Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 31)
This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.
Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”
“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.
(WASHINGTON) – Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp issued the following statement after voting against the Budget Control Act:
“My fellow freshmen and I were sent to Washington to end tricks and gimmicks that put America in this position,” Congressman Tim Huelskamp said. “I voted ‘no’ today because I refuse to dig America into a deeper and un-scalable hole. I refuse to be complicit in recklessly spending and borrowing on the backs of the next generation. And, I believe conservatives should make good on their promises to cut trillions in spending, enact structural reforms, and fill the role of elected representatives, rather than hand control to an exclusive committee.”
“Back in April – when I voted against the continuing resolution for this year – I said ‘no’ because the cuts were minimal. I came to the same conclusion today: these are paltry cuts compared to the $14.3 trillion in debt we already have and the $7 trillion in new debt we can expect in the next decade. This is not a path to fiscal solvency, it’s a path to fiscal insanity. My constituents and our economy deserve a long-term solution that ends the biggest problem: we simply spend too much.”
“Despite having pledged to the American people an open and transparent process and despite having months to fix this problem, we were asked to vote in the 11th hour for a bill that the public had less than 16 hours to read and understand. The culture of fiscal irresponsibility may not have been created by this Congress, but we were sent here to put an end to it; I’m afraid this bill does not rise to that occasion.”
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed have a date to get married — finally. The KISS singer and the former Playmate have been together for 28 years and have two children.
Invitations to the Oct. 1 wedding, sent out under the kids’ names, contain art by Nick, 22, and a nontraditional message from Sophie, 18: “After 28 years of loose strings, our parents have finally decided to tie the knot.”
“Our mother will share our horrendous hyphenate of a last name and our father’s life … well, it doesn’t change that much.”
The invite isn’t all rock-star bravado, however. Teasing to the formation of “Team Tweed-Simmons,” it continues: “We will be united as a family in title and spirit forever.”
Simmons is 62 and still touring with Paul Stanley and the current incarnation of KISS; Tweed is 54.
Simmons’ proposal in Belize was naturally captured by reality-TV cameras for A&E’s show “Gene Simmons: Family Jewels,” which rolls its seventh season starting Oct. 4.
So much for Simmons’ “happily unmarried” lifestyle. Makes it look like Poison frontman Bret Michaels, after 16 years and two kids, practically rushed into things with Kristi Gibson, no?
Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family. In the July 19th episode Nick said to his father “You were a great father but […]
__________________________________ Gene Simmons Family Jewels The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family. In the July 19th episode Nick said to his father “You were a great father but […]
Gene Simmons Family Jewels, Shannon Tweed, 54 yrs old, has been with Gene Simmons 27 years and raised two children with him. The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons […]
Gene Simmons Family Jewels Adrian Rogers – [2/3] How to Cultivate a Marriage The series I have been doing on “Advice to Gene Simmons” that I am starting what I am calling “Tip Tuesday.” For the next few months we will be looking at the Simmons family. On July 19th on Gene Simmons Jewels, in a […]
Gene Simmons Proposes To Shannon Tweed Kiss singer/bassist Gene Simmons proposed to his longtime girlfriend Shannon Tweed in Belize recently, TMZ reports. The couple has been together 28 years and share two children, 22-year-old son Nicholas and 18-year-old daughter Sophie. Simmons popped the question on the A&E reality show ‘Gene Simmons Family Jewels,’ which has followed the life of the Simmons brood since […]
Last Tuesday night I watched Gene Simmons Family Jewels and I commented how I was struck by the good advice that his son Nick gave him. He told him that he grew up thinking that his father was the best. However, now that the marital infidility has come out, it has made Nick think long and hard […]
Last night I watched Gene Simmons Family Jewels and I was struck by the good advice that his son Nick gave him. He told him that he grew up thinking that his father was the best. However, now that the marital infidility has come out, it has made Nick think long and hard about what […]
I watched with great interest the first episode of Gene Simmons show two days ago when his wife left him because of his repeated unfaithfulness. Nerve editors are divided on the subject of Chelsea Handler, by which I mean that I find her kind of funny and Ben made a barfy face when I said […]
What is the “fair” amount of taxation on high-income taxpayers?
To liberals, the answer is always “more.” Liberals view high income — meaning any income that exceeds their own — as the result of luck or anti-social behavior. Hence liberals believe “fairness” justifies government-imposed transfers from the rich to everyone else. Many conservatives accept this view implicitly. They oppose soak-the-rich policies because of concern over growth, but they do not dispute whether such policies are fair.
But high tax rates on the rich are not fair or desirable for any other reason; they are an expression of America’s worst instincts, and their adverse consequences go beyond their negatives for economic growth.
The liberal hatred of the rich is a minority view, not a widely shared American value.
Consider first the view that differences in income result from luck rather than hard work: some people are born with big trust funds or innate skill and talent, and these fortuitous differences explain much of why some people have higher incomes than others.
Never mind that such a characterization is grossly incomplete. Luck undoubtedly explains some income differences, but this is not the whole story. Many trust fund babies have squandered their wealth, and inborn skill or talent means little unless combined with hard work.
But even if all income differences reflect luck, why are government-imposed “corrections” fair? The fact that liberals assert this does not make it true, any more than assertions to the contrary make it false. Fairness is an ill-defined, infinitely malleable concept, readily tailored to suit the ends of those asserting fairness, independent of facts or reason.
Worse, if liberals can assert a right to the wealth of the rich, why cannot others assert the right to similar transfers, such as from blacks to whites, Catholics to Protestants, or Sunni to Shia? Government coercion based on one group’s view of fairness is a first step toward arbitrary transfers of all kinds.
Now consider the claim that income differences result from illegal, unethical, or otherwise inappropriate behavior. This claim has an element of truth: some wealth results from illegal acts, and policies that punish such acts are appropriate.
But most inappropriate wealth accumulations results from bad government policies: those that restrict competition, enable crony capitalism, and hand large tax breaks to politically connected interest groups. These differences in wealth are a social ill, but the right response is removing the policies that promote them, not targeting everyone with high income.
The claim that soaking the rich is fair, therefore, has no basis in logic or in generating desirable outcomes; instead, it represents envy and hatred.
Why do liberals hate the rich? Perhaps because liberals were the “smart” but nerdy and socially awkward kids in high school, the ones who aced the SATs but did not excel at sports and rarely got asked to the prom. Some of their “dumber” classmates, meanwhile, went on to make more money, marry better-looking spouses, and have more fun.
Liberals find all this unjust because it rekindles their emotional insecurities from long ago. They do not have the honesty to accept that those with less SAT smarts might have other skills that the marketplace values. Instead, they resent wealth and convince themselves that large financial gains are ill-gotten.
Jeffrey A. Miron is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard University and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron blogs at JeffreyMiron.com and is the author ofLibertarianism, from A to Z.
The liberal views on fairness and redistribution are far more defensible, of course, when it comes to providing for the truly needy. Reasonable people can criticize the structure of current anti-poverty programs, or argue that the system is overly generous, or suggest that private charity would be more effective at caring for the least vulnerable.
The desire to help the poor, however, represents a generous instinct: giving to those in desperate situations, where bad luck undoubtedly plays a major role. Soaking the rich is a selfish instinct, one that undermines good will generally.
And most Americans share this perspective. They are enthusiastic about public and private attempt to help the poor, but they do not agree that soaking the rich is fair. That is why U.S. policy has rarely embraced punitive income taxation or an aggressive estate tax. Instead, Americans are happy to celebrate well-earned success. The liberal hatred of the rich is a minority view, not a widely shared American value.
For America to restore its economic greatness, it must put aside the liberal hatred of the rich and embrace anew its deeply held respect for success. If it does, America will have enough for everyone.
Senior Bryant running back/defensive back Stephen Clark celebrates the Hornets’ lead after he scored a touchdown in the first quarter to put his team up 18-0 in last year’s Salt Bowl. The two teams will face once more tonight at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.
It is Christmas morning for the two biggest schools of Saline County as the Salt Bowl game between Benton and Bryant has finally arrived. All the hype and smack talk has led up to one of the biggest football rivalry games in the state as nearly 30,000 fans are expected to show up tonight at War Memorial Stadium.
