Category Archives: Bill Clinton

Dan Mitchell: Reagan was the runaway champion, but it’s worth noting that the burden of domestic spending also declined during the Clinton years.

In Defense of Bill Clinton

More than 10 years ago, I narrated this videoshowing how the United States benefited from spending restraint under both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Since today’s topic is Clinton’s policies, pay attention starting about 4:00.

If you don’t have time to watch the video, I hope you will at least pay attention to this chart, which appeared near the end (about 6:00).

It shows what happened to domestic spending (entitlements plus discretionary) as a share of economic outputduring the Reagan years, the Clinton years, and the 2001-2010 period under Bush and Obama.

Reagan was the runaway champion, but it’s worth noting that the burden of domestic spending also declined during the Clinton years.

But it wasn’t just that Bill Clinton was good on spending. Good things happened in the 1990s in other areas as well, especially trade.

In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Bill Galston defends Clinton’s “neoliberal” record.

… critics often mark the Clinton administration as the moment when establishment Democrats capitulated to the ideology of the unfettered market. Poor and working-class Americans paid the price, they charge… The historical record tells a different story. …During eight years of the Clinton administration, annual real growth in gross domestic product averaged a robust 3.8% while inflation was restrained, averaging 2.6%.Payrolls increased by 22.9 million… Unemployment fell from 7.3% in January 1993 to…4.2% at the end of President Clinton’s second term. Adjusted for inflation, real median household income rose by 13.9%. …During the administration, federal spending as a share of GDP fell from 21.2% to 17.5%… What about the poor? The poverty rate declined during the Clinton administration by nearly one quarter, from 15.1% to 11.3%, near its historic low. And it declined even faster among minorities—by 8.1 percentage points for Hispanics and 10.9 points for blacks. …In sum, during the heyday of neoliberalism, Americans weren’t forced to choose between high growth and low inflation or between aggregate growth and fairness for the poor, working class and minorities.

Why did we get these good results?

Because overall economic freedom increased during the Clinton years. And when the burden of government is reduced,that creates more opportunity for upward advancement for everyone in society.

By the way, I’m not arguing in today’s column that Bill Clinton deserves all the credit. There’s little doubt that the Republican landslide in 1994 played a big role in many of the subsequent pro-market reforms (such as welfare reform, the 1997 tax cut, etc).

But I will say that Bill Clinton at least was amenable to pro-market compromises, which is not what we saw during the Obama years (and I doubt we will see a shift to the center from Biden if Republicans win Congress this November).

P.S. Republicans were able to impose some fiscal discipline on Obama after the Tea Party landslide of 2010

P.P.S. For those who want more details, click here for a detailed examination of the fiscal policy performance of various modern presidents.

Below is a discussion from Milton Friedman on Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.

February 10, 1999 | Recorded on February 10, 1999

PRESIDENTIAL REPORT CARD: Milton Friedman on the State of the Union

with guest Milton Friedman
Former Hoover fellow and Nobel laureate Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution and Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences grades the achievements of the Clinton administration and evaluates the programs the President proposed in his 1999 State of the Union address.

Milton Friedman vs Bill Clinton (1999)

Published on May 28, 2012 by

ROBINSON Just the last eight years, or would you give high marks to Volcker as well, Greenspan’s predecessor?

FRIEDMAN That’s an interesting case, because you have to give the credit there really to Reagan. There’s no other President who would have stood by while the Fed followed the policy it did. If you remember— you don’t remember that period but if you go back…

ROBINSON I do actually, I had just started at the White House in those days…

FRIEDMAN …if you go back to that period, stopping the inflation that was raging which reached double-digit levels at the end of the ’70s and early ’80s required stepping on the brakes hard and produced a recession. And if you remember, Reagan’s popular ranking went way down in…

ROBINSON Down into the thirties.

FRIEDMAN …thirties, right. No other President would have stood by and said to the Fed, keep doing what you’re doing, you’re doing the right thing. But Reagan did do that. And that’s what enabled Volcker to do what Volcker did.

ROBINSON Back to the present to find out what Milton Friedman thinks of President Clinton’s legislative goals for the rest of his term.

THE SUNSHINE PLOYS

ROBINSON Let me ask you to apply your thinking to the principle points of Bill Clinton’s program for the remaining couple of years in office. The President’s program is intended— we’ll take old folks first— to, I quote now, “Address the challenge of a senior boom by using the budget surplus to help save Social Security.”

FRIEDMAN Well, the proposal, if you look at it in detail, is a complete fake.

ROBINSON A complete fake?

FRIEDMAN Absolutely.

ROBINSON He wants to take sixty percent— a little more than sixty percent of budget surplus over the next fifteen years…

FRIEDMAN Where does that come from? He’s counting that twice. That comes from the proceeds of the payroll taxes that are now in, which, in principle, though not in practice, are supposed to be used for Social Security, but which have indeed been financing every regular event. If he doesn’t do a thing about the surplus, that would still end up in bonds in the hands of the Social Security so-called Trust Fund.

ROBINSON You say he’s guilty of a little bit of a flim-flam game with the books.

FRIEDMAN Absolutely.

ROBINSON Within forty-eight hours of that State of the Union Address in which he made this proposal, Alan Greenspan, whom you have just praised, endorsed the proposal— in general terms, not specific terms, but he endorsed the proposal— and the Republicans in Congress said yep, that’s a good idea, sign us up for that too. How is it that he’s able to get everybody to go for what you call a flim-flam game?

FRIEDMAN Look, do you need to ask that question now after six years of Clinton? How he’s been able to get one flim-flam game after another. How he’s been able to bamboozle the people into thinking that he deserves higher ratings because he lies. Clinton is a superb politician who has a most extraordinary capacity to exude sincerity. He’s an incredible phenomenon. I think he’s a genius. But go back to the Social Security program. The first thing to be said is that all this nonsense about saving something for Social Security is pure fiction. It’s wrong to think that what people are paying into Social Security, what people are paying in the form of wage taxes, is what they’re paying for their own security. [

ROBINSON That’s nonsense.] There is no relationship whatsoever. We have a system under which you have a set of taxes for Social Security— named for Social Security, but it doesn’t matter, they’re payroll taxes, terrible taxes, regressive taxes. Nobody… you could not get a legislature to vote such a tax on its own. Can you imagine proposing a tax that would impose — let’s say sixteen percent tax— on all wages from the first dollar up to the maximum and nothing beyond that. Can you imagine voting that? Similarly, the other side of the picture is that we have made a series of commitments to people like me— I receive Social Security payments…

ROBINSON Oh so, it’s my payroll tax that goes to…

FRIEDMAN Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s not only your payroll tax, it’s your income tax, it’s whatever taxes you pay. I get them. And if you think you’re going to get ’em, you’re kidding yourself.

ROBINSON It is a fundamental deceit hoisted upon the American people and sustained for lo these six decades.

FRIEDMAN Absolutely. If you read the Social Security brochures, they say this is a system under which you are putting aside money now for your retirement.

ROBINSON And that’s nonsense.

FRIEDMAN That is utterly fake. But let’s suppose it were true…

ROBINSON All-right.

FRIEDMAN …for a moment. Why is it that it’s appropriate for government to come and tell me what fraction of my income I should save for my old age? If that’s okay, why can’t it come in and tell me exactly what fraction of my income I have to spend for food, what fraction for housing, what fraction for clothing. Let me show you the absurdity of this.

ROBINSON All-right.

FRIEDMAN Consider a young man of thirty-five who has AIDS for whom the expected length of life is ten years at the most maybe. Maybe there’ll be a cure. But his expected length of life is not very long. Is it really intelligent for him to put aside fifteen percent of his income for retirement at age sixty-five?

ROBINSON It’s outrageous.

FRIEDMAN It’s outrageous.

ROBINSON Outrageous.

FRIEDMAN Exactly. The only word you can give to it. And in my opinion, the whole Social Security system is an outrage.

ROBINSON If Social Security is ‘an outrage,’ what would Milton Friedman do about it? A Bonding Experience

ROBINSON How would you get rid of it?

FRIEDMAN Very simply. Here I am, I’m entire to a certain number of payments in the future. Have the government give me a bond equal to the current present value of— expected value of what I’m entitled to. You have already accumulated some rights. And so have the government give you a bond which will be due when you’re sixty-five which will be the present value of what you’ve already accumulated under the law. And then close the whole thing up.

ROBINSON And just close the books.

FRIEDMAN Everybody gets what he’s entitled to— what he’s been promised. The unfunded debt under Social Security is funded, it’s made open and above-board. There’s not a penny of transition cost, and everybody is… In my world, the payroll tax would be abolished, would be eliminated. It’s the worst tax we have on the books. And everybody would be free to do what he wanted about his own retirement.

ROBINSON Okay.

FRIEDMAN And on the whole he would do very well. Now undoubtedly, people who argue against that say, well what are you going to do about these people who are so careless and so unprudent that they don’t accumulate anything for retirement. That’s a general problem. What do you do about people who are poor, whether for their own fault or not for their own fault? You and I and society in general is not willing to see ’em starve to death.

ROBINSON Correct.

FRIEDMAN Well, I have always been in favor of having a program under which (a negative income tax) under which you will have some income minimum you will provide for people whether they are indigent because they’re wastrels or whether they’re indigent because they’re in bad health…

ROBINSON Even if it’s their own fault, they don’t starve.

FRIEDMAN The problem is, it’s always seemed to me absurd that you make a hundred percent of the people do something in order to make sure that one or two percent of the people don’t behave badly.

ROBINSON Milton, that negative income tax proposal actually started to go someplace, if I remember my history correctly, that actually started to go someplace during the Nixon years, didn’t it? Didn’t Cap Weinberger…

FRIEDMAN Yes, it did… No, Moynihan, Pat Moynihan…

ROBINSON Moynihan. And what happened to it? Why did it die?

FRIEDMAN Because the public pressure was converted into a program that I testified against. It’s what happens in Washington all the time.

ROBINSON Right, right, okay.

ROBINSON Next question. What would Milton Friedman do with the mounting budget surplus?

SAVING PRIVATE EARNING

ROBINSON We’ve got seventy-nine, eighty billion dollars more coming in this year than the government…

FRIEDMAN I am in favor of reducing taxes under any circumstances, for any excuse, with any reason whatsoever because that’s the only way you’re ever going to get effective control over government spending. Sooner or later [

ROBINSON Choke off the supply.] if you don’t reduce taxes to get rid of that surplus, it’s going to be spent. The rule from not only the last few years, hundreds of years, is that governments will spend whatever the tax system will raise plus as much more as they can get away with.

ROBINSON The Republicans are calling for a ten percent…

FRIEDMAN It’s not enough.

ROBINSON …cut. Not enough. What is… Now Dan Quayle, who’s running for President— this is the most extreme- extreme may be the wrong word but this is the most dramatic proposal I’m aware of that’s on the table anywhere at the moment— he’s called for a thirty percent cut. Is that enough?

FRIEDMAN I don’t know. I would cut it as much as you can get away with.

ROBINSON So you’d run the numbers and give back virtually all the surplus.

FRIEDMAN What do you mean give back? Not take.

