On today's episode of Relatable, my dad sits down with me to talk about immigration, the government shutdown, and much more. He also talks about his daughter, Allie, who is traveling to Louisiana to speak at a Turning Point USA event.
00:00:11.360Her first reaction to her pregnancy was abortion because that's the lie she was told.
00:00:16.540But once she heard the heartbeat of her child, she knew that God wanted her to have her baby and that all things would be possible through him.
00:01:53.940None of mine did, but hopefully yours did.
00:01:56.480Well, I'm sitting in here for Allie today because Allie is going to be speaking at a Turning Point USA event at Louisiana State University tonight, LSU.
00:02:07.000Incidentally, I had two of my nephews and my brother, I mean, my younger brother both went to school there, so they're excited about that.
00:02:15.440And we're excited that Allie's doing that.
00:02:17.860You know, Allie talks about it all the time.
00:02:19.640It's taken about 20 of them of conservatives like her to replace Charlie, and it's not even a replacement, but just to kind of fill in.
00:02:28.680I'm sure it's going to be streaming live somewhere tonight if you want to watch that.
00:02:31.800I think it starts at 630 Central Time, maybe even on the Blaze, so if you don't have a Blaze subscription, you might want to get one of those.
00:02:39.000I'm not sure if it'll be on there or not, but it might be, but I'm sure you can search it and find it.
00:02:43.860And just be praying for her today, for her safe travel, and also that, you know, God will just put the words in her mouth that she needs to say to the people.
00:02:54.640I'm sure they're going to have a question and answer session like Charlie's done in the past.
00:02:57.980It is going to be inside, so it's a little bit easier to secure.
00:03:02.520And, of course, you know, my wife and I are always concerned about her security, but we're confident that the team that she has around her is doing a very, very good job.
00:03:12.680But anyway, what we're going to do today, and this might get a little detailed for you, so please stay with me, whether you're just listening in your car or at your home or watching it on YouTube.
00:03:21.460We're going to get into some detail about immigration, because I know that has been a concern for a lot of you as to what's really going on related to the Trump administration's policy on illegal immigration.
00:03:35.460And then we're also going to talk a little bit more about the government shutdown as to kind of where we are with that.
00:03:40.840And then finally, we're going to answer, really, this is a response to some of your questions relating to cost of living and inflation.
00:03:49.560I know that's a concern for many, many, many people across the country.
00:03:55.060And what I want to do is kind of explain to you at first what the administration's policies are related to illegal immigration.
00:04:06.180Now, we have to go back a little bit, because remember, during the Biden years, somewhere between 11 and 14 million illegal immigrants entered this country.
00:04:19.000And some of them were given, you know, a temporary, the ability to temporarily stay here.
00:04:27.980Now, a lot of those weren't vetted properly.
00:04:30.460And so some of the things that we're doing is we're going back and re-vetting some of those people that were let in and given temporary legal status.
00:04:38.560But many, many of the 11 to 14 million just came across illegally because Biden was not enforcing the border.
00:04:47.040No matter what Ms. Kamala said, who was the border czar, never forget that.
00:04:52.780She never even went to the border except during her final days of the campaign.
00:04:56.680She went to El Paso for about 30 minutes or so.
00:04:59.220So anyway, we're going to talk about that.
00:05:01.840Now, this information is a couple of weeks old because they update it every month or so.
00:05:08.040But and I've got a lot of notes here, so I'll be reading those.
00:05:10.560But as of the end of September, which is about 250 days into the Trump administration, over 2 million illegal aliens had been removed from the country.
00:05:31.400In other words, we executed ICE, executed deportations.
00:05:35.520The remainder, a little over 1.5 million, though, self-deported, meaning that they were encouraged to deport, you know, just through general information that's out there.
00:05:48.340And I didn't know this until I did this research, had this research done, is that the Border Patrol offered $1,000 and free flights for self-deported.
00:05:59.440So there was incentive there and, you know, they would deport back to their country or another country of their choice.