For the Benton Panthers, the key for tonight against the Hornets will be their defense. In year’s past, Benton has had a fairly efficient defense but it has been their struggling offense that has put the defense in bad field positions.
This has led to big plays by opposing offenses.
“We have to play better assignment football,” defensive coordinator Donald Fulcher. “Last year, we would play two or three good series then two or three plays and then we would give up a big play.”
“And it always seemed like it was on third and long,” Fulcher continued. “It was a busted assignment about 90 percent of the time.”
After an 0-6 start, the Panthers salvaged their season by making the playoffs for the first time since 2006 after earning wins over Sheridan, Fair and McClellan. However, those three wins were erased last spring when the Panthers were forced to forfeit the wins due to ineligible player(s).
Benton averaged 19 points per game in 2010 with (graduated) Grant Jones at quarterback, doubling its production from 2009. Jones completed 121 passes for 1,530 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Defensively, nine starters return from a unit that surrendered 33 points weekly a year ago.
“We either didn’t line line up right or we didn’t carry out our assignment,” Fulcher said. “The key is execution and repetition.”
All-league running back Wallace Foote (5’9, 170) led Benton last fall with 116 carries for 627 yards and five TDs and 44 catches for 394 yards and four scores.
Senior team leader Darren Warford (5’11, 215) returns for his third year at tackle after earning all-conference honors. Seniors Nic Garcia and Jacob Benedict hold down the ends.
“They are pretty solid,” Fulcher said.
Jacob Pringle could emerge as a force at linebacker after a productive off-season. Also returning at linebacker, is junior Carson Holloway. In the secondary, the Panthers have three starters returning in Greg Pryor, Collin Simmons and Caleb Davis.
Pryor intercepted three passes at Sheridan and Simmons bench presses 255 pounds and exceptional speed. The Benton Panthers own the overall record of the rivalry at 24-13-1 including winning nine of the first 10 games which began in 1974. Benton also posted 13 straight wins from 1986 to 1998. However, the tide began to shift in 1999 when Bryant snapped the streak, 42-7. Since the series became the Salt Bowl in 2000, the Hornets have gone 9-2-1 and has won five straight Salt Bowls at War Memorial.
Bryant enjoyed its best season since 2004 last fall, claiming its third league title under coach Paul Calley while reaching the second round of the playoffs for the second time in the past three years.
“I can’t really worry about the Salt Bowl, like I have in the past,” Calley said. “Last year, I knew I had a good football team and I was worried to death.
“This year, I don’t know how good we are. I can’ t really worry about the game itself because I’ve got to worry about getting these guys better and getting them ready to play any game.” In May, Bryant graduated 36 seniors, its most successful class in school history. Hayden Lessenberry completed 99 of 154 passes for 1,254 yards and six touchdowns in his first year as varsity quarterback last season. The junior passed for 167 yards and two TDs against Little Rock Catholic, and completed 19 passed for 206 yards at Cabot, shortly after his 15th birthday. Lessenberry rushed for six scores, and should carry the ball more this fall as Bryant switches from a Pro Style offense to the Spread.
All-League running back Stephen Clark (1,012 all-purpose yards in 2010) signed with Henderson State last winter. Karon Dismuke could emerge as an all-state running back after rushing 93 times for 643 yards and five TDs.
Senior Sawyer Nichols paced the Hornets in 2010 with 34 catches for 603 yards and three TDs, including a 95-yarder against Benton. Three starters return from a unit that allowed a league-low 17 points per game last fall. Dylan Winfrey (55 tackles, two interceptions and six pass breakups in 2010) and Nichols split time at one corner so they can play offense full-time.
“That’s what Sawyer Nichols and Dillon Winfrey gives you, that big play ability,” Calley said. “Those guys are going to have to do that for us all year.”
Winfrey, who is expecting an offer from Arkansas State, plays both sides of the ball for the Hornets. He started at receiver and cornerback, earning all-state honors. Winfrey finished the season with 21 catches for 287 yards and three scores in 2010.
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 30)
This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but from a liberal.
Rep. Emanuel Clever (D-Mo.) called the newly agreed-upon bipartisan compromise deal to raise the debt limit “a sugar-coated satan sandwich.”
“This deal is a sugar-coated satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see,” Clever tweeted on August 1, 2011.
Washington, Jul 28 – Iowa Congressman Tom Latham released the following statement on Friday after voting against S. 627 in the U.S. House of Representatives:
“Throughout this year, the national discussion has been dominated by the need to change Washington’s spending ways. I, as many Americans do, fear that this talk is truly just talk. A good case in point is President Obama’s 2012 budget. When he introduced this budget he used these strong words, “We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences; as if waste doesn’t matter; as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money; as if we can ignore this challenge for another generation. We can’t.” But a review of the President’s budget shows that his words are nothing more than just talk about changing the culture of spending because that budget adds an additional $9.5 trillion dollars to our debt.
“I have been very clear in our debate about spending that I will only support measures that meet the criteria of immediately cutting wasteful spending, imposing spending caps as a percentage of our economy going forward, and requiring a balanced budget amendment. We simply can’t keep giving Washington permission in the form of a blank check to continue to spend beyond its means.
“As neither the President nor the Senate have yet to offer one specific proposal, I applaud the House Republican leadership for taking the initiative on the national debt limit and spending restraint debate by actually offering real proposals, discussions and votes in an effort to move this process forward and meet the President’s declared default deadline of August 2nd.
“Unfortunately, while this measure heads in the right direction, it falls short of the criteria I feel must be met in order to gain my support and vote.
“This bill gives the government permission to continue the destructive spending and borrowing policies that have created waves of uncertainty throughout our economy without the real guarantees we need to force Washington to do as Iowa families, farmers and small businesses do – live and spend within its means.
“I share the growing frustration and anger the American people have over this debate and fractured process. And I continue to pledge to work with any members of the House or Senate who are willing to join me to move our country forward with a solution that gives the American people the peace of mind of a common-sense, enforceable solution. This is our responsibility as elected leaders to do nothing short of putting this nation on the path towards fiscal sanity and responsibility without risking default on our debt and other obligations.”
99th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s birth (Part 13)
Milton Friedman was born on July 31, 1912 and he died November 16, 2006. I started posting tributes of him on July 31 and I hope to continue them until his 100th birthday. Here is another tribute below:
Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman and TheFreemanOnline.org, and a contributor to The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. He is the author of Separating School and State: How to Liberate America’s Families.
Milton Friedman, who died last month at age 94, was one of the twentieth century’s most influential champions of individual liberty and free markets. The 1976 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and an early associate of FEE, Friedman did more than any single person in our time to teach the public the merits of deregulation, privatization, low taxes, and free trade. His work inspired the economic agendas of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as the liberalization of economies in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Born in New York City in 1912 to Jewish immigrants, Friedman went on to become a major force in theoretical economics in the second half of the century and the leading figure of the Chicago, or monetarist, school. As a professor of economics at the prestigious University of Chicago, he is widely credited with overturning the dominant Keynesian paradigm regarding the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation. He made monumental (if controversial) contributions to monetary theory, policy, and history in such books as Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money (1956) and A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (co-written with Anna Schwartz, 1963).
Slayer of Keynesianism
In the post-World War II era, when Keynesianism dominated the economics profession, Friedman undertook a series of studies to undermine some of Keynes’s leading assumptions. In the late 1940s he challenged the Keynesian position that discretionary government policy was essential to assure full employment. Friedman was able to show that the macroeconomic policymakers would never have sufficient knowledge about changing market conditions to successfully manipulate the fiscal and monetary policy tools in a timely manner. Instead, he argued, the wisest long-run policy was for government to follow a small number of predictable policy rules.
Beginning in the 1950s Friedman presented a restatement of the quantity theory of money, arguing that all prolonged and sustained general rises in prices were caused by an increase in the supply of money. “Inflation,” he said, “is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” His Monetary History of the United Statesdemonstrated that government manipulation of the money supply was the primary factor behind the boom-and- bust cycles experienced in the twentieth century. In addition he argued that it was misguided Federal Reserve policy in the early 1930s that generated the severity of the Great Depression—and not any inherent failures in the market economy.