ROBINSON Excuse me. It’s not take. You’d lower taxes…

FRIEDMAN You know, this idea of giving back, which is a word you use, assumes…

ROBINSON I take back my words, but go ahead and ram them down my throat.

FRIEDMAN …it assumes that every individual is a property of the government and that all of the income that you earn is really the government’s, and it decides how much you can keep and how much it gets. I’ve always said, it treats people as if they were running around with an IBM card on their back which says ‘do not mutilate, punch, or disturb.’

ROBINSON Right. You’ve got more money coming in at the moment than is going out.

FRIEDMAN You ought to reduce taxes by enough to generate…

ROBINSON You don’t want to pay down the debt.

FRIEDMAN Oh no. No, I want to generate a deficit because I want pressure on to get the government to spend less.

ROBINSON You like a federal deficit.

FRIEDMAN No, I don’t like a federal deficit, but I like lower government spending.

ROBINSON All-right. President Clinton has another proposal for using that surplus, and he calls them USA accounts. He’s proposing to use about eleven percent of the surplus over the next fifteen years or so to establish, I quote now from his speech, “universal savings accounts, USA accounts, to give all Americans the means to save,” again quotation here, “with extra help for the least able to save.” Details to follow. You like that idea?

FRIEDMAN No, I think it’s a terrible idea. You know, the idea is saying, I’m going to take your money, but then I’ll give it back to you if you do with it what I tell you to do. Is that a way you have a free society of free, self-reliant individuals who are responsible for themselves? It’s a terrible…

ROBINSON Do you even agree with the premise that the savings rate is too low in this country?

FRIEDMAN I don’t agree with that premise. What is the right savings rate?

ROBINSON Well, gee, you’re the Nobel Prize winner, I thought you’d be able to clue me in.

FRIEDMAN The right savings rate… In a world in which you did not have distortions, in which you did not have government stepping in and distorting the rate at which people save or not, the right saving rate is whatever all the people of the community simply want to save. How much you want to save, how much I want to save. Why shouldn’t people be free to save what they want?

ROBINSON Let’s move to a more theoretical question. Why do we end up with so many stupid government programs when we’re supposed to be so smart in our own private affairs?

THINK LOCALLY, ACT GLOBALLY

ROBINSON How is it, you credit great intelligence, shrewdness, on the part of individuals when they’re spending their own money and managing their own property in the marketplace, how can we all be so dumb when we give up being players in the marketplace and become citizens participating in the political process? We get hoodwinked by Clinton, we go for this crazy sham of Social Security, how can we be so dumb?

FRIEDMAN Because it’s always so attractive to be able to do good at somebody else’s expense. That the real problem of our government. Government is a way by which every individual believes he can live at the expense of everybody else. That’s— I’m just repeating what Bastiat said two centuries ago, more than two centuries ago. You know, the thing that people don’t really understand is that free societies of the kind we’ve been lucky enough to experience for the last hundred-hundred and fifty years are a very rare exception in human history. Most people, most of history, and at any one time, most people at any one time, have lived in tyranny and misery. And it’s only for a brief period, and why? It is precisely because once you get some government program in— may have been a very good idea, it’s always proposed for good reasons— once it gets in, it becomes a special privilege of a small group which has an enormously strong interest to maintain it, and you do not have any comparable group that has the interest to get rid of it. And therefore, the hardest thing in the world is to get rid of any government program, however badly it works. In fact, try to name any government programs that have been eliminated.

ROBINSON The draft. Well, that’s not a…

FRIEDMAN Yes, the draft is an example, it’s one of the rare examples of a program that has been eliminated. One of the others was Postal Savings. It used to be that the postal system had a savings system which became very popular as a result of the Great Depression. But it disappeared. Why? Because by accident when they set it up, they limited the interest they could pay on postal savings to two percent, and when the market rate got higher than that, all the money was taken out of postal savings and postal savings came to an end. But aside from that, can you name programs that have been eliminated because they failed? And so how will we set a limit on government, and keep it coming back, and the only thing I can see on the horizon that offers a real chance are term-limits.

ROBINSON Term limits?

FRIEDMAN Right now, being a politician is a lifetime career. Being a Congressman is a lifetime career.

ROBINSON Do we have any evidence in the states where term-limits apply that it has worked as you would like to see it work? Term-limits have been in effect here in California for about a decade now… They may have been enacted a decade ago, so they’ve been in effect for perhaps six years…

FRIEDMAN It’s a little early. We don’t really have any very good… However, it so happened, I had occasion to have a conversation the other day with a former Governor of Virginia: Allen, George Allen.

ROBINSON Who, everybody says he’s going to be running for the Senate. Against Chuck Robb.

FRIEDMAN Yes, that’s what he intends to do.

ROBINSON He intends to do. All-right.

FRIEDMAN However, he had, Virginia has a one-term four-year term for the Governor. And he said, you know, he said, if we had had a two-year term, if we had had the situation in most states, that you can run for a second term, I would have spent the third and fourth year of my term working for re-election. I would never have been able to get done what I got done. It was the first real hands-on testimonial I’ve seen to a term-limit. It’s not a good idea for being a legislator to be a lifetime profession. The founders of our country had the idea of legislation as a part-time activity. It is in many states today. But at the federal government level, it’s a full-time profession. And that is very unhealthy because the legislature— it’s not a criticism of the individual— but any human being in that position, he’s going to sit in committee meetings, and day after day he’s going to hear arguments, good arguments, worthy arguments for new programs. He’s going to get very few arguments for getting rid of programs. And the evidence is clear: the longer people are in Congress, the more willing they are to vote government spending.

ROBINSON The polls all show the American people are very concerned about our public schools. What does Milton Friedman think of President Clinton’s proposals to improve those public schools? Hire Learning

ROBINSON President Clinton on public schools. According to the White House fact sheet, he wants to, I quote, “raise standards and increase accountability in public schools (I’ve got to take a deep breath to get through this) through proposals to end social promotion, bring high-quality teachers into the classroom, intervene in failing schools, provide school report cards to parents, strengthen our commitment to smaller class-sizes, and boost our efforts for school modernization.” What grade do you give that proposal?

FRIEDMAN F.

ROBINSON F.

FRIEDMAN What does it mean? It means more government control of schools. What do we really need in schools? We need competition. What we have is a monopoly, and like every monopoly, it’s producing a low-quality product at a very high cost. The way to improve that is to have competition, to make it possible for parents to have a choice of the schools their children attend. All high-income people have that choice now. They can choose their residence for a place with good schools, or they can send their children to private schools, pay twice for schooling: once in taxes and once in tuition. But the lower income classes can’t.

ROBINSON They’re stuck. Milton, didn’t public schools used to work?

FRIEDMAN Yes. When I graduated from high-school in 1928, there were 150,000 school districts in this country. Today, there are 15,000 and the population is twice as great. In the early day, you had local control of schools, and there was effective competition between a large number of local areas. But school districts got consolidated. They got run not by local people but by the professional educators. And most important of all, in the 1960s you began to have the emergence of teachers’ unions taking control of the schools. And since 1960, since the teachers’ unions started emerging, you have had on the whole a rather steady decline in the quality of schooling. If you want to improve automobiles, do you have government step in and tell people what brakes to put on, and so on, or do you rely on the fact that General Motors is going to try to beat Ford, is going to try to beat Toyota? Competition is the most effective way to improve quality, whether in computers, in automobiles, in suits, or in schooling.

ROBINSON Let me ask you to close, if I may, with a prediction. It’s 2009, ten years from today. Is the government of the United States bigger, or smaller?

FRIEDMAN Smaller.

ROBINSON Your ideas are winning?

FRIEDMAN No. The Internet is going to make it harder and harder to collect taxes.

ROBINSON How come?

FRIEDMAN Because you’ll be able to evade taxes, you’ll be able to do your deals in the Cayman Islands.

ROBINSON So the Internet…

FRIEDMAN At the moment I see the Internet as the most likely source of the smaller government.

ROBINSON But in your mind it really will have an effect. That’s not speculative…

FRIEDMAN No, no, no. I believe it will and I believe it’s having it now.

ROBINSON I see. Okay. Milton Friedman— Bill Clinton I hope you’re taking notes, we’ll send a tape of this to the White House— Milton Friedman, thank you very much.

FRIEDMAN That’s all-right. I assure you they won’t look at it. Thank you.

ROBINSON Doctor Friedman believes the government should be smaller and that it will become so. Maybe some future President will preside over such a small government that he can shrink up the State of the Union Address enough to get rid of the Teleprompter and deliver the speech from memory. I’m Peter Robinson. Thanks for joining us.

French president, others mourn Brent Renaud, Arkansas filmmaker killed in Ukraine 

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French president, others mourn Brent Renaud, Arkansas filmmaker killed in Ukraine

by Bill Bowden | Today at 7:20 p.m.

Brent Renaud attends the 74th annual Peabody Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in New York in this May 31, 2015, file photo. Renaud, a Little Rock filmmaker and journalist, was killed in a suburb of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday, March 13, 2022, while gathering material for a report about refugees. Ukrainian authorities said he died when Russian forces shelled the vehicle he was traveling in. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)

Condolences poured in Sunday for Brent Renaud, an Arkansas filmmaker shot and killed by Russian troops in Ukraine.

“Today, a US journalist was killed in Ukraine,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter. “Before him, others have been targeted, murdered, injured or kidnapped. Our thoughts are with all those journalists driven by courage and an ideal: the freedom to inform. This freedom is fundamental to our democracies.”

A joint statement was issued from Edward Felsenthal, editor-in-chief and CEO of Time magazine, and Ian Orefice, president and chief operating officer of Time and Time Studios: “We are devastated by the loss of Brent Renaud. As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud. In recent weeks, Brent was in the region working on a TIME Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis. Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones. It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”

Arkansans also expressed condolences.

“Arkansans are saddened today at the death of Brent Renaud in Ukraine,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. “I join them in expressing deepest condolences to the Renaud family. And I reiterate to Vladimir Putin and his military leaders that the intentional targeting of innocent civilians, including reporters, is a war crime.”

“Arkansas PBS deeply mourns the loss of our friend and colleague, Brent Renaud,” said Courtney Pledger, CEO of Arkansas PBS. “Brent was driven to tell the most intimate of human stories from across our country and the globe, often in partnership with his brother Craig. The Renaud Brothers dedicated themselves to the growth of film culture in their home state of Arkansas, and we are so much richer as a result. We will never forget Brent, his talent, his intelligence, his bravery and his unfailing integrity.”

“Brent Renaud will be remembered not only as a talented filmmaker but as an Arkansan who continuously gave back to our state to create a new generation of artists,” said Matthew J. Shepherd, speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives. “His life’s work stands as a testament of a free and open society, which is in stark contrast to the totalitarian forces whose unprovoked invasion he was documenting when his life was taken.”

5:56 p.m.: Russian troops gun down Arkansas filmmaker Brent Renaud in Ukraine, wound two others

Arkansas filmmaker Brent Renaud was shot and killed by Russian troops in Ukraine on Sunday. Two other journalists were injured in the shooting, the police chief for the Kyiv region wrote on Facebook.

