK pulling 13 percent of the vote.

If nothing else changes between now and November of 2024, America could be looking at a very similar election to the one in 1992 when another third party candidate, Ross Perot, made history.

Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote. He didn’t carry a single state. But looking back on that race, many believe Perot ruined then-president George Bush’s chances of reelection. He ran on cutting government spending and fighting NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade Agreement.

PEROT: We’re 4.1 trillion dollars in debt. That’s a staggering burden to pass to our children. It’s unconscionable. 

In 1992, that messaging resonated with Americans and, more specifically, with Republicans.

According to the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, James Baker, Bush’s chief of staff, said this of Perot: 

“We had Ross Perot taking two out of every three votes from us, and there’s no doubt about that. Don’t believe that baloney that he puts out that he didn’t take from us any more than he took from the Democrats.”

Could Kennedy be a similar foil for Trump because of his Republican-like messaging? Or could he be a foil for Democrats if Biden’s age and ability to serve continue to be a part of the picture?

Here’s Willis again.

WILLIS: I think around the time that the Republican field solidifies, coalesses, he’s going to have to make a decision about whether he continues and what his campaign message then is.

As the field between Democrats and Republicans narrows back down to two options, what Kennedy’s support looks like then will be a telling indicator as to whether he’s a problem—and for whom.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

EICHER: Well, in other news, on Monday President Biden issued an executive order regarding artificial intelligence

BIDEN: This order builds on the critical steps we've already taken to ensuring the AI Bill of Rights to bring together leading AI companies who agreed to voluntarily to make certain, certain commitments to make sure AI is safe, and the system is secure.

BROWN: Joining us now to talk about it is James Czerniawksi. He’s a Senior Policy Analyst at the Washington D.C. think tank, Americans for Prosperity.

James, good morning!

JAMES CZERNIAWSKI, GUEST: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: James, this is a wide-ranging Executive Order addressing issues like privacy, national security, and civil rights… but let’s start at the top. The first item is a requirement that AI companies “share safety test results and other critical information with the government.”

What authority does the White House have to require this information without a law from Congress or is there existing legislation that gives the executive branch the authority it needs?

CZERNIAWSKI: Yeah, that's a great question. So basically, the Biden administration is relying pretty heavily on the Defense Production Act in order to justify why it thinks it can put on these kinds of requirements on AI companies that would seek to have the government buy its products for what it's using, right? But we've seen the Defense Production Act used to address a variety of things beyond AI, whether it was to go and help with some of our supply chain issues, or to help with manufacturing certain critical goods during the COVID 19 pandemic. But it's never quite been used on like this kind of a level. It's usually meant on like the back end stuff of your orders that you are placing, not on the requirements under which that you are going to be buying something. So President Biden probably is definitely bending the rules a little bit for what Congress is, you know, rules supposed to be here, they should be setting the rules. And there are certainly proposals in Congress around AI that are going on right now. But this is where we're at right now is that he's using the power of the pen and paper to go and put his vision for AI forward.

BROWN: You mentioned that Congress is in the process of creating legislation on AI. I remember there being several committee hearings over the summer and the Senate holding a closed-door AI forum in September…but anything more concrete yet?

CZERNIAWSKI: Yeah. So I mean, we've had some different proposals, reached out with AI, whether it's trying to remove Section 230 protections out of the equation altogether for artificial intelligence when it comes to their liability. We've seen proposals around AI that are targeting misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, all the bad information, if you will, by by certain members of Congress. There was a rules hearing back at the end of September in the Senate that was talking about AI and elections, we just had a hearing in the House Energy and Commerce hearing that was surrounding AI and energy. Right now, it's a lot of high level discussions about just understanding the playing field as to what exactly AI is, and how it can go and change all these different sectors of our economy because, make no mistake, it is going to have a transformational impact on every single sector of our economy. 

BROWN: Okay, final question, James. Does America need government regulation of AI? And if so, why?

CZERNIAWSKI: Yeah, I would say right now, it's probably a bit premature to have specific regulation around artificial intelligence. There's a lot of existing laws that are already on the books that can apply to AI. It's just a matter of getting your existing regulators and staffers up to speed as to what the technology is, and more importantly, what it is not. So that way you can properly apply the law there. And if there are any gaps that we can identify after trying that, then by all means, that says something that Congress can certainly go and try to pass legislation surrounding but right now it's a little bit on the premature side, in my opinion.

BROWN: James Czerniawksi is a Senior Policy Analyst at Americans for Prosperity. James, thanks so much for your time!

