From Yahoo! News: “House Democrats propose $410B spending bill.” Yet another spending bill, our leaders’ handout to its loyal subjects. Democrats claim this is desperately needed too “make up” for the Bush administration’s lack of spending.

Uh-huh. Sure.

I enjoy reading Daniel Henninger’s economic columns in the Wall Street Journal. Last week’s “Obama’s ‘Hair of the Dog’ Stimulus” was excellent. If I do say so myself, the Jeubs could have written it!

In our audio CD, Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen, Wendy and I lay out principles to frugal living. This was a tough sell a couple years ago when markets were soaring and lavish living was “in.” We advise people to live frugally even when times are good, but that frugal living keeps our focus on more important things like God and family. Our talk shows how “frugal and fruitful” lives sustain families through the best and the worst of times.

We voted for Bush twice, but we weren’t fans of his spending policies. Bloated pork-barrel spending got us into a heap-load of mess, the subprime-mortgage crises one of the biggies. But President Obama’s so-called “stimulus” has blown the lid off spending: the largest spending bill in the history of America. It is downright Orwellian to call this a “stimulus” bill for the bill will do the exact opposite. (See here.)

You see, the economic fundamental of the spending bill is convoluted, absolutely twisted. Keynesian economics believes spending money will get us out of recession. So, the government has poured hundreds of billions of tax-payer money into programs that Congress didn’t have time to debate. Rather than tax dollars being given back in the form of tax cuts or credits (heaven forbid, the people may save the money!), money is dumped into the economy. As Henninger puts it, “Frugality and prudence are suppressed and the compulsion to spend that got us into this mess is promoted as a necessity.”

I oversee a website for academic team-policy debaters called Blue Book Report. The lead article this morning links to a Reason.com article comparing India’s deregulation policies to America’s new regulation policies. America grows suspicious with deregulation, but the reality is that India–a poor country because of regulation–displays the proof that deregulation works.

So, it is a mess. There is really no “out” of this in sight. Wendy and I are slotted to speak in June at one of the largest home-school conferences in the nation, the Christian Home Educators of Colorado. We’ll be speaking on Cheaptr by the Baker’s Dozen, and our focus will be on how families should adapt to the economic hard times that are upon us now, and apparently are getting worse. It will be good.

We have a sneak-peak for you into 50% off products at SpeechSupplies.com. Monument Publishing has a yearly “end-of-the-year” blowout sale consisting of 50% off. It starts March 1 and is called the “March Madness Sale.” Inventory flies out the door and the sale lasts only while the inventory lasts.

So, Monument Publishing is letting all their customers in on a early “headstart” on the sale. Fill up your cart and add this special coupon code: HEADSTART. Half of the sale will disappear from your order.

Go to www.speechsupplies.com. Enjoy!

We have 14 kids, and now Nadya Suleman has 14.

We’ve received requests about what we think about Nadya Suleman, the woman from California who birthed 8 children by in vitro fertilization. In a second swoop of childbirth Nadya delivered as many children as Wendy Jeub! Her unconventional method has marched a media montage against her.

It appears, on the surface, that we (and other large families, at least those with 14 children) have a moral dilemma on our hands.

First, the facts:

• Nadya has delivered twice: 6 children the first time, 8 the second.
  [Correction: The second pregnancy followed several individual deliveries.]
• [Her latest pregnancy] was through in vitro fertilization. Two eggs split after the second implant, resulting in 8 children with two sets of twins in the mix.
• She lives with her parents and refuses welfare. Her church has helped with basic needs.
• She claims to have received death threats for her “unconventional choice.”
• The father (still unnamed) is the father of all 14 of her children.
• Nadya is not married. She was raised as an only child, and has reported to have always wanted a large family.

This is an intriguing value conflict, no doubt. We love children, too, and have dedicated our lives to following God’s calling for us to have children. We encourage couples to allow God to bless them with one of his greatest blessings, that of children. Why refuse His blessings?

Here is a mom who desires children so much so that she voluntarily had six embryos implanted. Now she has 14 children. Good Morning America hosts were “congratulating” Ann Curry for landing the first interview with Nadya. Though the press is salivating in their eagerness to interview Nadya, there is an undertone of judgment toward her, and it appears that the sentiment of public opinion is stacking up against her.

