Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
March 11, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country. I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views!Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!
Minimum wage laws hurt the low-skilled workers they are intended to help. Raising the minimum wage hurts these workers even more. No matter how many ways economists say it, politicians, even those supposedly sympathetic to free markets, are content to peddle this harmful policy again and again. California’s Democrat-dominated Assembly and Senate and its Republican Governor Schwarzenegger are the latest culprits pandering this economic nonsense.
California’s legislature passed a bill that would raise the minimum wage from its current level of $6.75 per hour to $7.75 per hour over the next two years. The bill also mandates automatic yearly wage increases tied to the rate of inflation. In 2004 Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have hiked the wage by $1, but now he favors the increase and is only opposed to future automatic increases. But whether tied to the rate of inflation or not, when the minimum wage is increased low-skilled workers lose.
Deep down everybody knows it. We all know that if the government raised the minimum wage by $20 an hour, many employees would be laid off. Businesses are not charities; they hire workers only when the workers create more revenue for the business than they cost in wages and compensation. We know that many workers’ productivity is less than $26.75 an hour and that they would be laid off if the minimum wage were that high. Yet people kid themselves when they believe smaller increases won’t harm employment.
Some workers, particularly teenagers in part-time jobs, have very low productivity that makes it unprofitable to pay them more than $6.75 an hour. For these workers the politicians’ proposed 15 percent increase in the minimum wage will mean unemployment. In 2004 the Employment Policy Institute studied the impact of raising California’s minimum wage by $1. They found that approximately 18,600 Californians would lose their jobs and in the process would miss out on $220 million in total income.
Governor Schwarzenegger should know that increasing the minimum wage hurts young low-skilled workers. He claims Milton Friedman is one of the two economists that most influenced his thinking on economics and that he even gives people Friedman’s economic primer “Free to Choose” as a Christmas present. If he remembers reading the book he should recall that Friedman writes, “The high rate of unemployment among teenagers, and especially black teenagers, is both a scandal and a serious source of social unrest. Yet it is largely a result of minimum wage laws.”
One need not look only to economists known for supporting free markets to find opponents of the minimum wage. Paul Samuelson, a strongly left-leaning Nobel Prize winning economist from MIT, wrote in 1970, “What good does it do a black youth to know that an employer must pay him $2 an hour if the fact that he must be paid that amount is what keeps him from getting a job?”
Youths, minority youths in particular, are hardest hit by minimum wage laws because often they have not yet built up the skills to be profitably employed at higher wages. Many work part-time while in school. Others have just entered the workforce and are acquiring skills on the job that will help them earn higher wages in the future. Studies reflect this when they find that only 20 percent of all minimum wage earners are single earners who are heads of households. Unfortunately, by making would-be workers unemployed early in their lives, minimum wage laws undermine the very process of on-the-job learning that eventually leads to higher wages.
Minimum wage laws may hurt low-skilled workers, but they benefit union workers. Virtually no union worker earns the minimum wage, so how do they benefit? Minimum wage laws enhance the demand for union workers by unemploying their low-cost, low-skilled competitors. It is no accident that unions and their politicians are often the biggest supporters of increasing the minimum wage. But it’s dishonest for them to claim they support increasing the minimum wage for the benefit of the poor.
Governor Schwarzenegger should veto any minimum wage increase, whether it’s tied to inflation or not. If he’s really interested in strengthening our economy and helping low-skilled workers earn more income, he should pursue policies that enhance our productivity. As our economy expands, a free and competitive labor market will ensure that workers earn as much as possible.
BENJAMIN POWELL is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute and Director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University.
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
Francis and Edith Schaeffer at their home in Switzerland with some visiting friends
July 14, 2019
Richard Dawkins c/o Richard Dawkins Foundation, 1012 14th Street NW, Suite 209 Washington, DC 20005
Dear Mr. Dawkins,
Page 389 in THE GOD DELUSION: M. Shermer “What can be more soul shaking than standing before the immense chasm of space and time that is the Grand Canyon”
I had a chance to correspond with Carl Sagan and I wanted to share a post I did that was based on my last response to Dr. Sagan:
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My Jan 10, 1996 Response Letter to Carl Sagan Part 3 (The struggle both Carl Sagan and Charles Darwin had because they couldn’t accept deep down that we were the products of chance!)
This post is the third in a series and the first and second deal with my response letter of January 10, 1996 to Carl Sagan and this post quotes from the letter and makes some conclusions about both Carl Sagan and Charles Darwin’s common views.
Lynn Alexander married Carl Sagan when she was 19 years old. The happy couple at their wedding. Dorion Sagan, their first son, was born two years later
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan both could not accept that humans are not special and just a product of chance. They philosophically believed that we are the result of chance but Charles Darwin and Carl Sagan had to live in the world that God made with the conscience that God gave them. This created a tension. As you know the movie CONTACT was written by Carl Sagan and it was about Dr. Arroway’s SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE (SETI) program and her desire to make contact with aliens and ask them questions. It is my view that Sagan should have examined more closely the accuracy of the Bible and it’s fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament in particular before chasing after aliens from other planets for answers. Sagan himself had written,”Plainly, there’s something within me that’s ready to believe in life after death…If some good evidence for life after death was announced, I’d be eager to examine it; but it would have to be real scientific data, not mere antedote”(pp 203-204, The DemonHaunted World, 1995).
Sagan said he had taken a look at Old Testament prophecy and it did not impress him because it was too vague. He had taken a look at Christ’s life in the gospels, but said it was unrealistic for God to send a man to communicate for God. Instead, Sagan suggested that God could have written a mathematical formula in the Bible or put a cross in the sky. However, what happens at the conclusion of the movie CONTACT? This is Sagan’s last message to the world in the form of the movie that appeared shortly after his death. Dr Arroway (Jodie Foster) who is a young atheistic scientist who meets with an alien and this alien takes the form of Dr. Arroway’s father. The alien tells her that they thought this would make it easier for her. In fact, he meets her on a beach that resembles a beach that she grew up near so she would also be comfortable with the surroundings. Carl Sagan when writing this script chose to put the alien in human form so Dr. Arroway could relate to the alien. Christ chose to take our form and come into our world too and still many make up excuses for not believing.
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Lastly, Carl Sagan could not rid himself of the “mannishness of man.” Those who have read Francis Schaeffer’s many books know exactly what I am talking about. We are made in God’s image and we are living in God’s world. Therefore, we can not totally suppress the objective truths of our unique humanity. In my letter of Jan 10, 1996 to Dr. Sagan, I really camped out on this point a long time because I had read Sagan’s book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTON ANCESTORS and in it Sagan attempts to totally debunk the idea that we are any way special. However, what does Dr. Sagan have Dr. Arroway say at the end of the movie CONTACT when she is testifying before Congress about the alien that communicated with her? See if you can pick out the one illogical word in her statement: “I was given a vision how tiny, insignificant, rare and precious we all are. We belong to something that is greater than ourselves and none of us are alone.”
Dr Sagan deep down knows that we are special so he could not avoid putting the word “precious” in there. Francis Schaeffer said unbelievers are put in a place of tension when they have to live in the world that God has made because deep down they know they are special because God has put that knowledge in their hearts.We are not the result of survival of the fittest and headed back to the dirt forevermore. This is what Schaeffer calls “taking the roof off” of the unbeliever’s worldview and showing the inconsistency that exists.
Now let us look at Charles Darwin, and let me start by quoting Francis Schaeffer from his talk In the spring of 1968 which centered on Charles Darwin’s autobiography:
Darwin in his autobiography Darwin, Francis ed. 1892. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters[abridged edition]. London: John Murray, and in his letters showed that all through his life he NEVER really came to a QUIETNESS concerning the possibility that chance really explained the situation of the biological world. You will find there is much material on this [from Darwin] extended over many many years that constantly he was wrestling with this problem. Darwin never came to a place of satisfaction. You have philosophically ONLY TWO possible beginnings. The first would be a PERSONAL beginning and the other would be an IMPERSONEL beginning plus time plus CHANCE. There is no other possible alternative except the alternative that everything comes out of nothing and that has to be a total nothing and that has to be a total nothing without mass, energy or motion existing. No one holds this last view because it is unthinkable. Darwin understood this and therefore until his death he was uncomfortable with the idea of CHANCE producing the biological variation.
Darwin, C. R. to Graham, William3 July 1881 (letter written less than a year before Darwin’s death and less than 40 years before your birth, Dr Barlow):
Nevertheless you have EXPRESSED MY INWARD CONVICTION, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is NOT THE RESULT OF CHANCE.* But THEN with me the HORRID DOUBT ALWAYS ARISES whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
Francis Schaeffer comments:
Can you feel this man? He is in real agony. You can feel the whole of modern man in this tension with Darwin. My mind can’t accept that ultimate of chance, that the universe is a result of chance. He has said 3 or 4 times now that he can’t accept that it all happened by chance and then he will write someone else and say something different. How does he say this (about the mind of a monkey) and then put forth this grand theory? Wrong theory I feel but great just the same. Grand in the same way as when I look at many of the paintings today and I differ with their message but you must say the mark of the mannishness of man are one those paintings titanic-ally even though the message is wrong and this is the same with Darwin. But how can he say you can’t think, you come from a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s mind, and you can’t trust a monkey’s conviction, so how can you trust me? Trust me here, but not there is what Darwin is saying. In other words it is very selective.
Evidently Darwin was telling his friends that he was an agnostic and that he did not think that God had anything to do with it but it was all left to the hands of chance. Is that the way you are reading this?
What two pieces of evidence did Darwin wrestle with?
(Charles Darwin)
If you want evidence then you will only be given the same evidence that Charles Darwin had. I am going to quote 2 passages, and they both have a common message. That message has 3 points: 1) The conscience tells us of God’s existence. 2) Creatioon tells us the same. 3) If we reject both of those then God will eventually remove conviction from our hearts.
Don’t hold this against me, but I got this first passage out of the current issue of CREATION MAGAZINE:
At the present day the most usual argument for the existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep [#1] inward conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons...Formerly I was led by feelings such as those…to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that [#2] whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, ‘it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.’ I well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body. [#3] But now the grandest scenes would not cause any such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said that I am like a man who has become colour-blind…(Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1911, Vol. a, page 29).
Romans 1:18-21 Amplified Bible:
18 For [God does not overlook sin and] the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who in their wickedness suppress and stifle the truth, 19 because that which is known about God is [#1] evident within them [in their inner consciousness], for God made it evident to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, [#2] being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense. 21 For even though [a]they knew God [as the Creator], they did not [b]honor Him as God or give thanks [for His wondrous creation]. On the contrary, they became worthless in their thinking [godless, with pointless reasonings, and silly speculations], and their [#3] foolish heart was darkened.
Charles Darwin became an agnostic because he chose to reject the two pieces of evidence God gave him. Take a minute and read the enclosed letter to the editor of THE HUMANIST MAGAZINE. Where did our conscience come from if not from God? In your book SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS you quote Darwin’s wife warning him of the dangers of scientism on page 47. Wouldn’t it be wise to heed her advice????
Darwin and Sagan both realized just like modern man that humanism leads to meaningless. Francis Schaeffer in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? makes these points below concerning this:
Section 3 The humanist base leads to meaningless
An overwhelming number of modern thinkers agree that seeing the universe and man from a humanist base leads to meaningless, both for the universe and for man—not just mankind in general but for each of us as individuals. Professor Steven Weinberg wrote these words in his book THE FIRST 3 MINUTES: A MODERN VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE while he was looking down from an airplane:
It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. … It is very hard to realize that this is all just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realise that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
(1993), Epilogue, p. 154
When Weinberg says that the universe seems more “comprehensible,” he is, of course, referring to our greater understanding of the physical universe through the advance of science. But it is an understanding, notice, within a materialistic framework, which considers the universe solely in terms of physics and chemistry—-simply machinery.
If everything “faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat,” all things are meaningless.
Section 4 Tension results when you have an inadequate worldview
The greatest dilemma for those who hold an inadequate worldview is that it is impossible to live consistently within it. The playwright Samuel Beckett can “say” that words do not communicate anything—and that everything, including language, is absurd—yet he must use words to write his plays, even plays about meaninglessness. The list of contradictions can be extended endlessly. The truth is that everyone who rejects the Biblical worldview must live in a state of tension between ideas about reality and reality itself. If a person believes that everything is only matter or energy and carries this through consistently, meaning dies, morality dies, love dies, hope dies. Yet! The individual does love, does hope, does act on the basis of right and wrong. This is what we mean when we say that everyone is caught , regardless of his worldview, simply by the way things are.
Section 5 The Bible is God’s revealed truth and it tells us about our origin.
