Yearly Archives: 2011

Former Razorback Dan Hampton refuses invitation to White House

September 29, 2011 – 12:36 pm

Sports Talk’s Dave Barr interviews Dan Hampton

Uploaded by on Sep 8, 2010

Former Arkansas Razorback and Chicago Bears great Dan Hampton shows off his Super Bowl ring while talking with Sport Talk – The High School Show host Dave Barr about everything from Ryan Mallett to high school sports. He was signing autographs during our remote at the Pleasant Grove Wal-Mart in Rogers.

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Former Arkansas Razorback Dan Hampton refuses President Obama’s invitation to the White House. I would have gone if it were me. It is an honor and you have to respect the office in my view. I am not a Democrat, but I would love to see the band Chicago play at 4pm this Saturday with the Clintons. The Arkansas Times Blog reported that tickets are free.

My good friends Craig and Dana Carney grew up in Jacksonville with Dan and remember when he was a band geek in the 10th grade for the Jacksonville Red Devils.

Yahoo Sports reported:

Bears Hall of Famer Hampton refuses White House inviteFormer Chicago Bears defensive tackle Dan Hampton won’t be attending the team’s visit to the White House next month. The Hall of Famer told WLS-890 in Chicago that his decision is based on a “personal choice.”

President Obama invited the 1985 Super Bowl championship team to visit Washington, D.C., earlier this month. The Bears had been scheduled to meet with President Reagan in January of 1986, but the Challenger disaster forced the White House to cancel the planned meeting.

Hampton gave three reasons for not attending:

1. Wives and children of the players weren’t invited.

That does seem like an oversight by whoever planned the meeting. Granted, children of the players are most likely adults by now so it’s not like a 5-year-old is getting snubbed, but surely the White House could have pulled out some more folding chairs for the event.

2. He says he’s “not a fan of the guy in the White House.”

A frequent reason given by those who decline White House invites, whether it be for Obama or any president who came before him. This sounds lame and takes a tremendous lack of perspective. Declining an opportunity to go to the White House and shake hands with the President of the United States because you don’t like the guy’s opinion on health care seems petty. Does Hampton not have any friends who are Democrats?

3. “It was 25 years ago. Let it go.”

I’m sort of on Hampton’s side on this one (though not enough to make it a valid excuse for declining). It’s not like every Super Bowl team was going to the White House back then; the Bears were only the second team to get the invite. The 25-year-old canceled visit is a thinly veiled excuse to invite the team from Obama’s adopted hometown for a visit. What about other championship squads? Where’s John Riggins’ and The Hogs’ invite? The 1974 Dolphins can’t get any love?!  (And Florida’s a swing state, Barack!)

1985 Chicago Bears 46 Defense.

Uploaded by on Apr 23, 2011

1985 Chicago Bears 46 Defense.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Bureaucrats raking in lots of money

September 29, 2011 – 10:27 am

Bureaucrats raking in lots of money

Hard to believe.

Everything You Need to Know about Whether State and Local Bureaucrats Are Over-Compensated, in One Chart

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

The showdown in Wisconsin has generated competing claims about whether state and local government bureaucrats are paid too much or paid too little compared to their private sector counterparts.

The data on total compensation clearly show a big advantage for state and local bureaucrats, largely because of lavish benefits (which is the problem that  Governor Walker in Wisconsin is trying to fix). But the government unions argue that any advantage they receive disappears after the data is adjusted for factors such as education.

This is a fair point, so we need to find some objective measure that neutralizes all the possible differences. Fortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, and this “JOLTS” data includes a measure of how often workers voluntarily leave job, and we can examine this data for different parts of the workforce.

Every labor economist, right or left, will agree that higher “quit rates” are much more likely in sectors that are underpaid and lower levels are much more likely in sectors where compensation is generous.

Not surprisingly, this data shows state and local bureaucrats are living on Easy Street. As the chart illustrates, private sector workers are more than three times as likely to quit their jobs.

 

This helps explain why the unions are treating the Wisconsin debate as if it was Custer’s Last Stand. The bureaucrats know they have comfortable sinecures and they are fighting to preserve their unfair privileges.

The only bit of semi-good news for Wisconsin taxpayers is that state and local bureaucrats are not as lavishly over-compensated as federal bureaucrats.

This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video looks at all of the data and reveals a pecking order. Federal bureaucrats are at the kings and queens of compensation. State and local bureaucrats are like the nobility. And private sector taxpayers are the serfs that worker harder and earn less, but nonetheless finance the entire racket.