CZERNIAWSKI: Thanks for having me.

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

AUDIO: [Military parade]

King Charles III - Kenya — We start today in Kenya at the formal welcome ceremony for King Charles the Third and Queen Camilla.

The visit marks the British monarch’s first trip to Africa and to the Commonwealth of Nations since he ascended the throne last year.

The two countries’ shared colonial past has taken center stage during the visit. Kenya will mark six decades of independence from British rule in December.

The royal couple visited some memorial sites, including the Tomb of Unknown Warriors and the site of the declaration of independence.

But some Kenyan rights activists have asked the king to issue a formal apology for colonial actions.

Davis Malombe is the deputy executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

MALOMBE: They should apologize now because an apology is actually a public acknowledgment and affirmation that a wrong happened.

King Charles will also visit a national park to see the conservation efforts of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Panama protests — In Panama, thousands of singing and chanting protesters have continued to march across the streets of the capital city.

The protests began more than a week ago over Panama’s copper mining contract with First Quantum Minerals, a Canadian-based company.

In late October, Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo signed off on a contract extending the mining operations of First Quantum’s local subsidiary by another 20 years.

AUDIO: [Protest]

Protesters accuse officials of rushing through the deal they say will threaten forested land and crucial groundwater.

Authorities have argued the deal over the largest copper mine in Central America marks Panama’s largest private investment ever, totaling $375 million a year.

WOMAN: [Speaking Spanish]

This lawyer and activist says the protesters want the contract abolished and declared unconstitutional.

The protests caused roadblocks and left shelves inside Panama City’s main wholesale market mostly empty.

President Cortizo announced a ban on new mining concessions, but it did little to quell the protests.

AUDIO: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here he will ask the Electoral Tribunal to call for a December referendum on whether or not to repeal the contract.

AUDIO: [Protest]

Spain protests — In Spain, tens of thousands of people are protesting a plan to grant amnesty to Catalan separatists.

The Sunday march in Madrid came after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez backed an amnesty deal for those involved in the 2017 failed independence push in the autonomous Catalonia region.

Sánchez needs the support of two Catalan parties to form a new government … after a national election this past July.

Santiago Abascal leads the far-right Vox party.

ABASCAL: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here that Sánchez threatens the unity and equality of Spanish citizens.

Sánchez has until November 27 to form a new government. Spain will face new elections if he fails to reach a deal.

AUDIO: [Centenary concert]

Turkey centenary — We close today with centenary celebrations in Turkey. Tens of thousands of concertgoers waved flags, sang, and watched a fireworks display on Sunday evening.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid a customary wreath at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk proclaimed the Turkish Republic on Oct. 29, 1923 after leading a war for independence from occupying forces.

AUDIO: [Parade]

Erdogan also attended a military parade. But the celebrations did not include a state reception or planned television coverage.

Erdogan pointed to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. During his speech, he said Turkey has continued to help the people of Gaza. He pointed to a Saturday pro-Palestinian rally he said drew one-and-a-half million people, although other accounts reported hundreds of thousands of participants.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Two sheriff’s deputies in North Carolina responded to a call: Intruders in a rented minivan. Audio from eyewitness news 11.

DEPUTY SHERIFF: All we saw was snout and eyes. It was lookin right at us.

So faced with a snout-and-eyes situation, you don’t just pop open the door. You tie a rope to the door handle, a long rope, you get back, you pull, and you hope for the best.

DEPUTY SHERIFF: It just goes to show you, you never know what you’re going to run into as a deputy sheriff.

Right, because sometimes it’s a 250 pound mama bear. And you shouldn’t assume she’s alone. There were two more snouts and four more eyes: the cubs.

Good news is all the animals got out.

The bad news is the animals got in in the first place,  and they left behind some damage to the rented minivan.

I guess the best news is the renters got the insurance. And:

RENTERS: We learned a valuable lesson: just because you’re out in the mountains and you don’t think you need to lock your doors, you need to go ahead and lock your doors to your vehicles.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 1st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

This week on Concurrently: The News Coach Podcast, Kelsey Reed and Jonathan Boes welcome the editor of God’s Big WORLD, Amy Auten. This week: help for parents and educators navigating stories of Christian deconstruction. Here’s a short preview.

REED: What is a healthy doubt process? And what is that which might lead to harm? And so I'm going to pose those categories to you, Amy.