The scriptures tell us that the universe exists and has form and meaning because it was created purposefully by a personal creator. This being the case, we see that, as we are personal, we are not something strange and out of line with an otherwise impersonal universe. Since we are made in the image of God, we are in line with God. There is a continuity, in other words, between ourselves, though finite, and the infinite creator who stands behind the universe as its final source of meaning. Unlike the evolutionary concept of an impersonal beginning plus time plus chance, the Bible shows how man has personality and dignity and value. Our uniqueness is guaranteed, something which is impossible in the materialistic system!!!!!!
Canary Islands 2014: Harold Kroto and Richard Dawkins
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Francis Schaeffer pictured below:
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The Basis of Human Dignity by Francis Schaeffer
Richard Dawkins, founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Credit: Don Arnold Getty Images
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Francis Schaeffer in 1984
Christian Manifesto by Francis Schaeffer
Francis Schaeffer in 1982
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Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Episode 1
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Garik Israelian, Stephen Hawking, Alexey Leonov, Brian May, Richard Dawkins and Harry Kroto
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Featured artist is Zhou Chunya
Zhou Chunya was born in 1955 in Chongqing, China. He went to the Sichuan Academy of Fine Art in 1982. Followed his MFA from the Kassel Academy of Fine Art in Germany in 1988.
Abroad, he embraced Western techniques of contemporary painting and was inspired by German Expressionism. Zhou Chunya lives and works in Chengdu, China. He employed it alongside traditional Chinese calligraphy techniques. Zhou Chunya is a painter known for his Green Dog series of paintings. Zhou Chunya depicts a bright green German Shepard in a variety of poses and environments. His Landscape Series No.5 appears almost abstract. The brushstrokes remind of ancient Chinese landscapes.
Today Zhou Chunya work can be found in the collections of the All Show Art Center and the Tang Contemporary Art Center in Beijing.
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner […]
The Beatles were “inspired by the musique concrète of German composer and early electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen…” as SCOTT THILL has asserted. Francis Schaeffer noted that ideas of “Non-resolution” and “Fragmentation” came down German and French streams with the influence of Beethoven’s last Quartets and then the influence of Debussy and later Schoenberg’s non-resolution which is in total contrast […]
_______ On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto _________________ Below you have picture of 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize […]
On November 21, 2014 I received a letter from Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto and it said: …Please click on this URL http://vimeo.com/26991975 and you will hear what far smarter people than I have to say on this matter. I agree with them. Harry Kroto ____________________ Below you have picture of 1996 Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner Dr. […]
Two days ago, I shared data showing that people in the big nations of Western Europe only have about 75 cents of income for every $1 that Americans earn.
That’s a remarkable gap, and it’s getting larger rather than smaller, even though theory says that shouldn’t happen.
But what’s even more shocking is that a poor person in the United States would be middle class in most European nations.
And a low-income person in America is better off than the average European.
Second, I want to scream at anyone who things we should copy the European economic policy.
But my laughing and screaming obviously has no effect because Washington politicians are poised to enact a giant expansion of the welfare state.
And there’s plenty of support for this risky concept from both Democrats and Republicans.
On the GOP side, Senator Mitt Romney has proposed a big tax increase to pay for a big increase in redistribution spending in the form of universal handouts for families with children, an idea that I criticized early last month.
And Oren Cass, a former campaign aide for Romney, has a slightly different plan to impose higher taxes to fund handouts for families with children. I recently critiqued that plan in an article co-authored with Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center. Here’s some of what we wrote.
…the proposal for a Family Income Supplemental Credit (Fisc) from Oren Cass and Wells King is misguided, mostly because it would raise tax rates and expand the burden of government spending. …the Fisc would cost $200 billion annually. …$80 billion per year, would be financed with tax increases. …this fact alone should make the Fisc a non-starter as a matter of fiscal policy. …Income tax rates already are too high, and President Biden wants to raise them further. Self-styled conservatives should not be aiding and abetting the push for class-warfare taxation by adding to the collection of proposed tax-rate increases on workers, investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners. …it would be desirable for families to have more economic opportunity and financial security. However, it doesn’t follow that conservatives should support subsidizing child-bearing and -rearing. We do not think copying Europe and imposing more redistribution is the right approach. Americans enjoy far-higher living standards than people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, thanks in part to our smaller fiscal burden.
As you might expect, folks on the left are very excited about expanding the welfare state.
Biden’s so-called stimulus plan also contains a big one-time handout to households with children (with proponents hoping the lure of free cash will lead those households to demand that Washington make such giveaways a permanent part of American life).
Scott Winship of the American Enterprise Institute pours cold water on all the above proposals. Except he focuses not on fiscal policy, but on the fact that these schemes will subsidize dependency and encourage out-of-wedlock births – thus undermining the very successful welfare reform of the 1990s.
A child allowance would send unconditional cash benefits to nearly all families on a per-child basis. …Child allowances run a very real risk of encouraging more single parenthood and more no-worker families, both of which could worsen entrenched poverty in the long run—an overreliance on government transfers, poverty over longer stretches of childhood, intergenerational poverty, and geographically concentrated poverty. …Poverty among the children of single parents fell from 50 percent in the early 1980s to 15 percent today, with an especially sharp decline during the 1990s. This was a period in which policy reforms encouraged work, by imposing time limits and work requirements on receipt of cash welfare and expanding benefits to low-income workers. …We should strive to reduce child poverty further, but it matters how we do so. Reducing this year’s poverty while exacerbating entrenched poverty and reversing the progress we have made since welfare reform would be a hollow victory indeed. So much the worse if a child allowance leads to irresistible calls for a universal basic income, which would also increase nonwork among the childless.
Michael Barone is similarly perplexed that lawmakers are so intent on reversing the progress of welfare reform.
When public policies have produced disastrous results, and when alternative policies have resulted in immediate, seemingly miraculous improvement, why would anyone want to go back to the earlier policies? …births to unwed mothers and welfare dependency rose…from 1965 to 1975, violent crime and welfare dependency, both heavily concentrated among blacks, nearly tripled — tripled. For two more decades, crime and welfare dependency remained at the same high levels, sometimes zooming higher. …Reform, first by Thompson in Wisconsin and then by Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton in the 1996 welfare bill, required mothers to work. Social workers’ focus was changed from handing out more checks to helping moms get and hold jobs. The results: Welfare rolls plummeted; teen births plunged; kids raised by working moms did better in school and in life. Liberals have tried to stealthily roll back the reforms. They’ve been joined by some cultural conservatives, worried about population decline… These include Sen. Mitt Romney, who supports a child allowance that is fully refundable — which is to say that government will send a check to parents, married or unmarried… A version of this, limited to one year, has been inserted in the “COVID relief” bill of President Joe Biden’s administration. A single parent with two kids, working or not, could qualify for $7,200 a year plus $6,400 in food stamps. …Mickey Kaus…argues that…”(A) large subset of recipients will go from one worker to zero workers.” That means “millions of kids growing up in fatherless homes, where nobody goes into the labor force, where the mainstream world of employment is a foreign country.” Past experience says he’s right and that…the people most hurt will be black Americans.
So is there a real danger that per-child handouts will become law?
The obvious answer is yes since they are included in Biden’s faux stimulus.
But that’s just a one-year giveaway. It’s unclear whether households will get addicted to that free cash and thus demand that the handouts get extended (based on my Second Theorem of Government, I’m pessimistic).
So, what does the average person think…? The 2019 American Family Survey, a poll covering 3,000 adults from the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, tested four different child tax credit proposals… The results give us a sense of how the public—and some key segments of it—see the issue. Interestingly, none of the ideas had majority support…Nearly half of Americans can support a credit sold as tax relief that’s either broad-based (CTC1) or targeted to the lower-income (CTC3), but an across-the-board handout to parents just for being parents (CTC4) can’t even garner one-third support. …the major takeaways are these: 1) The child tax credit, in general, is not as popular as one might think — even in questions that don’t mention the taxes needed to pay for it, it never manages a majority; and 2) despite some energy on the pro-family intellectual right for flat, universal child allowances (CTC4), Republicans and even independents among the general public are really not fond of the idea.
This data is semi-encouraging. I’m definitely glad people are suspicious of big per-child handouts. And I suspect opposition will grow when people learn about the European-style taxes that would be needed to finance such a huge giveaway.
But it doesn’t help the fight for sensible policy when some self-styled conservatives advocate for big expansions of the welfare state – especially when such ideas inevitably will erode societal capital.
P.S. As indicated by the above excerpt, Scott Winship’s article concludes with a warning that universal per-child handouts could be the camel’s nose under the tent for a “basic income,” which is the crazy notion that government should give everyone money. That’s an additional reason to reject the idea, as even Joe Biden once realized.
P.P.S. Some proponents use the term “child tax credit” to describe per-child handouts, but that’s disingenuous at best. A handout doesn’t magically become a tax cut just because the recipient happens to pay tax. Moreover, the handouts in these proposals generally are “refundable,” which is simply fiscal jargon for handouts that also go to people who don’t pay any tax.
P.P.P.S. The real-world evidence casts considerable doubt on the notion that per-child handouts will increase birthrates.
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose – Ep.4 (1/7) – From Cradle to Grave
January 21, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
With the national debt increasing faster than ever we must make the hard decisions to balance the budget now. If we wait another decade to balance the budget then we will surely risk our economic collapse.
The first step is to remove all welfare programs and replace them with the negative income tax program that Milton Friedman first suggested.
Milton Friedman points out that though many government welfare programs are well intentioned, they tend to have pernicious side effects. In Dr. Friedman’s view, perhaps the most serious shortcoming of governmental welfare activities is their tendency to strip away individual independence and dignity. This is because bureaucrats in welfare agencies are placed in positions of tremendous power over welfare recipients, exercising great influence over their lives. In addition, welfare programs tend to be self-perpetuating because they destroy work incentives. Dr. Friedman suggests a negative income tax as a way of helping the poor. The government would pay money to people falling below a certain income level. As they obtained jobs and earned money, they would continue to receive some payments from the government until their outside income reached a certain ceiling. This system would make people better off who sought work and earned income.
Here is a transcript of a portion of the “Free to Choose” program called “From Cradle to Grave” (program #4 in the 10 part series):
Friedman: After the 2nd World War, New York City authorities retained rent control supposedly to help their poorer citizens. The intentions were good. This in the Bronx was one result.
By the 50′s the same authorities were taxing their citizens. Including those who lived in the Bronx and other devastated areas beyond the East River to subsidize public housing. Another idea with good intentions yet poor people are paying for this, subsidized apartments for the well-to-do. When government at city or federal level spends our money to help us, strange things happen.
The idea that government had to protect us came to be accepted during the terrible years of the Depression. Capitalism was said to have failed. And politicians were looking for a new approach.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a candidate for the presidency. He was governor of New York State. At the governor’s mansion in Albany, he met repeatedly with friends and colleagues to try to find some way out of the Depression. The problems of the day were to be solved by government action and government spending. The measures that FDR and his associates discussed here derived from a long line of past experience. Some of the roots of these measures go back to Bismark’s Germany at the end of the 19th Century. The first modern state to institute old age pensions and other similar measures on the part of government. In the early 20th Century Great Britain followed suit under Lloyd George and Churchill. It too instituted old age pensions and similar plans.
These precursors of the modern welfare state had little effect on practice in the United States. But they did have a very great effect on the intellectuals on the campus like those who gathered here with FDR. The people who met here had little personal experience of the horrors of the Depression but they were confident that they had the solution. In their long discussions as they sat around this fireplace trying to design programs to meet the problems raised by the worst Depression in the history of the United States, they quite naturally drew upon the ideas that were prevalent at the time. The intellectual climate had become one in which it was taken for granted that government had to play a major role in solving the problems in providing what came later to be called Security from Cradle to Grave.
Roosevelt’s first priority after his election was to deal with massive unemployment. A Public Works program was started. The government financed projects to build highways, bridges and dams. The National Recovery Administration was set up to revitalize industry. Roosevelt wanted to see America move into a new era. The Social Security Act was passed and other measures followed. Unemployment benefits, welfare payments, distribution of surplus food. With these measures, of course, came rules, regulations and red tape as familiar today as they were novel then. The government bureaucracy began to grow and it’s been growing ever since.
This is just a small part of the Social Security empire today. Their headquarters in Baltimore has 16 rooms this size. All these people are dispensing our money with the best possible intentions. But at what cost?
In the 50 years since the Albany meetings, we have given government more and more control over our lives and our income. In New York State alone, these government buildings house 11,000 bureaucrats. Administering government programs that cost New York taxpayers 22 billion dollars. At the federal level, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare alone has a budget larger than any government in the world except only Russia and the United States.
Yet these government measures often do not help the people they are supposed to. Richard Brown’s daughter, Helema, needs constant medical attention. She has a throat defect and has to be connected to a breathing machine so that she’ll survive the nights. It’s expensive treatment and you might expect the family to qualify for a Medicaid grant.
Richard Brown: No, I don’t get it, cause I’m not eligible for it. I make a few dollars too much and the salary that I make I can’t afford to really live and to save anything is out of the question. And I mean, I live, we live from payday to payday. I mean literally from payday to payday.