The video closes with a very important point that the right pay level for many bureaucrats is zero. This is because they work for programs, departments, and agencies that should not exist.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Dustin McDaniel wants Obamacare to be the law of the land

September 29, 2011 – 9:40 am

John Brummett claims it would responsible and practical for Gov. Beebe to start the process of Obamacare in Arkansas, but I am hoping the Supreme Court will make all that moot.

Red Arkansas Blog wrote a good piece that I wanted to pass along.

What do the Department of Justice, the National Federation of Independent Business and 26 state Attorneys General have in common?

They’ve all requested writs of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court to determine the fate of ObamaCare in the matter of United States Department of Health and Human Services v. State of Florida.

Politico thinks the DoJ  request means President Barack Obama is either very smart … or very dumb:

It could be one of the smartest political moves the Obama administration has made — or a historic mistake that could kill not just the health care reform law but the president’s chances for reelection, too.

By asking the Supreme Court to rule so quickly on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the administration is taking a huge risk that the justices will rule against the law right in the middle of the 2012 race — either striking down the whole law or just slicing out the requirement for nearly all Americans to buy health coverage.

One thing we can be sure of, however, is that since the Obama DoJ has made this request of SCOTUS, we can officially destroy the concept that “any such lawsuit would be frivolous and would have more to do with politics than the law.”

The only person seeming to be of little or no weight, worth or importance in the context of this story is our own Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. It was his office that supplied the quote above by way of explaining why he chose to forgo joining the 26 other states that now seem poised to have their day before the Justices.

So our questions to Mr. McDaniel are thus: Do you still maintain that this suit is frivolous given the Obama Administration’s cert petition? And will you stand with 26 other Attorneys General and the people of Arkansas in their effort to fight this unconstitutional law?

Or will you side with Mr. Obama?

And don’t think we don’t remember how Mr. McDaniel availed himself of the opportunity for Democratic brownie points by testifying in support of Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor–a likely yes vote on the ObamaCare issue.

We spy Dustin!

Gotta love C-SPAN.

Anyone think there might be a television commercial running in the spring of 2014 with juxtaposed images of Mr. McDaniel and Ms. Sotomayor?

Dustin McDaniel wants Obamacare to be the law of the land

Red Arkansas Blog wrote a good piece that I wanted to pass along. What do the Department of Justice, the National Federation of Independent Business and 26 state Attorneys General have in common? They’ve all requested writs of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court to determine the fate of ObamaCare in the matter of […]

Obamacare at the Supreme Court

Obamacare at the Supreme Court The time is finally here for the Supreme Court to hear this case. Obamacare Has Arrived in the Supreme Court Hans von Spakovsky September 28, 2011 at 11:00 am The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) stole a march on the Obama Administration this morning by filing a petition with […]

Ernest Istook of the Heritage Foundation speaks in Little Rock on 6-22-11 (Part 2)

The third monthly luncheon with featured speaker Ernest Istook was excellent. First, we got to hear from Dave Elswick of KARN   who came up with the idea of this luncheon, and then from Teresa Crossland of Americans for Prosperity. Below is a portion of Istook’s biography from the Heritage Foundation: Ernest Istook Distinguished Fellow Government Studies Ernest […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, President Obama | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Debate on Milton Friedman’s cure for inflation

September 29, 2011 – 7:24 am

If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did.

Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

Uploaded by on Jun 16, 2010

While many people have a fairly good grasp of what inflation is, few really understand its fundamental cause. There are many popular scapegoats: labor unions, big business, spendthrift consumers, greed, and international forces. Dr. Friedman explains that the actual cause is a government that has exclusive control of the money supply.

Friedman says that the solution to inflation is well known among those who have the power to stop it: simply slow down the rate at which new money is printed. But government is one of the primary beneficiaries of inflation. By inflating the currency, tax revenues rise as families are pushed into higher income tax brackets. Thus, inflation transfers wealth and resources from the private to the public sector. In short, inflation is attractive to government because it is a way of increasing taxes without having to pass new legislation to raise tax rates. Inflation is in fact taxation without representation.

Wage and price controls are not the cure for inflation because they treat only the symptom (rising prices) and not the disease (monetary expansion). History records that such controls do not work; instead, they have perverse effects on both prices and economic growth and undermine the fundamental productivity of the economy. There is only one cure for inflation: slow the printing presses. But the cure produces the painful side effects of a temporary increase in unemployment and reduced economic growth. It takes considerable political courage to undergo the cure.