00:06:05.440So of the 2 million that removed, two-thirds of them went back on their own or actually three-fourths went back on their own.
00:06:15.680That's the easiest thing to happen is for them to go back on their own.
00:06:18.700We don't have to, you know, we don't have to arrest them or anything like that.
00:06:22.180The other thing is, is that remember what we've tried to say or what you've heard saying is that the focus has been on criminals, all right, illegal alien criminals.
00:06:32.420And either they are, have been convicted of a crime back home or they have committed crimes here in the U.S.
00:06:40.800And we have been seeking their arrest and that's the worst of the worst.
00:06:45.740And that's 75%, listen to this closely, okay, 75% of ICE arrests, by extension, that means deportations, involved illegal aliens with convictions or pending charges in the U.S.
00:07:01.040or records from their home country, such as gang affiliation or terrorism ties.
00:07:06.620Now, I don't know about you, but that's what I want my government to be doing.
00:07:12.200And I'm excited that they've been doing that.
00:07:14.520That includes 1,155 gang members and 39 known or suspected terrorists, which was actually just in the first 50 days of the Trump administration.
00:07:26.860These are like MS-13 and the other one, I don't even know how to say it, Strinday, Aruga, Aruga, whatever that is.
00:07:34.960And they've been transferred to facilities like the El Salvador prison and what have you.
00:07:40.340So they are going after the worst of the worst.
00:07:43.840This information that they have about families being separated, okay, I had a question that was emailed to me about this.
00:07:50.380Is that, you know, people were concerned about, well, there's some of the family is here legally, but let's say the mom or the dad's not here legally.
00:08:21.600They, their entire family can leave if they choose to, if they want to keep the family together, that is their choice.
00:08:28.400And believe me, when they came over here illegally, they knew what the risk was.
00:08:33.980And the risk is, is that if you not, if you come here and you don't have the right documentation, you're not here legally, then there is a chance that you're going to be deported.
00:09:03.960And I think that's something that the administration and hopefully Congress is working on.
00:09:07.800Uh, I think it, it should depend somewhat on what that person that is here undocumented illegally, uh, is doing what they have been doing, that type of thing.
00:09:19.180Uh, maybe there's something, uh, that would work that, or, uh, that they could work around to be able to keep the family together either at their home country or here in the U S that's, that's what the goal is.
00:09:29.360Um, what, what happened was, and this is according to, uh, Tom Holman, who is the head of border patrol is that they, what they did was remove children with their mothers who requested the children depart with them.
00:09:46.420That's a parental decision and the right one, by the way, uh, whether, you know, whether you're in the United States or you're in another country, keeping families, families choosing to stay together is the right thing to do.
00:10:00.040Uh, of course, you've heard a lot of negative information coming out of the mainstream media about, uh, about what the Trump administration and does, but ice does not arrest or deport us citizens unless, and this is a, this is important.
00:10:16.420Unless they are obstructing or assaulting law enforcement.
00:10:21.400So if, if, if, if, uh, ice is doing a raid and they're, and they're picking up the illegal immigrants here, and there is someone here that's legally, that's obstructing that they're going to get arrested as well.
00:10:37.240Although I guess technically you could remove their legal status if they're not a citizen, but, uh, they are not, uh, doing that.
00:10:45.180They're not arresting and deporting U.S. citizens.
00:10:49.120So whatever you're hearing on that is simply just not true.
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00:12:12.100So you can see that it is a crackdown, and we're going to see some information here in just a few minutes that there are even some people that are way far on the other side of the aisle that are admitting that President Trump and his team are doing a really good job on that.
00:12:32.440But there definitely has been a crackdown.
00:12:33.920But it's not what you're hearing from the mainstream media as far as they're separating families and what have you.
00:12:42.220The policy is that if you're here illegally, you are subject to deportation, no matter what the scenario is.
00:12:50.340Now, our first priority is getting the bad folks away, the gang members and people like that or people that have committed a crime here or have committed crimes back in their home country.