Friedman: His struggle isn’t made any easier by the fact that Mr. Brown knows that if he gave up his job as an orderly at the Harlem Hospital, he would qualify for a government handout. And he’d be better off financially.
Hospital Worker: Mr. Brown, do me a favor please? There is a section patient.
Friedman: It’s a terrible pressure on him. But he is proud of the work that he does here and he’s strong enough to resist the pressure.
Richard Brown: I’m Mr. Brown. Your fully dilated and I’m here to take you to the delivery. Try not to push, please. We want to have a nice sterile delivery.
Friedman: Mr. Brown has found out the hard way that welfare programs destroy an individual’s independence.
Richard Brown: We’ve considered welfare. We went to see, to apply for welfare but, we were told that we were only eligible for $5.00 a month. And, to receive this $5.00 we would have to cash in our son’s savings bonds. And that’s not even worth it. I don’t believe in something for nothing anyway.
Mrs. Brown: I think a lot of people are capable of working and are willing to work, but it’s just the way it is set up. It, the mother and the children are better off if the husband isn’t working or if the husband isn’t there. And this breaks up so many poor families.
Friedman: One of the saddest things is that many of the children whose parents are on welfare will in their turn end up in the welfare trap when they grow up. In this public housing project in the Bronx, New York, 3/4′s of the families are now receiving welfare payments.
Well Mr. Brown wanted to keep away from this kind of thing for a very good reason. The people who get on welfare lose their human independence and feeling of dignity. They become subject to the dictates and whims of their welfare supervisor who can tell them whether they can live here or there, whether they may put in a telephone, what they may do with their lives. They are treated like children, not like responsible adults and they are trapped in the system. Maybe a job comes up which looks better than welfare but they are afraid to take it because if they lose it after a few months it maybe six months or nine months before they can get back onto welfare. And as a result, this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle rather than simply a temporary state of affairs.
Things have gone even further elsewhere. This is a huge mistake. A public housing project in Manchester, England.
Well we’re 3,000 miles away from the Bronx here but you’d never know it just by looking around. It looks as if we are at the same place. It’s the same kind of flats, the same kind of massive housing units, decrepit even though they were only built 7 or 8 years ago. Vandalism, graffiti, the same feeling about the place. Of people who don’t have a great deal of drive and energy because somebody else is taking care of their day to day needs because the state has deprived them of an incentive to find jobs to become responsible people to be the real support for themselves and their families.
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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
Washington is lecturing us about eating too much when they are spending addicts!!!! Let’s Fix the Real Obesity Problem in Washington May 11, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Whenever someone proposes that we need more intervention from the federal government, I always go to the Constitution and check Article I, Section VIII. This is because I’m old fashioned and […]
You want a suggestion on how to cut the government then start at HUD. I would prefer to eliminate all of it. Here are Dan Mitchell’s thoughts below: Sequestration’s Impact on HUD: Just 358 More Days and Mission Accomplished March 12, 2013 by Dan Mitchell As part of my “Question of the Week” series, I had […]
Coldplay Max Masters – Part 7 of 7 Chris Martin revealed in his interview with Howard Stern that he was rasied an evangelical Christian but he has left the church. I believe that many words that he puts in his songs today are generated from the deep seated Christian beliefs from his childhood that find […]
Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients in NYC Published on Mar 18, 2012 by vclubscenedotcom Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients __________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I […]
Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients in NYC Published on Mar 18, 2012 by vclubscenedotcom Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients __________ Liberals like the idea of the welfare state while conservatives suggest charity through private organizations serve the […]
Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict What kind of intervention does Congress need to get it to spend with its spending addiction? Back in 1982 Reagan was promised $3 in cuts for every $1 in tax increases but the cuts never came. In 1990 Bush was promised 2 for 1 but they […]
Republican Presidential Debate In New Hampshire pt.4 Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas gestures as he answers a question as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, listen during the first New Hampshire Republican presidential debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Monday, June 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) KING: Welcome […]
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 (at 4:04 pm CST on April 7th, 2011, and will continue to do so in the […]
I found this article very interesting. The Kennedy-Reagan Truth vs. the Obama Delusion by Jim Denney In his book The New Reagan Revolution, Michael Reagan examined six great economic crossroads of the 20th and 21st centuries. These six critical junctures in the history of the United States serve as economic laboratories to test two contrasting economic […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com This video clip gives 6 reasons why the Capital Gains Tax should be abolished Ernest Dumas in his article “Tax work not wealth,” (Arkansas Times, Nov 25, 2010) asserts, “The (capital gains) tax rate was raised in 1976 under President Gerald Ford and economic growth accelerated. President Jimmy Carter cut the top rate from 39 […]
Women’s Human Rights Campaign member and outspoken feminist Kara Dansky ramped up warnings against President Biden’s gender identity initiative on Tuesday, telling “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that America is heading for a “complete obliteration of biological sex”.
Biden issued an executive order on Jan. 20 encouraging schools to allow student-athletes to compete in sports based on their gender identity instead of their biological sex. On Monday, Biden signed an additional measure that “seeks to erase women and girls in the law as a category,” Dansky said.
“What we’re seeing is a complete obliteration of biological sex, and we have to stop doing that,” she told Carlson.
Biden’s executive order, dubbed the Executive Order on Preventing and Combatting Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation, is aimed at providing children a place to “learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room or school sports,” the administration said in a statement.
Dansky urged the White House to engage in a “serious national conversation about what we’re doing before we push through laws that redefine the word ‘sex’ to include the nebulous, ill-defined, un-understood, made-up lie that is gender identity.”
This is an emergency,” she added. “This is an absolute emergency. It has consequences and as a feminist, as you know, I care really about the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls. But I also understand that the obliteration of sex has consequences that are extremely far-reaching.”
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After Life #1 Trailer
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I listened tothis question and answer session at Harvard in 1992 on cassette tapes and was captivated with Ravi Zacharias. His responses were so much better than Kath’s responses to Tony in AFTER LIFE. I have referenced work by Ravi many times in the past and Especially moving was Ravi’s own spiritual search which started in a hospital bed after a failed suicide attempt.I also want you to check out his talk at Princeton and the question and answer time afterwards which are both on YOU TUBEat these two links: Link for talk, Link for Q/A.
After Life 2 Trailer
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On Saturday April 18, 2020 at 6pm in London and noon in Arkansas, I had a chance to ask Ricky Gervais a question on his Twitter Live broadcast which was “Is Tony a Nihilist?” At the 20:51 mark Ricky answers my question. Below is the video:
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If Death is the end then what is the point Kath asks below:
Adrian Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005)
Charles Darwin Autobiography
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Francis Schaeffer “The Age of NONREASON”
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(Above) Tony and Anne on the bench at the graveyard where their spouses are buried.
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July 9, 2020 Ricky Gervais
Dear Ricky,
This is the 83rd day in a row that I have written another open letter to you to comment on some of your episodes of AFTER LIFE, and then I wanted to pass along some evidence that indicates the Bible is historically accurate from Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop Book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?
In the 6th episode of the second season of AFTERLIFE Tony and Lenny interview a 50 year old person who pretends to be a 8 year old little girl when everyone in his family knows this person has been around for 50 years.
Just pretending something is true does not make it true. This was true too for Jean Paul Sartre. The atheist Sartre said that this Godless universe has no meaning but “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” But this is just fooling ourselves.
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Let me share a portion of an article by William Lane Craig with you.
Why on atheism life has no ultimate meaning, value, or purpose, and why this view is unlivable.
Francis Schaeffer has explained this point well. Modern man, says Schaeffer, resides in a two-story universe. In the lower story is the finite world without God; here life is absurd, as we have seen. In the upper story are meaning, value, and purpose. Now modern man lives in the lower story because he believes there is no God. But he cannot live happily in such an absurd world; therefore, he continually makes leaps of faith into the upper story to affirm meaning, value, and purpose, even though he has no right to, since he does not believe in God.
Let’s look again, then, at each of the three areas in which we saw life was absurd without God, to show how man cannot live consistently and happily with his atheism.
Meaning of Life
First, the area of meaning. We saw that without God, life has no meaning. Yet philosophers continue to live as though life does have meaning. For example, Sartre argued that one may create meaning for his life by freely choosing to follow a certain course of action. Sartre himself chose Marxism.
Now this is utterly inconsistent. It is inconsistent to say life is objectively absurd and then to say one may create meaning for his life. If life is really absurd, then man is trapped in the lower story. To try to create meaning in life represents a leap to the upper story. But Sartre has no basis for this leap. Without God, there can be no objective meaning in life. Sartre’s program is actually an exercise in self-delusion. Sartre is really saying, “Let’s pretend the universe has meaning.” And this is just fooling ourselves.
The point is this: if God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent—for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.
Value of Life
Turn now to the problem of value. Here is where the most blatant inconsistencies occur. First of all, atheistic humanists are totally inconsistent in affirming the traditional values of love and brotherhood. Camus has been rightly criticized for inconsistently holding both to the absurdity of life and the ethics of human love and brotherhood. The two are logically incompatible. Bertrand Russell, too, was inconsistent. For though he was an atheist, he was an outspoken social critic, denouncing war and restrictions on sexual freedom. Russell admitted that he could not live as though ethical values were simply a matter of personal taste, and that he therefore found his own views “incredible.” “I do not know the solution,” he confessed.” [7] The point is that if there is no God, then objective right and wrong cannot exist. As Dostoyevsky said, “All things are permitted.”
But Dostoyevsky also showed that man cannot live this way. He cannot live as though it is perfectly all right for soldiers to slaughter innocent children. He cannot live as though it is all right for dictators like Pol Pot to exterminate millions of their own countrymen. Everything in him cries out to say these acts are wrong—really wrong. But if there is no God, he cannot. So he makes a leap of faith and affirms values anyway. And when he does so, he reveals the inadequacy of a world without God.
The horror of a world devoid of value was brought home to me with new intensity a few years ago as I viewed a BBC television documentary called “The Gathering.” It concerned the reunion of survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem, where they rediscovered lost friendships and shared their experiences. One woman prisoner, a nurse, told of how she was made the gynecologist at Auschwitz. She observed that pregnant women were grouped together by the soldiers under the direction of Dr. Mengele and housed in the same barracks. Some time passed, and she noted that she no longer saw any of these women. She made inquiries. “Where are the pregnant women who were housed in that barracks?” “Haven’t you heard?” came the reply. “Dr. Mengele used them for vivisection.”
Another woman told of how Mengele had bound up her breasts so that she could not suckle her infant. The doctor wanted to learn how long an infant could survive without nourishment. Desperately this poor woman tried to keep her baby alive by giving it pieces of bread soaked in coffee, but to no avail. Each day the baby lost weight, a fact that was eagerly monitored by Dr. Mengele. A nurse then came secretly to this woman and told her, “I have arranged a way for you to get out of here, but you cannot take your baby with you. I have brought a morphine injection that you can give to your child to end its life.” When the woman protested, the nurse was insistent: “Look, your baby is going to die anyway. At least save yourself.” And so this mother took the life of her own baby. Dr. Mengele was furious when he learned of it because he had lost his experimental specimen, and he searched among the dead to find the baby’s discarded corpse so that he could have one last weighing.
My heart was torn by these stories. One rabbi who survived the camp summed it up well when he said that at Auschwitz it was as though there existed a world in which all the Ten Commandments were reversed. Mankind had never seen such a hell.
And yet, if God does not exist, then in a sense, our world is Auschwitz: there is no absolute right and wrong; all things are permitted. But no atheist, no agnostic, can live consistently with such a view. Nietzsche himself, who proclaimed the necessity of living beyond good and evil, broke with his mentor Richard Wagner precisely over the issue of the composer’s anti-Semitism and strident German nationalism. Similarly Sartre, writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that a doctrine that leads to extermination is not merely an opinion or matter of personal taste, of equal value with its opposite. [8] In his important essay “Existentialism Is a Humanism,” Sartre struggles vainly to elude the contradiction between his denial of divinely pre-established values and his urgent desire to affirm the value of human persons. Like Russell, he could not live with the implications of his own denial of ethical absolutes.
A second problem is that if God does not exist and there is no immortality, then all the evil acts of men go unpunished and all the sacrifices of good men go unrewarded. But who can live with such a view? Richard Wurmbrand, who has been tortured for his faith in communist prisons, says,
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no Hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners. [9]
And the same applies to acts of self-sacrifice. A number of years ago, a terrible mid-winter air disaster occurred in which a plane leaving the Washington, D.C., airport smashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, plunging its passengers into the icy waters. As the rescue helicopters came, attention was focused on one man who again and again pushed the dangling rope ladder to other passengers rather than be pulled to safety himself. Six times he passed the ladder by. When they came again, he was gone. He had freely given his life that others might live. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the selfless and good act he had performed. And yet, if the atheist is right, that man was not noble—he did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the ladder first, pushed others away if necessary in order to survive. But to die for others he did not even know, to give up all the brief existence he would ever have—what for? For the atheist there can be no reason. And yet the atheist, like the rest of us, instinctively reacts with praise for this man’s selfless action. Indeed, one will probably never find an atheist who lives consistently with his system. For a universe without moral accountability and devoid of value is unimaginably terrible.