“Of course, the profession of a journalist is a risk, but US citizen Brent Renaud paid his life for trying to highlight the aggressor’s ingenuity, cruelty and ruthlessness,” Andriy Nebytov wrote.

A Ukrainian news agency reported Sunday that Renaud, 50, of Little Rock, was shot and killed by Russian troops outside Kyiv.

“I’m devastated by the loss of my close friend and long time producer, Brent Renaud,” Christof Putzel, a documentary filmmaker and television correspondent, posted on Twitter. “The world and our profession has lost one of our greatest legends. Hug your family, your colleagues, and watch the news. People are dying to bring it to you.”

Putzel expanded on that in an interview with CNN: “I woke up this morning to the news that Brent — longtime best friend, incredible colleage, the best war journalist I think ever existed — finding out about his passing. Brent had this ability to go anywhere, get any story, listen and communicate what was happening to people who wouldn’t otherwise see it. It is a devastating loss to journalism today. … When the crisis in Ukraine happened, Brent was on an airplne the very next day.”

5:02 p.m.: Friends remember life, work of Arkansas filmmaker gunned down by Russian troops

An Arkansas filmmaker who was shot and killed by Russian troops on Sunday outside Kyiv had gone there to shed light on the atrocities being committed, a correspondent for PBS NewsHour said on Twitter.

“Brent Renaud was killed while filming civilians escaping a Russian military onslaught on their small town near Kiev,” Jane Ferguson tweeted on Sunday. “The Russian military has not spared civilians or journalists throughout this war, something Renaud himself came here to make the world all the more aware of.”

In a tweet earlier Sunday, Ferguson said she had seen Renaud’s body under a blanket.

“Just left roadside spot near Irpin where body of American journalist Brent Renaud lay under a blanket,” she wrote. “Ukrainian medics could do nothing to help him by that stage. Outraged Ukrainian police officer: ‘Tell America, tell the world, what they did to a journalist.'”

Brent Anthony Renaud, 50, was born in Memphis and grew up in Little Rock, where he graduated from Hall High School.

His father, Louis, was a salesman, and his mother, Georgann Freasier, was a social worker, according to The New York Times.

Brent Renaud and his brother, Craig, were a Peabody Award-winning documentary film team that drew attention to human suffering, often working with major news organizations like The New York Times, according to that newspaper.

Craig Renaud told The New York Times that his brother was in Ukraine working for MSNBC and for the television and film division of Time magazine. He was working on one segment of “Tipping Point,” a multipart series about refugees around the world.

“Migration under desperate circumstances was a recurring subject for Brent, who with Craig also made documentaries about Haitians deported from the United States and children fleeing poverty and danger in Central America,” according to The New York Times.

The Renaud brothers won their Peabody Award for “Last Chance High,” which tells the story of Chicago’s Moses Montefiore Academy, whose students suffer from emotional disorders and have been expelled from other public schools in the city.

Brent Renaud earned a master of arts degree from Columbia University and was a 2019 Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University.

3 p.m.: U.S. journalist, founder of Little Rock Film Festival, killed by attack near Kyiv

Arkansas filmmaker Brent Renaud was shot and killed Sunday when Russian forces fired on the car in which he was traveling outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Kyiv Region police reported.

Juan Arredondo, a filmmaker who was shot in the same car, gave a brief interview at Okhmatdyt, the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv, just before being wheeled in to the operating room for surgery.

“We crossed one, the first bridge in Irpin,” Arredondo said in the hospital’s post on Instagram. “We were going to film other refugees leaving. And we got into a car. Somebody offered to take us to the other bridge. And we crossed a checkpoint, and they start shooting at us. So the driver turned around, and they kept shooting. Two of us. My friend, Brent Renaud, and he’s been shot and left behind.”

Arredondo said he didn’t know what had happened to Renaud.

“I saw his being shot in the neck. And we got split,” Arredondo said.

Journalists have been forbidden from entering Irpin since Renaud’s death, according to The Kyiv Independent.

A New York Times spokesperson said Renaud, 50, was a “talented filmmaker who had contributed to The New York Times over the years.” It said he was not working for the publication at the time of his death. Renaud was wearing a New York Times badge, according to reports.

Renaud and his brother Craig founded the Little Rock Film Festival, which concluded in 2015 after a nine-year run.

Kyiv Region police said: “Of course, the profession of journalism carries risks. Nonetheless, U.S. citizen Brent Renaud paid with his life trying to highlight the deceit, cruelty and ruthlessness of the aggressor.”

Asked about the reports, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS News that the U.S. government would be consulting with the Ukrainians to determine how this happened and would then “execute appropriate consequences.”

“This is part and parcel of what has been a brazen aggression on the part of the Russians, where they have targeted civilians, they have targeted hospitals, they have targeted places of worship, and they have targeted journalists,” Sullivan said.

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President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton attending the Dinner Honoring the Nation’s Governors. 2/22/87.

ronald reagan debates walter mondale in 1984 Presidential race second clip

Lee Edwards of the Heritage Foundation wrote an excellent article on Ronald Reagan and the events that transpired during the Reagan administration,  and I wanted to share it with you. Here is the fifth portion:

Though Reagan promised deep cuts in domestic spending, that did not turn out to be the case. Indeed, overall welfare spending increased during the Reagan presidency — primarily because Reagan could not overcome, even with vetoes and the bully pulpit of the White House, the spending impulses of Congress, which, after all, signed the checks. Throughout his two terms, he was confronted by Democrats still enthralled by the New Deal as well as Republicans (particularly in the Senate) still mesmerized by its political appeal.

When the administration proposed to abolish the Department of Education in 1981, Howard Baker, the first Republican Senate majority leader since 1954, actively opposed abolition.[x] Baker wanted to remain majority leader and was worried that getting rid of the department would alienate too many voters.

Reagan was not discouraged. He understood he had to proceed prudently with cuts, one billion dollars at a time — he could not just pull the plug on the federal government. Over the past fifty years, millions of people had grown dependent upon it.

Many people remember Reagan saying in his inaugural address that “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.” But the new president also said:

It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.[xi]

Here was no radical libertarian with a copy of Atlas Shrugged in his back pocket but a traditional conservative guided by the prudential arguments of The Federalist. Reagan was a modern federalist, echoing James Madison’s call for a balance between the authority of the national and state governments. He also shared Madison’s concern about “the abridgement of the freedom of the people” by the “gradual and silent encroachment of those in power.” As he later said in his 1990 autobiography, “We had strayed a great distance from our founding fathers’ vision of America.”[xii]

He was determined to recapture that lost vision. As he stated in his inaugural, he would begin by seeking to “curb the size and influence of the federal establishment.” Revealing his pragmatism, his immediate target was the welfare excesses of Lyndon B. Johnson, not the long-established social programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt. As he wrote in his diary in January 1982, “The press is trying to paint me as trying to undo the New Deal. I’m trying to undo the Great Society.”[xiii]

It was a slow uneven process, always made more difficult by a Democratic House of Representatives. He was obliged to allow federal spending for welfare — work programs, education and training, social services, medicine, food and housing — to rise sharply; expenditures almost doubled from $106.1 billion (in real or nominal dollars) in 1980 to $173 billion in 1988.[xiv] Nor did Reagan’s own cabinet secretaries protest when the increases benefited their agency or department.

Conservative critics like the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler did not try to hide their disappointment and frustration. Six years into the Reagan presidency, Butler wrote that “the basic structure of the Great Society is still firmly intact …. virtually no program has been eliminated.”[xv]

But Reagan reduced federal outlays in some welfare areas — such as regional development, commerce and housing credit — from $63 billion in 1980 to just over $49 billion in 1987, a decrease of about 22 percent. And the size of the federal civilian work force declined by about five percent, much of it traceable to conservatives like Gerald Carmen at GSA, Raymond Donovan at Labor and the OPM’s Donald Devine, described by the Washington Post as “Reagan’s terrible swift sword of the civil service.”[xvi] The agencies that led the personnel downsizing were Education, down twenty-four percent; Housing and Urban Development, down twenty-two percent; Office of Personnel Management, down nineteen percent; and Government Services Administration and Labor, both down fifteen percent.

Twitter Mob Comes for Dave Chappelle. It’s Time to Realize It Isn’t as Powerful as It Thinks. 

A.F. Branco for Jan 12, 2022
 width=

Provocative comedian Dave Chappelle is in hot water again. His new Netflix special “The Closer” has been the subject of numerous articles accusing Chappelle of transphobia and homophobia. (Photo: Lester Cohen/WireImage via Getty Images)

Perennially persecuted comedy legend Dave Chappelle is under fire yet again.

The controversy began after his latest special “The Closer” aired on Netflix. Chappelle, with his usual brand of acerbic humor, made a series of jokes that ran afoul of transgender ideology.

Chappelle is no stranger to controversy. His 2019 special “Sticks & Stones” faced similar accusations of transphobia from a vindictive press.

One topic that Chappelle joked about in “The Closer” was the outrage directed at “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.

“They canceled J.K. Rowling—my God. Effectively, she said gender was a fact, the trans community got mad as s—, they started calling her a TERF,” said the comedian.

TERF stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist” and is used as a pejorative against feminists who don’t think biological men are women.

Chappelle continued, “I’m Team TERF. I agree. I agree, man. Gender is a fact.”

Cue the outrage. Articles spewed forth from the font of regularly aggrieved leftist journalists, including a loaded headline from NPR reading, “For Dave Chappelle, Punchlines Are Dares. His New Special, ‘The Closer,’ Goes too Far.

Not to be outdone, The Independent ran a piece titled “Meet the New Dave Chappelle—Misogynistic, Anti-Trans and Socially Irresponsible.

The hit pieces against Chappelle continued as the story developed. “Netflix Defends Dave Chappelle’s Anti-Trans Remarks and Suspends a Trans Employee,” reported Time after Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos initially defended Chappelle and the special and the company suspended Terra Field, a biological man who identifies as a woman, along with two other employees for barging into an executive-level meeting in order to complain about the “The Closer.”

Notably, Sarandos has since caved to the pressure, saying he “screwed up” in his preliminary response to the outrage. However, the special remains on Netflix.

But for all of those news outlets writing on this “uproar,” there appears to be more demand for outrage than can be provided naturally.

Stephen Miller, a contributor with The Spectator, noted, “The story cites 3 tweets, one from an account they call ‘a Twitter user’ with 200 followers. If a news story simply cites you as ‘one twitter user said..’ your opinion isn’t newsworthy. It’s irrelevant. Facebook is not the problem.”

The media are so desperate for oxygen to keep the Chappelle controversy alive, they’re soliciting actor Channing Tatum’s thoughts on it.

Really? Why should we care about what Tatum, a man most famous for playing a stripper in a movie six years ago, has to say about Chappelle? In fact, why should we care what any number of leftists on Twitter have to say about Chappelle?

Twitter is not indicative of real life. According to a 2020 Pew Research Center report, “just 10% of users produced 92% of all tweets from U.S. adults since last November, and that 69% of these highly prolific users identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents.”

That is an obscenely small number of people driving cultural narratives like the Dave Chappelle story. But it also indicates that the narrative itself is being propped up by a group that doesn’t represent the average American, who likely either agrees with Chappelle or couldn’t care less.

