The Department of Energy (DOE) announced it is spending $45 million of taxpayer money for 38 different projects for advanced transportation technologies. But private companies should be making these investments on their own to provide the best products available for consumers.
The 38 projects funded by DOE are going to universities, laboratories, and private companies for development of more efficient batteries for electric vehicles, advanced fuels and lubricants, efficient heating ventilations and air conditioning systems, and the next generation of lightweight materials to make cars lighter while not compromising safety.
The list of projects come across as innovative, cutting-edge, and perhaps transformative of the transportation industry. But automakers and other manufacturers are not paying for this research themselves; they’re relying on taxpayer money.
If companies believe it is in their best interest to invest in research and development, they should make those investments with their own money. The companies that identify opportunities will capture the economic benefits, and those that don’t will remain stagnant or suffer. When companies have to make those choices with their own money, risk and reward are properly aligned.
In some instances, the DOE spending is blatant corporate welfare. DOE awarded $1.5 million to Caterpillar, $1.75 million to General Electric, $3 million to 3M Company, and $350,000 to Ford Motor Company. If these companies believe it is valuable to work with the DOE laboratories and universities, they should do so, but there is no need for taxpayers to subsidize them.
Proponents of the $45 million in spending argue that private-sector spending on research and development has atrophied and that the research will help the auto industry broadly. But there are a lot of companies that still invest in research, and those that don’t have good reasons for doing so.
First, there is little reason to invest your own money when you can get someone else to pay for it. Government-funded research is crowding out research that could be done privately.
Further, these companies may have better uses for their money and may not find the research investments worthwhile. Removing DOE initiatives such as this latest one would prevent the government from nudging private-sector investments in the wrong direction and allow companies to manage their resources as they see fit to capture the most value for their company and the best product for the buyer. The ones that succeed in being entrepreneurial and innovative will be properly rewarded.
Markets drive innovation forward, creating new wealth and new opportunities and improving efficiency along the way. Some of these research initiatives may be worthwhile projects, and if they are, the private sector will recognize that and find ways to finance it. Having the DOE fund the research merely wastes taxpayer money.
I wish President Obama would try to cut spending instead of increasing spending and our debt. Two Very Good GSA Waste Cartoons April 21, 2012 by Dan Mitchell One of my first blog posts back in 2009 featured a column about the Social Security Administration squandering $750,000 on a “conference” at a fancy golf resort in […]
Does Government Have a Revenue or Spending Problem? People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too […]
What Are the Dangers of Too Much Debt? Published on Mar 20, 2012 Interest payments on U.S. government debt are three times spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars already, and that is with the lowest interest rate we have seen since the 1960s. A rise in interest rates would increase interest payments dramatically. What […]
Funding Government by the Minute Published on Mar 28, 2012 At the rate the federal government spends, it runs out of money on July 31. What programs should be cut to balance the budget and fund the government for the remaining five months of the year? Cutting NASA might buy two days; cutting the Navy […]
Does Government Have a Revenue or Spending Problem? People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too […]
What Are the Dangers of Too Much Debt? Published on Mar 20, 2012 Interest payments on U.S. government debt are three times spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars already, and that is with the lowest interest rate we have seen since the 1960s. A rise in interest rates would increase interest payments dramatically. What […]
What Can We Cut to Balance the Budget Published on Oct 16, 2012 Will Rogers has a great quote that I love. He noted, “Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago”(Paula McSpadden Love, The Will Rogers Book, (1972) […]
Does Government Have a Revenue or Spending Problem? People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too […]
What Are the Dangers of Too Much Debt? Published on Mar 20, 2012 Interest payments on U.S. government debt are three times spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars already, and that is with the lowest interest rate we have seen since the 1960s. A rise in interest rates would increase interest payments dramatically. What […]
I wish the federal government would go back to spending less than 5% of GDP like they did the first 150 years of our country’s history. We could cut down on a lot of wasteful spending if we did that. Morning Bell: The Governing Class and Us Mike Brownfield April 19, 2012 at 8:57 am […]
In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is a risk that they will ask you why you support dictatorships, torture, and corporate welfare. The reason for the confusion will be Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
In a very short time, the book has become a 21st-century bible for anticapitalists. It has also drawn praise from mainstream reviewers: “There are very few books that really help us understand the present,” gushed The Guardian.“The Shock Doctrine is one of those books.” Writing in The New York Times, the Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz called it “a rich description of the political machinations required to force unsavory economic policies on resisting countries.”
Klein’s basic argument is that economic liberalization is so unpopular that it can only win through deception or coercion. In particular, it relies on crises. During a natural disaster, a war, or a military coup, people are disoriented, confused, and preoccupied with their own immediate survival, allowing regimes to liberalize trade, to privatize, and to reduce public spending with little opposition. According to Klein, “neoliberal” economists have welcomed Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asian tsunami, the Iraq war, and the South American military coups of the 1970s as opportunities to introduce radical free market policies. The chief villain in her story is Milton Friedman, the economist who did more than anyone in the 20th century to popularize free market ideas.
To make her case, Klein exaggerates the market reforms in question, often ignoring central events and rewriting chronologies. She confuses libertarianism with the quite different concepts of corporatism and neoconservatism. And she subjects Milton Friedman to one of the most malevolent distortions of a thinker’s ideas in recent history.
Exhibit A against Friedman is a quote from what Klein calls “one of his most influential essays”: “Only a crisis-actual or perceived-produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” This, says Klein, is “the shock doctrine.” In a not-very-subtle short film based on the book, the quote appears over images of prisoners being tortured.
The quote is not, in fact, from one of Friedman’s most influential essays; it’s from a very brief introduction to a reprint of his book Capitalism and Freedom. And it is not a rationale for welcoming disasters; it’s about the uncontroversial fact that people change their minds when the old ways seem to fail. Friedman provides a telling example, which Klein neglects to quote: Young Americans joined him in opposing the military draft after the Vietnam War forced them to risk their lives on another continent.
She also distorts other Friedman quotes to support her case. She pretends that Friedman’s concept of “the tyranny of the status quo” refers the tyranny of voters, and that he believed crises were needed to bypass the democratic process. But for Friedman, the tyranny was something entirely different: an iron triangle of politicians, bureaucrats, and special interest groups (businesses, for example) that deceive voters.
Discussing Friedman’s proposal to reduce inflation through sweeping market reforms, Klein writes, “Friedman predicted that the speed, suddenness and scope of the economic shifts would provoke psychological reactions in the public that ‘facilitate the adjustment.'” This gives the impression that Friedman wanted to disorient people through pain in order to push through his reforms. But the quote in its entirety shows that Friedman had something very different in mind. If a government chooses to attack inflation in this way, he wrote, “it should be announced publicly in great detail….The more fully the public is informed, the more will its reactions facilitate the adjustment.” In other words, if voters are not ignorant and not disoriented, but fully informed of the reform steps, they will facilitate the adjustment by changing their saving, consuming, and bargaining behavior. Friedman’s view was the opposite of what Klein claims.