The Success of Biblical Christianity
But if atheism fails in this regard, what about biblical Christianity? According to the Christian world view, God does exist, and man’s life does not end at the grave. In the resurrection body man may enjoy eternal life and fellowship with God. Biblical Christianity therefore provides the two conditions necessary for a meaningful, valuable, and purposeful life for man: God and immortality. Because of this, we can live consistently and happily. Thus, biblical Christianity succeeds precisely where atheism breaks down.
Conclusion
Now I want to make it clear that I have not yet shown biblical Christianity to be true. But what I have done is clearly spell out the alternatives. If God does not exist, then life is futile. If the God of the Bible does exist, then life is meaningful. Only the second of these two alternatives enables us to live happily and consistently. Therefore, it seems to me that even if the evidence for these two options were absolutely equal, a rational person ought to choose biblical Christianity. It seems to me positively irrational to prefer death, futility, and destruction to life, meaningfulness, and happiness. As Pascal said, we have nothing to lose and infinity to gain.
[1]Kai Nielsen, “Why Should I Be Moral?” American Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1984): 90.
[3]H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (New York: Berkeley, 1957), chap. 11.
[4]W.E. Hocking, Types of Philosophy (New York: Scribner’s, 1959), 27.
[5]Friedrich Nietzsche, “The Gay Science,” in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. W. Kaufmann (New York: Viking, 1954), 95.
[6]Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship,” in Why I Am Not a Christian, ed. P. Edwards (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957), 107.
[7]Bertrand Russell, Letter to the Observer, 6 October, 1957.
[8]Jean Paul Sartre, “Portrait of the Antisemite,” in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Satre, rev. ed., ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: New Meridian Library, 1975), p. 330.
[10]Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1959), 2:360-1.
[11]Loyal D. Rue, “The Saving Grace of Noble Lies,” address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, February, 1991.
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This reminds me of an illustration from Francis Schaeffer of what existentialism means:
When we speak of irrationalism or existentialism or the existential methodology, we are pointing to a quite simple idea. It may have been expressed in a variety of complicated ways by philosophers, but it is not a difficult concept. Imagine that you are at the movies watching a suspense film. As the story unfolds, the tension increases until finally the hero is trapped in some impossible situation and everyone is groaning inwardly, wondering how he is going to get out of the mess. The suspense is heightened by the knowledge (of the audience, not the hero) that help is on the way in the form of the good guys. The only question is: will the good guys arrive in time? Now imagine for a moment that the audience is slipped the information that there are no good guys, that the situation of the hero is not just desperate, but completely hopeless. Obviously, the first thing that would happen is that the suspense would be gone. You and the entire audience would simply be waiting for the axe to fall. If the hero faced the end with courage, this would be morally edifying, but the situation itself would be tragic. If, however, the hero acted as if help were around the corner and kept buoying himself up with this thought (“Someone is on the way!” – “Help is at hand!”), all you could feel for him would be pity. It would be a means to keep hope alive within a hopeless situation. The hero’s hope would change nothing on the outside; it would be unable to manufacture, out of nothing, good guys coming to the rescue. All it would achieve would the hero’s own mental state of hopefulness rather than hopelessness. The hopefulness itself would rest on a lie or an illusion and thus, viewed objectively, would be finally absurd. And if the hero really knew what the situation was, but consciously used the falsehood to buoy up his feelings and go whistling along, we would either say, “Poor guy!” or “He’s a fool.” It is this kind of conscious deceit that someone like Woody Allen has looked full in the face and will have none of. Now this is what the existential methodology is about. If the universe we are living in is what the materialistic humanists say it is, then with our reason (when we stop to think about it) we could find absolutely no way to have meaning or morality or hope or beauty. This would plunge us into despair. We would have to take seriously the challenge of Albert Camus (1913-1960) in the first sentence of The Myth of Sisyphus: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”92 Why stay alive in an absurd universe? Ah! But that is not where we stop. We say to ourselves – “There is hope!” (even though there is no help). “We shall overcome!” (even though nothing is more certain than that we shall be destroyed, both individually at death and cosmically with the end of all conscious life). This is what confronts us on all sides today: the modern irrationalism.
Francis Schaeffer has correctly argued:
The universe was created by an infinite personal God and He brought it into existence by spoken word and made man in His own image. When man tries to reduce [philosophically in a materialistic point of view] himself to less than this [less than being made in the image of God] he will always fail and he will always be willing to make these impossible leaps into the area of nonreason even though they don’t give an answer simply because that isn’t what he is. He himself testifies that this infinite personal God, the God of the Old and New Testament is there.
Instead of making a leap into the area of nonreason the better choice would be to investigate the claims that the Bible is a historically accurate book and that God created the universe and reached out to humankind with the Bible. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?)
We now take a jump back in time to the middle of the ninth century before Christ, that is, about 850 B.C. Most people have heard of Jezebel. She was the wife of Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel. Her wickedness has become so proverbial that we talk about someone as a “Jezebel.” She urged her husband to have Naboth killed, simply because Ahab had expressed his liking for a piece of land owned by Naboth, who would not sell it. The Bible tells us also that she introduced into Israel the worship of her homeland, the Baal worship of Tyre. This led to the opposition of Elijah the Prophet and to the famous conflict on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the priests of Baal.
Here again one finds archaeological confirmations of what the Bible says. Take for example: “As for the other events of Ahab’s reign, including all he did, the palace he built and inlaid with ivory, and the cities he fortified, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?” (I Kings 22:39).
This is a very brief reference in the Bible to events which must have taken a long time: building projects which probably spanned decades. Archaeological excavations at the site of Samaria, the capital, reveal something of the former splendor of the royal citadel. Remnants of the “ivory house” were found and attracted special attention (Palestinian Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem). This appears to have been a treasure pavilion in which the walls and furnishings had been adorned with colored ivory work set with inlays giving a brilliant too, with the denunciations revealed by the prophet Amos:
“I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord. (Amos 3:15)
Other archaeological confirmation exists for the time of Ahab. Excavations at Hazor and Megiddo have given evidence of the the extent of fortifications carried out by Ahab. At Megiddo, in particular, Ahab’s works were very extensive including a large series of stables formerly assigned to Solomon’s time.
On the political front, Ahab had to contend with danger from the Aramacaus king of Syria who besieged Samaria, Ahab’s capital. Ben-hadad’s existence is attested by a stela (a column with writing on it) which has been discovered with his name written on it (Melquart Stela, Aleppo Museum, Syria). Again, a detail of history given in the Bible is shown to be correct.
This brings me to the message of Solomon in ECCLESIASTES and below are comments by Francis Schaeffer:
Ecclesiastes 9:7-12
7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
8 Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.
9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, (DOES IT SOUND OPTIMISTIC? NOW COMES THE BACKLASH) all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.
11 Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.12 For man does not know his time. Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.
Solomon when at work takes off his hat and he stands by the grave of man and he says, “ALAS. ALAS. ALAS.”
But interestingly enough the story of Ecclesiastes does not end its message here because in two places in the New Testament it is picked up and carried along and put in its proper perspective.
Luke 12:16-21
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax,eat, drink, be merry.”’ [ALMOST EVERYONE WHO HAS PROCEEDED HERE HAS FELT CERTAINLY THAT JESUS IS DELIBERATELY REFERRING TO SOLOMON’S SOLUTION.]20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Christ here points out the reason for the failure of the logic that is involved. He points out why it fails in logic and then why it fails in reality. This view of Solomon must end in failure philosophically and also in emotional desperation.
We are not made to live in the shortened environment of UNDER THE SUN in this life only!!! Neither are we made to live only in the environment of a bare concept of afterlife [ignoring trying to make this life better]. We are made to live in the environment of a God who exists and who is the judge. This is the difference and that is what Jesus is setting forth here.
I Corinthians 15:32
32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
There is no doubt here he is reaching back to Solomon again and he is just saying if there isn’t a resurrection of the dead then let’s just follow Solomon and let’s just eat and drink for tomorrow we die!!!! If there isn’t this full structure [including the resurrection of the dead] then just have the courage to follow Solomon and we can eat and drink because tomorrow we die and that is all we have. If the full structure isn’t there then pick up the cup and drink it dry! You can say it a different way in the 20th century: If the full structure is not there then go ahead and be an EXISTENTIALIST, but don’t cheat. Drink the cup to the end. Drink it dry! That is what Paul says. Paul the educated man. Paul the man who knew his Greek philosophy. Paul the man who understood Solomon and the dilemma. Paul said it one way or the other. There is no room for a middle ground. IF CHRISTIANS AREN’T RAISED FROM THE DEAD THEN SOLOMON IS RIGHT IN ECCLESIASTES, BUT ONLY THEN. But if he is right then you should accept all of Solomon’s despair and his conclusions.
Seen below is the third episode of AFTERLIFE (season 1) when Matt takes Tony to a comedy club with front row seats to cheer him up but it turns into disaster!!!
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Current Events |Tagged Bible Prophecy, john macarthur | Edit|Comments (0)
Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (1)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Biblical Archaeology | Edit|Comments (0)
Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology, Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit|Comments (0)
Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Biblical Archaeology | E
EXCLUSIVE – Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks on Wednesday despatched a letter to Adm. Michael M. Gilday after the Navy included Boston College Professor Ibram X. Kendi‘s “Tips on how to Be an Antiracist” on its 2021 studying record.
The No. 1 New York Instances bestseller, which has been adopted by some schools and educators, offers recommendation on how folks can be explicitly “antiracist,” versus not racist, and “guarantees to turn out to be a vital guide for anybody who desires to transcend an consciousness of racism to the subsequent step of contributing to the formation of a very simply and equitable society,” according to the creator’s web site.
Banks, a Naval Reserve officer since 2012 and rating member of the Home Armed Providers Subcommittee on Army Personnel, argues in his letter that the views promoted within the guide on the 2021 Chief of Naval Operations Skilled Studying Program are “explicitly anti-American” and referred to as on Gilday to elucidate the Nacy’s determination to incorporate it on the CNO-PRP record or take away it.
“The views promoted in ‘Tips on how to Be an Antiracist’ are explicitly anti-American. Based on Kendi, America is basically racist, so anti-Americanism is an ethical crucial,” Branks wrote. “… Cohesiveness and unity in our armed companies is important. Kendi’s concepts are divisive and can undermine morale and weaken our nationwide safety.”
The Navy didn’t reply to an inquiry from Fox Information.
The guide is listed below the “Sailors” class within the “Foundational” sub-section, which goals to be certain that Navy sailors “stay one of the best educated and educated pressure on the planet,” and that the navy department cultivates “a tradition of warfighting excellence rooted in our core values,” according toNavy’s web site.
Banks added in his letter that he’s “flabbergasted by the Navy’s determination to formally endorse such a dangerous and subversive guide” and referred to as on Gilday to offer him “with a written response explaining how ‘Tips on how to be an Antiracist’ cultivates a tradition of warfighting excellence,’ or take away ‘Tips on how to be an Antiracist’ from the CNO-PRP Studying Record.”
“As a former servicemember, the declare that ‘Tips on how to Be an Antiracist’ is according to the Navy’s core values is troubling,” the congressman wrote. “In Kendi’s personal phrases, the defining thought behind the guide is that: ‘there isn’t any such factor a not-racist thought,’ there are solely, ‘racist concepts and antiracist concepts.’”
Banks cited The Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based mostly on race, colour, faith, intercourse or nationwide origin.
Kendi, nevertheless, argues in his guide that “if discrimination is creating fairness, then it’s antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it’s racist. … The one treatment to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination.”
“Though this sounds innocent, it’s radically against foundational American paperwork just like the Structure’s Equal Safety Clause, and more moderen anti-discrimination protections just like the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Banks wrote.
The guide additionally concludes that the US as a nation, in addition to its establishments, are inherently “racist”; “capitalism is basically racist”; “racism is basically capitalist”; and that “with regards to therapeutic America of racism,” Individuals ought to “need to heal America with out ache, however with out ache, there isn’t any progress.”
Gross sales of anti-racism books together with “Tips on how to be an Anti-Racist”; Robin D’Angilo’s “White Fragility”; and Ijeomo Oluo’s “So You Wish to Discuss About Race” surged in recognition over the summer season after George Floyd‘s Might 25 demise in police custody in Minneapolis — an occasion that sparked protests throughout the nation and requires each atypical Individuals and huge companies to take steps towards selling antiracism and racial fairness.