Friedman cites the example of Japan, which successfully underwent the cure in the mid-seventies but took five years to squeeze inflation out of the system. Inflation is a social disease that has the potential for destroying a free society if it is unchecked. Prolonged inflation undermines belief in the basic equity of the free market system because it tends to destroy the link between effort and reward. And it tears the social fabric because it divides society into winners and losers and sets group against group.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Milton Friedman addressed the belief that inflation can cure unemployment, implicit in the Obama administration’s spending blowout

September 29, 2011 – 7:19 am

Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [1/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)

Cochrane’s Kinky Curves

Posted by Jim Powell

The doctrine that inflation can cure unemployment, implicit in the Obama administration’s spending blowout, goes way back.

The modern version originated with William Phillips, a New Zealand-born economist who, in 1958, wrote a paper modestly titled “The Relation between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861‑1957.”  Phillips suggested that when inflation went up, unemployment went down. Keynesian economists Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow popularized Phillips’ idea as a reason to ratchet up government spending and inflate the money supply.  That’s what the Kennedy and Johnson administrations did during the 1960s.

In 1967, Milton Friedman expressed a skeptical view about what had come to be known as the Phillips Curve, launching an extended debate.  Then in 1973, President Richard Nixon, who had famously declared “I am now a Keynesian,” leaned hard on Fed Chairman Arthur Burns to inflate the money supply and drive down unemployment, hopefully to improve Nixon’s prospects for re-election.  Well, as those of us who were around back then recall, both inflation and unemployment went up!  This was a bit of a problem for Phillips Curve aficionados.

As if the stubborn stagflation of the 1970s wasn’t bad enough, subsequent efforts by new Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and President Ronald Reagan to stop inflation cold delivered another hammer blow against the Phillips Curve: both inflation and unemployment went down!

Now fast-forward to January 2009: President Obama levitated the Phillips Curve from the dead when he repeatedly declared that it was urgent to enact his $825 billion stimulus bill so unemployment would go down.  But both spending and unemployment went up!  It became harder to deny that the stimulus spending flopped, though the New York Times’ Keynesian columnist Paul Krugman tried valiantly.  He claimed stimulus spending flopped because Obama didn’t spend enough.  Accordingly, several weeks ago, Obama proposed still more stimulus spending to fight unemployment, and he begged people to support it: “If you love me, pass this bill!”

There shouldn’t have been any surprise about Obama’s flop, since the underlying idea – the Phillips Curve – proved to be a dud long ago.  This would be a good time to review experience with the Phillips Curve.

Thankfully, Cato Adjunct Scholar John H. Cochrane, the AQR Capital Management Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has done just that.  He focused on the period from 1966 to the present.  That year, President Lyndon Johnson was going full bore, promoting runaway spending on new entitlement programs and on the Vietnam war simultaneously, and inflation reared its ugly head.

Cochrane charted what happened year-by-year to inflation and unemployment.  The result wasn’t a nice smooth curve dreamed about by Keynesians.  Rather, there was a kinky curve.  One year, inflation went up, and unemployment went down.  Next year, inflation went up again, and unemployment went up.  Then when inflation went down, unemployment went up again.  On and on as if we followed a drunk stumbling around a street.  Since a single chart would have become an unreadable tangle if it tried to cover the entire 45-year period, Cochrane developed two charts, 1966-1984 and 1985-2011.  Clearly, what we see is a random relationship between inflation and unemployment, that makes the Phillips Curve worthless as a policy tool.

The charts appear in an insightful article Cochrane wrote, published in the Fall 2011 National Affairs.  The article is important quite apart from the Phillips Curve charts.  Although the prevailing view seems to be that high inflation is most likely to occur if and when the Fed increases the money supply, Cochrane warns high inflation could occur as a consequence of soaring government debt.  Such inflation would amount to a default.  It would be triggered by a run on dollar-denominated assets, if and when investors conclude that the government cannot pay its debts.  Runs occur without warning, often after a succession of events have undermined investor confidence.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute, Milton Friedman, President Obama | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 4)

September 29, 2011 – 12:59 am

We Need a Balanced Budget!

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 4)

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.