AUTEN: The term deconstruction, the first thing I think of as somebody with a sledgehammer just demolishing a building, right? And so that image is scary for us. However, as we've been sitting here, one of the first things I thought of was that passage where Jesus says, When the rains came, and the storm came, a person can either find they're standing on the rock, or everything's washed away. It's going to reinforce your faith after you've gone through the rubble and said, This is what I was standing on all along, or he's going to give you something to stand on, right? I think deconstruction doesn't have to be a demolishing so much as an uncovering, a revealing. And Jesus says that we're all going to stumble on him the rock, even someone like John the Baptist, when the crisis hits, he's in jail, his death is imminent, sends a messenger to Jesus: "Are you the one who wants to come or should we look for somebody else?" That's a crisis. And Jesus is so gracious in his reply, the lame walk, you know, the blind see, blessed as a man who doesn't stumble and the word stumble in the Greek has a root of scandal in it. You're gonna have to wrestle with that scandal. It should not surprise us if things get smashed when the storms hit.

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: The road out of poverty.

If you’ve been shopping for a used car lately, you’ve probably shuddered once or twice at the prices. When the pandemic disrupted supply chains, the cost of a used car jumped 40 percent. Prices have fallen a little, but they’re still challenging for people buying a car on a budget. That’s especially true for families who are doing their best to escape poverty.

EICHER: WORLD’s Addie Offereins found an organization in central Texas that provides wheels and community to families in need of both. You can read her story in the newest issue of WORLD Magazine, and features reporter Grace Snell brings it to us now.

AUDIO: [OnRamp staff and client talking in the parking lot]

GRACE SNELL, REPORTER: It’s mid-September but Brazos County, Texas, is still baking in over-90-degree heat. The sun beats down on a small group gathered around a silver sedan in the parking lot of the county’s tax office.

ON RAMP STAFF MEMBER: And we just have an extra gift bag that we put together. It's insulated. Car cleaning, water bottle, the Bible in there. Just to help bless your unique journey. And we're just so excited for you.

Susana Ortiz is here to pick up a new car—at least, it’s new to her. It’s a 2009 Toyota Camry. A local family donated the car to OnRamp, a ministry that gives reliable, used cars to families spread throughout the seven counties of the Brazos Valley.

JENNINGS: Our team will call you to check in on you. If there's ever prayer requests, please send them our way.

On Ramp’s president Blake Jennings gathers the group in a circle and asks someone to pray over Susana.

JENNINGS: Lord, please keep Susana safe and its vehicle and have it run for a long time.

Local nonprofits and churches nominate candidates for OnRamp’s program. They’re people who are doing their best to escape poverty, but are hindered by a lack of transportation. Not having a vehicle limits their job opportunities. They rely on other people to pick up their children from school if it’s too far to walk.

But OnRamp doesn’t just hand out free cars.

MASON: We ask them in the application, like what are your top two goals?

Stephanie Mason is OnRamp’s director of operations.

MASON: We'll set them up with a budget counselor in town, and get them to just work on budgeting and saving. Some other things that we connect them to before giving a vehicle might be mental health counseling or community.

They emphasize that the vehicle is a tool, not the end goal. Reliable wheels can’t solve a client’s deeper need for strong relationships  and accountability.

MASON: Sometimes we go through the application and interview and we realize they have no family in town. And they also don't have a support system. And so we might encourage them to go to a few places in town to just seek out community.

Like a local church, or a grief share group if a client needs to process a loss.

Clients watch a video series that includes a gospel presentation.

OnRamp also walks the clients through car maintenance, finances, and auto insurance. For Jamie Jeffers, that was huge.

JEFFERS: I had no clue. When do I do the oil change? I know how to put gas in it. You know, that's really the extent of my skills. That was huge to understand when I need to do things and how I need to do them. There's something about, it's a different sort of pride of ownership.

The director of Celebrate Recovery at Jamie’s church nominated her for OnRamp in 2021. The ink had barely dried on her divorce papers when her car’s transmission gave out.

JEFFERS: And so there wasn't money, you know, there was just barely enough always every time I turned around.

Six months later, OnRamp staff told her they had a car available. They covered repairs and maintenance for 12 months. That time frame allows them to keep building relationships with clients.

JEFFERS: Every now and then I still get a phone call from someone on the OnRamp team. Jamie, how are you? Can we pray for you? And yes, please pray for me.

Owning her own vehicle enabled Jeffers to get a better job.

JEFFERS: I was no longer depending on people to drive me to and from work, I was able to get a job and it was a 40% pay increase. And then that 40% was the difference between that check to check hand to mouth and being able to save a little money, have a 401K, start this little side business.

The ministry buys about three-fourths of their vehicles, and families from local churches donate the rest. Their goal is to provide a vehicle that lasts at least five years.