00:13:01.420That's the first priority, and they are looking for those people.
00:13:05.580Now, a lot of times they will know who they are.
00:13:09.580They just need to figure out how to find them.
00:13:11.380The challenge that we're having, of course, is in some of the blue cities and blue states around the country, our law enforcement are being obstructed from being able to do that.
00:13:21.920And then, you know, they talk about that these ICE people wear a mask and all this.
00:13:26.540They wear a baraclava over their face.
00:13:28.940Well, the reason they have to do that is because the left will expose them.
00:13:35.440They'll try to tell them who the ICE officer is.
00:13:37.920They've even had some of them that they have, you know, posted where they live and all that type of stuff, which is totally, totally, it's immoral as well as illegal and irrational.
00:13:48.840But that's what people do because a lot of people on the left are like that, unfortunately.
00:13:53.820Also, the other thing to remember, you know, you keep hearing about, well, illegal aliens contribute to society and what have you.
00:14:03.580And I don't have any doubt that there are some undocumented people that are here that are just here for the work and they're not here to cause any harm.
00:14:46.180OK, if you're my age or you're my even my kid's age, my oldest one anyway, you had this something on Saturday mornings called Schoolhouse Rock.
00:14:55.900I don't know if you remember that where they kind of told you how things became a bill and the different branches of the government.
00:15:01.680The executive branch is only there to carry out the laws that the legislative branch has put into place.
00:15:11.240That's what the executive branch does.
00:17:14.040You know, it's supposed to be state money.
00:17:15.960But if I want to use the federal money, it's just it's moving the chess pieces because money is fungible.
00:17:21.020Just like when we sent money to Iran for supposedly humanitarian reasons and they used it for, you know, increasing the uranium to try to increase it to weapons grade.
00:18:45.320And that why couldn't that money be used to give you a break on health care?
00:18:50.860You know, if you're like me, you pay a lot of money for health care.
00:18:54.320And why couldn't that be used for you?
00:18:57.260You know, but it but the states, those states are ones that are simply providing health care to illegal immigrants, something that is should not be done.
00:22:14.060Thank goodness that they're willing to do that.
00:22:16.320And, you know, Blanche went on to say that in this letter that if you, any arrest, attempts
00:22:26.920to arrest or interfere with federal agents is illegal and futile.
00:22:31.500Also, one should know that touching federal agents during their duties constitutes a crime.
00:22:39.380So I hope that they'll enforce that to the fullest extent of the law.
00:22:44.660All these men and women are trying to do is carry out their responsibilities that are passed down from the leaders of the executive branch.
00:22:57.440And again, they're not deporting U.S. citizens and they're focusing primarily on those that have committed crimes here in the U.S.
00:23:07.480or at home, and then the other people that are here illegally, they also are subject to being detained and determine whether or not they should be here or not.
00:23:19.180So it's very, it's just sickening to, and almost, in my opinion, what some of these people are trying to do is on the border of treasonous.
00:23:29.180When you're trying to impede federal law being upheld, I don't know what else there could be.
00:23:35.920I mean, you become almost an enemy of the state.
00:23:38.880And I know that's harsh to say that, but it's true.
00:23:42.100Now, it is, I will tell you, this next video clip that we're going to show, it's surprising to me.
00:27:58.320And I think the biggest concerns that are out there right now with the government shutdown is there are about 40 million people in the U.S.
00:28:07.340that are dependent on what they call Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and that's called SNAP.
00:28:14.720And these are what we might, when I was growing up, would call food stamps so that people can have federal assistance in being able to get groceries and food.
00:28:26.340And that takes about $8 billion a month in federal funding, and that funding is going to run out if it hasn't already run out.
00:28:37.360And it's amazing, the hardship it is putting on the people that need it the most.
00:28:46.020And remember, the reason that the government shut down is 100% the Democrats.
00:32:31.840In fact, maybe they should have been raised temporarily because of the pain people were going through due to lost jobs and stuff during COVID.