This led Friedman to make the case for a “monetary rule,” under which the monetary authority would be denied any discretionary powers over the money supply. Instead, the Federal Reserve would be limited to increasing the supply of money at a fixed annual rate of around 3 percent. This would create a high degree of predictability about monetary policy and generate a relatively stable price level in a growing economy.
In making the case for a monetary rule, Friedman advocated a paper-money standard rather than the gold standard, arguing that this would save on the resource costs of digging the metal out of the ground just to store it away in bank vaults. But in the years after he received the Nobel Prize he had second thoughts about his monetary rule and the gold standard. In a series of articles in the 1980s Friedman stated that Public Choice theory had convinced him it will never be in the long-run interest of governments or their monetary authorities to follow the type of rule he proposed, since the temptation to abuse the printing press for political reasons would always be too strong. He therefore concluded that, given the actual history of Federal Reserve policy in the twentieth century, remaining on the gold standard would have been far less costly for America than the Fed-created inflations and recessions.
One final and lasting contribution of Friedman’s was his formulation of the “natural rate” of unemployment. The Keynesians of the 1950s and 1960s believed that it was possible to permanently lower the rate of unemployment through manipulation of the rate of inflation. In his presidential address before the American Economic Association in 1967, Friedman argued that, at most, monetary policy could temporarily lower the level of unemployment. But in the long run it would return to its “natural rate.”
He said that the amount of unemployment at any time was determined by changing supply-and-demand conditions in the market and people’s expectations about the future rate of inflation, which influenced their resource-price and wage demands. The monetary authority could fool people by increasing the inflation rate above people’s expectations, resulting in prices rising faster than wages, and the resulting larger profit margins would create an incentive for employers to increase output and hire more workers. But over time, as people discovered the truth about the rate of inflation, they would demand higher wages and resource prices to compensate for lost purchasing power. That would reduce profit margins and return unemployment to its “natural” level.
Unless the monetary authority was willing to continuously increase the rate of price inflation above people’s adjusted expectations, the lesson had to be accepted that in the long run, monetary policy cannot influence levels of employment and output. These are ultimately determined by market conditions and not by government manipulation.
Through these contributions, Friedman permanently transformed the debate in macroeconomics and in the process undermined many of the most cherished assumptions of Keynesian economics.
Public Intellectual
As influential as Friedman’s academic work was among professional economists, he had as profound an impact on non-economists’ thinking about the virtues of free markets and limited government. At a time when popular writing that went against the collectivist grain had few mass outlets, Friedman managed to reach a wide audience with his clear and good-natured style. He accomplished this through many books, a long-runningNewsweek column, and his 1980 television series, “Free to Choose,” based on his bestselling book of the same title.
His 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom was an accessible volume that presented bold free-market thinking on such issues as medical licensing, the volunteer army, and antitrust laws. It was also the book in which Friedman unveiled controversial proposals for school vouchers and the negative income tax as transitions from the welfare state. The book undoubtedly inspired many youthful readers to pursue careers in economics.
Friedman started addressing a large popular audience in 1966, when he inaugurated a regular column inNewsweek, succeeding Henry Hazlitt. Friedman’s column, which rotated with those of the Keynesian Paul Samuelson and Henry Wallich, presented the case for free-market policies across a wide range of issues—such as wage and price controls (imposed by President Nixon in 1971) and the minimum wage—and did much to inject the libertarian perspective into the public debate. The column ran until 1983. (A compilation of columns was published as Bright Promises, Dismal Performance.)
Meanwhile, on December 19, 1969, Friedman’s picture made the cover of Time under the title “Will There Be a Recession?” It was a rare distinction for an academic economist, but by then, Friedman was more than that: he was a public intellectual.
Friedman achieved bona fide star status in 1980 with release of his book Free to Choose, written with his wife Rose Friedman, also an economist. In Free to Choose Friedman explained the unparalleled contributions to human well-being of the division of labor and free exchange, the tyranny of government regulation, the dangers of inflation and the welfare state, and the problems intrinsic to the government school monopoly. His chapters on how the competitive marketplace protects consumers and workers were eye-openers for an audience that until then had been led to believe that only coercive government could do those things.
Free to Choose, according to the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics, became the best-selling nonfiction book of 1980. Sales were boosted by the ten-part companion television series on PBS. Each week viewers saw the congenial Friedman clearly explain why free markets serve individuals and society best, and why government creates chaos and poverty—all well illustrated with beautiful location footage, including scenes of Hong Kong ‘s success.
Four years later Friedman again combined a book with a television series in The Tyranny of the Status Quo, also co-written with Rose Friedman.
Friedman was fearless in the face of controversy, vigorously opposing the military draft during the Vietnam War and drug prohibition. But he was no idle author. In 1969-70 he participated in the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force. His pro-freedom credentials made his a powerful voice in the effort to end the involuntary servitude of conscription.
Friedman won many honors for his work. Besides the Nobel Prize he also won the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science, both in 1988. He served as president of the American Economic Association.
In 1947 Friedman was one of a select group of some 40 economists and writers invited by F. A. Hayek to attend the founding meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Switzerland. Leonard Read, FEE’s founding president, Henry Hazlitt, and Ludwig von Mises also participated in that meeting to establish a worldwide network of classical-liberal scholars.
Friedman co-wrote (with George Stigler, who also later won the Nobel Prize) one of the first publications FEE released, the 1946 pamphlet “Roofs or Ceilings? The Current Housing Problem,” a critique of rent control.
Sadly, Milton Friedman is gone from us now. But his legacy and devotion to liberty will inspire freedom lovers for many generations.
Why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).
On my blog www.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.
Abstract:Attempts at passing a balanced budget amendment (BBA) date back to the 1930s, and all have been unsuccessful. Both parties carry some of the blame: The GOP too often has been neglectful of the issue, and the Democratic Left, recognizing a threat to big government, has stalled and obfuscated, attempting to water down any proposals to mandate balanced budgets. On the occasion of the July 2011 vote on a new proposed BBA, former Representative from Oklahoma Ernest Istook presents lessons from history.
A proposed balanced budget amendment (BBA) to the Constitution is set to be considered by Congress this July—the first such vote since 1997.
The BBA is a powerful proposal that attracts great vitriol from the American Left, which recognizes it as an enormous threat to its big-government ways—perhaps the greatest threat. For that reason, the history of Congress’s work on a BBA is full of frustrations, high-profile defections, reversals, and betrayals.
This paper discusses that history. It also describes some of the milktoast versions and amendments that have been offered to gut the BBA while providing political cover for those who are unwilling to support a robust version.
Brief History
Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1798, “I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing.”[1] Yet according to the Congressional Research Service,[2] the first balanced budget amendment was not proposed until 1936, when Representative Harold Knutson (R–MN) introduced House Joint Resolution 579, proposing a per capita limit on federal debt.
No BBA measure passed either body of Congress until 1982, when the Senate took 11 days to consider it and mustered the necessary two-thirds majority on the version crafted by Senator Strom Thurmond (R–SC).[3] A companion measure received a vote of 236 to 187 in the House—short of the required two-thirds. Despite opposition from Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill (D–MA), the floor vote was obtained by means of a discharge petition led by Representatives Barber Conable (R–NY) and Ed Jenkins (D–GA).[4]
Subsequently, continuing opposition from Speaker O’Neill and his successor, Jim Wright (D–TX), prompted creative use of discharge petitions to circumvent leadership opposition. Several House votes were held in the early 1990s, when Representative Charles Stenholm (D–TX) led bipartisan coalitions to force Democratic leaders to permit (unsuccessful) floor votes. At the time, even prominent Democrats such as Representative Joseph Kennedy (MA) openly supported the BBA and voted for it. There were multiple House and Senate votes, but all were unsuccessful.[5]
The first and only time the House gave two-thirds approval to a balanced budget amendment was in 1995, when Members voted for the “Contract with America” that helped Republicans win major congressional majorities. That was the last time the House held a floor or committee vote. Since then, the Senate has failed twice—each time by a single vote—to gather the two-thirds needed.[6]
Defections Block BBA Approval
Three Senators were the key defectors who prevented Congress from approving a balanced budget amendment in the 1990s. One actually had never supported it and bucked his party to oppose it. The other two flip-flopped in order to go along with their party in opposing the BBA.