June Gallup polling indicates that 30% of Americans identify as socially conservative, while 35% identify as moderate. That’s a far cry from a majority who buy into the radical left’s demands for progressive orthodoxy.

Chappelle himself said it best during “The Closer,” “When ‘Sticks & Stones’ came out, a lot of people in the trans community were furious with me and apparently they dragged me on Twitter. I don’t give a —- cuz Twitter’s not a real place!”

The sooner people stop giving unrepresentative Twitter mobs the time of day, the sooner they lose their monopoly on the narrative.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

Kamala Harris official photo (cropped2).jpg


Honorable Vice President Kamala Harris c/o The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Vice President,

“Is it true that your administration has set things in motion that will hurt women’s sports?”

Tucker Carlson: Biden brings ‘equality’ to girls’ sports, and who knows what’s next?

Forget women’s empowerment, it takes a real civil rights leader to use federal power to humiliate and endanger women on behalf of biological men

You may have missed it, but Joe Bidendevoted part of his very first day in officeto addressing one of this nation’s most pressing problems: Girls’ sports.

The main problem with girls’ sports, obviously, is that they lack diversity: Only girls get to play. That’s wrong, and Joe Biden plans to fix it; to break the turf ceiling, if you will.

Now, for the first time in history, men will be allowed to compete in, for example, girls’ field hockey, and then change in the girls’ locker room afterward. Joe Biden has signed an executive order requiring it. Even Barack Obama didn’t do that.

This makes Joe Biden a #civilrightshero. There’s been a lot of talk recently about women’s empowerment, but it takes a real leader, a once-in-a-generation moral visionary, to go further than that and use federal power to humiliate and endanger women on behalf of biological men. That is next-level feminism. That is real empowerment.

That’s the Joe Biden program, and he’s been planning it for years. This is what he said last February:

BIDEN: Well, no, the animating promise of this country, that all men and women are created equal, has never been fulfilled.

By “equal,” Joe Biden means “identical”. There are no differences between men and women, that’s the position. Those gender categories we’ve heard about since the dawn of recorded history are fake. So there’s no reason to protect women from men under any circumstances, because the whole idea of men and women isn’t real.

Not everyone believes this, of course. Science isn’t always popular (or the peasants don’t understand it). There are still troglodytes out there in the year 2021 who are trying to keep men out of women’s sports. Yes, Donald Trump is gone. But that doesn’t mean hate has taken a holiday.

 –

But Joe Biden is not intimidated by that. He doesn’t care that pretty much no one in America agrees with him or even understands what he’s talking about. When Joe Biden watches girls’ gymnastics, as he frequently does, and doesn’t see a single biological man walking the balance beam or swinging from the uneven bars, he doesn’t just sit back and accept the status quo. He acts with force and certainty.

 –

Now, activism like that may seem modern, but it’s not new for Joe Biden. For 60 years, he has been fighting transphobia. Way back in the summer of 1962, decades before it was fashionable, Joe Biden confronted a vicious transphobe called Corn Pop, who wanted to keep men out of the girls’ changing room at a public pool in Wilmington. It was a different time back then, but Joe Biden wouldn’t have it. He threatened to beat Corn Pop with a six-foot chain, and that was just the beginning.

Decades later, Joe Biden flew all the way to South Africa to free Nelson Mandela from prison. Most of us assumed he was risking his life to fight the racist policies of the South African government. What we didn’t know was that Joe Biden was actually fighting a more insidious foe, gender apartheid. Robben Island was men-only, segregated by sex, if you can imagine.

But the fight isn’t over yet. Joe Biden’s holy war of liberation continues. Even now, in this supposedly liberated time, groups of women still saunter to the ladies room together in restaurants across America with not a single man joining them in the stall. That happens, believe it or not. It happens right now. There are still sexually segregated public showers in this nation, not to mention dressing rooms in retail stores, that men aren’t allowed to enter.  And what about your house? How many boys slept over at your seventh grade daughter’s most recent slumber party?

year-old child decides, ‘You know, I decided I want to be transgender. That’s what I think I’d like to be. It’ll make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination

Joe Biden has a solution. Sixty years ago, he fought Corn Pop with a chain to protect the right of biological men to be present when girls change into their bathing suits, and he’ll bring that same moral clarity to your daughter’s lacrosse team.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Leadership like that will change this country. In time, you won’t hear people claiming to be the first female this or first female that because honestly, in a truly liberated society, who can say what’s female? Why shouldn’t Mike Pence announce that actually, he was the first woman to serve as vice president? Who could call him wrong?

Not us. We don’t do hate speech here.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening commentary on the Jan. 22, 2021 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”


Joe Biden’s First Day Began the End of Girls’ Sports

An executive order rigs competition by requiring that biological boys be allowed to compete against girls.

President Biden signs an executive order in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

President Biden signs an executive order in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

PHOTO: DOUG MILLS/POOL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Amid Inauguration Day talk of shattered glass ceilings, on Wednesday President Biden delivered a body blow to the rights of women and girls: the Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation. On day one, Mr. Biden placed all girls’ sports and women’s safe spaces in the crosshairs of the administrative state.

The order declares: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” The order purports to direct administrative agencies to begin promulgating regulations that would enforce the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision Bostock v. Clayton County. In fact, it goes much further.

In Bostock, the justices held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited an employer from firing an employee on the basis of homosexuality or “transgender status.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a 6-3 majority, took pains to clarify that the decision was limited to employment and had no bearing on “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes”—all regulated under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. “Under Title VII, too,” the majority added, “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”

The Biden executive order is far more ambitious. Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department. If this policy were to be broadly adopted in anticipation of the regulations that are no doubt on the way, what would this mean for girls’ and women’s sports?

“Finished. Done,” Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told me. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.” Ms. Blade noted that parents of teen girls are generally uninterested in watching their daughters demoralized by the blatant unfairness of a rigged competition.

I say rigged because in contests of strength and speed, the athletic chasm between the sexes, which opens at puberty, is both permanent and unbridgeable. Once male puberty is complete, testosterone suppression doesn’t undo the biological advantages men possess: larger hearts, lungs and bones, greater bone density, more-oxygenated blood, more fast-twitch muscle fiber and vastly greater muscle mass.

It should be no surprise, then, that the two trans-identified biological males permitted to compete in Connecticut state track finals against girls—neither of whom was a top sprinter as a boy—consistently claimed top spots competing as girls. They eliminated girls from advancement to regional championships, scouting and scholarship opportunities and trophies, and they set records no girl may ever equal.

How big is this performance gap? To take one example cited by the Connecticut female runners in their complaint against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the fastest female sprinter in the world is American runner Allyson Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high-school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it.

Even if allowing biological boys to join girls’ teams means girls can’t win, isn’t it still worth trying out for the team? Actually, no—even in sports that involve no contact and little injury risk, like running or tennis. It isn’t merely the trophies and scholarships and opportunities at stake. It isn’t even all the benefits sports have so long provided to young women—in self-esteem and health and camaraderie with friends. It isn’t merely that girls who participate in sports tend to earn better grades, that so many female Fortune 500 executives were athletes, or that sports force teen girls out of their own heads, where they might otherwise sit and stew to their detriment.

It’s the profound and glaring injustice of it: the spectacular records and achievements that Jackie Joyner, Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph would never have achieved had the world pitted their bodies against men.

Yet here we are. Decades of women’s achievement and opportunity rolled back by executive fiat. Battered women’s shelters, women’s jails and other safe spaces that receive federal funding and constitute “dwellings” under the Fair Housing Act may be next. Women’s rights turn out to be cheap and up for grabs. Who will voice objection?

Certainly not those caught up in the “historic” moment of the first female vice president. Hillary Clinton swooned on Twitter : “It delights me to think that what feels historical and amazing to us today—a woman sworn in to the vice presidency—will seem normal, obvious, ‘of course’ to Kamala’s grand-nieces as they grow up.” If only this je ne sais quoi weren’t accompanied by a far more material theft of female opportunity.

Ms. Shrier is author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.”

I must say I share your love for the LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C.S. Lewis. Sadly he died on the same day as two other notable gentleman (JFK and Aldous Huxley). Just like you I have a love for books! 

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

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MY OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS PART 4 “Is it true that your administration has set things in motion that will hurt women’s sports?”

A.F. Branco for Jan 12, 2022

Kamala Harris official photo (cropped2).jpg


Honorable Vice President Kamala Harris c/o The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Vice President,

“Is it true that your administration has set things in motion that will hurt women’s sports?”

Tucker Carlson: Biden brings ‘equality’ to girls’ sports, and who knows what’s next?

Forget women’s empowerment, it takes a real civil rights leader to use federal power to humiliate and endanger women on behalf of biological men

You may have missed it, but Joe Bidendevoted part of his very first day in officeto addressing one of this nation’s most pressing problems: Girls’ sports.

The main problem with girls’ sports, obviously, is that they lack diversity: Only girls get to play. That’s wrong, and Joe Biden plans to fix it; to break the turf ceiling, if you will.

Now, for the first time in history, men will be allowed to compete in, for example, girls’ field hockey, and then change in the girls’ locker room afterward. Joe Biden has signed an executive order requiring it. Even Barack Obama didn’t do that.

This makes Joe Biden a #civilrightshero. There’s been a lot of talk recently about women’s empowerment, but it takes a real leader, a once-in-a-generation moral visionary, to go further than that and use federal power to humiliate and endanger women on behalf of biological men. That is next-level feminism. That is real empowerment.

That’s the Joe Biden program, and he’s been planning it for years. This is what he said last February:

BIDEN: Well, no, the animating promise of this country, that all men and women are created equal, has never been fulfilled.

By “equal,” Joe Biden means “identical”. There are no differences between men and women, that’s the position. Those gender categories we’ve heard about since the dawn of recorded history are fake. So there’s no reason to protect women from men under any circumstances, because the whole idea of men and women isn’t real.

Not everyone believes this, of course. Science isn’t always popular (or the peasants don’t understand it). There are still troglodytes out there in the year 2021 who are trying to keep men out of women’s sports. Yes, Donald Trump is gone. But that doesn’t mean hate has taken a holiday.

 –

But Joe Biden is not intimidated by that. He doesn’t care that pretty much no one in America agrees with him or even understands what he’s talking about. When Joe Biden watches girls’ gymnastics, as he frequently does, and doesn’t see a single biological man walking the balance beam or swinging from the uneven bars, he doesn’t just sit back and accept the status quo. He acts with force and certainty.

 –

Now, activism like that may seem modern, but it’s not new for Joe Biden. For 60 years, he has been fighting transphobia. Way back in the summer of 1962, decades before it was fashionable, Joe Biden confronted a vicious transphobe called Corn Pop, who wanted to keep men out of the girls’ changing room at a public pool in Wilmington. It was a different time back then, but Joe Biden wouldn’t have it. He threatened to beat Corn Pop with a six-foot chain, and that was just the beginning.

Decades later, Joe Biden flew all the way to South Africa to free Nelson Mandela from prison. Most of us assumed he was risking his life to fight the racist policies of the South African government. What we didn’t know was that Joe Biden was actually fighting a more insidious foe, gender apartheid. Robben Island was men-only, segregated by sex, if you can imagine.