Ep. 4 – From Cradle to Grave [6/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980)
February 27, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Thank you for taking time to have your office try and get a pulse on what is going on out here in the country. I wanted to let you know what I think about the minimum wage increase you have proposed for the whole country and I wanted to quote Milton Friedman who you are familiar with and you made it clear in July that you didn’t care for his views!Let me challenge you to take a closer look at what he had to say!
Joe Shalmoni Photography (C)2014 All Rights Reserved
Rapper/actor Ice Cube is on the brink of understanding the left-wing con.
He appears on the verge of understanding the fake product that the Democrats and the media have been peddling: that America remains guilty of “systemic racism.”
In a video Cube posted on social media, he wondered what Blacks are getting in return for their virtually unquestioned loyalty to the Democratic Party. In explaining why he recently met with Democrats and Republicans, Cube tweeted: “Every side is the Darkside for us here in America. They’re all the same until something changes for us. They all lie and they all cheat but we can’t afford not to negotiate with whoever is in power or our condition in this country will never change. Our justice is bipartisan.”
I sent him a series of tweets to assist him in his journey of political discovery:
Dear Ice Cube,
Urge Blacks to follow your lead and that of your parents! You were raised by two parents and were voluntarily bused to a better school rather than attending the nearby inferior public school. Like your parents, you raised your own kids in a nuclear intact family.
Democrats’ policies hurt Blacks. Welfare causes fatherlessness. Unskilled illegals compete with unskilled Blacks for jobs. Democrats oppose school choice. For votes, Democrats play the race card to keep Blacks angry.
IT’S A … SCAM!
The No. 1 problem in the Black community is that 70% of Black kids are born without the father married to their mom. Barack Obama said kids growing up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to send up in prison.
Blame government welfare.
“There’s no more important ingredient for success, nothing that would be more important for us reducing violence than strong, stable families – which means we should do more to promote marriage and encourage fatherhood.” -Barack Obama, Feb. 15, 2013.
“I know for a fact that had I had a father, I’d have some discipline … more confidence. Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can … can’t reassure you the way a man can … You need a man to teach you how to be a man.” – Tupac Shakur.
“Don’t blame the system (for Black incarceration). It starts at the home. It starts at home. … It starts with how you raise your children. If a young man doesn’t have a father figure, he’ll go find a father figure.” – Denzel Washington, November 2017.
Of the 1,000 people killed by cops each year, less than 4% are white cop/unarmed Black. Half of all homicide victims are Black, almost all killed by Blacks. It isn’t poverty or “systemic racism.”
During the Great Depression, Black unemployment was 50%, with a lower murder rate.
Speaking of “systemic racism,” Democrats want to INCREASE the minimum wage to $15. Economist Milton Friedman called the minimum wage law “the most anti-Negro” law on the statute books.
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about a robbery. Then (I) look around and see someone white and feel relieved.” – The Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1993.
Of the approximately 1,000 people killed by police each year, most resisted with a weapon or resisted violently.
Half are white. Less than 4% of the 1,000 involve a white cop and an unarmed Black. More unarmed whites are killed by cops each year than unarmed Blacks.?
“White police officers were less likely than Black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed Black suspects. … ‘An Empirical Analysis’ … by (a Black) Harvard economics professor … (found) zero evidence of racial bias in police shootings. … Note also that police officers face an 18.5 times greater chance of being killed by a Black male than an unarmed Black male has of being killed by a police officer.” – Heather Mac Donald, Manhattan Institute, July 12, 2016.
In 2018, the FBI reported 748 interracial homicides between Blacks and whites.
Homicides committed by Blacks (13% of population) against whites: 514. Homicides committed by non-Hispanic whites (60% of population) against Blacks: 234.
In 2018, there were more than 600,000 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between Blacks and whites, with 90% committed by Blacks against whites, and 10% by whites against Blacks.
In 2018, Blacks, at 13% of the population, committed 24% of “hate crimes.”
Whites, at 60% of the population, committed 54% of hate crimes.
A 1997 Time/CNN poll asked Black teens if racism was a big, small or no problem in their own lives, and 89% said small or no problem. More Black teens than white teens called “failure to take advantage of available opportunities” a bigger problem than racism.
Ice Cube is starting to get it.
Hopefully all this information helps him. Racism has never been a less important factor in success. For votes, Democratic politicians say otherwise to keep Blacks angry. Mr. Cube, bring others to the light.
Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host. Follow him on Twitter @LarryElder.
_____________
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
It’s also worth pointing out that Keynesians have been consistently wrong with predicting economic damage during periods of spending restraint.
They were wrong about growth after World War II (and would have been wrong, if they were around at the time, about growth when Harding slashed spending in the early 1920s).
They were wrong about unemployment benefits in 2020.
This story needs to be told, again and again, especially since we’re now going to have another real-world test case thanks to President Biden’s so-called American Rescue Plan.
I just wrote a column on Biden’s proposal for the Foundation for Economic Education, and it is co-authored by Robert O’Quinn, who most recently served as the Chief Economist at the Department of Labor.
We started by pointing out that Biden is basically copying Trump’s big-spending approach, but with a different justification (Keynesianism instead of coronavirus).
Mr. Biden is bringing a new twist to the profligacy. Instead of trying to justify the new spending by saying it is needed to compensate households and businesses for government-mandated lockdowns, he is making the Keynesian argument that the new spending is a way of stimulating the economy.The same approach was used when he was Vice President, of course, but did not yield positive results. …Mr. Biden and his team apparently think the anemic results were a consequence of not spending enough money. Hence, the huge $1.9 trillion price tag for his plan. Will his approach work? …We can learn about economic recovery today by reviewing what happened during the Great Recession earlier this century and what happened at the end of World War II.
We explain the causes of the previous recession and point out that Obama’s so-called stimulus didn’t work.
…the Great Recession…was the result of an unsustainable housing bubble caused by overly accommodative monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and misguided housing policies. …it took years to clean up the mess from the bursting of the housing bubble. Households slowly rebuilt their savings and cleaned up their balance sheets. …Banks had to work out problem loans and rebuild their capital… Obama’s stimulus did not drive that healing process and spending more money would have done little to accelerate it.
And we also point out that the economy recovered very quickly after World War II, even though the Keynesians predicted disaster in the absence of a giant new package such as Truman’s 21-Point Program (his version of FDR’s horrible visionof an entitlement society).
Keynesians feared that demobilization would throw the US economy into a deep depression as federal spending was reduced. Paul Samuelson even wrote in 1943 that a failure to come up with alternative forms of government spending would lead to “the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation which any economy has ever faced.” …President Harry Truman proposed “a 21-Point Program for the Reconversion Period” shortly after the war ended. But his plan, which was basically a reprise of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, was largely ignored by Congress. Did the economy collapse, as the Keynesians feared? Hardly. …Spared a repeat of FDR’s interventionism, the economy enjoyed strong growth. One of the big tailwinds for growth is that the forced savings accumulated during the war years allowed consumers to go on a peacetime buying binge.
That last sentence in the above excerpt is key because 2021 is a lot like 1945. Back then, households had lots of money in the bank (wartime rationing and controls meant there wasn’t much to buy), which helped trigger the post-war boom.
Something similar is about to happen, as we explain in the column.
The current economic conditions are somewhat reminiscent of the ones that existed after World War II. The limited ability to spend money during the pandemic has helped boost the personal saving rate… In aggregate terms, personal saving soared from $1.2 trillion in 2019 to $2.9 trillion in 2020. …pent-up demand funded with more than $1 trillion in excess savings will resuscitate…GDP.
So what does all this mean? Well, the good news is that 2021 is going to be a very good year for the economy. That’s already baked into the cake.
The bad news is that Biden is taking advantage of the current political situation to increase the burden of government spending.
…the economy prospered after World War II despite (or perhaps because of) the failure of Mr. Truman’s 21-point proposal. President Biden’s team is either unaware of this history, or they simply do not care. Perhaps they simply want to take advantage of the current environment to reward key constituencies. Or they may be trying to resuscitate the tattered reputation of Keynesian economics by spending a bunch of money so they can take credit for an economic recovery that is already destined to happen.
Since I gave the good news and bad news, I’ll close with the worse news.
There’s every reason to expect very strong growth in 2021, but Biden’s spending binge means that future growth won’t be as robust
Especially since the economy also is saddled with lots of wasteful spending by Bush, Obama, and Trump.
And especially if Biden is able to push through his agendaof higher taxes on work, saving, and investment.
The bottom line is that the United States is becoming more like Europe and the economic data tells us that means less prosperity and lower living standards.
—
Milton Friedman – Stimulus and Inflation
—-
Daniel J. Mitchell on Obama’s Economic Stimulus Plan
Dan Mitchell discusses Ineffectiveness of Stimulus Spending
January 21, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
Page 244
We proposed that nearly $800 billion be divided into three buckets of roughly equal size. In bucket one, emergency payments like supplementary unemployment insurance and direct aid to states to slow further mass layoffs of teachers, police officers, and other public workers. In bucket two, tax cuts targeted at the middle class, as well as various business tax breaks that gave companies a big incentive to invest in new plants or equipment now instead of later. Both the emergency payments and the tax cuts had the advantage of being easy to administer; we could quickly get money out the door and into the pockets of consumers and businesses. Tax cuts also had the added benefit of potentially attracting Republican support. The third bucket, on the other hand, contained initiatives that were harder to design and would take longer to implement but might have a bigger long-term impact: not just traditional infrastructure spending like road construction and sewer repair but also high-speed rail, solar and wind power installation, broadband lines for underserved rural areas, and incentives for states to reform their education systems—all intended not only to put people to work but to make America more competitive. Considering how many unmet needs there were in communities all across the country, I was surprised by how much work it took for our team to find worthy projects of sufficient scale for the Recovery Act to fund. Some promising ideas we rejected because they would take too long to stand up or required a huge new bureaucracy to manage. Others missed the cut because they wouldn’t boost demand sufficiently. Mindful of accusations that I planned to use the economic crisis as an excuse for an orgy of wasteful liberal boondoggles (and because I in fact wanted to prevent Congress from engaging in wasteful boondoggles, liberal or otherwise), we put in place a series of good-government safeguards: a competitive application process for state and local governments seeking funding; strict audit and reporting requirements; and, in a move we knew would draw howls from Capitol Hill, a firm policy of no “earmarks”—to use the innocuous name for a time-honored practice in which members of Congress insert various pet projects (many dubious) into must-pass legislation.
PAGE 257
I stepped up to speak. It was my first time at a House Republicans gathering, and it was hard not to be struck by the room’s uniformity: row after row of mostly middle-aged white men, with a dozen or so women and maybe two or three Hispanics and Asians. Most sat stone-faced as I briefly made the case for stimulus—citing the latest data on the economy’s meltdown, the need for quick action, the fact that our package contained tax cuts Republicans had long promoted, and our commitment to long-term deficit reduction once the crisis had passed. The audience did perk up when I opened the floor for a series of questions (or, more accurately, talking points pretending to be questions), all of which I cheerfully responded to as if my answers mattered.
Ted Dehaven rightly notes below:
Or was it because the recession created a “window of opportunity” for politicians to quickly spend a bunch of additional money on pet causes, which had the effect of benefitting certain areas of the country?
A study [$] published in the winter edition of Political Science Quarterly considers two possible reasons for why the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) failed to sprinkle Uncle Sam’s magic dust onto those areas of the country that were being hardest hit by the recession.
Was it because well‐positioned politicians were successful in delivering the pork?
Or was it because the recession created a “window of opportunity” for politicians to quickly spend a bunch of additional money on pet causes, which had the effect of benefitting certain areas of the country?
I’m going to skip right to the answer: the uneven geographic distribution of stimulus funds had only a little to do with traditional pork barreling and much to do with Obama’s then chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel’s famous quip that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
On the possibility of traditional pork‐barreling, the authors found no statistically significant relationship between the distribution of funds and whether a county was represented by a politician serving on a congressional committee relevant to stimulus funding. Nor was a relationship found between funding and counties that were represented by a Democrat in the House or Senate. However, a relationship was found between funding and those counties that overwhelmingly voted for the president:
There does, however, appear to be a distinct tilt toward counties that were stronger for the Democratic Party in 2008. All else equal, counties at the 90th percentile of Democratic share presidential vote ’08 received between $35 and $36 more per capita in both total funding and infrastructure projects than did counties at the 10th percentile (p ≤ .001)…The effect of presidential politics may be especially relevant for the distribution of ARRA funds because most of the grants, loans, and contracts funded by the stimulus were in discretionary programs overseen by administrative agencies, over which presidents and their political appointees exercise influence.
On the other hand, the authors found that a county possessing attributes that synched with the policies funded in ARRA were more likely to receive money. For example, a county with a lot of interstate highway mileage made out better than a county that did not. Another example is counties that had a larger share of state and local government workers received a larger share of funds.