First, in 1995, Senator Mark Hatfield (R–OR) took the heat when he would not join his party in support of a BBA. But Hatfield’s vote would have been unnecessary had Senator Tom Daschle (D–SD) not reversed years of prior support to oppose the BBA at President Bill Clinton’s urging.
Then, in 1997, the measure again failed by a single vote in the Senate when newly elected Senator Robert Torricelli (D–NJ) broke his campaign pledge and refused to support the same BBA that he had supported as a House member.[7]
More recently, many House Democrats who voted for the BBA in 1995 are now saying they will vote no in 2011. Most notable among these is House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D–MD).
Senate Defections
Senator Hatfield called the BBA a “political gimmick,” and his high-profile defection broke GOP party unity. Less noticed was that his opposition could have been a moot point. Then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R–KS) told The New York Times that Hatfield offered to resign before the vote—a resignation that would have produced a 66-to-33 victory for the BBA—but Dole refused to accept the resignation offer.[8]
Still, with or without Hatfield’s vote or resignation, the BBA would have prevailed in the 1995 Senate vote were it not for Senator Daschle’s reversal. That flip-flop is described in a book about his later ousting from office by the voters:
Although the balanced budget amendment had not been a major issue nationally for several years, it provided a striking contrast between Daschle’s first campaign in 1978 and his early career in Congress, when he consistently promoted the amendment, and his later years in the Senate. During his last competitive Senate bid in 1986, Daschle ran a television ad saying that “in 1979, Tom Daschle saw the damage these deficits could do to our country. His first official act was to sponsor a Constitutional amendment to balance the budget.” In 1992, Daschle’s campaign literature touted the “Daschle Plan,” which included the balanced budget amendment: “In 1979, before it became popular, I was pushing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It was my first official action, and I’ve authored or coauthored one every year.” In 1995, the amendment had the support of sixty-six of the sixty-seven senators needed for passage, but Daschle voted against it because of opposition from the Clinton administration…. When pressed on the amendment in the last [2004] television debate, Daschle said that he had opposed the bill in the 1990s because there were no provisions in the amendment allowing for emergencies such as war. But the record showed that there wasan emergency clause.[9]
In 2011, Daschle has penned several articles denouncing the BBA, complaining that it would make the country’s fiscal crisis even worse and would tie lawmakers’ hands.[10]
The 1997 effort to approve the BBA failed in the Senate by a single vote, just as it had in 1995. This time it was Senator Torricelli doing the political acrobatics. As the New York Daily News described it:
Sen. Robert Torricelli (D–N.J.) yesterday announced he will vote against the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution giving Democrats the one-vote margin they need to kill it. The freshman senator flipped on his campaign pledge to support the amendment and on his own past voting record in the House in favor of similar proposals. “I have struggled with this decision more than any I have ever made in my life,” Torricelli said…
Torricelli acknowledged that he had campaigned in support of the amendment to win his Senate seat last year and had voted three times in favor of similar amendments as a House member. But he said President Clinton’s efforts in bringing down annual budget deficits from $300 billion to $100 billion, and the President’s commitment to a balanced budget by 2002, had relieved the pressure for a constitutional amendment.[11]
Trying to give himself political cover, Torricelli tried but failed to get the Senate to support a loophole-riddled version.
House Reversals
Chief among Representatives who supported a BBA in 1995 but say they will actively oppose it in 2011 is Representative Hoyer. In 1995, he even helped to garner votes for the BBA. As the Baltimore Sun reported at the time, “‘The issue of a balanced budget is not a conservative one or a liberal one, and it is not an easy one,’ said Mr. Hoyer, who said he fears the consequences of a national debt that is headed toward $5 trillion. ‘But it is an essential one.’”[12] Arguing for the BBA on the House floor in 1995, Hoyer said:
[T]his country confronts a critical threat caused by the continuation of large annual deficits…. I am absolutely convinced that the long term consequences of refusing to come to grips with the necessity to balance our budget will be catastrophic…. [T]hose who will pay the highest price for our fiscal irresponsibility, should we fail, will be those least able to protect themselves, and the children of today and the generations of tomorrow.[13]
Hoyer reversed course after rising to high leadership within his party, as did Daschle. Daschle did a turnaround against the same language he previously had supported. Hoyer, however, argued that the latest 2011 version (with tax limitation and size-of-government limits) had gone beyond what he originally supported in 1995:
It would require drastic and harmful cuts to programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, programs that form the heart of America’s social compact…. Unlike previous balanced budget amendments, this amendment would mean great pain for ordinary Americans, even as it shielded the most privileged from any comparable sacrifice. It is not a solution to our nation’s pressing fiscal challenges.[14]
It is an open question how other Democrats who supported the 1995 version of the BBA will vote on the tougher 2011 version.[15] They include another member of the current Democratic House leadership, James Clyburn (SC).
The GOP was also guilty of abandoning the BBA—by neglect. The BBA had been the number one item on its Contract with America legislative agenda in 1994, but after the single (and successful) 1995 House vote, House GOP leaders refused all entreaties to bring it up again. No House or Senate vote has been held since Torricelli’s dramatic about-face in 1997.
For part of the time while Republican leaders were dormant on a BBA, the budget was balanced. Rather than spotting an opportunity to cement that condition into a permanent requirement, however, some saw it as proving that a BBA is not needed.
During that time when the federal budget was balanced without a BBA requirement (fiscal years 1998–2001),[16] Congress had political incentives to maintain that balance. However, after 9/11, Washington not only ramped up national security spending, but also let other spending rise significantly. The prevailing notion seemed to be that if the budget was not balanced, then it mattered little just how far out of balance it was.
That experience illustrates not only the need for a proper BBA, but also the need for any national security exceptions to be drafted narrowly, to permit deficits only to the extent necessary to provide for non-routine defense circumstances and not to justify unrelated deficit spending.
Watering Down the BBA
The versions of the BBA to be voted on in 2011 are improvements over the Contract with America. Because of this strengthening, the current versions are described herein as “BBA-plus.”[17]
Simply put, the additional features require a supermajority to raise taxes; create limits on the level of federal spending (as a percentage of the national economy); tighten the permitted and limited exceptions to a balanced budget; and limit the potential for judicially imposed tax increases as a means of enforcement.
According to their strictness, different variations in proposed texts could be considered good, better, and best, with a full-featured BBA-plus being the best. But the greater the strictures, the more difficult passage becomes. Many pro-BBA lawmakers have therefore introduced and supported versions that were not as strong as they prefer but have greater likelihood of adoption.
These variations also create potential for mischief. Because they recognize the huge popular support for the BBA, many opponents have attempted to offer amendments and variations that would water down or emasculate the provisions of the BBA so that they could posture as supporters while justifying their “no” votes. The following is a historical synopsis of those tactics.
Taking Social Security Off-Budget. The most prominently advanced effort to weaken a BBA is a provision to separate Social Security payments and receipts from the requirements for a balanced budget. Amendments to do so were offered in both the House and Senate from 1995 to 1997. Senator Harry Reid (D–NV) was a principal leader of that effort in 1997.
Reid and others argued that removing Social Security from a BBA would protect the program from spending cuts. They argued that its funds do not actually constitute government spending since the program involves a trust fund. This ignored the fact that the entirety of the trust fund has been invested in federal bonds and that all of the borrowed money has been spent. Furthermore, during the 1990s, the Social Security program was producing annual surpluses ranging from $60 billion to $65 billion, which disguised deficit spending elsewhere. Today, Social Security runs an annual deficit.
If Social Security were removed from a BBA’s requirements, Congress would be approving major deficit spending while not counting it as a deficit. Politicians would only be pretending to have balanced the budget. As the Congressional Budget Office reported this past January, “Excluding interest, surpluses for Social Security become deficits of $45 billion in 2011 and $547 billion over the 2012–2021 period.”[18]
The Torricelli Ploy. As previously mentioned, the most transparent ploy to create an excuse for opposing the BBA came in 1997 from newly elected Senator Robert Torricelli. As a House member, he had voted for a substitute version and also voted “yea” on final passage of the Contract with America BBA in 1995. He campaigned for the Senate in 1996 as a BBA supporter.