But the fight isn’t over yet. Joe Biden’s holy war of liberation continues. Even now, in this supposedly liberated time, groups of women still saunter to the ladies room together in restaurants across America with not a single man joining them in the stall. That happens, believe it or not. It happens right now. There are still sexually segregated public showers in this nation, not to mention dressing rooms in retail stores, that men aren’t allowed to enter.  And what about your house? How many boys slept over at your seventh grade daughter’s most recent slumber party?

year-old child decides, ‘You know, I decided I want to be transgender. That’s what I think I’d like to be. It’ll make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination

Joe Biden has a solution. Sixty years ago, he fought Corn Pop with a chain to protect the right of biological men to be present when girls change into their bathing suits, and he’ll bring that same moral clarity to your daughter’s lacrosse team.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Leadership like that will change this country. In time, you won’t hear people claiming to be the first female this or first female that because honestly, in a truly liberated society, who can say what’s female? Why shouldn’t Mike Pence announce that actually, he was the first woman to serve as vice president? Who could call him wrong?

Not us. We don’t do hate speech here.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening commentary on the Jan. 22, 2021 edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”


Joe Biden’s First Day Began the End of Girls’ Sports

An executive order rigs competition by requiring that biological boys be allowed to compete against girls.

President Biden signs an executive order in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

President Biden signs an executive order in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

PHOTO: DOUG MILLS/POOL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Amid Inauguration Day talk of shattered glass ceilings, on Wednesday President Biden delivered a body blow to the rights of women and girls: the Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation. On day one, Mr. Biden placed all girls’ sports and women’s safe spaces in the crosshairs of the administrative state.

The order declares: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the rest room, the locker room, or school sports. . . . All persons should receive equal treatment under the law, no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.” The order purports to direct administrative agencies to begin promulgating regulations that would enforce the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision Bostock v. Clayton County. In fact, it goes much further.

In Bostock, the justices held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited an employer from firing an employee on the basis of homosexuality or “transgender status.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for a 6-3 majority, took pains to clarify that the decision was limited to employment and had no bearing on “sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes”—all regulated under Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. “Under Title VII, too,” the majority added, “we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.”

The Biden executive order is far more ambitious. Any school that receives federal funding—including nearly every public high school—must either allow biological boys who self-identify as girls onto girls’ sports teams or face administrative action from the Education Department. If this policy were to be broadly adopted in anticipation of the regulations that are no doubt on the way, what would this mean for girls’ and women’s sports?

“Finished. Done,” Olympic track-and-field coach Linda Blade told me. “The leadership skills, all the benefits society gets from letting girls have their protected category so that competition can be fair, all the advances of women’s rights—that’s going to be diminished.” Ms. Blade noted that parents of teen girls are generally uninterested in watching their daughters demoralized by the blatant unfairness of a rigged competition.

I say rigged because in contests of strength and speed, the athletic chasm between the sexes, which opens at puberty, is both permanent and unbridgeable. Once male puberty is complete, testosterone suppression doesn’t undo the biological advantages men possess: larger hearts, lungs and bones, greater bone density, more-oxygenated blood, more fast-twitch muscle fiber and vastly greater muscle mass.

It should be no surprise, then, that the two trans-identified biological males permitted to compete in Connecticut state track finals against girls—neither of whom was a top sprinter as a boy—consistently claimed top spots competing as girls. They eliminated girls from advancement to regional championships, scouting and scholarship opportunities and trophies, and they set records no girl may ever equal.

How big is this performance gap? To take one example cited by the Connecticut female runners in their complaint against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the fastest female sprinter in the world is American runner Allyson Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high-school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it.

Even if allowing biological boys to join girls’ teams means girls can’t win, isn’t it still worth trying out for the team? Actually, no—even in sports that involve no contact and little injury risk, like running or tennis. It isn’t merely the trophies and scholarships and opportunities at stake. It isn’t even all the benefits sports have so long provided to young women—in self-esteem and health and camaraderie with friends. It isn’t merely that girls who participate in sports tend to earn better grades, that so many female Fortune 500 executives were athletes, or that sports force teen girls out of their own heads, where they might otherwise sit and stew to their detriment.

It’s the profound and glaring injustice of it: the spectacular records and achievements that Jackie Joyner, Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph would never have achieved had the world pitted their bodies against men.

Yet here we are. Decades of women’s achievement and opportunity rolled back by executive fiat. Battered women’s shelters, women’s jails and other safe spaces that receive federal funding and constitute “dwellings” under the Fair Housing Act may be next. Women’s rights turn out to be cheap and up for grabs. Who will voice objection?

Certainly not those caught up in the “historic” moment of the first female vice president. Hillary Clinton swooned on Twitter : “It delights me to think that what feels historical and amazing to us today—a woman sworn in to the vice presidency—will seem normal, obvious, ‘of course’ to Kamala’s grand-nieces as they grow up.” If only this je ne sais quoi weren’t accompanied by a far more material theft of female opportunity.

Ms. Shrier is author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.”

I must say I share your love for the LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C.S. Lewis. Sadly he died on the same day as two other notable gentleman (JFK and Aldous Huxley). Just like you I have a love for books! 

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Related posts:

Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 5-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 4-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 3-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday,” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

MY OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS PART 3 “Do you support charter schools like President Obama did?”

Kamala Harris official photo (cropped2).jpg


February 3, 2021

Honorable Vice President Kamala Harris c/o The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Vice President,

Do you support charter schools like President Obama did?

What Matters More to Biden: Union Bosses or Poor Children?

I have a Bureaucrat Hall of Fame to highlight government employees who have turned sloth and overcompensation into an art form, and I have a Moocher Hall of Fame to illustrate the destructive entitlement mindset that exists when politicians pay people to do nothing.

I’m now thinking we also need another Hall of Fame to bring attention to the despicable people who oppose school choice because currying favor with teacher unions is more importantthan giving poor children an opportunityfor a good education.

Some of the charter members would include:

And we many need to include Joe Biden on this tawdry list.

We’ll know soon enough. There’s a federally funded school choice program in Washington, DC, and time will tell whether the President intends to kill it.

In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Virginia Walden Ford expresses hope that President Biden won’t sacrifice the needs of minority children in the nation’s capital.

I hope his administration doesn’t tear down a program that has brought hope to thousands of African-American childrenin the District of Columbia. In 2004, Congress created the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. …In 2020-21, 82% of scholarship recipients identified as African-American and another 12% as Hispanic. While scholarships for poor children of color should hold bipartisan appeal, the…2020 Biden-Sanders “unity” platform went out of its way to recommend defunding the program.

Ms. Ford isn’t opposed to government schools, but she does want poor kids to have the same opportunity as Joe Biden’s kids.

I strongly support both public education and school choice. I attended public schools, and my father served as the first African-American school administratorin Little Rock, Ark.—for which my family received a burning cross on our front yard. …What really undermines public education is attempts from elites to keep good education for themselves… Mr. Biden’s children went to private schools. Why shouldn’t my former neighbors in Southeast Washington have the opportunity to do so too?

I’ll close by observing that many of the people opposing school choice are total hypocrites. They send their kids to private schools while fighting to deny hope and opportunity for children from poor families.

Including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Obama’s Education Secretary, both of whom also would be charter members of a new Hall of Fame for policy makers who care more about union bosses than poor kids.

There are folks on the left who have genuine integrity on this issue, including the editors at the Washington Post.

P.S. At the risk of stating the obvious, the solution is not dumping more money into government-run schools. We’ve tried that and tried that and tried that, over and over again, and it never works.

P.P.S. For example, Bush’s No Child Left Behind (which I call No Bureaucrat Left Behind) was a failure, as was Obama’s Common Core.

P.P.P.S. Instead of throwing good money after bad and imposing more centralization, getting rid of the Department of Education in Washingtonwould be a far-preferable approach (we’d be copying Canada with that approach).

P.P.P.P.S. If you want evidence on the benefits of school choice, click here, here, here, here, here, and here.

P.P.P.P.P.S. There’s also international evidence from SwedenChileCanada, and the Netherlands, all of which shows superior results when competition replaces government education monopolies.

I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control.

I thought it was great when the Republican Congress and Bill Clinton put in welfare reform but now that has been done away with and no one has to work anymore it seems. In fact, over 40% of the USA is now on the government dole. What is going to happen when that figure gets over 50%? Maybe this cartoon below will be true.

The all-time, most-viewed post on this blog is this set of cartoons showing how the welfare state begins and how it eventually becomes an unsustainable mess.

The great Chuck Asay has a cartoon that takes the next step, showing what happens when the looters and moochers who ride in the wagon get pitted against those who are pulling the wagon.

Since I’m not a Romney fan (for a bunch of reasons outlined here), I would have preferred if the cartoon didn’t imply anything about the current election and instead focused on the rhetorical question of what happens to a society when those living off the government outnumber those who get stuck picking up the tab.

It also would have been more accurate to have the two slave drivers somehow identified as “politicians” and the “IRS.”

But it’s a very clever cartoon, so it’s worth sharing even if I’m nitpicking.

You can see my favorite Asay cartoons here, here, herehere, here, here, here, here, here, here, herehereherehere, and here.

I must say I share your love for the LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C.S. Lewis. Sadly he died on the same day as two other notable gentleman (JFK and Aldous Huxley). Just like you I have a love for books!

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Related posts:

Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 5-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 4-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 3-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday,” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

MY OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS PART 2 “Do you and President want measures put in to help safeguard fair elections?”

Kamala Harris official photo (cropped2).jpg


February 2, 2021

Honorable Vice President Kamala Harris c/o The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Vice President,

I was hoping that you agree with the idea of legal and fair elections and I hope you like this article below:

9 Election Reforms States Can Implement to Prevent Mistakes and Vote Fraud

Hans von Spakovsky @HvonSpakovsky / February 02, 2021

All voters nationwide should be required to validate his or her identity with a government-issued photo ID to vote in person or by absentee ballot. Pictured: Signs greet voters arriving at the Ruckersville Volunteer Fire Company polling station in Ruckersville, Va., on Election Day, Nov. 3. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)

REPORT THIS AD

Hans von Spakovsky@HvonSpakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research.

Election fraud is real.

The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database, which has chronicled more than 1,300 cases of election fraud, proves that election fraud does occur in American elections.

Errors and omissions by election officials and careless, shoddy election practices and procedures or lack of training can also cause and have caused problems for voters and candidates alike.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. States can, and should, take action to restore integrity to our elections.

The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>

Here’s a list of best practices states should adopt for elections.

  1. Verify the accuracy of voter registration lists. Computerized statewide voter-registration lists should be designed to be interoperable so that they can communicate seamlessly with other state record databases to allow frequent exchanges and comparisons of information.

For example, when an individual changes the residence address on his or her driver’s license, that information should be sent to state election officials so that the voter-registration address of the individual is also changed to his or her new Department of Motor Vehicles residence address.

2. Verify citizenship of voters. Only lawful citizens can vote in federal elections. States should, therefore, require proof of citizenship to register to vote, as well as verify the citizenship of registered voters with the records of the Department of Homeland Security, including access to the E-Verify system.