00:32:39.960But now that they are supposed to expire at the end of this year, the Democrats want to keep going on those.
00:32:45.900Again, they want to take your money and give it to somebody else.
00:32:51.740And we're not talking about money from the, you know, the multibillionaires.
00:32:54.880That's not going to have one effect on them.
00:32:56.720But for the average person, you know, having to have increased taxes because the subsidies are going out to other people.
00:33:04.600And some of those subsidies were going out to people that were able-bodied and could work.
00:33:09.280Remember, I told you last time, people that are on moms with young children that are at the poverty level, there's nothing going away from that, okay?
00:33:19.540That's not going to be a negative for them at all, right?
00:33:22.660But the able-bodied people or the people that are making a medium income, their subsidies should not be continued at the enhanced level.
00:33:31.040And the Democrats are trying to make that a point of contention.
00:33:36.300Now, the Republicans already said they would negotiate that once we open the government back up.
00:33:42.380But the Democrats are saying, no, we're not willing to do that.
00:33:44.900We want it negotiated as part of opening the government up.
00:33:50.000I don't think the Republicans are going to, you know, whatever damage they were going to take politically has already been hit, already happened.
00:33:58.160So they're not going to, in my opinion, buckle on this.
00:34:04.240I don't have the backroom information.
00:34:06.300But the people that I talk to that I know that are there tell me that they're going to stay strong.
00:34:11.220I actually think I heard one congressman say yesterday on one of the news deals that he thinks it will happen, you know, go through Thanksgiving.
00:34:19.840I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't get opened back up right after the November election of this year, which is just in a couple of weeks.
00:34:28.700OK, I think any Democrats on the ballot, you know, probably are are saying, well, let's hold this off.
00:34:37.300And then let's then we can do something after the election that's coming up in November.
00:34:52.700And there are people that are going to suffer.
00:34:54.440I know I have one of my children that that is a federal government worker as an attorney.
00:35:01.080And I think that they are missing their paychecks.
00:35:04.140So that's that's not much fun whatsoever.
00:35:07.340In fact, what's happened in a lot of ways is the critical workers like now we're talking about people that can't they can't miss they can't miss this.
00:35:20.200People like the air traffic controllers missing their paychecks and whatever, talking about needing to go to the food banks and what have you.
00:35:45.060These are well-qualified professionals that keep our airspace safe, our planes moving on time.
00:35:50.580And the fact that they have to think about how they how they put food on the table and need air need airlines to put, you know, food into the towers so they can have a lunch and a dinner is outrageous.
00:36:01.020So, again, I see that burn coming from the controllers.
00:36:04.860And again, I think it's going to play out as we look forward into the coming days.
00:36:08.280You know, the the Republicans have even tried to pass miniature bills to keep paying these essential workers and the Democrats have stopped those as well.
00:36:19.000I mean, it's just totally out there on the ludicrous edge.
00:36:22.880And I'm not sure exactly what's going to cause the breakthrough, but there will be a breakthrough.
00:36:30.080I want to make sure that you understand that, that it all will pass.
00:36:33.400It's not going to, you know, it's not going to be there forever and all these people will receive back pay.
00:36:39.700Now, some of the people are actually, which I think is a good thing.
00:36:42.000Some of the people that have been laid off or furloughed, whatever, they're not ever going to be coming back because we have a too, too much of a bloated federal government.
00:36:51.920So I'm, I'm happy that this is happening.
00:36:54.180And of course, the Democrats are throwing a fit over that as well.
00:36:56.720They want as many government employees as they can, as they can get.
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00:37:59.100A little bit lighter note, uh, in a way, I guess to me, it was a lighter note, uh, is that they had the no Kings day protest.
00:38:11.720And I think they were to their credit were, were mostly, um, they were mostly nonviolent, which I think is a good thing.
00:38:21.420And we should be able to protest our government.
00:38:23.640And some of them were actually kind of funny.
00:38:25.900Some of the, the silly costumes that they had on, uh, but I really got a kick out of, uh, Donald Trump saying on, uh, one of his posts on social media that says a huge, thank you to all the no Kings protesters.