As heads were counted for the 1997 Senate vote, it was apparent that Torricelli and Senator Mary Landrieu (D–LA), both previous BBA supporters, were the swing votes. If both voted “yea,” the necessary two-thirds would be achieved in the Senate. President Clinton lobbied both Senators to vote “nay.” Landrieu announced that she would vote yes, and Torricelli announced that he would vote no. Reporters openly asked him whether “he drew the short straw.”
In a move that was publicly derided, Torricelli offered an amendment to the BBA on the Senate floor and then announced he would vote no because the amendment failed. Then, minutes later in a news conference, he undercut his own explanation by stating that in the future, he would vote no on all Republican versions of a BBA and yes on all Democratic versions.
Torricelli’s unsuccessful amendment would have waived the balanced budget requirement whenever a simple majority in Congress declared “an imminent and serious military threat” or “a period of economic recession or significant economic hardship” or when Congress chose to approve deficit spending for “investments in major public physical capital that provides long-term economic benefits.”[19] The three-pronged nature of Torricelli’s effort was a lumping together of provisions that were also offered separately in both the House and Senate by others.
Other Diluting Amendments. The following is a sampling of other proposals offered on the House or Senate floors during the 1995–1997 considerations:[20]
Representative Robert Wise (D–WV) offered a multifaceted substitute that would have provided for separate federal capital and operating budgets; would have required that only the operating budget be balanced; would have exempted Social Security from balanced budget calculations; and would have permitted Congress to waive the balanced budget provisions in times of war, military conflict, or recession.
Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) tried to insert the following languageinto the BBA: “The provisions of this article may be waived for any fiscal year in which there is an economic recession or serious economic emergency in the United States as declared by a joint resolution, adopted by a majority of the whole number of each House, which becomes law.”
Senator Barbara Boxer (D–CA) proposed, “The provisions of this article may be waived for any fiscal year in which there is a declaration made by the President (and a designation by the Congress) that a major disaster or emergency exists, adopted by a majority vote in each House of those present and voting.”
Representative Major Owens (D–NY) wanted “to allow a majority of Congress to waive the balanced budget provisions contained in the joint resolution in any fiscal year that the national unemployment rate exceeds 4 percent.”
Representative John Conyers (D–MI) wanted to require a detailed plan of spending cuts before balance could be required, proposing “to exempt Social Security from balanced budget calculations; and provide that before the constitutional amendment could take effect, Congress would be required to pass legislation showing what the budget will be for the fiscal years 1996 through 2002, containing aggregate levels of new budget authority, outlays, reserves, and the deficit and surplus, as well as new budget authority and outlays on an account-by-account basis.”
Representative David Bonior (D–MI) tried not only to exempt Social Security from the calculations, but also to require only a simple constitutional majority vote (218 in the House, 51 in the Senate) to allow deficit spending.
Additional amendments were more straightforward, such as whether a supermajority would or would not be required to raise taxes under the BBA. The House Rules Committee screened out 38 proposed floor amendments; only six were permitted.
Conclusion
History shows that the potency of a balanced budget amendment attracts fervent efforts to confuse the issues, especially by creating counterfeit versions and exceptions to provide political cover. Proponents of a BBA should prepare accordingly.
If not for high-profile political defections in the mid-1990s, the BBA would have been approved by Congress. Had it then been ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the states, today’s debates over borrowing limits, entitlements, and spending levels would be greatly different, if not absent.
However, the versions considered in the ’90s were notably weaker than both the House and Senate versions of the BBA-plus now being considered. Had an earlier version been adopted, today’s debate might be about efforts by Congress to evade the spirit of the BBA by exploiting loopholes in that earlier version. This is why vigilance is necessary to prevent the insertion of loopholes into the language of a BBA-plus.
Those who do not learn from the failures of history are doomed to repeat them.
—The Honorable Ernest J. Istook, Jr., a former Member of Congress, is Distinguished Fellow in Government Studies in the Department of Government Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Both Oppenneimer and Lizza (also BlueArkansas Blog) have attacked Francis Schaeffer’s view, but the way to know his views best is to take time to watch his film series. I said that in my first post and I will continue to show all ten episodes of his film series “How should we then live?”
This is a series of posts concerning presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her religious beliefs. Particularly I will be looking at the identity of Francis Schaeffer who Michele said had major impact on her views. I also would say that Francis Schaeffer was the greatest christian philosopher of the 20th century.
In 1979 I first watched the film series “How should we then live?” and it was so impressive to me that I returned to my high school with permission from my former teacher to view the series again. In fact, Mr. Brink would tell the seniors at Evangelical Christian School in Cordova, TN something to this affect: “I hope you realize how important this film series by Dr. Francis Schaeffer is. Here we have Everette Hatcher who is in college now, but he is coming back to see this film again because he knows how valuable it is.”
The best way to understand Michele Bachmann’s worldview is to watch the film series “How should we then live?” by Francis Schaeffer. I have provided a 30 minute episode at the end of this post with a written outline. In this film series the humanist worldview is seen as weak because it is not able to give adequate answers to life’s tough questions while the christian worldview can. Humanism has a finite base because it is limited to finite man while the Christian worldview is based on information provided by the infinite-personal God of the Bible.
I do not know enough about Bachmann to respond to the bulk of the article about her. However I know enough about editing and writing to know that Lizza did not really have a story, so he just started pulling stuff out of thin air in order to meet the required word count for the article.
Apparently, the Bachmann’s watched Schaeffer’s film series How Should We then Live? in the late 1970s. This in turn causes Lizza to churn out more than 1200 words about Schaeffer, all of which can best be characterized as a complete misrepresentation of Schaeffer’s work and views. He makes Schaeffer out to be some right-wing, crazy, Christian fanatic out to take over the government, install a Christian theocracy, and poison the populace with his outlandish views. Since Schaeffer was a fairly mainstream evangelical, in effect, by slandering Schaeffer, Lizza is slandering the vast majority of theologically conservative Christians in the US, but he seems unaware of this fact. Further, Lizza is unable to provide any link between Bachmann and Schaeffer, except for Bachmann’s statement that Schaeffer’s film was an influence to her.
Funny. In the mid-1970s, I saw the movie Jaws and it influenced my views on some issues (film, ocean swimming, etc.). If Lizza were writing my profile, he would no doubt use more than 1200 words to misrepresent the content of the film (“bloodthirsty sheriff, brain-addled fisherman, and deluded marine biologist persecute and kill harmless fish, breaking numerous laws in the process”), to ruminate about the dangers of the sea (“the ocean is very dangerous for sharks, as crazy people want to kill them”), and to talk about how people had become afraid of sharks (“Saturday Night Live once did a skit called ‘Land shark’, proving how paranoid even America’s elite had become because of this vile film about this benign yet beautiful sea creature”). Yet, none of this would be the least bit relevant to me or my life. There is no story there.
Bachmann watching a film series in 1979 is certainly no justification for more than 1200 words of prose. A true journalist would have just reported what Bachmann said, made a quick note accurately explaining who Schaeffer was, and then talked about Bachmann and her views. However, Lizza wants to tarnish Bachmann’s reputation through guilt by association with Schaeffer. Sadly for his readers, he does not provide much evidence of a Bachmann-Schaeffer link to begin with, and Schaeffer is not guilty of the crimes Lizza accuses him of.
Among other things, Lizza reports,
In 1981, three years before he died, Schaeffer published “A Christian Manifesto,” a guide for Christian activism, in which he argues for the violent overthrow of the government if Roe v. Wade isn’t reversed.
A summary of A Christian Manifesto, delivered in an address by Francis Schaeffer, can be found here. In his address, he talks of civil disobedience to the government when its dictates violate the believer’s conscience. Nowhere in his book does he ever call for violent resistance against or advocate the overthrow of the government in any way.