These judgments come from the same crowd that attack Wendy and me for having a large family. The judgments are very similar: we’re irresponsible, inconsiderate, immature, and selfish. Some will go so far to say we have no choice but to neglect our children. Here’s an email we got just last week from a woman:

You guys who say we want to have as many as GOD gives us sicken me. This is not the medieval times, this is an advanced age [where] everyone has access to birth control. We should know and do better than animals. By having a lot of children, you people put unbearable demands on planet earth. You take resources and spaces of many average families. In return more carbon emission and quickens the global warming.

If Nadya has been getting emails like this, my heart goes out to her for having to withstand such attacks. I take issue with people who have such low opinions of life, who think children are little curses who do nothing but drain a society and harm the environment. Quite the contrary. Nadya’s 14 children will, Lord willing, grow to be benefits to society who contribute to those around them. They will likely pay for this emailer’s retirement, especially if this emailer has no children herself.

You’re thinking: “What about the ethical conflicts with in vitro implantation?” or “What about her being a single mom?” Yes, in vitro fertilization has its ethical problems. It bothers me that Nadya snickers at conventional families like ours. If I were a doctor, I’d likely be bothered about the implantation of six embryos in a single mom. These are ethical dilemmas, no doubt, that medical students will be discussing this case study for years to come in their college ethics classes.

But what is more bothering to me is that these ethics classes are the same ethics classes that have shelved the Hippocratic Oath for the sake of “choice.” Abortion on demand is the status quo, and life itself is seen as “demands of planet earth.” Nadya reveals in her other interviews that she chose to have six embryos implanted because she didn’t want them to “go to waste.” This is the ethical dilemma with in vitro fertilization: these are tiny human beings who are discarded if not implanted. The vile reaction to Nadya come from the pro-choice community, not parents like us. Families of 14 children remind the pro-choice community of their ethical dilemma, so they lash out at Nadya and the Jeubs.

Really, this isn’t a moral dilemma for us, nor for any large family. Would this have been news if Nadya killed most of her embryos? Apparently, implanting six embryos and killing the weakest during the pregnancy is common practice. That all eight embryos survived to full term is a miracle, one that we are rejoicing over. The premise that life puts “unbearable demands on planet earth” simply isn’t true. Scrap this lie and embrace the truth that life–all life–is a gift from God, and the choice to kill is always wrong.

Nadya’s pastor and her church family have no moral dilemma in extending love to one (well, 15) of its congregation. The dilemma is on the hands of moral relativists, the “pro-choice” crowd, the modern culture who have dissed conventional mom-and-dad families and embraced “anything goes” lifestyles. Here is a value conflict of theirs: a single mom who has chosen to create as many children as she chose. The dilemma is for the relativist: they may condemn Nadya for her choice, yet they would excuse her if she aborted them. Their respect for “choice” is sadly low, but their respect for life is even lower.

So, let them deal with the dilemma. We love life, and we applaud Nadya for choosing life.

A student of our debate camps sent me a link to a great website, Right.org. The splash page lists the woes of the current $trillion spending bill being blasted through Congress. If you press “Still not sure?” on their front page, you’ll be taken to a page that puts this spending bill into perspective. (Click here for the main page.) It is quite informative, and apparently, as more and more people become aware of this bill, Capitol Hill is being bombarded with phone calls urging the bill’s defeat.

Irony of ironies, Training Minds Ministry is hosting a Foundation for Economics Education seminar here in Monument tomorrow. Two economics speakers will be speaking to high schoolers about basic free-market economic thinking. If you are in Colorado tomorrow, you’ll definitely want to make it to this event. Click here for event and registration information.

Our president is on the campaign trail trying to convince people that this economic “stimulus” bill is needed for our nation to survive. While America has been through recessions before, fear mongering is being delivered by those who want to hastily speed through America’s largest spending bill in history. (For those of you who own our book, re-read Chapter 2.) While the administration is claiming economists are on its side, the exact opposite is true. The CATO Institute put out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal with 250 economists signing their name on the ad. Click here to read the ad, and watch CATO’s latest video:

It is true! Businesses are downsizing. Ordinarily wealthy parents are looking for ways to cut back. Families are being wiser with their money. The secrets we reveal in Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen are being widely adopted. Several families are looking to spend money like the Jeubs have for years.