Not content to misrepresent Friedman’s opinions, Klein blames him for various crimes committed around the world. Most notably, she links him to Augusto Pinochet’s brutal military dictatorship in Chile in the 1970s, writing that Friedman acted as “adviser to the Chilean dictator.”
In fact, Friedman never worked as an adviser to, and never accepted a penny from, the Chilean regime. He even turned down two honorary degrees from Chilean universities that received government funding, because he did not want to be seen as endorsing a dictatorship he considered “terrible” and “despicable.” He did spend six days in Chile in March 1975 to give public lectures, at the invitation of a private foundation. When he was there he met with Pinochet for about 45 minutes and wrote him a letter afterward, arguing for a plan to end hyperinflation and liberalize the economy. He gave the same kind of advice to communist dictatorships as well, including the Soviet Union, China, and Yugoslavia.
Klein twists this relationship beyond recognition, claiming Pinochet’s 1973 coup was executed to allow free market economists (“the Chicago Boys,” as the economists from Friedman’s University of Chicago were called) to enact their reforms. This false link is crucial for giving the impression that the Friedmanites have blood on their hands, since the most violent period of the regime came right after the coup. But Friedman’s visit, which Klein claims started the real transformation, came two years later. Klein insists on having it both ways.
The reality was that Chile’s military officials were initially in charge of the economy. They were corporatist and paternalist, and they opposed the Chicago Boys’ ideas. The air force controlled social policy, for example, and it blocked market reforms until 1979. It wasn’t until this approach led to runaway inflation that Pinochet belatedly threw his weight behind liberalization and gave civilians ministerial positions. Their success in fighting inflation impressed Pinochet, so they were given a larger role.
Klein could have used the real chronology to attack Friedman for visiting a dictatorship that tortured its opponents — a commonly heard criticism of the economist — but that’s not enough for her. To find support for her central thesis that economic liberalism requires violence, she has to make it look like torture and violence were the direct outcome of Friedman’s ideas.
Klein also blames Friedmanite economics for the Iraq war, for the International Monetary Fund’s actions during the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s, and for the Sri Lankan government’s confiscation of fishermen’s property to build luxury hotels after the deadly tsunami of 2005. In a 576-page book about such evils, why wasn’t there room to mention that Milton Friedman opposed the Iraq war, thought the IMF shouldn’t be involved in Asia, and believed governments should be prohibited from expropriating property to give it to private developers? Klein quotes from some interviews in which Friedman voiced these views, but she declines to mention Friedman’s long held positions that directly undermine her thesis.
Even though Klein is dead wrong about Friedman, she may well be right in her broader thesis that it’s easier to liberalize in times of crisis, and that there is a close connection between economic liberalization and political violence. It’s true that several dictators have liberalized their economies in recent years and that some of them have tortured their opponents.
But how strong is this connection? If we look at the Economic Freedom of the World statistics assembled by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian free market think tank, we find only four economies on the planet that haven’t liberalized at all since 1980, so obviously reform has taken place in all sorts of countries. But the statistics clearly show that most classical liberal reforms happen in democracies, not dictatorships. Klein never talks about such rapidly liberalizing democracies as Iceland, Ireland, Estonia, or Australia, where reforms were given renewed support in several elections. Presumably these countries just aren’t undemocratic and brutal enough. She does discuss Britain under Margaret Thatcher, but only to argue that Thatcher too relied on shocks and violence.
The Iron Lady won re-election in 1983, Klein says, because of the boost she got from the Falklands War. She doesn’t mention another reason for Thatcher’s growing popularity: The British economy was improving rapidly at the time. A 1987 study in the British Journal of Political Science looked in detail at the timing of events and British voters’ perception of them, and made a strong case that the Tories gained only three percentage points from the war; the vast majority of the gain came from improved economic prospects. And the Falklands War certainly cannot explain why Tories won two more elections after that, nor why Tony Blair’s New Labour had to dress itself in Thatcherite clothes to be elected.
Naomi Klein usually exaggerates the economic liberalization that has been carried out by brutal dictators. She needs to demonstrate that Pinochet’s interest in market reforms was typical of authoritarian regimes — otherwise, her arch-villain Friedman might have been right when he said that the surprising thing in Chile was not that the market worked but that the generals allowed it to work. So Klein ropes in the Argentinean dictatorship of 1976-1983. Based on those two examples, she claims the southern part of Latin America is where “contemporary capitalism was born.” She even calls the countries “Chicago School juntas.”
There were indeed advisers from the University of Chicago in Argentina; since there is strong global demand for Chicago economists, they have visited many countries. But their influence in Argentina was barely noticeable. In the Fraser Institute index of economic freedom, which gives scores from 1 (the least free) to 10 (the most), Argentina moved from 3.25 in 1975 to 3.86 in 1985. Compare this with the countries Klein mentions as superior alternatives to the Chicago Boys’ brutal “neoliberal” models: Sweden went from 5.62 in 1975 to 6.63 in 1985; Malaysia, one of the “mixed, managed economies” Klein prefers, went from 6.43 to 7.13. In 1985, after Argentina allegedly applied Friedman’s ideas, the country’s economy was less market oriented than all the Eastern European communist economies tracked by Fraser, including Poland, Hungary, and Romania. But Argentina tortured people, so in Klein’s mind it must have been on the fast track to free markets.
By Klein’s account, China is another country that violently imposed Friedmanite reforms. To make this case, she rewrites the history of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, claiming the protesters were primarily opposed to economic liberalization, instead of one-party dictatorship. According to Klein, the Communist Party, led by Deng Xiaoping, attacked them to save its free market program and advance yet more sweeping reforms while people were still in shock.
If the students were indeed protesting economic reform, they seldom expressed that grievance at the time. Instead, they demonstrated in favor of democracy, government transparency, and equality before the law, and against bureaucracy and violence. The protesters first gathered to mourn former Secretary General Hu Yaobang, one of China’s most important economic reformers. The protests soon grew to include everybody who wanted liberal democracy — both those who wanted more economic reform and those who wanted less. Klein equates the second element with the whole protest.
Chinese officials suppressed the demonstrations because they wanted to protect the party’s power, not because they wanted to liberalize the economy. The majority were economic conservatives who were skeptical of markets; some even refused to visit Chinese free trade zones on principle. And the economic reforms did not accelerate after the massacre, as Klein claims. For the first time since their inception, they stalled.
