Can we be surprised that Congress wasted money when frugality among We The People is no longer a virtue?
Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you so much for being here. Yesterday we talked about Pride Month and we talked about lack of self-control and read some proverbs about pride and about sexual morality and self-control and lust and watching out for the adulterous woman. Today I want to talk about another aspect of self-control and that is with money.
Now this is a perfect timing because of the debate going back and forth about the one big beautiful bill. So the very short of it is this bill passed the house barely and now it's in the Senate and the senators, there's enough senators that are saying this thing stinks, it needs to cut way, way, way more spending. People like Rand Paul saying, I'm not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. That's crazy. We're supposed to be the people against
raising the debt ceiling and against spending money we don't have. That's nuts. So there's a debate going back and forth and I hope, because that's all I can do right now is, and just have a good attitude, that it will result in a better bill. But they have three weeks to get this done, until the 4th of July, so I guess maybe a little less than four weeks to get this done and see what they can pull together. But now we also got a lot of Elon coming out and saying some very dramatic things against
Trump and now Trump is, ah, it's a whole thing. I don't wanna focus on that. I wanna focus on us. Made the argument this morning that spending is a moral issue. As Andrew Breitbart said, politics is downstream of culture.
And so culture comes first. What is culture? Culture is just a collection of people that have shared values and virtues. We have the Congress that I believe best reflects we the people. We are a people for the most part, who do not have a biblical view of work or spending. And therefore we have a government that reflects that.
Ben Franklin said, rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt. He said if you know how to spend less than you get you have the philosopher's stone. Our Congress does not have the philosopher's stone but either do the American people in their own lives at this point. We have more debt now than ever before. I mean, personal debt, like people have more debt. So how can we be a people that have more debt than ever before? And be like, oh, congress can't believe you have so much debt. That's really, really
unacceptable. Like, what did you think? Politics is downstream of culture.
It is a sin to be a sluggard.
It is a sin to be a profligate, waster, spender, waster of money, materialism. All these things are sinful. So ideally, you have a culture that does the opposite of these things are sinful. So ideally you have a culture that does the opposite of these things and calls them virtues. Okay, well the opposite of being a sluggard is being a hard worker.
The opposite of being wasteful is being frugal. So we had a culture that, and we have one, the opposite of being irresponsible is being responsible, personal responsibility. So we had a culture that, and we have one of the opposite of being irresponsible is being responsible, personal responsibility. So we had a culture that built up these three things. Like think about it.
Like, all right. So the Bible says you shouldn't be a sluggard, which means that it's people's natural instinct to be a sluggard, which means it takes a lot of effort to not be a sluggard. That effort we call virtue, that concerted, directed, intentional effort we call virtue. Effort to be something that one is naturally not, right? To do the opposite of sin, it's virtue. So we had a culture for a long time that celebrated the opposite of those sins. We
had a culture for a long time that celebrated virtues. Makes sense. Here's a list of sins. What are the opposite of those things? Great. Let's do those. Let's honor those. Let's celebrate those. Let's value those. And then we'll have better lives and better families and a stronger country.
We haven't done that in a long time on our personal lives, on a personal level, on an individual level. We are now a culture of laziness. We're a culture of no responsibility, we're a culture of materialism, we're a culture of wasting money and going into debt and that is reflected in Congress. So it's hard to say, oh Congress are wasting so
much, spending so much money, we don't have when the American people are billions of dollars in debt. Let me look this up here. Credit card debt. We go again, it's a podcast later, you can press pause. I thought I was gonna say tens of billions. And I was like, man, it's not that much.
The American people currently hold $1.18 trillion in credit card debt. 1.1 trillion. And we're we're like Congress how dare you be 37 trillion in it. What did you think? New Jersey has an average balance of $10,000 per cardholder. Come on. This is a reflection of America. Congress is. So if we want to fix Congress it's not gonna happen by like raving about it. It's
gonna happen by changing the American people in our culture first. Okay, before we get to the Bible, I wanna share what I did again this morning because it's so good. It's Ben Franklin.
Ben Franklin wrote a wonderful work of art called The Way to Wealth, 1758. And he broke it down into three points. It's a beautiful story where there's these guys complaining about taxes outside of a business, and then this old man comes up,
this wise old man comes up and just starts giving advice. And it's beautiful. Let me cut to the point here. He has three sections, one on industry, hard work, one on responsibility, not being dependent on other people, and one on being frugal.
Let's jump right to the frugal one. Actually, I take that back. Let me share this one first on being industrious. He says, industry need not wish, is the wise man, as poor Richard says, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting. There are no gains without pains.
That was my teacher when I was like 12. Poor Richard says at the working man's house, hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Diligence is the mother of good luck,
and God gives all things to industry.
Then plow deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. Work while it's called today, for you know not how much you will be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows. If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Marr, you then, your own master, be ashamed to catch yourself idle.
When there is much to be done for yourself, your family, your country, be up by the peep of day. Let not the sun look down and say say in glorious here he lies. That's like beautiful, like unbelievably awesome American Ben Franklin stuff right there. All right. Now the saving. So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business,
personal responsibility and other section of this letter. But to the but to these, we must add frugality. If we would make our industry more certainly successful. The Indies have not made Spain rich because her outages are greater than her incomes. Away then with your expensive follies. You may think that perhaps a little tea or a little punch now and then, a diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then. Diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer,
and a little entertainment now and then can be no great matter. But remember what poor Richard says, many a little makes a nickel. Nickel, or for a lot. So many a little makes a lot.