00:39:40.000You know, just because you don't like a president, um, doesn't mean that they're a King or trying to be a King or something like that.
00:39:48.980Certainly we didn't like some of the policies that president Obama had.
00:39:52.780We certainly didn't like almost anything president Biden's done, but I don't, I don't think you ever saw, uh, uh, an uptick of saying, call him a King.
00:40:01.340And those people did lots of executive orders.
00:40:04.060Uh, but this is just something that they, you know, that they, that they want to pray on.
00:40:39.040Uh, but those of us that are seeking the real truth are the ones that need to be speaking up and paying attention and what have you.
00:40:47.700Uh, we asked, as we always do, we asked for questions and, uh, the kind of the questions that we got this time were very kind of closely related.
00:40:57.140One of the questions or one of the things that came across and the most common was, uh, the growing dominance of dominance of Islam in places like Minnesota, Dearborn, Michigan, um, and other places around the country.
00:41:13.280And I get what you're saying, uh, about the, the, the Muslim population in the U S is about 2% and it's kind of stayed about that for a while.
00:41:25.400But what's happened is, is there have been concentrations of people from coming in from basically Muslim countries to the U S settling in one in various particular areas.
00:41:38.000And while what I, I'm asked, what do I think, what can we do about that?
00:41:43.480Well, I believe that we, one of the problems that we've had is we've had chain migration.
00:41:51.560Which is something Schumer put in to where, you know, uh, uh, one person comes in legally, let's say it's a student or maybe it's a professor or something like that.
00:42:01.340And then they can bring in, they can, they can ask and use generally approved to bring in other members of their family.
00:42:09.500That don't really have to go through at getting at the back of the line of just normal, uh, legal immigration.
00:42:15.760They, uh, because that they're linked, they can do that.
00:42:18.960Well, I think we need to eliminate chain migration.
00:42:22.340That's one of the things I think we need to do.
00:42:23.940And I think it'll help us in that scenario.
00:42:25.820The other thing that's happening is a lot of these people are coming over here on HB one visas and they're getting married and having kids that are born here, which they're U S citizens.
00:42:36.340If you're born here, that's the way, that's the way it works currently.
00:42:40.160And I think we need to, I think that we need to be much more restrictive on some of these visa programs.
00:42:47.400We need to make sure that we are given our U S citizens, the absolute first and best opportunity.
00:42:57.020We should be prejudiced in favor of U S citizens so that to get these, uh, jobs that we're saying that we need to hire these engineers and other places for, from around the world.
00:43:10.940I think that we need to first make sure that we're, uh, given a clear path for our students to be able to participate in these high paying, uh, technical jobs that are out there in engineering and software development, software design, all those types of things.
00:43:27.180We need to be really looking at the economy of the future.
00:43:30.460The economy of the past is not the economy of the future.
00:43:34.760And we need to make sure that our education system is looking at that.
00:43:38.300What are we doing at the basic levels of our education to make sure that we're training our students to be able to take those, to have those jobs and our universities, our universities should admit every U S citizen before they admit foreign citizens.
00:43:56.000I just do not believe that we should be recruiting, uh, foreign, foreign students to come to our universities.
00:44:04.000When we have students here, that would be very good, uh, representations in those universities.
00:44:11.740Even here in Texas at some of our leading universities, it's harder for someone here in Texas that has a high grade point average to get into the university of Texas or Texas A&M or some of our other top universities than it is for someone coming from another country.
00:44:28.500And that's something that absolutely we need, we need to handle.
00:44:32.420Of course, the other thing that we need to do is in our neighborhoods and things like that, we need to show the kindness of Jesus in those particular areas so that they have a desire.
00:44:45.660I mean, it's, it's, it's up to us to be the messenger.
00:44:48.880It's up to Jesus and it's up to God to change people's hearts, but we need to show them that being a Christian is something that's a positive and it's, and, and, and that the true son of God, uh, is Jesus Christ with that's, that's what we need to show.