The most consistent free marketeer in the leadership, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, was purged because he supported the protesters, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. (Friedman had met him in Beijing in 1988 and wrote him a letter of advice. For Klein, this is yet another meeting with a tyrant.) Zhao’s rivals — including Premier Li Peng, who was pushing for a violent crackdown on the protesters — then tried to roll the market reforms back and reintroduce economic controls. The conservatives blamed the unrest on the openness associated with economic liberalization, and Deng’s position in the party was weakened. Far from being the start of “shock therapy,” Tiananmen Square was almost the end of China’s economic liberalization. Klein writes that “Tiananmen paved the way for a radical transformation free from fear of rebellion,” but according to the Fraser statistics, China was actually less economically open in 1990 than it was in 1985.
Klein writes that Deng opened the Chinese economy “in the three years immediately following the bloodbath.” This is true only if “immediately” means “three years later.” Reform faltered so much in the years following the crackdown that Deng felt he needed to go outside normal channels and jump-start liberalization in the spring of 1992, even though he was 87 years old and had formally retired. His “southern tour” was a trip filled with speeches and networking aimed at saving the reform program. The tour was not initially reported in the national media, since they were controlled by Deng’s rivals. Deng even found himself forced to write articles supporting his agenda under a pen name to get access. But he was eventually successful in winning local support and building alliances with provincial governors who favored liberalization. Only then did President Jiang Zemin reluctantly support Deng’s reforms.
To show that radical economic liberalization can happen only in dictatorships, Klein compares China to democratic Poland in the late 1980s and early ’90s: “In China, where the state used the gloves-off method of terror, torture and assassination, the result was, from a market perspective, an unqualified success. In Poland, where only the shock of economic crisis and rapid change was harnessed — and there was no overt violence — the effects of the shock eventually wore off, and the results were far more ambiguous.” Once again, the statistics tell a different story. According to the Fraser data, Poland actually took reform farther and faster. In 1985 its economy was much less open, with a score of 3.93 versus China’s 5.11. In 1995, both scored 5.3. In 2005 Poland was way ahead, with 6.83 to China’s 5.9.
Klein also exaggerates the free market elements in anything she can associate with a crisis. She writes that politicians used Hurricane Katrina to introduce “a fundamentalist version of capitalism” in New Orleans. The “fundamentalist” reform in question? The introduction of more charter schools. Not satisfied to exaggerate just the nature of the change, Klein also stretches its extent: She writes that the school board used to run 123 public schools but after the hurricane ran only four, whereas the number of charter schools increased from seven to 31. She doesn’t mention that these figures date to the period immediately after the hurricane, when the school board was much slower to reopen its schools. As of September 2007, ordinary public schools again outnumbered charter schools, 47 to 44.
The strangest thing about Klein’s suggestion that crises benefit free markets and limited government is that there is such a long record of the exact opposite. World War I led to communism in Russia; economic depression gave us Nazi Germany. Wars and other disasters are rarely friends of freedom. On the contrary, politicians and government officials often use crises as an opportunity to increase their budgets and powers. As one prominent economist put it while explaining his opposition to war in Iraq: “War is a friend of the state….In time of war, government will take powers and do things that it would not ordinarily do.” The economist? Milton Friedman.
Friedman was right about the Iraq war: The Bush administration has used that conflict and the larger War on Terror to dramatically expand the federal government’s powers and expenditures. Bizarrely, Klein points to the U.S. after 9/11 as a major illustration of her thesis. She claims the terrorist attacks gave the Bush administration an opportunity to implement Friedman’s ideas by benefiting friends in the defense and security industries with new contracts and unprecedented sums of money. Klein never clearly explains how this could possibly be Friedmanite. In the real world, Friedman “had always emphasized waste in defense spending and the danger to political freedom posed by militarism,” in the words of his biographer Lanny Ebenstein. Somehow, Klein has confused Friedman’s limited-government liberalism with corporatism.
As Klein sees it, in Bush’s America “you have corporatism: big business and big government combining their formidable power to regulate and control the citizenry.” This sounds like a healthy libertarian critique of the administration — something Friedman himself might say. But Klein thinks that Bush-style corporatism is the “pinnacle of the counterrevolution launched by Friedman” and that the team that implemented it is “Friedmanite to the core.”
So even when the U.S. government breaks all the rules in Milton Friedman’s book, Klein blames Friedman. At one point she writes about the lack of openness in the Iraqi economy: “All the…U.S. corporations that were in Iraq to take advantage of the reconstruction were part of a vast protectionist racket whereby the U.S. government had created their markets with war, barred their competitors from even entering the race, then paid them to do the work, while guaranteeing them a profit to boot — all at taxpayer expense.” This would be an excellent Friedmanite critique of how governments enrich their friends at the expense of competitors and taxpayers — if it weren’t for the conclusion to the paragraph: “The Chicago School crusade…had finally reached its zenith in this corporate New Deal.”
For Klein, tax-funded corporate welfare is the zenith of Chicago’s free market revolution. The idea seems to be that Milton Friedman likes corporations, so if governments give corporations contracts, subsidies, protection, and privileges, that must be Friedmanite. At times it seems like Klein thinks any policy is Friedmanite if private companies are involved. But you would have a hard time finding an economist more persistent than Friedman in warning how corporations and capitalists conspire against the public to obtain special privileges. As Friedman wrote inReason in 1978: “Business corporations in general are not defenders of free enterprise. On the contrary, they are one of the chief sources of danger….Every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that’s a different question. We have to have that tariff to protect us against competition from abroad. We have to have that specialprovision in the tax code. We have to have that subsidy.”
In the absence of serious arguments against free markets, we are left with Klein’s reasonable critiques of torture, dictatorships, corruption, and corporate welfare. In essence, her book says that Milton Friedman’s limited government ideals are bad because governments are incompetent, corrupt, and cruel. If there is a disaster here, it is not one of Friedman’s making.
Is Social Security a good retirement plan? Economics professor Antony Davies shows that Americans stand to earn significantly less and assume more risk with Social Security than other investment options. According to Davies, taxpayers would be better off both in terms of financial security and return on investment by investing their money privately. Social security is extremely expensive, soon to be insolvent, and doesn’t even offer taxpayers the most bang for their buck. For those reasons, Prof. Davies argues that it is time for the government to phase out Social Security. Davies’ solution: the government should honor its obligations to current retirees while giving Americans the freedom to invest their money as they see fit.
__________-
The current Social Security system is a ponzi scheme.