And farther, beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship. Here you are, all get together at this venue of fineries and knickknacks. You call them goods, but if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of you. Remember what poor Richard says, Buy what thou hast no need of, and before long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.
That's just perfect. Perfect, we are so broke in government, in our country, we're so broke from all the wasteful spending. Well, listen, it goes both ways. But to be real, on an individual level,
we spend so much money on things we don't need, and then when an important expense comes up, we don't need. And then when an important expense comes up, we don't have the money. Broke, can't afford it, why not? And at the federal level, it's the same thing. Oh, can't afford to educate our kids, just we have no more money.
Like what, why not? Wow, we just blew it all over here. They won't admit that, but that's what it is. We had a guy, wrote me a note, So you just work in the military and I said like the Air Force or whoever will ask for a billion dollars And the first thing they do is spend it on a golf course And then they come back like oh we need more money. We don't have enough money for an airplane hanger and a runway We're out. We're out of money. What would you spend it on?
You know
More and more of our budget today is just interest of the debt. Money we can't spend on the things we need. The waste is killing us. We are drowning. We are drowning in the shiny stuff. Here's what Ben Franklin said, these are not the necessaries of life.
They can scarcely be called the conveniences and yet only because they look pretty, how many want to have them? The artificial wants of mankind thus become more numerous than the natural, meaning the important things." Now here's a little bit that I did not share on the radio today because I still feel bad about, I think it was like Monday's episode, yeah Monday because of the Swim Meet, I had to go early, it was a very short episode. So we'll go a little longer. He talks about borrowing money to pay for things.
He says, but what madness must it be to run a debt for these superfluities? Superfluities, superfluities, superfluities. We are offered by terms of this store, six months credit. And that perhaps has induced some of us to attend it because we cannot spare the ready money and hope now to be fine without it.
But ah, think what you do when you run in debt. You give to another power over your liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see your creditor. You will be in fear when you speak to him. You will make poor pitiful sneaking excuses
and by degrees come to lose your veracity and sink into base downright lying. For as poor Richard says, the second vice is lying, the first is running a debt. And again to the same purpose, lying rides upon debts back. Whereas a freeborn Englishman, again this is 1758, a freeborn Englishman ought not to be ashamed or afraid to see or speak to any man living, but poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue.
It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright, as poor Richard truly says. Now my favorite part of this, oh, I have two favorite parts of this letter. Let me do the Christian one first. Ben Franklin says, he talks about hard work, talks about personal responsibility, frugality,
all these virtues. And he ends with this, this doctrine, my friends is reason and wisdom. But after all, in the end, do not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality and prudence. That's the word I've been looking for. Prudence instead of personal responsibility. Same idea. Though excellent things, like these are great. Industry, frugality, prudence are great.
For they may all be blasted without the blessing of heaven. And therefore ask that blessing humbly and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it but comfort and help them. Remember Job suffered and was afterwards prosperous." Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin, our atheist founding father. Here's my other favorite part of this letter, of this story. So again there's a bunch of people outside of the store about to go buy stuff and they're complaining about taxes.
And the first part of the letter, this old man comes up and he's like, listen, you guys complain about your taxes, but you waste even more being with your laziness, you waste even more with your silliness, your foolishness, your bad decisions.
Waste way more than you pay in taxes. the taxes were like 10% not 50%. So I don't know, poor Richard would have a different take today, but the old man comes and he gives this great speech to these people and here's the end of the letter. Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it and approved the doctrine and immediately practiced the contrary. For the store opened and they began to buy extravagantly,
notwithstanding all his cautions. It didn't matter. Everyone agreed with it. Everyone knew it was the right thing. Everything knew this guy was right. And they immediately did the exact opposite. And Ben Franklin says, I resolved to be the better for having heard this story. And though I had at first determined to buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a little longer. Reader, if thou will do the same, thy profit will
be as great as mine." We lack the moral and biblical understanding of money and of hard work and frugality and prudence. So of course, our elected representatives will lack those virtues as well. And it's even harder for them to have those virtues because they don't feel the consequences of them wasting money, our money.
Right, at least when you, if someone doesn't work hard and waste their money, they feel the consequences of it. When Congress doesn't work hard and waste their money, waste our money, then they get reelected. So they even even grew. We need to have so much of this virtue. It's such an abundance of it that the people we elect can even overcome the
inherent structures that make it even harder for someone to be industrious and frugal. We have a long way to go for that to happen. Let me just wrap up with a couple scriptures here, a couple Proverbs. First on being a sluggard, just because I love that word. Proverbs 6, go to the ant you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise. How long will you lie there you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? Proverbs 34 for the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing,
but the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Proverbs 19, 24, a sluggard buries his hand in his dish. He will not even bring it back to his mouth. I was like, can't even can't be like, it's so lazy. I can't even put the fork to my face. Proverbs 26, 14 14 as a door turns on its hinges so does the sluggard on the bed. It's back and forth, back and forth. Won't even get up. Proverbs 21 20 a wise man on money, a wise man saves for the future, but a foolish man spends whatever he gets and a foolish government spends two trillion dollars more than they steal from the American people. from the American people. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.