Francis Schaeffer was primarily interested in philosophy, culture, and apologetics, and even today he is known in theologically conservative Christian circles as one of the best modern thinkers in those areas. While Schaeffer thought that our beliefs should inform our politics and that Christians should certainly be involved in the political situation, he completely rejected the idea that the country should become a theocracy or that the wall between church and state should be torn down. Rather, Schaeffer was most interested in seeing Christians engage with their culture and society, and bring about a transformation of a country one person at a time through persuasion and the triumph of Christian ideas.
While I do not know if Bachmann is really true to the ideas of Schaeffer, if she is then she certainly rises in my esteem. Schaeffer was by no means a perfect man, but his view of how Christians should interact with society was exactly correct in my humble opinion.
Meanwhile, Ryan Lizza has proven that he is nothing but a hack reporter who has not earned his salary and who thinks lies and innuendo are a substitute for solid journalism.
I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970’s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement. A. With Bible the ordinary citizen could say that majority was wrong. B. Tremendous freedom without chaos because Bible gives a base for law.”
Another great point that Schaeffer makes in this series is that Communism has NEVER EXISTED WITHOUT BRINGING REPRESSION. A few months ago a young person said to me, “I think that Marx was misunderstood and that true communism has not been really tried yet.” I responded that there are a hand full of Communist countries today and they all have several similar conditions: NO FREEDOM OF PRESS, NO POLITICAL FREEDOM, NO FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND NO ECONOMIC FREEDOM. I noted that Schaeffer has rightly said that Communism is basically based on materialism and a result it must fail. It does not have a Reformation base.
T h e
REVOLUTIONARY AGE
I. Bible as Absolute Base for Law
A. Paul Robert’s mural in Lausanne.
B. Rutherford’s Lex Rex (Law Is King): Freedom without chaos; government by law rather than arbitrary government by men.
C. Impact of biblical political principles in America.
1. Rutherford’s influence on U.S. Constitution: directly through Witherspoon; indirectly through Locke’s secularized version of biblical politics.
2. Locke’s ideas inconsistent when divorced from Christianity.
3. One can be personally non-Christian, yet benefit from Christian foundations: e.g. Jefferson and other founders.
II. The Reformation and Checks and Balances
A. Humanist and Reformation views of politics contrasted.
B. Sin is reason for checks and balances in Reformed view: Calvin’s position at Geneva examined.
C. Checks and balances in Protestant lands prevented bloody resolution of tensions.
D. Elsewhere, without this biblically rooted principle, tensions had to be resolved violently.
III. Contrast Between English and French Political Experience
A. Voltaire’s admiration of English conditions.
B. Peaceful nature of the Bloodless Revolution of 1688 in England related to Reformation base.
C. Attempt to achieve political change in France on English lines, but on Enlightenment base, produced a bloodbath and a dictatorship.
1. Constructive change impossible on finite human base.
2. Declaration of Rights of Man, the rush to extremes, and the Goddess of Reason.
3. Anarchy or repression: massacres, Robespierre, the Terror.
4. Idea of perfectibility of Man maintained even during the Terror.
IV. Anglo-American Experience Versus Franco-Russian
A. Reformation experience of freedom without chaos contrasts with that of Marxist-Leninist Russia.
B. Logic of Marxist-Leninism.
1. Marxism not a source of freedom.
2. 1917 Revolution taken over, not begun, by Bolsheviks.
3. Logic of communism: elite dictatorship, suppression of freedoms, coercion of allies.
V. Reformation Christianity and Humanism: Fruits Compared
A. Reformation gave absolutes to counter injustices; where Christians failed they were untrue to their principles.
B. Humanism has no absolute way of determining values consistently.
C. Differences practical, not just theoretical: Christian absolutes give limited government; denial of absolutes gives arbitrary rule.
VI. Weaknesses Which Developed Later in Reformation Countries
A. Slavery and race prejudice.
1. Failure to live up to biblical belief produces cruelty.
2. Hypocritical exploitation of other races.
3. Church’s failure to speak out sufficiently against this hypocrisy.
B. Noncompassionate use of accumulated wealth.
1. Industrialism not evil in itself, but only through greed and lack of compassion.
2. Labor exploitation and gap in living standards.
3. Church’s failure to testify enough against abuses.
C. Positive face of Reformation Christianity toward social evil.
1. Christianity not the only influence on consensus.
a) Church’s silence betrayed; did not reflect what it said it believed.
b) Non-Christian influences also important at that time; and many so-called Christians were “social” Christians only.
2. Contributions of Christians to social reform.
a) Varied efforts in slave trade, prisons, factories.
(1) Wesley, Newton, Clarkson, Wilberforce, and abolition of slavery.
(2) Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and prison reforms.
(3) Lord Shaftesbury and reform in the factories.
b) Impact of Whitefield-Wesley revivals on society.
VII. Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection
But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement.
A. With Bible the ordinary citizen could say that majority was wrong.
B. Tremendous freedom without chaos because Bible gives a base for law.
Questions
1. What has been the role of biblical principles in the legal and political history of the countries studied?
2. Is it true that lands influenced by the Reformation escaped political violence because biblical concepts were acted upon?
3. What are the core distinctions, in terms of ideology and results, between English and American Revolutions on the one hand, and the French and Russian on the other hand?
4. What were the weaknesses which developed at a later date in countries which had a Reformation history?
5. Dr. Schaeffer believes that basic to action is an idea, and that the history of the West in the last two or three centuries has been marked by a humanism pressed to its tragic conclusions and by a Christianity insufficiently applied to the totality of life. How should Christians then approach participation in social and political affairs?
Key Events and Persons
Calvin: 1509-1564
Samuel Rutherford: 1600-1661
Rutherford’s Lex Rex: 1644
John Locke: 1631-1704
John Wesley: 1703-1791
Voltaire: 1694-1778
Letters on the English Nation: 1733
George Whitefield: 1714-1770
John Witherspoon: 1723-1794
John Newton: 1725-1807
John Howard: 1726-1790
Jefferson: 1743-1826
Robespierre: 1758-1794
Wilberforce: 1759-1833
Clarkson: 1760-1846
Napoleon: 1769-1821
Elizabeth Fry: 1780-1845
Declaration of Rights of Man: 1789
National Constituent Assembly: 1789-1791
Second French Revolution and Revolutionary Calendar: 1792
The Reign of Terror: 1792-1794
Lord Shaftesbury: 1801-1855
English slave trade ended: 1807
Slavery ended in Great Britain and Empire: 1833
Karl Marx: 1818-1883
Lenin: 1870-1924
Trotsky: 1879-1940
Stalin: 1879-1953
February and October Russian Revolutions: 1917
Berlin Wall: 1961
Czechoslovakian repression: 1968
Further Study
Charles Breunig, The Age of Revolution and Reaction: 1789-1850 (1970).
R.N. Carew Hunt, The Theory and Practice of Communism (1963).
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1957).
Peter Gay, ed., Deism: An Anthology (1968).
John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church (1970).
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1957).
Louis L. Snyder, ed., The Age of Reason (1955).
David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1975).
J. Kuczynski, The Rise of the Working Class (1971).
Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma (1958).
John Newton, Out of the Depths. An Autobiography.
John Wesley, Journal (1 vol. abridge).
C. Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger, Ireland, 1845-1849 (1964).
E P I S O D E 1 0 How Should We Then Live 10#1 FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be led by an elite: John Kenneth […]
E P I S O D E 9 How Should We Then Live 9#1 T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads to Pessimism Regarding a Meaning for Life and for Fixed […]
E P I S O D E 8 How Should We Then Live 8#1 I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas) and Post-Impressionism (Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, […]
E P I S O D E 7 How Should We Then Live 7#1 I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act on his belief that we live […]
I have made it clear from day one when I started this blog that Francis Schaeffer, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and Adrian Rogers had been the biggest influences on my political and religious views. Today I am responding to an unfair attack on Francis Schaeffer’s book “A Christian Manifesto.” As you can see on the […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in Modern Science. A. Change in conviction from earlier modern scientists.B. From an open to a closed natural system: […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live 5-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there was a unique improvement. A. […]
How Should We Then Live 4-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to how to be right with […]
How Should We Then Live 3-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so many problems today with this excellent episode. He noted, “Could have gone either way—with emphasis on real people living in […]
How Should We Then Live 2-1 I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard to authority and the approach to God.” […]
How Should We Then Live 1-1 Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why it fell. It fell because of inward [..