3. Require voter ID. A voter should be required to validate his or her identity with government-issued photo ID to vote in-person or by absentee ballot (as states such as Alabama and Kansas require). Government-issued IDs should be free for those who cannot afford one.

4. Limit absentee ballots. Absentee ballotsshould be reserved for those individuals who are too disabled to vote in person or who will be out of town on Election Day and all early-voting days.

5. Prevent vote trafficking. Vote-trafficking (also called “vote harvesting”) by third parties should be banned. That would ensure that candidates, campaign staffers, party activists, and political consultants are prohibited from picking up and potentially mishandling or changing absentee ballots and pressuring or coercing vulnerable voters in their homes. In other words, a political group can’t offer to pick up ballots and then bring them to the polling place and/or mail them, with no third party supervising that group’s behavior in the interim.

6. Allow election observers complete access to the election process. Political parties, candidates, and third-party organizations should all be allowed to have observers in every aspect of the election process, because transparency is essential to a fair and secure system. The only limitation on such observers is that they cannot interfere with the voting and counting process.

However, a representative of the election office should be present to answer the questions of the observers. They should be legally allowed to be in a position—exactly like election officials—to observe everything going on, other than the actual voting by individuals. Election officials should be prohibited from stationing observers so far away that they cannot observe the process, including such procedures as the opening of absentee ballots and the verification process.

7. Provide voting assistance. Any individuals providing assistance to a voter in a voting booth because the voter is illiterate, disabled, or otherwise requires assistance should be required to complete a form, to be filed with poll election officials, providing their name, address, contact information, and the reason they are providing assistance. They should also be required to provide a photo ID.

8. Prohibit early vote counting. To avoid premature release of election results, the counting of ballots, including absentee and early votes, should not begin until the polls close at the end of Election Day. However, if a state insists on beginning the count before Election Day, it should ban the release of results until the evening of Election Day, subject to criminal penalties.

9. Provide state legislatures with legal standing. State legislatures must ensure that they have legal standing—either through a specific state law or through a constitutional amendment if that is required—to sue other state officials, such as governors or secretaries of state, who make or attempt to make unauthorized changes in state election laws.

For example, if a secretary of state extends the deadline set by state law for the receipt of absentee ballots, legislatures should have legal standing to contest that unilateral change that overrides state law. They should be classified as a necessary party in any lawsuit. And voters should be provided by state law with the ability to file a writ of mandamus against any state or local official who fails to abide by, or enforce, a state election-law requirement.

In 2020, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar made changes to election law unilaterally. We need to ensure that can’t happen again in other states or in future elections.

Along with these nine (and other) reforms, there are specific measures states shouldn’t take.

For instance, there should be no same-day registration for voting. Registration should be required before Election Day to give election officials sufficient time to verify the accuracy of the registration information contained on a registration form and to confirm the eligibility of the potential voter.

There also shouldn’t be automatic voter registration. States should comply with the National Voter Registration Act and provide registration opportunities at state agencies. However, all individuals should be asked at the time of the state agency transaction, such as the application for a driver’s license, whether they want to register to vote.

No one should be automatically registered without their consent or knowledge, since this can lead to multiple registrations by the same individual, as well as the registration of ineligible individuals, such as noncitizens.

As we all know, elections have consequences. That’s why it’s crucial to ensure that every vote counts and isn’t diluted by election fraud and other problems. It’s time for states to implement these reforms to ensure voters will have faith in our elections.

This op-ed has been adapted from a Heritage Foundation report. To learn more, read the full report, “The Facts About Election Integrity and the Need for States to Fix Their Election Systems.”

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.

I must say I share your love for the LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C.S. Lewis. Sadly he died on the same day as two other notable gentleman (JFK and Aldous Huxley). Just like you I have a love for books!

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Related posts:

Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 5-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 4-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 3-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday,” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

MY OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS PART 1 David Ditch noted: Congress has already approved over $4 trillion in response to the pandemic, much of which is still available or in the process of being distributed. The idea that Congress has been “undershooting” the response is ridiculous!

Kamala Harris official photo (cropped2).jpg

February 1, 2021
Honorable Vice President Kamala Harris c/o The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Vice President,

Let me encourage you to read this article below: 

I must say I share your love for the LION, WITCH AND THE WARDROBE by C.S. Lewis. Sadly he died on the same day as two other notable gentleman (JFK and Aldous Huxley). Just like you I have a love for books!

Debt

Calling for stimulus spending in response to COVID-19, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., stated on Jan. 28, “The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it.” (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc./Getty Images)

The combination of unified control of the federal government along with the COVID-19 pandemic has seemingly caused some elected officials to think there are no consequences to new spending proposals. However, they must wake up to the dangers posed by recklessly adding to the national debt.

On Thursday, Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., exemplified this mindset by saying, “The dangers of undershooting our response are far greater than overshooting it. We should have learned the lesson, from 2008 and 2009, when Congress was too timid and constrained in its response to the global financial crisis.”

>>> What’s the best way for America to reopen and return to business? The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, a project of The Heritage Foundation, assembled America’s top thinkers to figure that out. So far, it has made more than 260 recommendations. Learn more here.

This is wrong on several fronts.

The Left has declared war on our culture, but we should never back down, nor compromise our principles. Learn more now >>

First, the stimulus spending that took place in the wake of the Great Recession was ineffective at creating jobs, and in some ways slowed the economy by creating perverse incentives and crowding out private activity.

Second, despite the difficulties associated with the pandemic, the economy is currently in much better shape than it was during the last recession.

The national unemployment rate hit 10% in October 2009 and stayed above 8% through August 2012. In contrast, the COVID-19 recession caused unemployment to spike to 14.8% in April 2020, but it fell below 7% by October.

Third, Congress has already approved over $4 trillion in response to the pandemic, much of which is still available or in the process of being distributed. The idea that Congress has been “undershooting” the response is ridiculous.

Most importantly, Schumer and other leftists in Congress are ignoring the very real danger posed by adding to the $27.8 trillion federal debt, which is over $210,000 for every U.S. household.

Even after the pandemic is over and the economy returns to normal, we will face serious problems as a result of the federal government’s broken finances.

Over $21 trillion worth of federal debt obligations are traded on the open market. While interest rates are low today, Congress has no control over what those rates will be as the debt turns over and requires refinancing.

Credit rating agencies are growing concernedabout the sustainability of America’s finances. If demand for our debt goes down, that will force the Treasury to offer higher interest rates.

Higher interest rates on so much debt would add up very quickly, which makes this a serious risk to economic growth and future prosperity. That means we need to put an end to massive deficits and eventually shrink the debt, either in absolute terms or in relation to the size of the economy, to reduce the risk to current and future generations.

This will be impossible unless legislators address the driving force behind long-term debt and deficits: unsustainable benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Major trust funds will run dry all too soon. Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) goes broke in 2024, Social Security Disability Insurance in 2026, and the Social Security retirement fund in 2031. These are programs that tens of millions of people rely on, and trust fund insolvency would cause serious upheaval, especially for Social Security.

Annual deficits for the federal government and these major benefit programs are too large to close overnight. Deficits were already high during the years of strong economic growth prior to the pandemic, and then exploded in 2020.

Reforms aiming to slow the growth of spending on Social Security and Medicare can have a significant effect, but only if those reforms are in place several years before the trust funds run out. The longer we wait, the more drastic the necessary changes become.

Besides reforming large benefit programs, there are many other ways for Congress to improve the nation’s financial health. These include refocusing the federal government on core priorities, eliminating wasteful spending, returning to a regular budget process, and strengthening economic growth.

What would not help this massive and growing problem is spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on more “relief” legislation that would do little to help the economy. Hopefully Congress will come to its senses and recognize that it has a responsibility to use taxpayer dollars wisely.

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.

—-

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733

Related posts:

Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 5-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 4-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 3-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“The Power of the Market” episode of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms.  I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 5)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 4)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 3)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 2)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. Abstract: Ronald Reagan introduces this program, and traces a line from Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of […]

“Friedman Friday,” EPISODE “The Failure of Socialism” of Free to Choose in 1990 by Milton Friedman (Part 1)

Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

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Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

My rough draft letter to President Elect Biden that will be mailed on April 2, 2021! (Part 73) Thomas Sowell: Politicians Should Only “Do Something” If that Means Doing Less

Government Must Cut Spending

Uploaded by on Dec 2, 2010

The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately.

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April 2, 2021

President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

The stimulus program did not help, but getting government out of the way would!!!! Take a look at this great article that goes over several examples through history.

The great Ronald Reagan famously said (and I am paraphrasing, since I do not remember the exact phrase) that the most dangerous words in the English language were “I am from Washington and I am here to help you.”

Those are very wise words, especially when we think of the damage politicians have done because of their impulse to “do something” when the economy stumbles. The problem is not that there is nothing that needs to be fixed. The problem is that the crowd in Washington is far more likely to make things worse rather than better.

And who better to explain this than Thomas Sowell.

Sowell starts his most recent column by explaining that politicians who want to “do something” almost always want to expand the burden of government spending, but he notes that this approach has meant deeper recessions and more economic suffering. And he cites Warren Harding as an example of a President who rejected the notion that bigger government was some sort of economic elixir.

…you might think that the economy requires government intervention to revive and create jobs. It is Beltway dogma that the government has to “do something.” History tells a different story. For the first 150 years of this country’s existence, the federal government felt no great need to “do something” when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to “do something” in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent. One of the last of the “do nothing” presidents was Warren G. Harding. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent — higher than it has been under President Obama. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. Far from spending more money to try to “jump start” the economy, President Harding actually reduced government spending.

Can we learn any lessons from Harding’s anti-Keynesian approach? Assuming we want more growth and less unemployment, the answer is yes (and we can also learn the lesson that Hoover was a moronic statist from the very beginning).

President Harding deliberately rejected the urging of his own Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, to intervene. The 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923. It is hard to think of any government intervention in the economy that produced such a sharp and swift reduction in unemployment as was produced by just staying out of the way and letting the economy rebound on its own. Bill Clinton loudly proclaimed to the delegates to the Democratic National Convention that no president could have gotten us out of the recession in just one term. But history shows that the economy rebounded out of a worse unemployment situation in just two years under Harding, who simply let the market revive on its own, as it had done before, time and time again for more than a century.

Allow me to actually quibble with what Sowell wrote. Harding didn’t “let the market revive on its own.” He helped the economy grow faster by shrinking the federal budget. As Jim Powell explained in National Review, “Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.2 billion in 1922.”

That’s a stunning statistic, akin to cutting more than $1.5 trillion from today’s bloated federal budget.

Sowell  also cites the achievements of the Gipper. Since I’ve posted some powerful comparisons of Reaganomics and Obamanomics, this is music to my ears.

Something similar happened under Ronald Reagan. Unemployment peaked at 9.7 percent early in the Reagan administration. Like Harding and earlier presidents, Reagan did nothing, despite outraged outcries in the media. The economy once again revived on its own. Three years later, unemployment was down to 7.2 percent — and it kept on falling, as the country experienced twenty years of economic growth with low inflation and low unemployment. The Obama party line is that all the bad things are due to what he inherited from Bush, and the few signs of recovery are due to Obama’s policies beginning to pay off. But, if the economy has been rebounding on its own for more than 150 years, the question is why it has been so slow to recover under the Obama administration.