While it’s not surprising that legislation that funds highway infrastructure projects would benefit areas with more highway mileage, let’s remember that the stimulus was sold by many politicians as being necessary to help those with the greatest need. Indeed, as the authors point out, the text of the legislation stated that a main goal was “to assist those most impacted by the recession.”
The bottom line is that the Obama administration used the economic downturn to spend a bunch of money it otherwise would not have been able to on a stack of its pet policies. In the process, the counties that did the most to put Obama in the White House received a taxpayer‐funded thank you in return. TopicsTax and Budget Policy
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
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 going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Illegal immigration likely will increase as summer approaches, Rep. Paul Gosar says. Pictured: Migrants wearing T-shirts with a message for President Biden kneel and pray March 2 at the southern border in San Ysidro, California. (Photo: Stringer/Picture Alliance/Getty Images)
Unchecked illegal immigration leads to the loss of property, life, and resources, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., says.
Gosar joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the Biden administration’s troubling border and immigration policies. Gosar also talks about the dangers of cancel culture and his opposition to the agenda of the progressive left.
We also cover these stories:
Twelve state attorneys general sue the Biden administration over the president’s executive order on climate change.
President Joe Biden remains opposed to ending the Senate filibuster, White House press secretary Jen Psaki says.
The Supreme Court announces an important decision for religious liberty.
Want to keep up with the 24/7 news cycle? Want to know the most important stories of the day for conservatives? Need news you can trust? Subscribe to The Daily Signal’s email newsletter. Learn more >>
Rachel del Guidice: I’m joined today on “The Daily Signal Podcast” by Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona. Congressman Gosar, it’s great to have you on “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Rep. Paul Gosar: Great having me.
Del Guidice: All right. Well, you recently sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, raising some concerns over the Biden administration’s actions to limit enforcement and weaken border security. Can you tell us about the letter and why you sent it?
Gosar: Yeah. Being a border state in Arizona, and being one of the biggest … states [impacted] by illegal immigration, the lack of enforcement from our border security perspective, tearing down the Trump program, keeping folks in Mexico while their case is processed, now re-instituting catch and release—where now 99%-plus of the people that are cited, then turned loose, do not show up for our court date. So, now we’re seeing it overwhelming our district.
In Yuma County they’re releasing over 50 individuals a day, and so that puts a strain on the resources, both at the county and the state level, which they are really trying to do their due diligence. But it also puts a restraint on the health and human services aspect because you’re still in a pandemic and you don’t know what these people come with and the resources are tight.
Del Guidice: As you mentioned on the day of President [Joe] Biden’s inauguration, he ended construction of the border wall. I’m curious, have you seen a change in people coming in, how that’s [been] affected since President Biden ended that construction? Have you seen even a difference? It’s been a short amount of time, but since that, have you seen any difference there?
Gosar: Oh, we’ve seen a whole different attitude in those coming into the country illegally. There’s big caravans on the move already. We’ve seen an uptick in the number of people coming across the border.
So, the signal was given and now we’re seeing that advance problem again, and as the weather starts to warm up, we will see more and more coming across the border illegally.
Then the humanitarian crisis that we’ve exacerbated—the rape, the human trafficking, the smuggling of drugs. I mean, during this COVID pandemic, we’ve seen increases in drug overdoses and domestic violence.
Del Guidice: Speaking of the drugs, I want to talk a little bit about that some more. How will the drug cartels, [specifically], be effected by this ending of construction? How will things look for them? How will their tracking, how will it look for them coming into the country, and what will that change? Will it make it easier? What will happen with these cartels?
Gosar: Well, the fact that you didn’t complete a mission—and even back in the day, I’m sure that President Biden actually voted for border security. Very few people voted against it.
So, when you’re incomplete, what you’re sending is a subliminal message to people from the other side, from the cartels, from those that want to come into this country for the wrong reasons, that it’s OK to violate the law, to violate a contract.
That starts the whole negative precipitation. If you’re not going to honor the rules of law coming into the country, how apt are you to follow them? It builds a culture of problems.
Del Guidice: Another agenda for the Biden administration that you’ve talked about being concerned over is their plan to give amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants, as mainstream media reports. Why is this a problem, Congressman Gosar?
Gosar: Well, first thing, it’s a problem in regards to the number is inaccurate. I’m tired of people lying to the general public, and the American public understands that as well. That number is more like 33 million, or even more because you have these overstays.
You have so many people here and it’s an insult to the people that came here legally. And I hear about it all the time, saying, “Listen, how is it that we’re going to allow people to facilitate, to go on a path to citizenship when I stood in line and did it the right way? They chose to ignore the rule of law and did it on their free will.”
It really causes a problem, particularly in a country of laws. It just continues that cancer of anti-law activity.
Del Guidice: Living in Arizona, and I’m sure talking to constituents a lot, are there any personal stories or situations you’ve heard of of how illegal immigration affects your constituents?
I think, at The Daily Signal, we really try to tell personal stories that illustrate to the general public why policy issues are important. So, are there any stories you can share, things you’ve heard of with your constituents, why and how illegal immigration affects them?
Gosar: Well, you can go back to my first days in Congress, with the … family where their father was actually murdered by cartel members, seeing desecration of their ranches, the theft and looting of their personal properties, threats that they have.
Then also, when they take advantage of innocent people that are stranded, these individuals are compelled to comply and help out people that have been stranded with no water, who have been maybe raped, who have been desecrated, and basically lifesaving issues.
So, it hits over and over and over again, the loss of a property, the loss of life, the loss of resources that could go to other aspects. We’re stretched thin with our law enforcement, so it hits over and over and over again.
Del Guidice: Speaking of walls and, ironically enough, when it comes to Democrats and their perspective of walls, we’ve seen a wall go up around the Capitol, which is keeping taxpayers out right now, [keeping them from] visiting the members that they sent to Congress. But the wall at the southern border that was being built to keep out drug cartels and [illegal immigrants], construction has been stopped, as we talked about. Do you see any sort of double standard here at all?
Gosar: Absolutely. So, we know we can ask [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi how that really works, and she’s in charge of security on the Capitol grounds.
We’re now being made aware that during the [Jan. 6] uprising, from some folks, that it was mainly a peaceful exhibition. But she, in her oversight, failed to put the proper resources that had been asked by Capitol Police. And now they’re relying on a 12-foot-wall.
It wasn’t good enough for a regular [wall]. Now we’ve gone to a 12-foot-wall with some razor wire. So, really, it looks more like the Soviet Union than it does a Capitol that we the people could actually just walk in. That was one of the best charges.
So it’s funny that the walls work when they want them to work, but they’re not adequate or they’re racist when they don’t condone it.
Del Guidice: I think you were among about 41 House Republicans that went to Speaker Pelosi to ask her to take down this wall. Has there been any movement on that? What’s the update there? Have you heard anything from her?
Gosar: No, and she’s one of those people that she’ll do it on her time and her time only, and so I don’t expect that we’ll actually hear something from her for quite some time.
Del Guidice: Well, we’ve talked a lot about immigration and the different pieces of the Biden agenda there. What other items of the Biden administration and agenda are most concerning to you?
Gosar: Well, … cancel culture, the embracing of wiping away, intimidation, threatening when we don’t agree with somebody in that public sphere, in that public workplace, that public square of the First Amendment.
We’re not seeing that attack. More than anything we’ve seen now that a group of people, a group of platforms, have been given special immunity, where they are deciding, as associates from the Democratic Party, what is good speech, what is bad speech, what is tolerable, what is censored?
If they’re really a principled lot to the Constitution, then it’s high time that we rein these folks in and make sure that what we do is we have that public sphere where we have the freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the freedom to petition our government.
I find that you can’t solve anything unless you have that debate, and this crimps that debate. That puts a heavy air, force against that aspect of free speech.
Del Guidice: Recently, House Democrats passed the Equality Act, and there’s a bunch of different pieces to this legislation. But one of the things that it will do is allow biological men into women’s restrooms, and it will allow biological boys who are identifying as girls into locker rooms to disrobe in the same room with biological girls.
So, first of all, what all will this piece of legislation do, and is it concerning to you?
Gosar: It’s very concerning to me because I thought there was a move afoot that allowed women to excel with women. When you talk about sports, there’s no comparison for the average woman versus the average man, and so that’s shameful when you see that.
I’m appalled that I don’t see more of the women, first, coming forward and acknowledging that there’s a problem here. That gets to the quality of the discussion, not the color of my skin that was so poignant during the civil rights aspect.
When you start looking at the gender-changing for young kids, this is problematic.
I think [Sen.] Rand Paul hit it very head-on in regards to children are still maturing, they’re trying to figure out life. So you’re allowing them to take an irreversible process and make that decision there, particularly when the facts and the protocols show that it’s mitigated in a natural way as they grow older.
I’m very sad, very, very sad. That’s not what the intent was of the equal rights in 1964. It wasn’t the intent there. I find that instead of being inclusionary, we’re dictating everything to a small group, and that’s really sad.
Del Guidice: Is there any way that conservatives can combat this? … The Democrats are running everything right now, but what would you tell your colleagues when it comes to how a type of this legislation could be combated in some way?
Gosar: I think that we should have had a strategy in place. … Because of the cant of where the Democrats have gone to the real socialistic side, there’s a number of the more moderate and more centralist Democrats that don’t like the direction.
I mean, we heard [Rep. Abigail] Spanberger from Virginia sound off after the election. And, with their narrow majority, and soon-to-be shorter majority, particularly when you have the five members that are going into the administration, there’s an opportunity here to actually put a lot of force. I mean, last night, two Democrats voted against the COVID-19 package.
So, making sure that they’re put on notice. And I think that goes with the same fact as, … every week that we’re in session, why isn’t the minority leader going to the floor and asking for a motion to vacate the chair?
That’s using all the tools in the toolbox in regards to making sure that we save this republic and getting back to business that should be usual, where we actually have regular order, where committees are actually being heard, there’s debate, and that we’re getting bills that actually solve problems instead of creating more.
Del Guidice: Well, more big picture, how do you think your conservative colleagues in Congress can combat Biden’s agenda, despite the fact that the Democrats are running everything else, [as] we talked about?
Gosar: Once again, it’s holding people accountable. We should be spending money in these folks’ backyard, make sure that they’re held accountable. When I won my election in 2010, we won it on the face of Nancy Pelosi, and so why not do that again? She’s toxic.
The other thing is that we should be out there for what we’re for in the agenda items. I spend a lot of time in natural resources, so why aren’t we engaging with the new secretary and California with wildfires? These are the most polluting events, period. Period. And we’re not going to intercede on that? There’s a great way to be empowered, not become victims.
There’s that. There’s water. There’s critical minerals—that is so vital to our technology sector. I mean, to give you an example of one, we’ve got a rare earth discovery in Arizona, that the mineral, when you add it to aluminum, gives you twice the strength for half the weight.
That’s going to revolutionize aviation, it’s going to revolutionize cars because of the less weight, with a better strength, it’s going to get more efficiency. So, that pursuit of excellence is going to continue.
So, we ought to be dictating that to the American people, making a push so that the American people engage and help us push that agenda forward.
Del Guidice: Congressman Gosar, you touched on the problem of cancel culture a little bit ago in our conversation. We’ve seen how big of a problem this has become on social media, just in general society, of people losing jobs for beliefs that they hold, that they have spoken out on.
So, how would you encourage your colleagues, as well as everyday Americans, to fight against cancel culture?
Gosar: Well, we have to lead by example. So, to give you an example, I’m from a big family. I’ve got seven siblings that do not like me. They worked to cancel me in my representation of the people I serve back in Arizona. It’s backfired. I mean, we’ve run 70% of the vote now, year, after year, after year. But we have to set an example for everybody else, and we got to make sure that we’re pursuing this in good form.
I brought up the platforms. Why do they get away with things that you couldn’t get away with or I couldn’t get away with? You got to be under that same law. And so we need to be putting solutions and then integrating with individuals out there, engaging with the public at large, saying, “Listen, there is a solution here. Here’s why it works. This is why we need it.”
Because if we stop the framing and openness of talking about ideas—that’s how we got to being the greatest country ever, was the sharing and debate of ideas, but in the civil sphere.
When you cancel culture, history books always tell you that you are doomed to fail and repeat history if you don’t acknowledge what your history is all about. That history is about a learning people that wanted to get things right, that it’s an imperfect world, and it’s a striving to make sure that we get it better.
And there’s not one right way. There’s not one right culture. It should be all available so that we understand the good, the bad, the ugly. So, when we do it in that fashion, we’re less apt to repeat the failures of the past.
Del Guidice: Well, Congressman Gosar, thank you so much for joining us on “The Daily Signal Podcast.” It’s always great having you with us.
Gosar: Thanks, Rachel. Appreciate it, always appreciate it.
