Allen Jackson NOW

Allen Jackson: Well, good evening and welcome to Nashville. I'm Allen Jackson. The U.S. national debt crossed another historic milestone as it topped $40 trillion for the first time in history. It includes an increase of more than $11 trillion since around the time the COVID-19 pandemic was about to begin.

Perhaps the most troubling part of that number is how quickly Americans have become completely accustomed to hearing numbers that would have been almost unimaginable a generation ago. Washington now expects to spend roughly $1 trillion this year simply paying interest on our debt. We're talking about a debt burden that can eventually affect the cost of a mortgage, the ability of a business to borrow, and the government's ability to meet its most basic responsibilities.

Yet at the very moment America is struggling to finance the government it already has, the Democratic Socialists of America are proposing dramatically more of it: government-funded healthcare, housing, higher education, with the promise that wealthy individuals and corporations will just pick up the tab.

Estimates cited for that agenda will run more than $200 trillion in additional spending over a decade. Whatever language politicians use to sell those promises, eventually the arithmetic reaches working Americans, small business owners, and the middle class.

America has accumulated $40 trillion in debt. Government waste and fraud are being exposed, and extraordinary failures of oversight are on full display. Socialism's answer is to give government more money and more responsibility.

Does America still have the courage to choose free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, and personal responsibility over bigger government and promises that we simply cannot afford? I'd say we spend like a drunken sailor, but that's an insult to drunken sailors. $40 trillion in debt is not monopoly money; it's a real number.

The $1 trillion we are spending on interest payments for the debt is more than we spend for national defense. If we broke this down even further, interest payments on the national debt in 2025 came out to roughly $7,300 per household. It's even more now. We're at the point where America is effectively putting its future on a credit card and we're barely covering the minimum payment.

But if you turn on the television or you listen to politicians on either side of the aisle, you'd think we're debating policy preferences: tax this, cut that, maybe stimulate the economy over here. Accountability has been lacking in D.C. We have sent a string of leaders to Washington, D.C. over the course of many years. Many of them, when they got those appointments, spent decades in Washington without any other jobs or means of employment.

Yet somehow they find themselves to have accumulated tremendous resources and significant personal wealth. I'm not really opposed to that, but the fact is the organizations they lead are supposed to be leading our nation forward. Yet these leaders have steered us towards bankruptcy. Our country is teetering on the point of total fiscal collapse. What we're doing is unsustainable, and now politicians lecture us that we should pay more and there's more deserved.

In any other arena, if you were earning obscene amounts of money while destroying and dismantling the organization you're leading, you wouldn't be celebrated as a wonderful leader. You'd be ridiculed, mocked, and hopefully replaced. We have politicians who ask us to make sacrifices that they will not make themselves. A good leader sacrifices before asking the people they lead to sacrifice.

Now I hear politicians push for universal healthcare, Medicare for All, childcare from birth through college. The Democratic Socialist of America candidates want to dramatically increase government spending and they claim that the bill for all this will be sent to the richest individuals and corporations. But if you tally up that bill, some estimates say it could reach $212 trillion in new spending over the next decade.

It's going to be middle-class taxpayers that will ultimately fund that bill. It's like they want to do a smash-and-grab on the U.S. Treasury. They're saying, "If you elect me, we'll go break the glass and steal all the stuff in the store." They feel no shame, there's no frustration over fraud, and there's no outrage over dishonesty.

I would expect governors and the mayors of states where billions of dollars are being stolen from taxpayers, both from the local community and from the federal government, to be outraged at fraud. It's stealing. But that's not the response that we've been seeing. I'd love to hear our leaders say we're going to stop collecting income taxes until we can reduce fraud by 50%.

I want to submit to you that our nation is being looted. Our wealth, our strength, our opportunities, and our futures are being diminished. We have got to come back to basic values. The founding fathers turned to scripture for guidance. They believed in truth and justice and moral order. The values found in our founding documents were not pulled from thin air; they were drawn from scripture.

The Ten Commandments still hangs in courtrooms across the land because the very idea of right and wrong was baked into the American experiment from day one. I would suggest to you that when culture departs from a biblical framework, we leave ourselves incredibly vulnerable. We as the church cannot sit quiet in this season. We must have a faith that is living and vital, a faith that requires situational awareness of the world we're living in. We must determine to be champions of the truth.

In a moment, joining us will be a man that knows a thing or two about the government debt, the President of American Action Forum and the former Congressional Budget Office Director, Doug Holtz-Eakin. I'll be right back.

Guest (Male): Be not afraid. Be not discouraged. It's a biblical phrase you may be familiar with. It's also the title for our new devotional and prayer book. A 30-day tool to help you overcome fear and discouragement in your life. We can walk through some uncertain times, whether it's in what's happening in the world around us or in our own personal life. But God's word and the spirit of God will give us the courage to face every challenge with the assurance that we can be triumphant in Christ. You'll enjoy the book.