Is the person in charge of LSU’s schedule Les Miles? Do you think anyone in their right mind would take on Oregon, Northwestern and West Virginia in their non-conference schedule and then play 8 possibly 9 SEC teams? Harry King thinks the schedule is crazy tough too. The injuries may rack up pretty good with a back breaking schedule like that. Northwestern is very good and I don’t even have to discuss the talent the other two teams have. IF ANYONE IN THE COUNTRY COULD PULL IT OFF IT WOULD BE LSU!
I look for LSU to win the SEC West if they beat Alabama. I give them about a 40% chance of pulling it off.
Ole Miss has lots of young players and Houston Nutt has been doing a great job of recruiting. That means that the rebels have lots of young players like Tennessee does. Both of those teams are probably a year away from making it to the top 25. I was told today by an Ole Miss grad that they need a quarterback and a secondary. We will see what happens.
The Tigers have a teed-up opportunity to rise in the polls and climb into prime position for a national championship run, meeting Oregon at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas on Sept. 3. The Ducks didn’t have the power to match blows with 2010 SEC champion Auburn in January’s national championship game. However, Oregon’s exhausting style of spread offense and speed on defense brings an extensive set of challenges for the Tigers. LSU needs stability at quarterback, which didn’t happen last season, to be in the title hunt.
Tigers to know:
LB Ryan Baker
A typical light but lightning fast Tigers’ linebacker. Baker covers a ton of ground and no one questions his toughness—he played with his mouth wired shut (broken jaw) for the first month of last season.
CB Morris Claiborne
A second-team All-SEC pick in 2010 and former track sprinter, Claiborne was picked on readily by opponents who wanted to avoid All-American Patrick Peterson last season. Without Peterson, Claiborne steps into the lead CB role.
LB Stefoin Francois
Converted safety was a star at strong-side linebacker last season. A bit wiry at 215, but has the speed and quickness to shadow most skill players in the SEC—which is really saying something.
QB Jordan Jefferson
The winningest active quarterback in the SEC (20-7), he’s a maligned three-year starter for good reason. Jefferson had only four TD passes in 2010. Coach Les Miles believes Steve Kragthorpe, former head coach atLouisville, can right Jefferson quickly.
CB Tyrann Mathieu
He’s short (5-8) but not small and has a nose for the ball.
TE Deangelo Peterson
Unless a thinned-out receiving corps requires he go back to wide receiver, Peterson should be a security blanket underneath for Jefferson in an offense that relies on production from the tight end position.
WR Rueben Randle
At 6-4, 207, he’s a mismatch for most defensive backs. Five of his 42 career catches were TDs. Led the team with 525 receiving yards last season.
RB Spencer Ware
Introduced to the college football world by going over 100 yards on just 10 carries in the Cotton Bowl win over Texas A&M. Now he steps in for Stevan Ridley, a surprise entry in the 2011 NFL Draft. Ware looked unstoppable in spring practice.
Mississippi
Returning Starters: 14, kicker, punter
Strengths: In theory, the Rebels should be more consistent on offense this year with the return of nine starters. Brandon Bolden is one of the most versatile running backs in the conference, rushing for 976 yards, catching 32 passes and accounting for 17 touchdowns last year. With all five offensive linemen back, Bolden figures to be a 1,000-yard rusher in 2011. Damien Jackson is the marquee name on defense after notching 68 tackles from his safety position a year ago.
Weaknesses: If Ole Miss is to bounce back from a bad season, new QB Nathan Stanley will have to be more than an adequate replacement for Jeremiah Masoli. While Masoli had a decent year after transferring from Oregon, his numbers translated to very little because the defense couldn’t stop a soul, even with two good run-stuffing tackles in Ted Laurant and Jerrell Powe. If a defense which returns only five starters can’t improve from poor to average, coach Houston Nutt’s fourth season in Oxford could be his last.
Leigh Anne Tuohy shares her story with SheKnows in a deeply personal interview that gets to the heart behind the heart-filled Sandra Bullock instant classic, The Blind Side.
Tuohy famously took in a homeless teenager in Memphis, Tennessee who would find his calling and become a football superstar. What led this wife of an entrepreneur who owned over 80 fast food restaurants to spearhead an effort to make Michael Oher a home that could not have been further from where he grew up?
How that path was paved is not completely told on screen in The Blind Side directed by John Lee Hancock (The Rookie). Tuohy sat with SheKnows at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills after a long day of interviews with the film’s cast. Stay tuned for our exclusive video interviews with stars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw!
After sitting amongst the hugest stars in the film and music business, the playing field leveler was Leigh Anne Tuohy. Equal parts firecracker, strong Southern woman, inspiration, motherly to all (including yours truly!), pragmatic and one-hundred percent what made what The Guess Who so perfectly called the iconic American Woman.
Leigh Anne, husband Sean and their two children, Sean Jr (SJ) and Collins, did not simply adopt Michael Oher, the engulfed him in familial love that has changed lives exponentially. With The Blind Side’s arrival on November 20 in theaters everywhere, look for the inspiration to explode.
TUOHY TRIUMPH AND TRAVAILS
SheKnows: Hello Leigh Anne, it is such a pleasure to sit with you after witnessing your stirring story. I think the film is a strong statement for women. How do you think your story speaks to women?
Leigh Anne Tuohy: Southern women are strong natured anyway. It’s kind of a characteristic. Maybe, a characteristic flaw (laughs). I’m very strong willed. I think at this point in our society and in our country right now, everybody’s got to be strong willed. I think women have to wear a lot of different hats. Not only do you have to be the mother the nuturerer, but also the wife and the housekeeper and now, so many have to and want to have a career. So, you have to wear a lot of hats. I’m not a big women’s liberation person — not at all — but I do think right now, women have to contribute to all facets.
SheKnows: I wondered what you thought of hearing Sandra Bullock was going to play you?
Leigh Anne Tuohy: I was thrilled. There were names and names and names that were thrown out over a year-and-a-half. It’s all about timing. It was a rollercoaster. Finally, they said it was going to be Sandra Bullock. I thought, “yeah, I’m sure it’s going to be somebody else.” Three weeks later they called and said she signed on. I was pleasantly surprised. I fell in love with her. She did a great job.
SheKnows: For some, Virginia isn’t quite “the South,” any issues with a Washington, DC suburb of Arlington, Virginia-native tackling Tennessee?
Leigh Anne Tuohy: (Laughs) I think Virginia’s South!
SheKnows: I’m sure Sandra does too. You had kindred spirits heading in to telling this story. One theme that arose for me from The Blind Side is how you did not really change Michael’s life, he changed yours. How can you quantify in a way that your life would be different without him in it?
A FAMILY FINDS ITSELF
Leigh Anne Tuohy: If Michael had not come into our lives it would have been extremely different. With all that being said, we have a different view of life now. We view everybody different than we did. We realized that there’s a need out there that we didn’t really know about. We were living in our own little cocoon. You tend to realize that there is a lot going on out there that you’re not aware of and it brought so much to light. Even relationship aspect-wise, it all brought us closer together. We had that common bond. We went through trenches that a lot of other families don’t go through.
SheKnows: Indeed…
Leigh Anne Tuohy: We came out of this as a stronger family. I’m thankful. I also think that we are so much aware of all people now and feelings and their needs. You don’t know what the guy next to you has going on. He’s got mud on his shoes or a tattoo. We’re so quick to judge. We are so, so quick to judge. You don’t know the worth of that person or what they could contribute to society. We tend to put labels on people. There’s a lot of things that we’ve come through so much, I think, the better.
SheKnows: You’re talking people judging a book by the cover, I know they show in the film, when you first meet Michael where it’s cold and raining and he’s wearing shorts and a T-Shirt in November. What was that moment really like?