Last year I got to go to the Kentucky at Arkansas basketball game and I loved every minute of our 73-60 victory in March of 2013. Marshawn Powell had 15 points and B.J.Young added 13 and Archie Goodwin who I saw play in high school for Sylvan Hills had 14 points for Kentucky. My niece used to go to high school with John Calipari’s daughter and they were good friends, but it still annoys me when she pulls for Kentucky!!!!
This year I am sure that Kentucky will be loaded with those 6 highly sought after recruits they brought in, but I am looking at Arkansas hopefully making a move in the near future. I think they will be improved this year and probably have a chance to really make some major improvement one year later. Tennessee’s coach has shown an ability to bring in some great recruits and Missouri has a coach that has done a very good job too. It is true that this is the 20th year since the opening of Bud Walton Arena but I don’t look for us to be as good back in that magical year!!! I predict we will get 19 wins and miss out again on the NCAA but next year we get in and even advance.
Butch Jones Postgame Media Session (8/31/13) It was the 800th victory for the Tennessee Vols football program which is an amazing figure. All Tennessee fans should be proud of that. You will notice that both Arkansas and Tennessee are listed in the top 20 of all time football wins. Here is a list of all […]
Alabama last year had to play Tennessee and Kentucky from the East and their conference record was 1-15 while LSU had to play Florida and Georgia and their record was 14-2. Doesn’t seem fair does it? In the old days Tennessee would have been a top 10 team almost every year and playing them as […]
SEC has proved how good we are, but it doesn’t mean every team in the SEC could win a national title in 2013. David Climer: Titles can’t erase SEC football’s weaknesses Alabama players celebrates after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP […]
ESPN’s final recruiting rankings are not as good as others as I have seen. I do have a hard time with Missouri (38) having such a good ranking when other services had the tigers tanking their class this year compared to other SEC schools. However, Kentucky (36) is almost as bad when there is vast […]
Nick Saban Streeter Lecka We finally found a Top 25 in which the SEC is more dominant than the USA Today Coaches’ Poll: the post-Signing Day recruiting class rankings. ________ I have to say the SEC is really doing well these days. Everyone expects Alabama is going to be on top on most years […]
It is really troubling to me that my Arkansas Razorbacks are 14th in the SEC in football recruiting this year and there are only a couple of days left till signing day. Alabama came in and got our best running back from North Little Rock high and I was told yesterday that Hunter Henry of […]
America’s Game – 1962 Ole Miss Rebels National Champions – John Vaught I am doing a series on the “Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast.” I enjoyed watching the Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast on ESPN on 1-27-13 with my mother. She went to Ole Miss in the early 1960′s. Also living in Little Rock my […]
I am not so mad anymore about Arkansas being ranked number 64 in recruiting this year while Auburn is #20 and Tennessee is #30 and even Kentucky is doing better than us. That is because they racked up lots of players when they had coaches during the year while we had John L. Smith. What […]
Ole Miss Applauds 1962 Undefeated Rebels I am doing a series on the “Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast.” I enjoyed watching the Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast on ESPN on 1-27-13 with my mother. She went to Ole Miss in the early 1960′s. Also living in Little Rock my wife has relatives that were also […]
The Ole Miss v. Texas game is a very interesting game this week but I am going to spend all my time previewing two SEC games this week. (The Hogs should win easy since Southern Miss has the nation’s longest losing streak!!!!!) Tennessee at Oregon and Alabama at Texas A&M. My good friend George used to work in Oregon as their lead sports editor and he has written about Tennessee and Oregon before when they played 3 years ago. Now I have included an article below from him on the Alabama and Texas A&M game because he is now working for USA Today. Below is an article from George on that followed by an article on the Tennessee v Oregon game. I think that Tennessee only has a chance if they can have long sustained drives and not turn the ball over at all. That seems unlikely and most people are predicting that Oregon will roll. I personally don’t think the Ducks will have many competitive contests this year in their conference either especially since it appears that USC is disappearing off the map as Lane Kiffin implodes.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Johnny Manziel is not talking. At least, not publicly. No interviews. No TV time. More than likely, no tweets. That was the word from Texas A&M officials Tuesday – but it’s the quarterback’s choice.
“I’ll respect his wishes for that,” Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin said, adding that Manziel’s decision was made after consulting with “his lawyers and his family.”
Which only speaks to how odd the situation is. The buildup for No. 1 Alabama’s visit to No. 6 Texas A&M is enormous, and the overarching storyline is pretty simple: Can Manziel and Texas A&M roll Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide again? But the reigning Heisman Trophy winner has clammed up on the advice of attorneys.
The reasons for Manziel’s silence are well-known. He hasn’t yet publicly discussed the pay-for-autograph scandal that enveloped him during the preseason and led to a one-half game suspension in the Aggies’ season opener against Rice. But if he’s not talking, it’s not that dissimilar from the last time these teams met, last November in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
The legend of Johnny Football wasn’t born that day, exactly – he was already a burgeoning folk hero – but it fully blossomed. Manziel’s performance in the Aggies’ upset propelled a nice little story into superstardom. Manziel was restricted by Sumlin’s no-interview policy for freshmen, but Johnny’s football spoke loudly. We’ve all seen endless replays of the scramble-fumble-turned-touchdown-pass – the best illustration of Manziel’s freelancing ability – and of his late-game passing for the winning score.
“It was a stage for the whole world to see what kind of player he is,” Texas A&M senior running back Ben Malena said.
And junior offensive tackle Cedric Ogbuehi, who bumped into Manziel, jarring the football free briefly before the quarterback gathered it in and created that highlight TD, said the moment won Manziel the Heisman.
“Every Heisman guy needs that one game, and that was it,” Ogbuehi said. “He just came out there, he played really good and confident. I’m hoping he does the same thing this Saturday.”
The Heisman came soon after. It was followed by the endless offseason with Drake and LeBron, followed finally, just before the start of preseason practices, by the autograph scandal, which led to the half-game suspension and, for the last six weeks (with one brief post-game exception Saturday) a muzzled Manziel.
This week, we won’t hear his take on beating Alabama a year ago, what it meant to him and the program – or how he’s looking forward to the rematch. Last spring, Manziel told USA TODAY Sports he knew the Alabama game “was gonna be fun,” and that he expected some of his new celebrity acquaintances to attend.
“It’s big on the schedule,” Manziel said then. “Look how we went in there last year and we were able to take care of business at their home, and now they’re coming in here, trying to take care of business at our home.”
Coaches and teammates said Manziel is a better quarterback now than last November. He worked during the offseason to become a better passer, and the Aggies’ emphasis has been on remaining in the pocket longer and scrambling less often, without reining in his improvisational skills.