Fear and discouragement can leave us feeling overwhelmed and uncertain. That's why Pastor Allen created *Be Not Afraid, Be Not Discouraged*, a practical devotional filled with scripture, encouraging insights, and prayers to help strengthen your faith throughout the day. This resource will help you find renewed courage, hope, and confidence in God's faithful care. Request your copy today with your gift of $15 or more at AllenJackson.com or call 800-880-5102.

Allen Jackson: Tonight, we're joined by the President of the American Action Forum, Doug Holtz-Eakin. Welcome to the show, Doug.

Doug Holtz-Eakin: Thank you for having me.

Allen Jackson: We have passed the 60-day negotiation period with Iran, and President Trump recently stated that the U.S. is not currently in talks with them. He also said that the Strait of Hormuz is open and operating. I suppose there's some debate about that. But the real question is how can the economic squeeze that's being placed on the Iranian regime bring about the results that are needed?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: Certainly, the administration is promising that beginning tomorrow, they will tighten the squeeze even further by soliciting the assistance of every American ally and essentially saying, "If you're not with us, then we'll put the sanctions on you as well." I'm interested to see what that looks like. It is certainly the case that the Iranian regime has the capability of diverting the resources toward their needs and at the expense of their population. It's a very tough thing to beat on purely economic grounds.

Allen Jackson: In recent years, these economic sanctions have become an increasing tool in these international relations. Now we've discovered that there's dark shipping, secret shipping that's been taking place bringing in supplies. Can that realistically be stopped, or is this more a talking point than a real pressure?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I was surprised to learn the extent of this. Dark shipping is when you turn off your transponder and switch your flags and things like that. It accounts for a little under 10% of global oil output. That's a lot of shipping, that's a lot of oil, and we haven't been able to stop it by simply looking at the ships. Now the strategy is look at the customer. Talk to India, talk to China, and find out what you can do to get them to stop purchasing the oil and cut it off that way. I think we haven't really succeeded with these with Russia or with Iran, and we're trying to take the next step to make sure that we can have sanctions that do work.

Allen Jackson: We achieved another milestone this week, this one somewhat dubious. Our national debt tracker says we have crossed $40 trillion. It seems to be two schools of thought. One says we can grow our way out of this; the other side says it's a doom loop. Can you give us your take on this?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I'm in neither camp. We can't grow our way out of it. The reality is that the big spending programs, things like Medicare and Social Security, are growing much faster than any plausible growth in revenue. Medicare is going to grow at a rate of 7 to 7.5% per year; we're just not going to get revenues growing at that rate over a 10-year period. You're going to have to do something to the spending itself.

It doesn't have to be a doom loop. All of our problems are self-inflicted. That means we can fix them and we should. I remain confident the American people will do the right thing because they usually do when all other options are exhausted.

Allen Jackson: With the current trend in political leadership and academic ideas, it doesn't seem that we have the willingness to make the hard decisions that bring back fiscal responsibility. How do we instill those things?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: We certainly haven't had it. I don't disagree with that a bit. I think necessity is the key. I don't think you can teach this any other way than we're going to get some bond market reaction. We've seen people react to the long rates going up in the past week. We're going to see the Social Security system run out of money in 2032, and people are going to say, "What do we do?" Of necessity, people will have to come up with alternative approaches to how we handle the budget and we will do better when we have to.

Allen Jackson: In this election cycle, we're seeing a rather startling emergence of a whole raft of Democratic Socialists gaining some real traction, not just in the electoral places, but in the public square. They're promising spending in a whole new imagined way. Is this for real?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I don't think so. You'll recall there was a Biden administration that came in promising to build back better. It had free college in it and all sorts of new entitlement programs and it wasn't going to cost the average American anything, and it didn't happen. It didn't happen because it can't happen. It doesn't add up; it doesn't work.

What the Democratic Socialists are talking about won't work. If they were genuinely in power and had the presidency, the House, and the Senate, they would do it. The realities of economics would say no, that won't work, and they'd be frustrated and probably do something even worse like a whole bunch of price controls. But what they're proposing will not work. The goal is to keep their damage to a minimum and do things which are just common-sense practical solutions. That's what America has always succeeded by following.

Allen Jackson: I've got a soundbite from a DSA candidate in Florida, Oliver Larkin. He didn't win, but listen to his stump speech.

Oliver Larkin: Are we ready for Medicare for All? Are we ready for universal childcare? Are we ready for paid family and medical leave? Are we ready for a $25 an hour minimum wage? Are we ready for free college? Are we ready for a Green New Deal?

Allen Jackson: I think we ought to throw in lifetime passes to Disney World and Super Bowl tickets.