00:45:05.060Um, but I do think there are things that our government can do.
00:45:08.860We, we, we should try to, when we have immigrants come in, they should, we should try to have them assimilate into society, just like it, just like it has been done for hundreds of years.
00:45:20.140Now you're always going to end up, you know, you're always going to want to be around people that are familiar to you and you like, and like the same things and what have you.
00:45:28.580But in general, we need to assimilate people into American society, not under some, you know, uh, foreign, uh, uh, theocracy that they want to follow.
00:45:41.160That's absolutely not what we need to do.
00:45:43.520And the way the government can help on that is just to make sure that, you know, there's no, uh, local ordinances or regulations or laws that, uh, take away from what our constitution says.
00:45:54.780And we should totally get rid of chain, uh, migration and we should really rethink our, any of our, all of our visa programs so that we put Americans first before we put people from other countries.
00:46:08.880That's, that's what I think we should do.
00:46:10.660And I'm hopeful that we can do that, but you should be making sure that you're communicating when you're elected officials on those things.
00:46:17.300Um, here's another one that's, here's another question that's come up is, uh, is AI ethical.
00:46:24.780It's ethical and it's economic implications.
00:46:27.940Well, it's just like anything, the internet, as you both know, there's really, really good stuff that comes out of it.
00:46:34.560Allie gets her messages out via a lot of it through the internet, right?
00:46:40.360So what she does on social media and what have you, I think that's been very beneficial to a lot of people that are listening based on the messages that I see that she gets back.
00:46:50.360Uh, so it's good and bad and AI is the same way.
00:46:53.900AI can be used for good and AI can be used for bad.
00:46:57.740What I have to rely on is what the, it says in the Bible where it says what man intends for evil, God can make good.
00:47:06.520And that's a paraphrase, but you understand what I'm saying that that's the way it works.
00:47:11.120Um, but I do think we have to be very, very careful about it.
00:47:14.000In fact, I hope in one of the future episodes that Allie or I one will have, uh, my friend Giovanni Capriglione on, uh, who's one of the leading experts on, uh, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity on the show to talk about that, how families can protect their kids from the evil parts of AI.
00:47:31.980And the evil parts of what's going on out there in social media.
00:47:36.380He's a state representative here in Texas and really, uh, uh, uh, someone that not only people at the state level, but at the federal level have sought his advice on just a really very smart guy in this area.
00:47:50.680Hopefully we can have him on, um, in the future.
00:47:53.040Last sponsor for the day is Jace medical.
00:48:55.380The other thing is what's going on with the economy.
00:49:02.300And I was looking at this some more and we've had a couple of shows about this, as you know.
00:49:06.720So gas prices, you know, those are down since the height under Biden by almost 30%, if not more than that.
00:49:16.640So they're coming, they're back into more reasonable range, at least reasonable based on what you and I know today.
00:49:23.720When I started driving, which was a long time ago, but it was right after the, there was a huge oil crisis in the early 70s
00:49:31.640because Saudi Arabia quit pumping oil for a while to hurt our economy, or at least they slowed it down.
00:49:39.020And we had gas prices, you know, double overnight, but they were doubling from like 30 cents a gallon to 60 cents a gallon.
00:49:45.280So it's nothing like it is today, but I'm hopeful that gas prices can get back down to gasoline anyway.
00:49:55.500You know, in the low $2 range, I don't know if that'll happen or not.
00:50:00.280I saw them just a week ago, so down in the 230s, which I thought was pretty good.
00:50:05.420Now, we were also out in California, my wife and I were last week, and I saw that still over $5 there, close to $5 a gallon in California, which is crazy.
00:50:14.220Most of that's California taxes, by the way.
00:50:16.740That's not just the underlying price that people pay for gasoline, the wholesale, pretty much the same all around the country.
00:50:23.980I want to talk to you about food inflation because that's important.
00:50:28.840I know that when we go to the grocery store, things are expensive.