“He’s come a long way,” junior receiver Malcome Kennedy said. “Obviously, he’s a unique quarterback. What he does makes him who he is. He’s really been focusing on proving to everyone that he can be a great quarterback and make all the throws.”
Sumlin spoke Tuesday of harnessing Manziel’s intensity and passion. During the season opener, TV cameras captured Manziel talking with Rice defenders and making various gestures. Sumlin yanked him from the game after he was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct. Sumlin said Manziel’s behavior “was not the norm.”
“He plays with great emotion and intensity,” Sumlin said, “and it’s my job to have that emotion and intensity moving in a positive direction because when that happens, great things happen.”
Whatever happens, the TV audience is likely to see it. CBS plans to focus a camera solely on Manziel – the “Johnny Cam.” It’s not a completely new idea; the network did it, for example, with Tim Tebow a few years back. But Sumlin didn’t sound happy with the development.
“Saturday afternoon, you’re gonna have two football teams on the field,” Sumlin said. “And I just don’t understand why there’s got to be one guy singled out to put a camera on the whole time. That’s not what we’re trying to be about and not what we’re trying to promote. … With all the criticism about individualism on a football team, I don’t think this helps enhance a team concept one bit.”
Manziel has spoken publicly once since the autograph allegations surfaced. Last Saturday night, after a victory over Sam Houston State, he answered a few questions during the postgame interview session.
“I thought he did a great job,” Sumlin said. “He expressed his feelings about his play Saturday and his teammates’ play.”
Many reporters were in the press box, on deadline. Manziel was not asked about and did not express his feelings on the autograph controversy or the suspension. Those questions undoubtedly would have been asked this week, and will be asked whenever the quarterback is finally available.
Until then – and especially Saturday – we’ll all watch to see what Johnny’s football has to say.
George Schroeder, a national college football reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @GeorgeSchroeder.
Two weeks into the Butch Jones tenure at the University of Tennessee, the Tennessee Volunteers have gotten off to about as good of a start as they could imagine. The Vols pitched a shutout in a glorified tuneup game to start the year against overmatched Austin Peay before earning a dominating victory against Bobby Petrino’s Western Kentucky Hilltoppers on Saturday.
Neither victory was the kind that you hang your hat on as a football team, but seeing a Tennessee team that clearly overmatched their opponent go out and dictate the way the Vols have is a welcomed departure from the three years of futility Tennessee fans endured under Derek Dooley. However, now things really start to get difficult for Butch Jones and Tennessee.
A trip to Eugene to pay the Oregon Ducks looms on the horizon, and despite having lost head coach Chip Kelly to the Philadelphia Eagles, Oregon looks as explosive as ever. They enter the week ranked at No. 2 in the nation and are coming off a 59-10 dismantling of the Virginia Cavaliers in Virginia.
Mark Helfrich has Oregon’s offense clicking on all cylinders and these Oregon Ducks look as good or better than the 2010 team that absolutely destroyed the Vols in Neyland Stadium on their way to a national title game appearance. Saturday, they’ll be over three touchdown favorites over the Vols.
So what exactly is reasonable in terms of expectations for Butch Jones and Tennessee?
Competitive aspirations aside, if the Vols were to play with any sort of intensity for four entire quarters, that’d certainly be an improvement over their last game with the Ducks. It seems a given that you demand a team give maximum effort for four quarters, but given this team’s propensity to give up when overmatched under Derek Dooley, it’s only natural that you’d fear effort could be a lingering issue.
The Vols routinely rolled over in the second half in game’s against upper-echelon opponents, and playing the role of massive underdog in a place like Autzen Stadium can break the confidence and focus of even the most veteran of teams. Unfortunely, this Tennessee team is far from veteran.
Of course, the Tennessee Volunteers will have to lean heavily on a running game that has impressed through the first two weeks of the season. With Oregon’s explosive offense, Tennessee will desperately want to try to do whatever they can to control the tempo and keep that high-powered offense off the field.
A veteran offensive line combined with two experienced (and improved) options at tailback shouldn’t be rattled by a hostile environment, having dealt with week-to-week life in the SEC over the last few years. However, expect Oregon to plan accordingly and load the box, encouraging new junior starting quarterback Justin Worley to try to beat the Ducks with his arm.
Worley has been erratic in his first two starts, struggling with accuracy in limited passing attempts during the first two weeks of the season. Oregon will undoubtedly bait Worley into taking shots downfield, and Worley will have to be able to take advantage if the Vols are going to have any shot.
Defensively, the Tennessee Volunteers will have to continue to swarm the football and wreak havoc. Oregon led the nation last year in turnover margin, and, thus far, they’ve forced opponents into six turnovers in 2013 to their own zero.
Defensive coordinator John Jancek’s unit forced seven turnovers (five in six plays) on Saturday, and while it isn’t realistic to expect a team as well-coached as Oregon to give the football away over a half-dozen times, the Vols will have to force Oregon into mistakes if they hope to notch the upset victory on the road.
Ultimately, the Vols are looking at the prospects of being massive underdogs because they don’t have the type of talent Oregon does, and everything will have to go right for the Vols to be competitive in this one in Autzen. However, don’t expect Butch Jones’ squad to rollover the way they may have in the past.
The Tennessee Volunteers have a new energy about them under Butch Jones, and I expect the effort to be there on Saturday at the very least. And while effort alone won’t be enough to beat Oregon, that’s about the most reasonable expectation you could have this weekend.
Then again, when has an SEC fanbase ever been collectively reasonable?