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I'm ready for the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the pennant. We're all ready for something. The question is, are you ready to pay for universal childcare? Are you ready to pay for Medicare for All? Are you ready to pay for the whole list of things that he just went through? Everyone would love to get them, but we'd have to pay for them and we can't afford it.

Allen Jackson: What's troubling is the Democratic Party, in their self-described big tent, seems to be welcoming this set of opinions. If recent history has taught us anything, what starts out as seeming absurd pretty quickly moves to mainstream or centrist positions. Can the Democrats sustain their influence if they embrace these policies?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I think it's a path to a Democratic Party that loses national relevance. These are not ideas that the average American embraces. They're embraced by candidates, they're embraced by coastal elites, and they've got a little foundation in academia. But if you're getting out of bed and trying to put food on the table for your family and going to work every day, you don't believe any of this because your eyes tell you it's not possible. Following this path, I think, is very dangerous for the Democratic Party.

Allen Jackson: I think your comment's important; we've got to pay attention to what we see. Doug, we need to take a short break. Can you stay with us for another segment?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: Absolutely.

Allen Jackson: If you're watching and your phone is close by, try logging on to AJNow.com. Send me an email; we'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. I'll be right back.

I've learned as a pastor there's a tremendous difference in a crowd and a community of faith. When people decide to step out of the crowd and invest their time and their resources, they become a part of a community and it changes their life. I want to give you that invitation. I'm grateful you're a part of the crowd who watch the ministry. I want to ask you to consider becoming a monthly ministry partner. I believe if you'll make that regular commitment to what God is doing through this ministry, it will bring momentum to your spiritual life and it will help us reach more people than we've ever reached with the gospel before.

America is turning 250 years old. That's something that should unify us. We have so much to celebrate; there is no place like America. Our freedoms and liberties are unmatched in this world. Everything that's good about America—our laws, our opportunities, the prosperity we've enjoyed—they've come to us because of our faith.

We've created a series of emails celebrating 250 years of our country. Find out how Christianity has played a role in this nation from its founding until now. You'll receive a new email each week throughout the series. Each one is designed to help you see our blessings and our heritage in a new way and how faith has played a powerful role all the way through. It's one way we're celebrating America's 250th. We hope you'll join us. You can sign up now at AllenJackson.com/250.

We're back now with the former Congressional Budget Office Director, Doug Holtz-Eakin. Doug, President Trump has paused the 50% tariffs on a whole range of Canadian goods that were set to take effect. He's stating that the U.S. is negotiating a new deal with Canada and even hinted that we might reopen the Keystone XL pipeline. Do you think that's just another one of his promises, or is that in reality a possibility?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I've seen no evidence of that happening, so I remain open to the possibility. He certainly did say it on his Truth Social post. These negotiations are really important; there's no doubt about it. The tariffs they're proposing are tariffs that would be very different than things we've seen so far. There would be no exemption for goods that qualify under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that was true last time. Ostensibly the tariff was 50% but it went away. This would be 50% on automobiles, alcohol, and all sorts of things that matter a great deal. I think how we deal with these tariffs is an important piece of the relationship with Canada.

Allen Jackson: I think Americans in general look favorably toward Canadians. But the Canadian government keeps lurching further to the left, embracing China in entirely new ways. Mexico and their cartels are destabilizing. Is Canada moving to that same sort of a harbor for our antagonist and enemies?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I sure hope not. It's a genuine concern. I will say the most important thing that NAFTA, the USMCA predecessor, did was it solidified a democratic neighbor on our southern border. Maybe not the perfect democratic neighbor, but far better than where it was headed at the time. The trade agreements can be viewed narrowly as just some sort of economic item, but they're actually more important as diplomatic ways to share values across borders. We did that with Mexico very successfully. We may have to do some work with Canada and think about it from those perspectives.

Allen Jackson: According to recent data from the Institute for Supply Management, U.S. manufacturing activity has increased to its highest level in more than four years in July. Is that the result of President Trump's efforts to bring manufacturing jobs back to America, and what are the longer-term implications for our economy?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I don't know. Certainly, it may have contributed; it's too soon to tell. There's also an enormous amount of a construction boom going on out there. We've all heard about AI and the data centers and the power generation it requires. Those things have to be produced, and those are manufacturing jobs. We're seeing that sort of run straight through the economy and it's an old traditional manufacturing boom that comes out of a business cycle upswing. That's all good news and the policies may be helping on top of that. There'll be a generation of economists who try to pick apart which was the most important piece, but this is certainly good news for manufacturing. We haven't seen an upswing like this for a number of years. Although manufacturing employment is still down, maybe that'll pick up as well.