Milton Friedman in 2004
Power of the Market – Immigration
MILTON FRIEDMAN ON IMMIGRATION
MILTON FRIEDMAN ON IMMIGRATION PART 2
February 9, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
WHEN IT CAME to immigration, everyone agreed that the system was broken. The process of immigrating legally to the United States could take a decade or longer, often depending on what country you were coming from and how much money you had.Meanwhile, the economic gulf between us and our southern neighbors drove hundreds of thousands of people to illegally cross the 1,933-mile U.S.-Mexico border each year, searching for work and a better life. Congress had spent billions to harden the border, with fencing, cameras, drones, and an expanded and increasingly militarized border patrol. But rather than stop the flow of immigrants, these steps had spurred an industry of smugglers—coyotes—who made big money transporting human cargo in barbaric and sometimes deadly fashion. And although border crossings by poor Mexican and Central American migrants received most of the attention from politicians and the press, about 40 percent of America’s unauthorized immigrants arrived through airports or other legal ports of entry and then overstayed their visas. By 2010, an estimated eleven million undocumented persons were living in the United States, in large part thoroughly woven into the fabric of American life.Many were longtime residents, with children who either were U.S. citizens by virtue of having been born on American soil or had been brought to the United States at such an early age that they were American in every respect except for a piece of paper. Entire sectors of the U.S. economy relied on their labor, as undocumented immigrants were often willing to do the toughest, dirtiest work for meager pay—picking the fruits and vegetables that stocked our grocery stores, mopping the floors of offices, washing dishes at restaurants, and providing care to the elderly. But although American consumers benefited from this invisible workforce, many feared that immigrants were taking jobs from citizens, burdening social services programs, and changing the nation’s racial and cultural makeup, which led to demands for the government to crack down on illegal immigration. This sentiment was strongest among Republican constituencies, egged on by an increasingly nativist right-wing press. However, the politics didn’t fall neatly along partisan lines: The traditionally Democratic trade union rank and file, for example, saw the growing presence of undocumented workers on co nstruction sites as threatening their livelihoods, while Republican-leaning business groups interested in maintaining a steady supply of cheap labor (or, in the case of Silicon Valley, foreign-born computer programmers and engineers) often took pro-immigration positions. Back in 2007, the maverick version of John McCain, along with his sidekick Lindsey Graham, had actually joined Ted Kennedy to put together a comprehensive reform bill that offered citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants while more tightly securing our borders. Despite strong support from President Bush, it had failed to clear the Senate. The bill did, however, receive twelve Republican votes, indicating the real possibility of a future bipartisan accord. I’d pledged during the campaign to resurrect similar legislation once elected, and I’d appointed former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security—the agency that oversaw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection—partly because of her knowledge of border issues and her reputation for having previously managed immigration in a way that was both compassionate and tough. My hopes for a bill had thus far been dashed. With the economy in crisis and Americans losing jobs,few in Congress had any appetite to take on a hot-button issue like immigration. Kennedy was gone. McCain, having been criticized by the right flank for his relatively moderate immigration stance, showed little interest in taking up the banner again. Worse yet, my administration was deporting undocumented workers at an accelerating rate. This wasn’t a result of any directive from me, but rather it stemmed from a 2008 congressional mandate that both expanded ICE’s budget and increased collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement departments in an effort to deport more undocumented immigrants with criminal records. My team and I had made a strategic choice not to immediately try to reverse the policies we’d inherited in large part because we didn’t want to provide ammunition to critics who claimed that Democrats weren’t willing to enforce existing immigration laws—a perception that we thought could torpedo our chances of passing a future reform bill. But by 2010, immigrant-rights and Latino advocacy groups were criticizing our lack of progress..And although I continued to urge Congress to pass immigration reform, I had no realistic path for delivering a new comprehensive law before the midterms.
—-
Milton Friedmanwisely noted, “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” Is it prudent to allow illegal immigrants (60 percent of whom are high-school dropouts) access to Social Security, Medicare, and, over time, to 60 federal means-tested welfare programs? I don’t think so either!
The Heritage Foundation has issued the following statement in response to Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) comments about our new study on the cost of amnesty.
Senator Rubio’s family story is a testament to the American Dream. His parents’ ability to scrimp and save and sacrifice for their children is something in which we all take pride. The story of the Rubios, in fact, makes the point we make with our study. They represent the immigration model that worked for America for centuries and one we need to get back to.
Senator Rubio’s parents came here in 1956, almost a decade before the introduction of the Great Society programs that laid the foundation of the modern welfare state. Over the following four and a half decades, our government has added layer upon layer of government involvement in our lives, creating a dependency that undermines self-respect and self-reliance.
That dependency has been devastating to our society; it has shattered communities, families, and individuals. It is now threatening the American Dream. This is true for all—native and immigrant alike, lawful or unlawful. We do not blame immigrants for being entrapped by that system; we blame the people who created that system. We especially blame people who now seek to expand it.
This is why Heritage has been leading the fight on the need to recreate upward mobility for low-income and middle-income Americans. The current welfare and entitlement systems lower opportunity and make it all but impossible for people to climb the ladder of success.
Heritage has worked with Senator Rubio on numerous issues, and we admire him. He is right: Our study is “an argument for welfare reform and entitlement reform.” He cannot pretend, however, that this already herculean task will be made easier after we have added millions of new people to a failing entitlement system. The time to fix it is now. We are ready to work with him and any man and woman of either party who realizes the urgency of our plight.
As Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, once said:
It is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. You cannot have both. If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which a resident is promised certain minimum level of income or a minimum subsistence regardless of whether he works or not produces it or not. Well then it really is an impossibility.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
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 going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
The bills are part of a push by Republicans to roll back voting access in Georgia after Democrats scored victories in the presidential election and two U.S. Senate runoffs. Many of the proposals being floated target absentee voting after former President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed fraud in mail voting.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan, the chief sponsor of the bill, said a surge in absentee ballots during the last election cycle caused a burden on county election offices. More than a million Georgians used the option in November as the coronavirus pandemic raged.
“The increasing burden on local election offices and the increased cost to each of our counties has risen significantly,” Dugan said. “In recent years the number of mail-in absentee ballots has increased to the point where counties are in essence running three elections simultaneously.”
Dugan said about 2.7 million Georgians would still be eligible to vote absentee under the specific excuses outlined in the bill.
Georgia’s state Senate narrowly passed a Republican-backed bill that would end no-excuse absentee voting Monday, the deadline that bills must generally pass out of one chamber to remain alive for the session.
Senate Bill 241 would limit absentee voting to people 65 and older, those with a physical disability and people who will be out of town on Election Day — ending broad no-excuse absentee voting introduced by the Republican-led legislature in 2005. It would also require an ID for those who are able to vote absentee, among many other changes.
The bill passed by a vote of 29-20 and now goes to the House for more debate. Bills must get at least 29 votes for a majority in the 56-member Senate.
Several Republicans who could face tough reelection battles in quickly changing metro Atlanta districts were excused from the vote, including Sens. John Albers, Kay Kirkpatrick and Brian Strickland. Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who has denounced efforts to limit who can vote absentee, refused to preside over the debate.
Democrats in the chamber said the bill is a direct reaction to Trump’s claims about fraud and would disproportionately affect voters of color.
“The purpose of 241 and all of the vote-limiting bills that we have before us is to validate a lie,” Democratic Sen. Nikki Merritt said. “It is to prevent massive voter turnout from happening again, especially in minority communities, our new voters who are turning 18 and hard-working Georgians.”
Democratic Sen. Lester Jackson said the bill harks back to Georgia’s dark history of racist voting policies.
“It smells like Jim Crow laws of the past. This smells like poll taxing. This smells like voter suppression,” Jackson said.
The chamber is also set to vote on a separate bill that would end automatic voter registration when a person gets a driver’s license, as well as several other voting measures.
The votes come as a task force convened by Georgia’s secretary of state issued a statement expressing concern that the legislation is being rushed.
The state House has already passed a wide-ranging election bill backed by Republicans. The House bill would require a photo ID for absentee voting, limit the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot, restrict where ballot drop boxes could be located and when they could be accessed, and limit early voting hours on weekends.
The latter provision has raised concerns among voting rights groups who say the proposal seems targeted at hampering Sunday voting — a popular day for Black churchgoers to vote in “souls to the polls” events.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has endorsed the idea of requiring a photo ID for absentee voting but has yet to back any specific proposals. GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger says he favors ending no-excuse absentee voting as well as requiring an ID for mail voting.
Monday is crossover day in the Georgia legislature. Bills must generally be passed out of one chamber or the other to remain in play for the session, though there are procedural ways to resurrect a bill even if it doesn’t receive passage.
Also Monday, members of an elections task force formed by Raffensperger released a statement expressing concern that “the legislative process is proceeding at a pace that does not allow full examination of all factors that must be considered.”
“There is a need for responsible elections policymaking to be deliberate and evidence-based, not rushed,” the statement continues. “When we see proposals that properly balance voter access with integrity, we will voice support.”
Twelve members of the task force signed off on the statement, which specifically noted that three other members were not included.
Television host Bill Maher attends the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Feb. 9, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/VF20/WireImage/Getty Images)
A mounting discontent with “cancel culture” is emerging, even in some liberal circles.
On a recent episode of “Real Time,” host Bill Maher dedicated a monologue to the cancel culture phenomenon. Maher is very much a man of the left, and of course used some of his time to attack Republicans.
But he also noted that cancel culture from the left is real, undeniable, and out of control.
“Liberals need a Stand Your Ground law … for cancel culture,” Maher said. “So that when the woke mob comes after you for some ridiculous offense, you’ll stand your ground, stop apologizing.”
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He then criticized those who deny cancel culture’s existence.
“Cancel culture is real, it’s insane, it’s growing exponentially, coming to a neighborhood near you,” Maher said.
Just days before, Disney+ and Lucasfilm decided to cancel actress Gina Carano from their series “The Mandalorian,” ostensibly for her social media posts that they didn’t agree with, and more likely than not for simply being a conservative in Hollywood.
Maher finished his monologue by saying that some of the woke crusades sound like they come from The Onion, a parody website.
“Memo to social justice warriors: When what you’re doing sounds like an Onion headline, stop,” Maher concluded.
Not only did the Dr. Seuss estate remove six books from publication, but the books were scrubbed from Amazon and eBay. Even President Joe Biden’s Read Across America Day message scrubbed any reference of the once-beloved children’s book author.
The activists demand, the institutions obey.
It’s one thing to see the problem for what it is. The first step to defeating the absurdity of the woke left is to draw it out in the light and expose its absurdities.
The next step is to take action to reform the institutions that have been captured by this ideology, or build new ones that won’t back down in the face of the woke moral panic.
This is what former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss called for in a recent New York Post editorial.
The New York Times brought in Weiss to deepen the readership’s perspective after the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. Weiss is a centrist who on many issues leans left, but she was treated like a pariah from the moment she began working for the Times, not only by angry mobs on social media, but by members of The New York Times staff. It got so bad that she eventually resigned.
Now she and others are starting the challenging work of building new institutions to replace the old ones.
It’s clear, for instance, that the Americans Civil Liberties Union is morphing into a more openly progressive organization, willing to uphold and enforce the dogmas of the left.
As a conservative, I’m not surprised.
Just look at the transformation of college campuses. They were once home to the “free speech movement,” when the left didn’t have nearly as much cultural and institutional power. Now that they are in charge, you will find few places in America where speech is more under threat than a modern college campus.
Just as worryingly, there is a growing movement to redefine racism that has been more normalized by our most elite institutions. Critical race theory posits that racism is structural and endemic. Equality under the law is portrayed as an excuse to perpetuate this systemic racism.
The only way to not be racist, according to these theories, is to be “anti-racist” and embrace laws and practices that may be racially discriminatory to promote “equity.”
Question the new wokeness and you will often be called a racist and quickly canceled. So who will actually stand up for the principle of free speech, rational debate, and pursuit of the truth?
Is Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream for a world in which we judge people based on merit rather than skin color—an idea that came to be embraced by Americans across the political spectrum—a thing of the past rather than the future?
Despite this rising tide of wokeness, there are some on the left who still take free speech seriously and are aghast at the new racial essentialism.
It’s these dissidents who are often first in the cancel culture crosshairs, after all. They are often closer to the institutions that have been poisoned by the woke ideology and are the first ones to be targeted by its inquisitors.
Dissent is no longer the highest form of patriotism; it’s racism, it’s transphobia, it’s insurrection.
It would be foolish at this point to rely on the ACLU to come to your defense when the mobs are looking to destroy you.
Weiss and a long list of others formed an organization that could fill this gap.
The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, which includes many prominent dissident liberals, is “dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all Americans, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding and humanity.”
Here is what the organizations says it stands for:
-We defend civil liberties and rights guaranteed to each individual, including freedom of speech and expression, equal protection under the law, and the right to personal privacy.
-We advocate for individuals who are threatened or persecuted for speech, or who are held to a different set of rules for language or conduct based on their skin color, ancestry, or other immutable characteristics.