Leigh Anne Tuohy: John Lee (Hancock, director) took some liberties with that, but the scene really happened. It was the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the kids had just gotten out of school and we had been over my mom’s dicing nad getting ready to cook for Thanksgiving. We were coming back home and Michael was walking and he had on shorts and it was…it’s almost become an urban legend (laughs). It was a blizzard (laughs). It was chilly, it was like 40 degrees. I just commented that he looked like a fish out of water for an African-American kid to be where he was at that moment in our neighborhood. You just don’t see African-American kids walking around the neighborhood at 9:30 pm at night in shorts. I said, “who is that?” SJ (her son) said, that’s a new guy at our school. I thought, “what he’s doing out here?” SJ told me he plays basketball. But, school was closed. Sean (her husband) wondered if maybe he had gone to shoot some hoops. I said, “turn around the car.”
FATE BLIND-SIDED LEIGH ANN
SheKnows: You were compelled?
Leigh Anne Tuohy: It was obvious after we turned around and chatted a few minutes that he had no mission, no plan. We thought he was going to the gym because it was warm. Sean said that the gym is not open, let us take you home. He wouldn’t let us take him home, but he let us take him to a bus station about six or seven miles away. So, we drove him that night to the bus stop. Then, he went back home. Flash forward a couple weeks and that was the first time he spent the night on our coach. When I pulled over, it was a seed that was planted. I immediately knew after the conversation. I come to find out, none of that was really the truth. It snowballed. I went in on Monday after Thanksgiving and asked about Michael and who was this kid. Why doesn’t he have long pants on in November? Where does he live? Where are his parents? I didn’t get any of the answers I wanted yet. I just took it from there.
SheKnows: In the film, and also in real life, it seems that adopting Michael really happened naturally.
Leigh Anne Tuohy: It did. It really did.
SheKnows: There was a natural Michael coming into the family that felt effortless. When Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw and the kids are gathered around the table and ask Michael if he’d like to be part of the family, it felt truly as if that moment was incredibly organic.
Leigh Anne Tuohy: It was, there was never an agenda. There was never a moment. That was so authentic. It just happened. People find it so hard to believe. We have crazy lives. My husband has a very successful business and he tries to run 80-plus fast food stores, and yet he broadcast (play by play) for Memphis’ NBA team, I’m trying to get here yesterday, he could less, but he needs five suits out because they’re leaving for a week of road games. He needs his suits. That’s what was important right then. That’s how we operate. Whatever the need is at that moment, we take care of it. You throw in a daughter that is a level-nine gymnast and a state champion pole-vaulter and we drive two days a week to Arkansas because that’s where the Olympic guys are, and then you throw in Michael playing three sports and constantly needing everything to get through those sports and then you have Sean, Jr (laughs) who’s just along for the ride and always helping out. Our lives are always crazy. It was like, to Michael, if you want to jump in this frying pan, let’s go!
TIM MCGRAW AS HUSBAND
SheKnows: Lastly, your husband in the film is portrayed by Tim McGraw. Tell me your girlfriends in Memphis were not so excited for you!
Leigh Anne Tuohy: Isn’t that fun (laughs)?
SheKnows: That has to be a blast.
Leigh Anne Tuohy: He did a good job as Sean. He’s cocky and a little arrogant. He’s a smart ass and I think Tim nailed all three of those beautifully. My husband’s personal assistant is a huge Tim McGraw fan, so she was in heaven getting to hang out with him. That was a big feather throughout this whole thing is getting to hang out with Tim McGraw.
This November, you’ll get a hard-hitting football movie featuring no less than Sandra Bullock, Kathy Bates and Tim McGraw. It’s called The Blind Side, and it might be the Rudy of the new millenium.
When a high school student, operating under the perfect storm of being poor, wildly undereducated and badly out of shape, gets recruited by a major football program that grooms him into the exact opposite, his life will change forever. But will it change it for the better? Check out the trailer.
November is the perfect time of year for this kind of movie to hit because it so clearly wants to go for an Oscar run. But at the same time, it should prove accessible to anyone who watches it. Dust off your thesauruses–you’ll need synonyms for “heart-warming” because EVERYONE’S going to call it that. But do you want your heart warmed? Or does this one leave you cold? Hit the comments section and tell us what you think. Thanks for watching!
The Blind Side Cast: Sandra Bullock, Kathy Bates, Kim Dickens, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Rhoda Griffis, Ray McKinnon, Lily Collins
The Blind Side movie trailer courtesy 20th Century Fox. The Blind Side open in US theaters November 20th, 2009. The Blind Side is directed by John Lee Hancock
Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and coauthor of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution.
Texas governor Rick Perry is being criticized for calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.” Even Mitt Romney is reportedly preparing to attack him for holding such a radical view. But if anything, Perry was being too kind.
The original Ponzi scheme was the brainchild of Charles Ponzi. Starting in 1916, the poor but enterprising Italian immigrant convinced people to allow him to invest their money. However, Ponzi never actually made any investments. He simply took the money he was given by later investors and gave it to his early investors, providing those early investors with a handsome profit. He then used these satisfied early investors as advertisements to get more investors. Unfortunately, in order to keep paying previous investors, Ponzi had to continue finding more and more new investors. Eventually, he couldn’t expand the number of new investors fast enough, and the scheme collapsed. Ponzi was convicted of fraud and sent to prison.
Social Security, on the other hand, forces people to invest in it through a mandatory payroll tax. A small portion of that money is used to buy special-issue Treasury bonds that the government will eventually have to repay, but the vast majority of the money you pay in Social Security taxes is not invested in anything. Instead, the money you pay into the system is used to pay benefits to those “early investors” who are retired today. When you retire, you will have to rely on the next generation of workers behind you to pay the taxes that will finance your benefits.
As with Ponzi’s scheme, this turns out to be a very good deal for those who got in early. The very first Social Security recipient, Ida Mae Fuller of Vermont, paid just $44 in Social Security taxes, but the long-lived Mrs. Fuller collected $20,993 in benefits. Such high returns were possible because there were many workers paying into the system and only a few retirees taking benefits out of it. In 1950, for instance, there were 16 workers supporting every retiree. Today, there are just over three. By around 2030, we will be down to just two.
As with Ponzi’s scheme, when the number of new contributors dries up, it will become impossible to continue to pay the promised benefits. Those early windfall returns are long gone. When today’s young workers retire, they will receive returns far below what private investments could provide. Many will be lucky to break even.
Eventually the pyramid crumbles.
Of course, Social Security and Ponzi schemes are not perfectly analogous. Ponzi, after all, had to rely on what people were willing to voluntarily invest with him. Once he couldn’t convince enough new investors to join his scheme, it collapsed. Social Security, on the other hand, can rely on the power of the government to tax. As the shrinking number of workers paying into the system makes it harder to continue to sustain benefits, the government can just force young people to pay even more into the system.
In fact, Social Security taxes have been raised some 40 times since the program began. The initial Social Security tax was 2 percent (split between the employer and employee), capped at $3,000 of earnings. That made for a maximum tax of $60. Today, the tax is 12.4 percent, capped at $106,800, for a maximum tax of $13,234. Even adjusting for inflation, that represents more than an 800 percent increase.
In addition, at least until the final collapse of his scheme, Ponzi was more or less obligated to pay his early investors what he promised them. With Social Security, on the other hand, Congress is always able to change or cut those benefits in order to keep the scheme going.
Social Security is facing more than $20 trillion in unfunded future liabilities. Raising taxes and cutting benefits enough to keep the program limping along will obviously mean an ever-worsening deal for younger workers. They will be forced to pay more and get less.
On the Arkansas Times Blog the person using the username “the outlier” noted: Saline, leave SS out of the mix. It is solvent through 2037, and can be made solvent indefinitely with minor tweaks. So many people think that the Social Security is a great investment plan and it may only need a few tweaks. […]
On the Arkansas Times Blog on June 11, 2011 the person going by the username Jake de Snake noted,”Current empirical evidence indicates that the American welfare is successful in reducing poverty, inequality and mortality considerably. Public pensions, for instance, are estimated to keep 40% of American seniors above the poverty line.” If Social Security was […]
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand. Milton Friedman Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [2/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide […]
Author Biography Eric Schurenberg is Editor-in-Chief of BNET.com and Editorial Director of CBS MoneyWatch.com. Previously, Eric was managing editor of MONEY. As managing editor, he expanded the editorial focus to new interests including real estate, family finance, health, retirement, and the workplace. Prior to MONEY, Eric was deputy editor of Business 2.0. He was also […]
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