Wendy and I went on our yearly retreat to Estes Park two weeks ago. To prepare, I stopped at Cost Cutters to get my haircut. Our small talk revealed that Cost Cutters was doing quite well despite the economy. I told the hairdresser about Wendy and my trip to Estes. “Are you staying at the Stanley?” she asked. No, I answered, we’re staying at the YMCA. She was unimpressed.

Really, the YMCA of the Rockies is an incredible place. Mountains surround the facility. In all practicality, Wendy and I could be shacked up in a desert lodge for all we cared. We take this “retreat” to catch up on writing, plan our year’s schedule, talk and pray over each of our children. “I hope you have time to be romantic,” my hairdresser said. She somehow thought Jack Nicholson in The Shining was romantic? (The Stephen King classic was filmed at the Stanley Hotel.)

The YMCA offers a “Pastor’s Getaway” deal, and being that I am the president of a nonprofit organization, I qualify for 2 nights lodging with 6 meals in their cafeteria for only $48/night. I ran into one of the coordinators, someone I have gotten to know as we’ve utilized their facility for events, Arlen the Group Sales Manager.

I asked Arlen if business was slowing down because of the economy. “Surprisingly, no,” he returned. “The phone has been ringing off the hook! Many corporations and nonprofits who usually go to fancy resorts are downgrading to more reasonable accommodations, like ours.”

Let’s face it: the economy is depressing. But why should this be the end of the world? Whatever the state of the economy, those who understand the fundamentals of economics are destined to survive the worst of times. The Stanley thrives when the economy sores, but the YMCA thrives when the economy tanks.

Cost Cutters and the YMCA are experiencing what I call the McDonald’s Effect. Folks are replacing steak houses for the Dollar Menu, salons for Cost Cutters, the Stanley for the YMCA. Likewise, stores like Wal-Mart have posted comfortable profits, while Macy’s-like upper-class stores are tanking. If anything is true about trickle-down economics it is this: when the economy shrinks, the rich start trickling down to more modest living. Frugal thinking replaces loose living.

Given our current political grounding of Keynesian spending to revive the economy (Note: this economic theory has yet to succeed in its nearly-100 years of trying), history is bound to repeat itself and will inevitably bring harder times. The highest unemployment rate in 30 years (hmm, who was president 30 years ago?) should give us pause. Growth is just not happening, and, if history serves as a good example (and it always does), growth will not be coming anytime soon.

But, children still need to be fed and family life must continue.

Life. Human beings are still the backbone of the economy. It isn’t spending–or savings, or gold, or business, or even money. The economy is organically alive with human beings making it run. As long as there are people, there will be ingenuity and invention and ideas. Demand for ingenuity will go up as finances get tighter.

I’m locking in printing costs and facility needs now with the expectation that inflation will hit hard. Nonprofits like Training Minds Ministry will feel the crunch in the coming years. Tough decisions will need to be made to adjust to the coming economic hardships. If we have to tighten up our frugality, this isn’t new for the Jeubs. Wendy and I have always been on the edge of finances, but this has never kept us from walking in confidence with God.

We had some family friends over for an elk and venison barbecue on Sunday. Jeff is a contractor, and though he personally has had business lately, he sees the contracting business getting hit hard. Jeff has nine children. “Yeash,” you may be thinking. “Families like Jeff’s are really going to suffer.”

No, the complete opposite is true. If the economy totally tanked–I mean totally and utterly tanked, complete poverty and turmoil everywhere–Jeff’s family would continue to thrive. He has a small crew of workers, and so do we. Our two families last Sunday night were not only eating like kings with grilled steaks from successful hunts, we had 24 human beings between the two couples. All 24 need to eat, sure, but they all are contributors to the economy of their families.

We Jeubs have responded to economic hard times and have always come out stronger in the end. We produce, we create, and we grow. We don’t take the predictions of doom and gloom seriously, for even if the economy did do as poorly as our leaders say, the Jeubs would thrive just like other families would thrive.