By the way, Sowell also could have mentioned what happened in the United States immediately after World War II. The Keynesians were predicting a return to depression because of big reductions in government spending and the demobilization of millions of troops. But as Richard Vedder and Jason Taylor explained for the Cato Institute, the economy quickly adjusted and rebounded precisely because politicians didn’t revive the New Deal (and, as you can see from this video, President Reagan understood this bit of economic history).

Sowell also explains how FDR made a bad situation worse in the 1930s.

A great myth has grown up that President Franklin D. Roosevelt saved the American economy with his interventions during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But a 2004 economic study concluded that government interventions had prolonged the Great Depression by several years. Obama is repeating policies that failed under FDR.

In previous posts, I have cited both Sowell and the Wall Street Journal to make this very point, but I also call your attention to this post referencing the seminal work of Robert Higgs, as well as this video on the pernicious role of government intervention in the 1930s.

Last but not least, check out this video to understand more about FDR and his malignant views.

P.S. Fans of Professor Sowell can read more of his work here, here, here, here, here, hereherehereherehereherehereherehereherehere, and here. And you can see him in action here.

______

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

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage

Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell – Reducing Black Unemployment

By WALTER WILLIAMS

—-

Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5

Dan Mitchell article “Ten Observations about Trump and the GOP”

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Ten Observations about Trump and the GOP

Since I’m a policy wonk, I rarely play the role of political pundit other than biennial election predictions.

But I’m getting a lot of requests to comment about Trump, especially in light of the recent protest/riot/insurrection and the ongoing political fallout (impeachment, etc).

So here are 10 observations (full disclosure: I didn’t vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020, but have never been part of the Never-Trump community).

Trump’s style is bluster and bullying – As I wrote way back before the 2016 election, Trump’s personal style is akin to a temperamental child. This can be entertaining (which is why CNN and other networks gave him so much attention during his initial campaign), but it also has limitations as an approach to governance (for instance, you don’t stop a virus by merely asserting it won’t come to the United States).

Trump is America’s “Crazy Uncle” – Early in his presidency, I happened to be in New Zealand and was asked about Trump in a TV interview. I basically said he’s like a grouchy and opinionated uncle who shows up on holidays and dominates the conversation with controversial statements. Given what’s happened over the past few years, that observation holds up well.

Republicans lawmakewrs in Washington never liked Trump – GOPers in the House and Senate like some of the things Trump has accomplished (tax reform and conservative judges), but they’ve never liked having him as president because he is too erratic and too self-centered. But most important, they’ve been afraid his simultaneous popularity (with core GOP primary voters) and unpopularity (with, say, suburbanites) is a threat to their ability to stay in power. In other words, it’s hard to win general elections in some places as a Trumpian populist but also hard to win GOP primaries in many places as a Never-Trumper.

Republican voters, by contrast, like Trump – One thing that surprised me over the past four yeas is that I found strong support for Trump from grassroots conservative Republicans. Yes, they didn’t like his fiscal profligacy and they mostly didn’t like his protectionism, but they did like the fact that he was a “fighter,” unlike so many (but not all) Republican politicians who get cozy with the DC establishment. They also figured he was worth supporting because he was so reviled by the establishment media (i.e., the enemy of my enemy is my friend).

Republican lawmakers generally have been in a no-win situation – Because of Trump’s popularity with GOP voters, Republican lawmakers have felt a lot of pressure to act as Trump loyalists even though many of them don’t like his behavior and disagree with some of his policies.

Be glad there were normal GOPers in the Trump Administration – Some people in the Never-Trump community want to create a blacklist of people who worked for Trump. This is misguided in the vast majority of cases. Most Trump appointees had nothing to do with Trump’s excesses and instead did good things (deregulation, for instance) in the various agencies and departments where they worked.

There are three GOP wings: Populist Trumpies, conservative Reaganites, and the establishment – Most pundits portray GOP infighting as a battles between Trumpist conservatives and the Republican establishment (symbolized, perhaps, by Sen. Romney). But that’s an insufficient description of what’s happening because it overlooks the fact that there are plenty of Reagan-style conservatives who definitely are not part of the establishment, yet don’t fit in with Trump’s big-government populism. It will be very interesting to see which anti-establishment strain wields more influence in the next few years.

Trump’s legacy to GOP: Total Democratic control of DC – On January 21, 2017, Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. Four years later (a few days from now), Democrats will control the House, the Senate, and the White House. By way of background, one of the reasons I don’t like George W. Bush is that his failed polices paved the way for the left to have total control of Washington in 2009 and 2010. Shouldn’t Trump be judged similarly?

In spite of his many flaws, why did Trump win normally Democratic states? – While I just explained that Trump set the stage for the left to have total power in Washington, Republicans need to figure out how Trump managed to win some states in 2016 that historically have been unwinnable when contested by establishment Republicans (though he lost some traditionally GOP-leaning states in 2020).

In spite of his many flaws, why did Trump get more minority votes? – Similarly, Republicans need to figure out how a supposedly racist Trump managed to win a higher percentage of minority voters than recent GOP nominees such as John McCain and Mitt Romney. The bottom line is Republicans need to figure out if there are good parts of Trumpism once Trump is out of the picture.

I’ll close with a few statements:

  • It is perfectly okay to have voted for Trump because you liked some of his policies (whether they are ones I like, such as tax cuts, or ones I don’t like, such as protectionism).
  • It is perfectly okay to have voted against Trump for the same reason.
  • It is perfectly okay to have voted for Trump because you wanted to shake up the Washington establishment with unconventional behavior.
  • It is perfectly okay to have voted against Trump because his unconventional behavior was offensive.
  • It is perfectly okay to have been a Never-Trumper or a Trumpian populist.
  • What’s not okay, though, is to engage in political violence.
  • And what’s utterly awful is lying to supporters and creating the conditions for political violence.

P.S. While it’s worth spending some time to dissect and analyze the past four years, I hope that libertarians, Reagan conservatives, Trump populists, Never-Trumpers, establishment Republicans, etc, all join together to fight some of Biden’s awful ideas (the “public option” threat to private health insurance, class-warfare taxes, gun control, a blue-state bailout, etc).


Interpreting the Election Results

For what it’s worth, my presidential prediction for 2020 will probably turn out to be more accurate than my presidential prediction for 2016.

But I doubt anyone cares about that. Let’s instead look at what happened last night (and, in some cases, what is still happening).

President

It appears that Biden will prevail in the battle for the White House when the dust settles, but you can see from this Washington Post map that the race was much closer than most people expected (Pennsylvania is expected to shift to Biden as mail-in votes are counted, and perhaps Georgia as well).

If that’s the final result, here are two obvious takeaways based on where a president has a lot of unilateral power.

Other policy areas generally require agreement between the executive branch and the legislative branch, so we can’t know the impact of a Biden presidency without perusing congressional results.

Senate

In my humble opinion, the big news of the night is that Republicans appear to have retained control of the Senate.

If true, that means some left-wing goals are now very unlikely.

There won’t be any court packing. There won’t be any serious effort to increase the number of Democratic senators by granting statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.

But let’s focus on the economic issues. Here are some quick takeaways.

House of Representatives

It appears that Republicans will gain seats, which is contrary to all expectations.

That being said, there’s zero possibility of a GOP takeover, so Nancy Pelosi will remain in charge.

Ballot Initiatives

I wrote two weeks ago about this election’s six most important ballot initiatives.

The great news is that taxpayers scored a big victory by defeating the effort to get rid of the flat tax in Illinois an replace it with a so-called progressive tax. Winning that battle probably won’t rescue the Prairie State, but at least it will slow down its march to bankruptcy.

The other five battles mostly were decided correctly – at least based on the latest vote margins.

  • California voters rejected an initiative that would allow the state to engage in racial discrimination.
  • The California initiative to weaken limits on property taxes is trailing.
  • The Colorado initiative to lower the state’s flat tax appears prevailed.
  • The Colorado initiative to strengthen TABOR (the state’s spending cap) is leading.
  • The one clear piece of bad news is that an Arizona initiative to impose a big increase in the top income tax rate appears likely to prevail.

What’s the future for Trump and Trumpism?

Regular readers know I want the GOP to be the Party of Reaganrather than the Party of Trump.

So I will be very interested to see whether Trump’s apparent defeat means Republicans go back to (at least pretending to favor) conventional small-government conservatism.

That will have the be the topic of a future column.

A Silver Lining for Republicans

The party controlling the White House usually loses mid-term elections. For recent examples, Democrats won the House in 2018 and there were big victories for the GOP in 2010 and 2014during the Obama years.

In all likelihood, Republicans will now do much better in the 2022 midterm election with Biden in the White House instead of Trump.

A Silver Lining for Taxpayers

It’s not something that can be quantified, but congressional Republicans will now become much better on spending issues. They’ll no longer face pressure to go along with Trump’s profligacy and they’ll have a partisan incentive to oppose Biden’s profligate agenda.

P.S. Whether you’re happy or sad about the election results, remember that it’s always appropriate to laugh at the clowns and crooks in Washington.

President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Tom Selleck, Dudley Moore, Lucille Ball at a Tribute to Bob Hope’s 80th birthday at the Kennedy Center. 5/20/83.

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Dan Mitchell is very good at giving speeches and making it very simple to understand economic policy and how it affects a nation. Mitchell also talks about slowing the growth of government and he gives credit to Clinton and Reagan.

Probably my favorite subject that Dan has covered is the Laffer Curve. I got a chance to hear Arthur Laffer speak at Memphis St University in 1981 and Laffer actually predicted what would happen in the next 7 years because of the Reagan Tax Cuts and all of his predictions came true. What did we learn from the Laffer Curve in the 1980′s? Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!! The funny thing is that the world saw what we did and followed along. The drop of the industrialized countries during this same time was 26% (from 68% to 42% on average). It reminded me of Milton Friedman 1980 book “Free to Choose” and his answer to the 11% inflation that President Carter was dealing with in 1980. Reagan put Friedman’s solution into action and 5 years later inflation was under control.

Below is a fine article and video from Dan Mitchell.

(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic advisers.
(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic

I’ve narrated a video that cites Economic Freedom of the World data to explain the five major factors that determine economic performance.

But that video is only six minutes long, so I only skim the surface. For those of you who feel that you’re missing out, you can listen to me pontificate on public policy and growth for more than sixty minutes in this video of a class I taught at the Citadel in South Carolina (and if you’re a glutton for punishment, there’s also nearly an hour of Q&A).

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell

Published on Apr 2, 2012

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell speaks to cadets economics and conservatism. This is the 10th lecture in the seminar series titled “The Conservative Intellectual Tradition in America.”

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There are two points that are worth some additional attention.

1. In my discussion of regulation, I mention that health and safety rules can actually cause needless deaths by undermining economic performance. I elaborated on this topic when I waded into the election-season debateabout whether Obama supporters were right to accuse Romney of causing a worker’s premature death.

2. In my discussion of deficits and debt, I criticize the Congressional Budget Office for assuming that government fiscal balance is the key determinant of economic growth. And since CBO assumes you maximize growth by somehow having large surpluses, the bureaucrats actually argue that higher taxes are good for growth and their analysis implies that the growth-maximizing tax rate is 100 percent.