Butch Jones Postgame Media Session (8/31/13) It was the 800th victory for the Tennessee Vols football program which is an amazing figure. All Tennessee fans should be proud of that. You will notice that both Arkansas and Tennessee are listed in the top 20 of all time football wins. Here is a list of all […]
Alabama last year had to play Tennessee and Kentucky from the East and their conference record was 1-15 while LSU had to play Florida and Georgia and their record was 14-2. Doesn’t seem fair does it? In the old days Tennessee would have been a top 10 team almost every year and playing them as […]
SEC has proved how good we are, but it doesn’t mean every team in the SEC could win a national title in 2013. David Climer: Titles can’t erase SEC football’s weaknesses Alabama players celebrates after their 32-28 win in the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game against Georgia, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Atlanta. (AP […]
ESPN’s final recruiting rankings are not as good as others as I have seen. I do have a hard time with Missouri (38) having such a good ranking when other services had the tigers tanking their class this year compared to other SEC schools. However, Kentucky (36) is almost as bad when there is vast […]
Nick Saban Streeter Lecka We finally found a Top 25 in which the SEC is more dominant than the USA Today Coaches’ Poll: the post-Signing Day recruiting class rankings. ________ I have to say the SEC is really doing well these days. Everyone expects Alabama is going to be on top on most years […]
It is really troubling to me that my Arkansas Razorbacks are 14th in the SEC in football recruiting this year and there are only a couple of days left till signing day. Alabama came in and got our best running back from North Little Rock high and I was told yesterday that Hunter Henry of […]
America’s Game – 1962 Ole Miss Rebels National Champions – John Vaught I am doing a series on the “Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast.” I enjoyed watching the Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast on ESPN on 1-27-13 with my mother. She went to Ole Miss in the early 1960′s. Also living in Little Rock my […]
I am not so mad anymore about Arkansas being ranked number 64 in recruiting this year while Auburn is #20 and Tennessee is #30 and even Kentucky is doing better than us. That is because they racked up lots of players when they had coaches during the year while we had John L. Smith. What […]
Ole Miss Applauds 1962 Undefeated Rebels I am doing a series on the “Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast.” I enjoyed watching the Ghosts of Ole Miss broadcast on ESPN on 1-27-13 with my mother. She went to Ole Miss in the early 1960′s. Also living in Little Rock my wife has relatives that were also […]
Tom Osborne at the Little Rock Touchdown Club Part 4
Part 2 1997 Orange Bowl Nebraska vs Tennessee
Uploaded on Dec 30, 2007
The second half of this game, Nebraska piles up 335 rushing yards in the second half to roll #3 Tennesse and claim a share of the 1997 MNC. Ahman Green goes for 206 yards in his final game as a Husker. The final collegiate game for Tom Osborne,Ahman Green, Scott Frost, Peyton Manning, Grant Wistrom, Jason Peter.
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The Currens Story
Uploaded on Feb 4, 2010
Tom Osborne speaks about his grandfather who was mentored by a traveling minister who was spent four months with his grandfather. The minister encouraged his grandfather to pursue college
________________________
I got to hear from Tom Osborne on 9-9-13 at the LR Touchdown Club. I saw him tell a story earlier about his grandfather who grew up in a poor family in Nebraska with an alcoholic dad who had fought in the civil war. Then his life changed dramatically when he took Rev Currens advice and got out of there and went to college like Currens said he should even though no one in his family had ever been to college. Later Osborne’s grandfather graduated from college and seminary and he broke the cycle of alcoholism and Tom Osborne who was the greatest football coach in Nebraska history was the result of that.
Biography of Tom Osborne:
From the vast farmlands of Nebraska
to the halls of Congress to the
Green Zone in Iraq, Tom Osborne has become a legend by serving those
around him and by always being a person of faith. Perhaps no college
football program in history has seen as much success as Osborne’s did
under his watch (255 wins in 25 seasons). But there is much more to
Tom Osborne.
In his career, Tom Osborne played professional football for the
Washington Redskins and the San Francisco 49ers. He was the head
coach of the University of Nebraska
Cornhuskers football team for 25
years. Osborne boasts a 255-49-3 career and school record in 25 years
and 307 games; three national
championships (1994, 1995, 1997); 12 Big Eight Conference
crowns; one Big 12 Crown. Healso took the Huskers to a bowl game every year, continuing
Nebraska’s 29 straight bowls, one of many NCAA records held by Nebraska.
Osborne coached his players to 55 first-team All-America certificates (47 players) won two
Heismans (Johnny Rodgers and Mike Rozier),
had three Lombardi Award winners (Dave
Rimington, Dean Steinkuhler, and Grant Wist
rom), six Outland Trophy winners (Rimington,
Steinkuhler, Will Shields, Zach Wiegert, and Aaron Taylor), one Butkus winner (Trev Alberts),
and a Johnny Unitas Award winner in 1995 (Tommie Frazier).
Osborne announced his retirement as head coach late in the 1997 season and was inducted into
the College Football Hall of Fame in 1999, and
in 2000, he received th
e Jim Thorpe Lifetime
Achievement Award. He was named “coach of th
e decade” by ESPN in 1999 and in 2007 was
voted the “greatest college football coac
h of all time” in an online ESPN poll.
Osborne was
chosen as the 2008 recipient of the American Football Coaches Association’s (AFCA) highest
honor, the Tuss McLaughry Award for the hi
ghest distinction in service to others.
After coaching, Osborne was elected to Congress
in 2000 and served six years in the House as a
Republican from Nebraska’s 3rd congressional
district. In June 2009, the University of
Nebraska announced the 72-year-old Osborne will re
Dan Hampton at the Little Rock Touchdown Club Part 4 Mike Singletary: Christ Means Everything – CBN.com Uploaded on Aug 25, 2010 Shawn Brown talks to the tough-as-nails coach of the San Francisco 49ers about how he wins in life and in football… The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN http://www.cbn.com __________________________ No one has more respect […]
Dan Hampton at the Little Rock Touchdown Club Part 3 Before Dan Hampton got to speak at the touchdown club this week, Rex Nelson got up and spoke and when he talked about Bobby Petrino taking his Western Kentucky team into Knoxville, he asked, “How many of you think Petrino will get a victory in […]
Dan Hampton at the Little Rock Touchdown Club Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCPWDMKzVs4 Dan Hampton told about the year with the Chicago Bears when they took on the Vikings and they sacked Archie Manning 11 times. In October on 1984 the Bears beat the Vikings but in the process Dan Hampton got to play against one of […]
Dan Hampton at the Little Rock Touchdown Club Part 1 Dan Hampton I really enjoyed the Little Rock Touchdown Club today when Dan Hampton was our speaker. Hampton said that Jimmy Johnson was a great defensive coordinator for him to learn under when he played for Frank Broyles in 1975. Then when Lou Holtz came […]
Rex Nelson impersonates Houston Nutt at LRTC 08 27 12 Published on Oct 2, 2012 Little Rock Touchdown Club has Rex Nelson do the stats for the games played that week. Rex does a lot of impersonations of different people but I like his Houston Nutt the best. Video by Popeye Video – Mrpopeyevideo I have […]
I have written about my past visits to the Little Rock Touchdown Club many times and I have been amazed at the quality of the speakers. Frank Broyles was one of my favorites but Phillip Fulmer, Paul Finebaum, Mike Slive, Willie Roaf, Randy White, Howard Schnellenberger, John Robinson, Mark May, Gene Stallings, Bobby Bowden, Lloyd […]
I have written about my past visits to the Little Rock Touchdown Club many times and I have been amazed at the quality of the speakers. (Yesterday I talked about Phillip Fulmer.)Frank Broyles was one of my favorites but Phillip Fulmer, Paul Finebaum, Mike Slive, Willie Roaf, Randy White, Howard Schnellenberger, John Robinson, Mark May, […]
Rex Nelson impersonates Houston Nutt at LRTC 08 27 12 Published on Oct 2, 2012 Little Rock Touchdown Club has Rex Nelson do the stats for the games played that week. Rex does a lot of impersonations of different people but I like his Houston Nutt the best. Video by Popeye Video – Mrpopeyevideo ______________ I […]
I really enjoyed hearing Gus Malzahn speak at the final Little Rock Touchdown meeting on Nov 19, 2012. He covered several subjects that he covered a few days earlier at a touchdown club in Huntsville. Here are some of his comments from that meeting: But reports that he could be the next coach at Auburn, […]
“Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” is a song with lyrics and music by Cole Porter and published by Chappell & Company. It was introduced in 1944 in Billy Rose‘s musical revue Seven Lively Arts. In the phrase “change from major to minor”, Porter begins with an A♭ major chord and ends with an A♭ minor one, matching the words and music.[1] The song has since become a jazz standard after gaining popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many artists have replaced the apostrophe in “ev’ry” with an “e”.