Franks Votes Against Debt Ceiling Hike

 
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02), on the heels of his vote against the debt ceiling plan proposed yesterday, released the following statement, reiterating his remarks last night on the House floor emphasizing the vital importance of a Balanced Budget Amendment:
 
“It is simply undeniable at this point that Democrats do not grasp the threat posed by our perpetual deficit spending and ever-ballooning debt. Even as the debt ceiling has been raised yet again, Democrats, who claim to support a Balanced Budget Amendment, despite having opposed BOTH Balanced Budget Amendment proposals that passed the House, have again made certain to include numerous exceptions into the debt ceiling legislation, so that a Balanced Budget Amendment to permanently fix our deficit spending problem is not a requirement, but an option they can opt out of at a later date.
 
“Lip service to a balanced budget it no longer enough. All financial budgets will eventually balance. That includes the budget of the United States government. The question before our nation now is whether our budget will balance due to proactive work by those of us sent to fix the broken system in Washington, or by financial calamity due to the unwillingness of so many to stop a looming disaster when we had the opportunity to do so.”
 
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Congressman Franks is serving his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives and is a member of the Judiciary Committee, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and a member of the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law. He is also a member of the Armed Services Committee, where he serves on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee and the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

Congressman Franks is serving his fifth term in the U.S. House of Representatives and is a member of the Judiciary Committee, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and a member of the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law. He is also a member of the Armed Services Committee, where he serves on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee and the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities.

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2435 Rayburn HOB, Washington, D.C. 20515
202-225-4576

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (Part 9 Thirsty Thursday, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

September 29, 2011 – 12:40 am

Dear Senator Pryor,

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.

Huntsman Supports Radical Balanced Budget Amendment

Huntsman Supports Radical Balanced Budget Amendment

Brian Beutler | June 20, 2011, 20digg

Jon Huntsman
In a private conference call with a handful of university students across the country, GOP Presidential hopeful — and President Obama’s former Ambassador to China — Jon Huntsman argued in support of one of the most far-reaching, controversial elements of the conservative political agenda.

As first reported in a broader piece by theHuffington Post, Huntsman argued in favor of a constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to maintain a balanced budget — an innocuous-sounding, but radical plan pushed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and numerous other congressional conservatives.

“We’re going to have to fight for a balanced budget amendment,” Huntsman said. “Every governor in this country has a balanced budget amendment. It keeps everybody honest. It’s the best safeguard imaginable.”

At its core, a balanced-budget amendment would make it unconstitutional for the government to spend more than it collects in revenue — a requirement that, without safeguards, would make stimulus and emergency spending impossible.

Faced with a similar requirement, states responded to the recession with budget cuts that exacerbated the downturn.

But Republicans on the Hill have taken the idea a step further to the right by including a provision that would make it functionally impossible for the government to raise taxes. The goal, then, is to force future Congresses to slash or eliminate federal spending programs — which disproportionately benefit the needy and elderly — to bring them in line with a revenue base that’s likely to shrink over time.

It’s unclear whether Huntsman supports this version of a Balanced Budget Amendment, or a less extreme one. But the nature of the idea is such that it allows conservatives to signal their support for slashing programs without providing the unpopular details. And in the GOP primary, this will likely be a key test for candidates hoping to curry favor with influential conservatives like DeMint.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)

Unemployment benefits do not stimulate economy

September 28, 2011 – 10:56 pm

President Obama is wrong again.

Unemployment Insurance System Fosters Unemployment

Posted by Tad DeHaven

The Wall Street Journal reports on rising state and federal unemployment taxes at a time when unemployment remains high. Keynesian economists keep telling us that unemployment benefits have a stimulative “multiplier effect” on the economy. Unfortunately, that sticky little problem of the government having to suck resources out of the economy to pay for this alleged stimulus keeps getting in the way:

The higher tax tab could discourage hiring. ‘It’s just one more cost to add,’ said Douglas Devnew, vice president for finance and administration at Trumpf Inc., a Farmington, Conn., manufacturer. ‘Companies like ours are going to think that much harder if we need more folks.’

Yes, that’s only an anecdote. But I find anecdotes to be considerably more indicative of reality than, say, the fancy economic models favored by the White House that continue to erroneously predict growth and reduced unemployment if the government spends more of the private sector’s money.