-We support respectful disagreement. We believe bad ideas are best confronted with good ideas—and never with dehumanization, deplatforming, or blacklisting.
-We believe that objective truth exists, that it is discoverable, and that scientific research must be untainted by any political agenda.
-We are pro-human, and promote compassionate anti-racism rooted in dignity and our common humanity.
All pretty basic stuff that is now controversial in the current political and cultural climate.
This is a good start, but it must be followed up by other efforts to save our civil society from devolving into a woke, repressive nightmare.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
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Real Time with Bill Maher: Ben Affleck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam (HBO)
Sam Harris rightly noted earlier this month on Bill Maher’s show that liberals are still getting “agitated over the abortion clinic bombings that happened in 1984” but they are not upset at what is happening in the Muslim world right now!!!! There is really no comparison at all between Christianity and Islam concerning the areas of freedom of religion, freedom of press and political freedom.
Last Friday night a rare dialogue/debate took place on American television. It was rare because it involved criticism of Islam, one of the many taboo subjects that are labeled “politically incorrect.” And it took place on the program “Real Time with Bill Maher,” a show not generally known for taking politically incorrect positions.
But on this night the host, Bill Maher, along with atheism-advocate Sam Harris, had a vigorous debate with Actor Ben Affleck, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
Bill Maher, a man of the left on virtually every issue, began by defending liberalism’s honor against liberal hypocrisy on the subject of Islam:
“Liberals need to stand up for liberal principles. … Liberal principles like freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion, equality for women, equality for minorities including homosexuals — these are liberal principles that liberals applaud for [pointing to his audience], but then when you say in the Muslim world this is what’s lacking, then they get upset.”
Sam Harris then added:
“Liberals have really failed on the topic of theocracy. They’ll criticize … Christians; they’ll still get agitated over the abortion clinic bombing that happened in 1984, but when you talk about the treatment of women and homosexuals and free thinkers and public intellectuals in the Muslim world, I would argue that liberals have failed us. And the crucial point of confusion is that we have been sold this meme of ‘Islamophobia,’ where every criticism of the doctrine of Islam gets conflated with bigotry toward Muslims as people. That’s intellectually ridiculous.”
Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristof — along with, sad to say, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee — would have none of that.
Affleck’s first response to the indictment of the liberal double standard was to ask Sam Harris: “Are you the person that understands the officially codified doctrine of Islam?”
To which Harris responded: “I’m actually well-educated on this topic.”
Affleck, presumably not desirous of comparing his knowledge of Islam with that of Harris, moved on: “You’re saying that Islamophobia is not a real thing?”
“It’s gross! It’s racist!” Affleck continued, in answer to his own question.
“It’s like saying, ‘I’m not your shifty Jew,'” comparing an antisemitic epithet to what Maher and Harris were saying.
To which Harris pointed out that there is no comparison between attacks on all members of a group and attacks on ideas: “We have to be able to criticize bad ideas. And Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.”
That really set Affleck off.
“Jesus! It’s an ugly thing to say.”
This was classic leftist thinking. The question of whether an assertion is true is of little or no interest to the left. The question of concern to the left is whether something is politically incorrect.
Then the New York Times columnist, Kristof, offered his take:
“The picture you’re painting is to some extent true, but it is hugely incomplete. It is certain that plenty of fanatics and jihadis are Muslim, but [so are] the people who are standing up to them — Malala [the Pakistani 12-year-old shot and critically wounded by Islamists for attending school and advocating that other girls do so], Muhammad Ali Dadkhah in Iran, in prison for nine years for speaking up for Christians, [and] a friend that I had in Pakistan [who] was shot this year, Rashid Rahman, for defending people accused of apostasy.”
Kristof’s response is a frequent one. So it is worth responding to.
It is quite true that there are heroic Muslims who are fighting the Islamists throughout the Muslim world — and that some of them have been murdered for doing so. These people are moral giants. But their existence has nothing to do with the criticisms leveled by Maher and Harris, since they never said or implied that all Muslims are bad. There were heroic Germans who fought Hitler and the Nazis. Therefore what? If Kristof had been present when people criticized Germany’s values, would he have labeled them “Germanophobes?”
But it was later in the dialogue that Kristof expressed the most dishonest of the left’s arguments on this issue: “The great divide is not between Islam and the rest. It’s rather between the fundamentalists and the moderates in each faith.”
“In each faith,” Kristof?
Where, sir, are the Christian and Jewish jihadists? The only Jewish state in the world is one of the freest countries on earth, with protections for minority religions and women and homosexuals unknown anywhere in the Muslim world. And virtually every free country in the world is in the Christian world.
Presumably, these are just “ugly” facts.
This debate was valuable. Even more valuable would be if Maher and Harris came to realize that the death of Judeo-Christian values and their being supplanted by leftism is producing hundreds of millions of people who think like Ben Affleck and Nicholas Kristof.
Open letter to President Obama (Part 670) (Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.) 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 […]
Great video on free speech and religion. The Obama administration should take up for free speech instead of pandering to Muslim extremists. May 28, 2013 9:10AM Does Freedom of Speech Conflict with Freedom of Religion? By Ilya Shapiro Share This is a provocative question, of course, or at least it is seemingly everywhere in the […]
Smoke rises from the central area of Oslo Friday, July 22, 2011 after an explosion. … Today there is a big debate caused by the tragic events in Norway where an extremist associated with a Christian group that opposed multiculturalism has killed over 90 people. In the article below Chuck Colson noted, “True Christians renounce […]
_______________ Secular Liberals are Religious by Eric Adams Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason ____________________ Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode 8 – The Age of Fragmentation NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN Francis Schaeffer- How Should We Then Live? -8- The Age of Fragmentation Joseph Rozak·https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEmwy_dI2j0 _______________________ I love the works of Francis Schaeffer and […]
__________________________ Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode 8 – The Age of Fragmentation NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN Today I am posting my second post in this series that includes over 50 modern artists that have made a splash. Last time it was Tracey Emin of England and today it is Peter Howson of Scotland. Howson has overcome alcoholism in […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 461) (Emailed to White House on 5-3-13.) 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 […]
Secular Liberals are Religious by Eric Adams Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason ____________________ Episode 8: The Age Of Fragmentation Published on Jul 24, 2012 Dr. Schaeffer’s sweeping epic on the rise and decline of Western thought and Culture _______________________ I love the works of Francis Schaeffer and I have been on the […]
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]
The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story Pt.1 – Today’s Christian Videos The Francis and Edith Schaeffer Story – Part 3 of 3 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Mrs. Schaeffer became a missionary in Switzerland. Associated Press / April 4, […]
Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage FREE TO CHOOSE
March 9, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
There are several issues raised in your book that I would like to discuss with you such as the minimum wage law, the liberal press, the cause of 2007 financial meltdown, and especially your pro-choice (what I call pro-abortion) view which I strongly object to on both religious and scientific grounds, Two of the most impressive things in your book were your dedication to both the National Prayer Breakfast (which spoke at 8 times and your many visits to the sides of wounded warriors!!
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The financial system was in a meltdown and taking the American economy with it. As I saw it, the combination of globalization and revolutionary new technologies had been fundamentally altering the American economy for at least two decades…. By 2007, the American economy was not only producing greater inequality than almost every other wealthy nation but also delivering less upward mobility. I believed that these outcomes weren’t inevitable, but rather were the result of political choices dating back to Ronald Reagan. Under the banner of economic freedom—an “ownership society” was the phrase President Bush used—Americans had been fed a steady diet of tax cuts for the wealthy and seen collective bargaining laws go unenforced. There had been efforts to privatize or cut the social safety net, and federal budgets had consistently underinvested in everything from early childhood education to infrastructure. All this further accelerated inequality, leaving families ill-equipped to navigate even minor economic turbulence. I was campaigning to push the country in the opposite direction. I didn’t think America could roll back automation or sever the global supply chain (though I did think we could negotiate stronger labor and environmental provisions in our trade agreements). But I was certain we could adapt our laws and institutions, just as we’d done in the past, to make sure that folks willing to work could get a fair shake. At every stop I made, in every city and small town, my message was the same. I promised to raise taxes on high-income Americans to pay for vital investments in education, research, and infrastructure. I promised to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage as well as to deliver universal healthcare and make college more affordable. I wanted people to understand that there was a precedent for bold government action. FDR had saved capitalism from itself, laying the foundation for a post–World War II boom.
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Clinton and not Reagan was responsible for the 2008 housing bubble crisis because of home buying subsidies! Take a look at this quote from the article below:
The sordid tale begins in 1994, with President Bill Clinton and his National Partners in Homeownership. U.S. politicians long have sought to win votes with homebuying subsidies, but Mr. Clinton took the strategy to new levels. “It was unheard‐of for regulators to team up this closely with those they were charged with policing,” observe the authors.
In another display of selfless masochism, I watched the Trump–Biden debate last night.
The candidates behaved better, for whatever that’s worth, but I was disappointed that there so little time (and even less substance) devoted to economic issues.
One of the few exceptions was the brief tussle regarding the minimum wage. Trump waffled on the issue, so I don’t give him any points, but Biden fully embraced the Bernie Sanders policyof basically doubling the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
The economic of this issue are very simple. If a worker generates, say, $9 of revenue per hour, and politicians say that worker can’t be employed for less than $15 per hour, that’s a recipe for unemployment.
Earlier this month, Professor Steven Landsburg on the University of Rochester opined for the Wall Street Journal on Biden’s minimum-wage policy.
It isn’t only that I think Mr. Biden is frequently wrong. It’s that he tends to be wrong in ways that suggest he never cared about being right. He makes no attempt to defend many of his policies with logic or evidence, and he deals with objections by ignoring or misrepresenting them. …Take Mr. Biden’s stance on the federal minimum wage, which he wants to increase to $15 an hour from $7.25. …So why does Mr. Biden want to raise the minimum wage…?He hasn’t said, so I have two guesses, neither of which reflects well on him. Guess No. 1: He’s dissembling about the cost. …The minimum wage…comes directly from employers but indirectly (after firms shrink and prices rise) from consumers. A minimum wage is a stealth tax on eating at McDonald’s or shopping at Walmart. …Mr. Biden should acknowledge the cost of wage hikes and argue for accepting it. Instead he’s silent about the cost, hoping he can foist it on people who won’t realize they’re footing this bill. Guess No. 2: He’s rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. New York is going to vote for Mr. Biden. The state also has a high cost of living and high wages—so New Yorkers would be largely unaffected by the minimum-wage hike. Alabama is going to vote against Mr. Biden. Alabama has a low cost of living and relatively low wages—so under the Biden plan Alabama firms would shrink, to the benefit of competitors in New York. Alabama workers and consumers would pay a greater price than New Yorkers.
And Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute recently highlighted some of the adverse effects for unskilled workers.
It’s an economic reality that workers compete against other workers, not against employers, for jobs, and higher wages in the labor market. And it’s also true that lower-skilled, limited-experience, less-educated workers compete against higher-skilled, more experienced, more educated workers for jobs. …If the minimum wage is increased…, that will…take away from unskilled workers the one advantage they currently have to compete against skilled workers – the ability to offer to work for a significantly lower wage than what skilled workers can command. …Result of a minimum wage hike to $15 an hour? Demand for skilled workers goes up, demand for unskilled workers goes down, and employment opportunities for unskilled workers are reduced.
Since I recently shared videos with Milton Friedman’s wisdom on both taxes and spending, here’s what he said about the minimum wage.
Let’s share one last bit of evidence. Mark Perry’s article referenced some new research by Jeffrey Clemens, Lisa Kahn, and Jonathan Meer.
Here’s what those scholars found in a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
We investigate whether changes in firms’ skill requirements are channels through which labor markets respond to minimum wage increases. …Data from the American Community Survey show that recent minimum wage changes resulted in increases in the average age and education of the individuals employed in low-wage jobs. Data on job vacancy postings show that the prevalence of a high school diploma requirement increases at the same time. The shift in skill requirements begins within the first quarter of a minimum wage hike. Further, it results from both within-firm shifts in postings and across-firms shifts towards firms that sought more-skilled workers at baseline. Given the poor labor market outcomes of individuals without high school diplomas, these findings have substantial policy relevance. This possibility was recognized well over a century ago by Smith (1907), who noted that the “enactment of a minimum wage involves the possibility of creating a class prevented by the State from obtaining employment.” Further, negative effects may be exacerbated for minority groups in the presence of labor market discrimination.
So why do politicians push for higher minimum wages, when all the evidence suggests that vulnerable workers bear the heaviest cost?
Part of the answer is that they don’t understand economics and don’t care about evidence.
But there’s also a more reprehensible answer, which is that they do understand, but they want to curry favor with union bosses, and those union bosses push for higher minimum wages as a way of reducing competition from lower-skilled workers.
P.S. Here’s my CNBC debate with Joe Biden’s top economic advisor on this issue.
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 going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
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