00:50:32.180The average increase over the last 20 years, the average annual increase in food prices is about 3%, 2.9%.
00:50:46.000But what happened was in 21 and 22, food prices grew almost 40%.
00:50:53.700And they came down a little bit in 23, but they didn't come down to the 2019 level, right?
00:51:01.020And so the increases since that time have been roughly in line with what history has been, but because they were already at the inflated rate under Biden, a hugely inflated rate, and so when they increased 2% to 3% on that, we obviously feel it more.
00:51:19.340I don't know that they're going to come down a lot, honestly.
00:51:23.000I do think that they will not rise very much.
00:51:27.080There have been some things that affected that, like the bird flu and the war in Ukraine, which has cut down on some of the wheat supplies and what have you.
00:51:35.920But I think that what will happen is that the food inflation, anyway, will probably kind of go back to what it has been in the past, 2% to 3%.
00:51:46.760That's what it's been able to maintain.
00:51:48.360The only way that will go down drastically is through a massive, a few things, a massive increase in productivity, all right?
00:51:56.680So that they can actually make the end product less expensive, or a huge recession, which we really don't want to have, where demand will go way down, and then the prices generally would follow that.
00:52:09.660But what I think has to happen, all right, is that for us as individuals is that we have to make sure that we are performing at our highest level of ability in our job or career market.
00:52:28.480Our economy is not set up for someone that has no skills, and I'm sorry about that, but it's just not set up for that.
00:52:36.700It's set up to reward people that have skills.
00:52:40.340Now, you don't have to go to college to get those skills, okay?
00:52:42.900If you want to go to college, that's fine, and get a degree and seek a career that requires a college degree.
00:52:51.860But you do have to have some type of skill, and there are so many opportunities out there.
00:52:57.800You know, we have certification programs for all sorts of things, whether that's computer design, whether that's welding, whether that's plumbing, electrical, whatever it is, you can get certified relatively inexpensively through a community college or through a program.
00:53:17.020I'll tell you, I went to college, but I did it almost all at night.
00:53:21.700I tell people all the time, I squeezed four years of college into 10, and I did that because I was working full-time during the day, all right?
00:53:29.640And you may also, I've had second jobs a lot part of my early life.
00:53:33.720I had second jobs when I was working, and we had a, when I was working full-time and also going to school, we also had a little, we ran a concession stand at a sports field to make some extra money.
00:53:44.360We did all sorts of things, and I think you have to be creative, right?
00:53:47.440What you can't do is sit back and blame somebody else.
00:53:57.540Let's do it through college or trade school or something, and make sure you're earning at the highest possible rate you can earn to take care of your family.
00:54:06.480The other thing is, really look where, you really have to look at your budget, and we're going to do an episode on that in the future as well, on where are you spending your money?
00:54:14.960Where are you really spending your money?
00:54:16.780Will you be honest with yourself and say, okay, I am absolutely spending my money in the most efficient way possible?
00:54:25.940Chances are most of us are not doing that.
00:54:29.500Now, you know, we've got to a point in our life where I don't have to look at every penny, although I am still a steward of what God has given us, so I need to make sure that I'm as good at that as I should be.
00:54:49.480I will tell you, when the kids were younger and when things weren't as good financially for Lisa and I, we were very diligent in making sure that we were utilizing the funds that God had given us in the best way that we possibly could.
00:55:05.140Like I told you, our kids all went to private Christian school, and that was a priority.
00:55:09.660I sacrificed, we both sacrificed things that maybe our friends were able to do or have because we wanted our kids to go to Christian school.
00:55:32.620If you had a chance to even flum through my book back there, Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon, you read a lot of my story, you'll know that there was nothing special about us.
00:55:41.940My mom and dad were public school teachers, never made a lot of money.
00:55:46.660They weren't great money managers either.
00:55:50.080And so my mom and dad divorced when I was 17.
00:55:55.060I don't know what your situation is, but I promise you that God didn't put you here so that, you know, you couldn't make it through the next day because of finances.