If anecdotes aren’t your thing, check out this excellent Cato essay on the unemployment insurance system. Critics of a government administered unemployment insurance system are often accused of being callous toward the plight of those seeking work. But the essay’s examination of the history of unemployment insurance, and the ill-effects and failures of the government-run system indicate that it’s the supporters of the government-run system who should be on the defensive.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Cato Institute | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Obamacare at the Supreme Court

September 28, 2011 – 1:21 pm

John Brummett has called the Republicans in Arkansas obstructionists for trying to stop Obamacare but the more I study it, the more I oppose it too. The Blue Arkansas Blog says that Mark Pryor may get defeated because of his conservative votes but it is evident that Pryor’s vote for Obamacare is the one he will regret the most.

Obamacare at the Supreme Court

The time is finally here for the Supreme Court to hear this case.

Hans von Spakovsky

September 28, 2011 at 11:00 am

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) stole a march on the Obama Administration this morning by filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court appealing the 11th Circuit’s Obamacare decision.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had announced on Monday that it was not going to ask all 11 judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review en banc the August 12 decision of a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit that found the individual mandate unconstitutional. This opened up a path to an appeal by DOJ to the Supremes.

Dan Mitchell gives 12 reasons Obamacare will fail.

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However, with this petition, the NFIB jumped ahead of Eric Holder’s slow-moving DOJ (which until Monday had done everything it could to slow-walk this case filed by 26 states and the NFIB). The NFIB is obviously not appealing the three-judge panel’s opinion about the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate. But the NFIB is appealing the portion of the panel’s decision that held that the unconstitutional individual mandate could be severed from the Obamacare legislation.

The NFIB is asking the Court to overrule this holding, since “Congress itself deemed [the mandate] ‘essential’ to the Act’s new insurance regulations.” Given that the 11th and 6th Circuits have issued “directly conflicting final judgments about the facial constitutionality of [Obamacare’s] mandate,” the case is one that the Court should obviously take up given its interest in eliminating conflicting opinions in the courts of appeal.

What also differentiates this particular case from the many other lawsuits that have been filed against Obamacare is the “all star” lineup of Supreme Court litigators that the NFIB and the 26 states have lined up to argue their case before the Supreme Court. It includes Michael Carvin, a former DOJ official who has argued (and won) numerous cases before the Court; Gregory Katsas, a former DOJ official who was a clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas; Kevin Marshal, another former DOJ official and Thomas clerk; Hashim Mooppan, a former Justice Antonin Scalia clerk; and Randy Barnett, a nationally recognized constitutional scholar and professor at Georgetown.

The lawyers for the states include Paul Clement, former Bush Administration Solicitor General; Lee Casey, another former DOJ official who clerked for Alex Kozinski, who is now the Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit; and David Rivkin, another Supreme Court litigator with wide experience in the government, including in the White House and the DOJ.

The government lawyers in the DOJ’s Office of the Solicitor General who will be arguing the constitutionality of Obamacare will have their work cut out for them.

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Healthcare, President Obama, spending out of control | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 3)

September 28, 2011 – 11:58 am

The Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 3)

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.

Congressman Flake Votes Against Debt Deal
Greater Congressional Spending Restraints Needed
Washington, D.C. , Aug 1 –

Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona’s Sixth District, today voted against the revised version of the Budget Control Act of 2011.

“I don’t think that this deal takes into account the severity of the budget crisis we face.  The age-old trick in Washington is to produce a ten-year budget with serious cuts only taking effect in later years.  This deal continues that practice.  Additionally, the requirement for a balanced budget amendment, which was included in the Boehner bill, was excluded from the final legislation.”

Congressman Flake: So Just How Broke Are We?
Mesa, Arizona, Aug 2 – Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona’s Sixth District, today illustrated the size and scope of the growing national debt.          The Washington Times reports that Vice President Joe Biden collects rent from the Secret Service for use of a cottage on a property he owns in a Wilmington, Delaware suburb. The Secret Service pays the vice president $2,200 each month in rent.

The U.S. is so broke that Vice President Biden would have to rent his cottage to the Secret Service for 545.8 million years – long after he’s left office – to have the money to pay down our debt of more than $14.4 trillion.

“Biden’ our time clearly isn’t solving the debt problem,” said Flake.          Along with Senators McCain and Rubio, Congressman Flake introduced in the 112th Congress the Debt Buy-Down Act, which allows taxpayers to designate up to 10 percent of their federal income tax liability to reduce the national debt.  The bill then requires Congress to reduce federal spending by that amount.  More information on the Debt Buy-Down Act can be found here.

Print version of this document

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Comments (0)