Allen Jackson: Historically, America's manufacturing strength has really been the strength of our nation, particularly in those seasons of great stress. Do you imagine we could regain that as a manufacturing center again in the world?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: We've never really lost manufacturing to the extent I think it gets advertised. We're the second largest manufacturer on the planet. We're bigger than Germany, Japan, and other countries combined, as it turns out. What we lost was some manufacturing employment, a lot of manufacturing employment, because our manufacturing sector is lean, mean, and extremely efficient. In times of stress, it'll be there and if we need to get bigger, we can ramp it up. You hear a lot now about the munitions that were expended in Iran and their need to be replaced. We're going to see a manufacturing boom that comes out of things like that.

Allen Jackson: There are those who believe that the Momodani-imposed pedetar tax in New York City will continue the acceleration of the wealth exodus from that city. California's voting this November on a similar kind of a wealth tax. How do you see this playing out?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I think these wealth taxes are badly misunderstood. We looked very carefully at the national wealth taxes proposed by Senators Sanders and Warren, and in the end, the average working guy paid 75 cents out of every dollar wealth tax collected. If you tax the investable wealth, you tax the ability to expand companies, you tax the ability to hire people, and give them raises.

These are not the benign instruments of social justice the way they're advertised. At the state level, they're even more dangerous because you can run away from them. People will, there's no way around that, and I think both states are headed the wrong direction.

Allen Jackson: You mentioned AI a moment ago. The expansion of the AI industry just seems to keep marching on. It demands tremendous amounts of energy and leads to all sorts of questions and concerns around those data centers. What do Americans need to understand about these data centers and AI in our future?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I think they need to get things in perspective. It sounds like the data centers are taking over all of the lower 48. But I live in the state of Virginia, which is ground zero for data centers in the United States. We have more than anybody else. They've had no impact on the quality of life. We have managed the power demands and the water needs with no noticeable difficulties. So, yes, these are a big deal because they're AI and the possibilities that they present. But they're not a big deal in terms of local economic development, and we've managed the infrastructure needs of other industries; we can manage this infrastructure need as well.

Allen Jackson: And fundamentally, we can't afford to get behind on AI and still flourish in our world, can we?

Doug Holtz-Eakin: I don't think so. Certainly, the competition with China is a real thing. But also, I think people are not thinking through AI carefully enough. AI allows lesser-skilled workers to do more skilled jobs. It could be one of the great leveling elements of the labor force of the future, which is allowing people to get a whole range of jobs they weren't previously able to do. That's good news for the average worker and good news for their wages.

Allen Jackson: If I had to summarize what I'm hearing, it seems to me in general you're an optimist about our future. You think America still has bright days ahead.

Doug Holtz-Eakin: This is a special place, and the people are special. What we've accomplished is enormous and what we have the potential to accomplish is even greater. So, yeah, I'm an optimist. This is what America does.

Allen Jackson: Well, I thank you for your time today. Your wisdom and insights always make a difference. Thanks.

Doug Holtz-Eakin: Thank you.

Allen Jackson: In a moment, I'll be back with your emails.

I want to give you a personal invitation to join my podcast, Culture and Christianity. You don't compromise the truth, but you say it where the people know that you care about them. We're trying to understand how to take our faith outside the walls of the church and live it out in the marketplace.

Guest (Female): I just never understood the double standard because they punished me while my peers were allowed to talk about how devastated they were that Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Allen Jackson: I brought in some friends, people that are trying to do this on a regular basis.

Guest (Male): They're never going to stop me because the truth is the truth. I'd rather be on God's side than to be a coward.

Allen Jackson: We've been living in a season of unprecedented deception, propaganda, and manipulation.

Guest (Female): Our best option was to run. We were timing ourselves. I was trying to think how can I protect my kids.

Allen Jackson: I want to be a part of seeing culture and Christianity intersect. I hope you'll join the podcast soon.

Thank you for spending a few moments of your day with us. Just a reminder, if you ever miss a live episode, you can always go to AJNow.com. There's a full archive there of all the programs. You can watch the most recent or any of them in the archive. They're easy to share with a friend; that helps all of us.

Kathy M. from Arizona emailed: "Do either of you, Gordon Chang or yourself, believe President Trump and Secretary Rubio are really as naive as they appear about the Chinese invasion of the U.S.? The longer they waffle over the last chance, both China and Iran continue inserting themselves and influencing all areas of our lives here. Maybe something less visible is happening behind the scenes, but something definitive and final needs to happen soon, in my humble opinion."

Kathy, I can't speak for Gordon, but I'll give you my opinion. Politicians reflect public opinion, and it seems to me there are far louder voices and even far more momentum for abolishing ICE than there is for thwarting Chinese aggression. The American public needs to wake up and cut through the clutter and recognize that if it begins with illegal, it's not a good thing whether it's coming over our border. Then we can get to those who are legally taking advantage of our systems and perhaps protect American citizens. What a novel idea for those that we elect to protect and represent us. I do believe God is moving in the earth. Let's pay attention and join him in those initiatives. Thank you for your time today. God bless and goodnight.