Notable recordings
Dave Barbour Trio – The Very Thought of You: Decca Records 1951-57
Cole Porter “Let’s Do it, Let’s Fall in Love” in the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Midnight in Paris – Let’s Do It Let’s do it : Cole Porter.( Midnight in Paris ) Celebrate Wikipedia Loves Libraries at your institution in October/November. Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: […]
The song used in “Midnight in Paris” I am going through the famous characters that Woody Allen presents in his excellent movie “Midnight in Paris.” By the way, I know that some of you are wondering how many posts I will have before I am finished. Right now I have plans to look at Fitzgerald, Heminingway, Juan […]
Why do I keep writing and email Senator Pryor suggestions on how to cut our budget? I gave him hundreds of ideas about how to cut spending and as far as I can tell he has taken none of my suggestions. You can find some of my suggestions here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and they all were emailed to him. In fact, I have written 13 posts pointing out reasons why I believe Senator Pryor’s re-election attempt will be unsuccessful. HERE I GO AGAIN WITH ANOTHER EMAIL I JUST SENT TO SENATOR PRYOR!!!
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.thedailyhatch.org . I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. (Actually there were over 160 emails with specific spending cut suggestions.) However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted although you did respond to me several times. 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 or I send you specific spending cut suggestions. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend.
IF YOU TRULY WANT TO CUT THE BUDGET AND BALANCE THE BUDGET THEN SUBMIT THESE POTENTIAL BUDGET CUTS PRESENTED BELOW!!
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What Are the Dangers of Too Much Debt?
Published on Mar 20, 2012
Interest payments on U.S. government debt are three times spending in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars already, and that is with the lowest interest rate we have seen since the 1960s. A rise in interest rates would increase interest payments dramatically. What can the U.S. government do today to prevent a crisis from happening when interest rates go up?
The head of the General Services Administration, which is the federal government’s procurement and property manager, has resigned in the wake of a report from the agency’s inspector general that uncovered extravagant spending at a GSA “training conference” in Las Vegas.
Among the “excessive, wasteful and in some cases impermissible” spending the inspector general documented: $5,600 for three semi-private catered in-room parties and $44 per person daily breakfasts; $75,000 for a “team-building” exercise — the goal was to build a bicycle; $146,000 on catered food and drinks; and $6,325 on commemorative coins in velvet boxes to reward all participants for their work on stimulus projects. The $31,208 “networking” reception featured a $19-per-person artisanal cheese display and $7,000 of sushi. At the conference’s closing-night dinner, employees received “yearbooks” with their pictures, at a cost of $8,130.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle have been quick to express their outrage. In particular, Republicans are anxious to paint the affair as emblematic of the Obama administration’s fiscal profligacy. Perhaps it is. However, the scandalous abuse of taxpayer money by the GSA isn’t a partisan issue. First, Martha Johnson is the second GSA chief to resign in the last four years. George W. Bush’s GSA chief Lurita Doan resigned in 2008 after a “tumultuous tenure in which she was accused of trying to award work to a friend and misusing her authority for political ends.” Second, bureaucrats have been wasting taxpayer money on conferences for years under the watch of both parties. For example, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released a report in 2008 that found that federal agencies had spent over $2 billion on conferences from 2000-2006.
As the politicians trip over one another to make empty promises to end such abuses, keep in mind that Bureaucrats Gone Wild is what you’re going to get when you give human beings the ability to spend gobs of other people’s money. The only sure way to stop government employees from wasting money is to stop giving them money in the first place, which means getting rid of the agencies that employ them. For the GSA, that means downsizing the federal government and thus reducing the need for its procurement and property services.
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The Balanced Budget Amendment is the only thing I can think of that would force Washington to cut spending. We have only a handful of balanced budgets in the last 60 years, so obviously what we are doing is not working. We are passing along this debt to the next generation. YOUR APPROACH HAS BEEN TO REJECT THE BALANCED BUDGET “BECAUSE WE SHOULD CUT THE BUDGET OURSELF,” WELL THEN HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!!!! SUBMIT THESE CUTS!!!!
Thank you for this opportunity to share my ideas with you.