The number of clients the ministry serves has spiked in the past few years and so have used car prices. Here’s OnRamp’s President, Blake Jennings.

JENNINGS: We tell people, our costs have gone up, our costs have roughly doubled in the last five years. And most of that increase was with the pandemic and after that.

But Jennings says the bigger challenge is watching their clients walk through difficult circumstances.

JENNINGS: I tell people, vehicles, you just throw money at them, and you can fix them. They're easy. People are complex. And so I think the hardest thing is when we have clients that we're really trying to help, and they face things that are just incredibly hard. You find that typically, if they're coming to us for help on a vehicle, likely going to be that there's lots of areas in their life where they're in need.

He’s noticed things successful clients have in common—a strong community and clear goals.

JENNINGS: We tend to see a lot of success, because a car in a sense is a tool. They wanted to reach some goals. They were missing that tool that they needed to get there. And what we're doing is providing this tool and they get there.

AUDIO: [OnRamp staff and client laugh and talk in parking lot]

Back in the blazing-hot parking lot, the gathered group asks Susana about the plans she’s made now that she has a car.

JAMAL: What is the first long trip you want to take in the car when the kids get a long weekend?

ORTIZ: Go see my sister at the Gulf Coast, just two hours away and Matagorda Bay. I haven't seen her and she doesn't come this way. And I told her the first chance we'll be there.

Susana laughs and points to a spot where the car’s silver paint has faded in the shape of a heart.

SUSANA: Oh yeah! the heart! It’s the love, the family of love right here.

For WORLD, I’m Grace Snell.

BROWN: Addie Offereins wrote this story for the November 4th issue of World Magazine, and we’ve included a link in today’s show notes.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 1st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: Commentator Cal Thomas with a few ideas for the new Speaker of the House, beginning with encouraging Republicans to lead the way on getting federal spending under control.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: House Speaker Mike Johnson has announced his intention to form a bipartisan panel to cut massive spending that has led to an unsustainable $33 trillion national debt. The pragmatist in me cheers, but the cynic in me says asking Congress to cut spending is like asking Dracula to cut back on his consumption of blood. Spending helps keep members in office, and staying in office seems to be all that matters to many of them.

I have longed to see Cabinet Members and Members of Congress come before committees and defend their proposals for new spending. They should be asked how current and past spending has, or has not, achieved the goals stated in their legislation and agencies. Often there are no goals in the legislation. It’s spending for the sake of spending.

Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel offers some good starting points to rein in federal spending. Strassel writes: “According to the White House it is ‘critical’ that Senate Democrats get another $16 billion in child-care-center funding, since the supposedly one-time $24 billion pandemic allotment is gone.”

More dubious spending requests include the Federal Communications Commission getting another $6 billion for the Affordable Connectivity Program. Strassel says it “aimed to close the ‘digital divide’ but has really blown $17 billion subsidizing the Netflix habits of people who already had high-speed broadband.”

These spending items and many more unnecessarily contribute to the national debt, and they result in higher prices for mortgages, gasoline, food and other necessities.

During the Reagan administration, inaccurate press reports claimed the Pentagon was spending more than $600 on toilet seats and $435 for hammers that could be bought at a local hardware store for far less. What turned out to be accounting errors helped focus the minds of many Americans about government overspending. It held up to ridicule those who were spending money like it wasn’t their own, which it wasn’t.

Reagan named what came to be known as “The Packard Commission” to reform defense spending. Later, the Base Realignment and Closure process shut down unused and outdated military housing over several administrations. Some members of Congress protested, because it cost them money in their districts, but it was done. As I recall some members who had been screaming loudest about the closures later tried having it both ways and took credit for saving taxpayer money. You gotta admire politicians who can say one thing one day and the opposite another day. Hardly anyone seems to care and that’s a major part of the debt problem.

Members who propose such unnecessary spending should be brought before House committees, now run by Republicans. Democrats won’t do it, so it’s up to Republicans to demand accountability and to have proponents justify their spending proposals.

Let’s hope Speaker Johnson gets his bipartisan commission and that it provides cover for all Members so they can reduce spending, reform Social Security and Medicare, the real drivers of debt. Everyone knows this must be done to secure the financial future of the nation for generations to come.

I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: We’ll talk about what Donald Trump is facing heading into election season from gag orders to plea deals. And, a trip to the dentist for horses. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

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 prophet Jeremiah writes, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” –Jeremiah chapter 29 verses 11 - 13

Go now in grace and peace.

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