The problem with the debt ceiling is very clear to me. We need to get serious about cutting federal spending. I am so upset about it that I have emailed over 100 emails to Senator Pryor concerning specific spending suggestions. I get emails from back from Senator Pryor like the one below. This means that […]
Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 164) Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to […]
Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 163) Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to […]
Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 162) Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to […]
Three very good video tours below from Senator Mark Pryor. Published on Jun 13, 2012 by SenatorPryor Episode 1: Arkansans in the Capitol Published on Jul 9, 2012 by SenatorPryor Episode 2: The Crypt and the Old Supreme Court Published on Aug 20, 2012 by SenatorPryor Episode 3: The Senate Chamber If you want to […]
Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 161) Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending and I sent them to him but he didn’t take any of my suggestions. However, he did take time to get back to me today, but I am not too impressed with Senator Pryor’s response. I gave him hundreds of ideas about how […]
Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 160) Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to […]
Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 159) Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to […]
Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I emailed to […]
Office of the Majority Whip | Balanced Budget Amendment Video In 1995, Congress nearly passed a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget. The Balanced Budget Amendment would have forced the federal government to live within its means. This Balanced Budget Amendment failed by one vote. 16 years later, Congress has the chance to get it […]
Sadly Senator Pryor has voted against the Balanced Budget Amendment over and over in his long time in the Senate. Senator Pryor: “There are a lot of people who think a balanced-budget amendment solves all the fiscal problems. I completely disagree.” (Peter Urban, Pryor Tilts Balanced Budget, Southwest Times Record, 11/17/11) Dear Senator Pryor, Why […]
Mark Levin and Senator Hatch discuss the balanced budget amendment and it’s importance. Uploaded by loveconstitution on Jan 28, 2011 Mark Levin interviews Senator Hatch 1/27/2011 about the balanced budget amendment. Mark is very excited about the balanced budget amendment being proposed by Senator Orin Hatch and John Cornyn and he discusses the amendment with […]
Dr. Jay Barth with Hendrix College comments on our latest poll results on Arkansas politics (clip from Talkbusiness) Talk Business reported today in the article “Poll Shows Beebe Strength, Pryor Shaky,” the following: A new Talk Business-Hendrix College Poll shows Gov. Mike Beebe (D) maintaining his high job approval rating, while Sen. Mark Pryor (D) […]
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor at the 2009 Democratic Party Jefferson Jackson Dinner, Arkansas’s largest annual political event. Mark Pryor is up for re-election to the Senate in 2014. It is my opinion that the only reason he did not have an opponent in 2008 was because the Republicans in Arkansas did not want to go […]
Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the CATO institute, explains that the rate of return on social security will be much lower for todays youth. Steve Brawner wrote in his article “Tiptoeing toward the third rail,” (Arkansas News Bureau, Jan 9,): Social Security has long been considered the “third rail” for American politicians, meaning it’s […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com CBS — October 19, 2010 — New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny talks to Jan Crawford about the state of Democrats in the South… Are they a dying species? In the article “Southern Democrat much closer to extinction after GOP wave,” (Washington Times, Nov 4, 2010), Ben Evans notes: After this week’s elections, the […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com Roland Martin appears on Rick’s List with Rick Sanchez and the Best Political Team on television (Candy Crowley, John King, Jeffery Toobin, Ed Rollins, Gloria Borger and Victoria Toensing) to discuss day two of the Elena Kagan Supreme Court confirmation hearings. During the analysis, Senator Graham and Elena Kagan had an interesting exchange over […]
Max Brantley is wrong about Tom Cotton’s accusation concerning the rise of welfare spending under President Obama. Actually welfare spending has been increasing for the last 12 years and Obama did nothing during his first four years to slow down the rate of increase of welfare spending. Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation has noted: […]
I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. I think Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times Blog was right to point out on 2-6-13 that Hillary […]
I thought it was great when the Republican Congress and Bill Clinton put in welfare reform but now that has been done away with and no one has to work anymore it seems. In fact, over 40% of the USA is now on the government dole. What is going to happen when that figure gets over […]
Again we have another shooting and the gun control bloggers are out again calling for more laws. I have written about this subject below and on May 23, 2012, I even got a letter back from President Obama on the subject. Now some very interesting statistics below and a cartoon follows. (Since this just hit the […]
watch?v=llQUrko0Gqw] The federal government spends about 10% on roads and public goods but with the other money in the budget a lot of harm is done including excessive regulations on business. That makes Obama’s comment the other day look very silly. A Funny Look at Obama’s You-Didn’t-Build-That Comment July 28, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I made […]
I have written a lot about this in the past and sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh. Laughing at Obama’s Bumbling Class Warfare Agenda July 13, 2012 by Dan Mitchell We know that President Obama’s class-warfare agenda is bad economic policy. We know high tax rates undermine competitiveness. And we know tax increases […]
Dan Mitchell Discussing Dishonest Budget Numbers with John Stossel Uploaded by danmitchellcato on Feb 11, 2012 No description available. ______________ Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute has shown before how excessive spending at the federal level has increased in recent years. A Humorous Look at Obama’s Screwy Budget Math May 31, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I’ve […]
Sometimes it is so crazy that you just have to laugh a little. The European Mess, Captured by a Cartoon June 22, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The self-inflicted economic crisis in Europe has generated some good humor, as you can see from these cartoons by Michael Ramirez and Chuck Asay. But for pure laughter, I don’t […]
Another great cartoon on President Obama’s efforts to create jobs!!! A Simple Lesson about Job Creation for Barack Obama December 7, 2011 by Dan Mitchell Even though leftist economists such as Paul Krugman and Larry Summers have admitted that unemployment insurance benefits are a recipe for more joblessness, the White House is arguing that Congress should […]
Dan Mitchell hits the nail on the head and sometimes it gets so sad that you just have to laugh at it like Conan does. In order to correct this mess we got to get people off of government support and get them in the private market place!!!! Chuck Asay’s New Cartoon Nicely Captures Mentality […]
Cato Institute scholar Dan Mitchell is right about Greece and the fate of socialism: Two Pictures that Perfectly Capture the Rise and Fall of the Welfare State July 15, 2011 by Dan Mitchell In my speeches, especially when talking about the fiscal crisis in Europe (or the future fiscal crisis in America), I often warn that […]
John Stossel report “Myth: Gun Control Reduces Crime Sheriff Tommy Robinson tried what he called “Robinson roulette” from 1980 to 1984 in Central Arkansas where he would put some of his men in some stores in the back room with guns and the number of robberies in stores sank. I got this from Dan Mitchell’s […]
I have put up lots of cartons and posters from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. Amusing Gun Control Picture – Circa 1999 April 3, 2010 by Dan Mitchell Dug this gem out […]
We got to cut spending and stop raising the debt ceiling!!! When Governments Cut Spending Uploaded on Sep 28, 2011 Do governments ever cut spending? According to Dr. Stephen Davies, there are historical examples of government spending cuts in Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and America. In these cases, despite popular belief, the government spending […]
I have put up lots of cartons and posters from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. On 2-6-13 the Arkansas Times Blogger “Sound Policy” suggested, “All churches that wish to allow concealed […]
Gun Free Zones???? Stalin and gun control On 1-31-13 ”Arkie” on the Arkansas Times Blog the following: “Remember that the biggest gun control advocate was Hitler and every other tyrant that every lived.” Except that under Hitler, Germany liberalized its gun control laws. __________ After reading the link from Wikipedia that Arkie provided then I responded: […]
On 1-31-13 I posted on the Arkansas Times Blog the following: I like the poster of the lady holding the rifle and next to her are these words: I am compensating for being smaller and weaker than more violent criminals. __________ Then I gave a link to this poster below: On 1-31-13 also I posted […]
He was no Reagan, to be sure, and the anti-government Congress that took power after the 1994 elections may deserve much of the credit for the good news during the Clinton years. Regardless, we had good economic performance during that period – unlike what we’ve seen during the Obama years.
Which makes this Michael Ramirez cartoon both amusing (in a tragic way) and economically accurate.
Since we’ve had relatively weak numbers for both jobs and growth this entire century, it would have been even better if the cartoon showed Bush and Obama both trying to raise the bar.
The real lesson is that big government is bad for jobs and growth, regardless of whether politicians have an “R” or “D” after their names.
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]
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