P.S. If you prefer much shorter doses of Dan Mitchell, you can watch my one-minute videos on tax reform that were produced by the Heartland Institute.

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Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!!

What did we learn from the Laffer Curve in the 1980′s? Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!! A Lesson on the Laffer Curve for Barack Obama November 6, 2011 by Dan Mitchell One of my frustrating missions […]

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Laffer curve hits tax hikers pretty hard (includes cartoon)

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“Clowns of a Feather Stick Together: French Presidential Candidate Echoes Biden, Says Higher Tax Rates Are Patriotic” article by Dan Mitchell of CENTER FOR FREEDOM AND PROSPERITY

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Clowns of a Feather Stick Together: French Presidential Candidate Echoes Biden, Says Higher Tax Rates Are Patriotic

I rarely comment on Vice President Biden because he is not a serious person in the world of policy. The only attention he gets on this blog is jabs from the late-night talk show hosts, and I also posted the Joe Biden caption contest and this Joe Biden joke.

Perhaps I would have given Biden some attention if I had started this blog in 2008 instead of 2009, because the then-Delaware Senator made a very silly statement during that year’s campaign.

Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. …Biden said: “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

I’m not sure how America’s Founding Fathers would have reacted to that statement, but I suspect that Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Mason, and Paine would have had a different perspective.

But I’m not surprised that the Socialist candidate for President in France has the same mentality (and I’m referring to the official candidate of the Socialist Party, not the socialist currently running the country). Here’s a blurb from the BBC.

The Socialist favourite in France’s presidential election, Francois Hollande, has said top earners should pay 75% of their income in tax. …Mr Hollande himself renewed his call on Tuesday, saying the 75% rate on people earning more than one million euros a year was “a patriotic act”. …”It is patriotic to agree to pay a supplementary tax to get the country back on its feet.”

Isn’t this wonderful that politicians of different nationalities and from different continents can be united in the idea that it is “patriotic” to give the world’s least competent people more money?

Maybe Biden and Hollande can also take a trip to Greece together so they can learn how to use the additional money to subsidize pedophiles and collect stool samples as a condition of getting a business license to set up an online company.

Reusable: biden obama gun control speech

President Barack Obama announces the creation of an interagency task force for guns as as Vice President Joseph Biden listens on.Getty Images

Joe Biden: Worse than Barack Obama, Worse than Hillary Clinton

Given their overt statism, I’ve mostly focused on the misguided policies being advocated by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

But that doesn’t mean Joe Biden’s platform is reasonable or moderate.

Ezra Klein of Vox unabashedly states that the former Vice President’s policies are “far to Obama’s left.”

This is an issue where folks on both ends of the spectrum agree.

In a column for the right-leaning American Spectator, George Neumayr also says Biden is not a moderate.

Biden likes to feed the mythology that he is still a moderate. …This is, after all, a pol who giddily whispered in Barack Obama’s ear that a massive government takeover of health care “was a big f—ing deal,”…and now pronouncing Obamacare only a baby step toward a more progressive future. It can’t be repeated enough that “Climate Change” Joe doesn’t give a damn about the ruinous consequences of extreme environmentalism for Rust Belt industries. His Climate Change plans read like something Al Gore might have scribbled to him in a note. …On issue after issue, Biden is taking hardline liberal stances. …“I have the most progressive record of anybody running.” …He is far more comfortable on the Ellen show than on the streets of Scranton. He has given up Amtrak for private jets, and, like his lobbyist brother and grifter son, has cashed in on his last name.

If you want policy details, the Wall Street Journal opined on his fiscal plan.

Mr. Biden has previously promised to spend $1.7 trillion over 10 years on a Green New Deal, $750 billion on health care, and $750 billion on higher education. To pay for it all, he’s set out $3.4 trillion in tax increases. This is more aggressive, for the record, than Hillary Clinton’s proposed tax increases in 2016, which totaled $1.4 trillion, per an analysis at the time from the left-of-center Tax Policy Center. In 2008 Barack Obama pledged to raise taxes on the rich while cutting them on net by $2.9 trillion. Twice as many tax increases as the last presidential nominee: That’s now the “moderate” Democratic position. …raising the top rate for residents of all states. …a huge increase on today’s top capital-gains rate of 23.8%… This would put rates on long-term capital gains at their highest since the 1970s. …Raise the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%. This would…vault the U.S. corporate rate back to near the top in the developed world. …the bottom line is big tax increases on people, capital and businesses. There’s nothing pro-growth in the mix.

And the ever-rigorous Peter Suderman of Reason wrote about Biden’s statist agenda.

Biden released a proposal to raise a slew of new taxes, mostly on corporations and high earners. He would increase tax rates on capital gains, increase the tax rate for households earning more than $510,000 annually, double the minimum tax rate for multinational corporations,impose a minimum tax on large companies whose tax filings don’t show them paying a certain percentage of their earnings, and undo many of the tax cuts included in the 2017 tax law. …as The New York Times reports, Biden’s proposed tax hikes are more than double what Hillary Clinton called for during the 2016 campaign. …Hillary Clinton…pushed the party gently to the left. Four years later, before the campaign is even over, the party’s supposed moderates are proposing double or even quadruple the new taxes she proposed.

The former Veep isn’t just a fan of higher taxes and more spending.

He also likes nanny-state policies.

Joe Biden says he is 100% in favor of banning plastic bags in the U.S. …let’s take a quick walk through the facts about single-use plastic bags at the retail level. …the plastic bags typically handed out by retailers make up only 0.6% of visible litter. Or put another way, for every 1,000 pieces of litter, only six are plastic bags. …They make up less than 1% of landfills by weight… 90% of the plastic bags found at sea streamed in from eight rivers in Asia and two in Africa. Only about 1% of all plastic in the ocean is from America. …Thicker plastic bags have to be used at least 11 times before they yield any environmental benefits. This is much longer than their typical lifespans. …Though it might seem almost innocuous, Biden’s support for a bag ban is symptom of a greater sickness in the Democratic Party. It craves unfettered political power.

Let’s not forget, by the way, that Biden (like most politicians in Washington) is corrupt.

Here are some excerpts from a Peter Schweizer column in the New York Post.

Political figures have long used their families to route power and benefits for their own self-enrichment. …one particular politician — Joe Biden — emerges as the king of the sweetheart deal, with no less than five family members benefiting from his largesse, favorable access and powerful position for commercial gain. …Joe Biden’s younger brother, James, has been an integral part of the family political machine…HillStone announced that James Biden would be joining the firm as an executive vice president. James appeared to have little or no background in housing construction, but…the firm was starting negotiations to win a massive contract in war-torn Iraq. Six months later, the firm announced a contract to build 100,000 homes. …A group of minority partners, including James Biden, stood to split about $735 million. …With the election of his father as vice president, Hunter Biden launched businesses fused to his father’s power that led him to lucrative deals with a rogue’s gallery of governments and oligarchs around the world. …Hunter’s involvement with an entity called Burnham Financial Group…Burnham became the center of a federal investigation involving a $60 million fraud scheme against one of the poorest Indian tribes in America, the Oglala Sioux. …the firm relied on his father’s name and political status as a means of both recruiting pension money into the scheme.

I only excerpted sections about Biden’s brother and son. You should read the entire article.

And even the left-leaning U.K.-based Guardian has the same perspective on Biden’s oleaginous behavior.

Biden has a big corruption problem and it makes him a weak candidate. …I can already hear the howls: But look at Trump! Trump is 1,000 times worse! You don’t need to convince me. …But here’s the thing: nominating a candidate like Biden will make it far more difficult to defeat Trump. It will allow Trump to muddy the water, to once again pretend he is the one “draining the swamp”, running against Washington culture. …With Biden, we are basically handing Trump a whataboutism playbook. …his record represents the transactional, grossly corrupt culture in Washington that long precedes Trump.

I’ll close by simply sharing some objective data about Biden’s voting behavior when he was a Senator.

According to the National Taxpayers Union, he finished his time on Capitol Hill with eleven-consecutive “F” scores (hey, at least he was consistent!).

And he also was the only Senator who got a lifetime rating of zero from the Club for Growth.

Though if you want to be generous, his lifetime rating was actually 0.025 percent.

Regardless, that was still worse than Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.

So if Biden become President, it’s safe to assume that America will accelerate on the already-baked-in-the-cake road to Greece.

P.S. Of course, we’ll be on that path even if Biden doesn’t become President, so perhaps the moral of the story is to buy land in Australia.

—-

Interpreting the Election Results

For what it’s worth, my presidential prediction for 2020 will probably turn out to be more accurate than my presidential prediction for 2016.

But I doubt anyone cares about that. Let’s instead look at what happened last night (and, in some cases, what is still happening).

President

It appears that Biden will prevail in the battle for the White House when the dust settles, but you can see from this Washington Post map that the race was much closer than most people expected (Pennsylvania is expected to shift to Biden as mail-in votes are counted, and perhaps Georgia as well).

If that’s the final result, here are two obvious takeaways based on where a president has a lot of unilateral power.

Other policy areas generally require agreement between the executive branch and the legislative branch, so we can’t know the impact of a Biden presidency without perusing congressional results.

Senate

In my humble opinion, the big news of the night is that Republicans appear to have retained control of the Senate.

If true, that means some left-wing goals are now very unlikely.

There won’t be any court packing. There won’t be any serious effort to increase the number of Democratic senators by granting statehood to Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.

But let’s focus on the economic issues. Here are some quick takeaways.

House of Representatives

It appears that Republicans will gain seats, which is contrary to all expectations.

That being said, there’s zero possibility of a GOP takeover, so Nancy Pelosi will remain in charge.

Ballot Initiatives

I wrote two weeks ago about this election’s six most important ballot initiatives.

The great news is that taxpayers scored a big victory by defeating the effort to get rid of the flat tax in Illinois an replace it with a so-called progressive tax. Winning that battle probably won’t rescue the Prairie State, but at least it will slow down its march to bankruptcy.

The other five battles mostly were decided correctly – at least based on the latest vote margins.

  • California voters rejected an initiative that would allow the state to engage in racial discrimination.
  • The California initiative to weaken limits on property taxes is trailing.
  • The Colorado initiative to lower the state’s flat tax appears prevailed.
  • The Colorado initiative to strengthen TABOR (the state’s spending cap) is leading.
  • The one clear piece of bad news is that an Arizona initiative to impose a big increase in the top income tax rate appears likely to prevail.

What’s the future for Trump and Trumpism?

Regular readers know I want the GOP to be the Party of Reaganrather than the Party of Trump.

So I will be very interested to see whether Trump’s apparent defeat means Republicans go back to (at least pretending to favor) conventional small-government conservatism.

That will have the be the topic of a future column.

A Silver Lining for Republicans

The party controlling the White House usually loses mid-term elections. For recent examples, Democrats won the House in 2018 and there were big victories for the GOP in 2010 and 2014during the Obama years.

In all likelihood, Republicans will now do much better in the 2022 midterm election with Biden in the White House instead of Trump.

A Silver Lining for Taxpayers

It’s not something that can be quantified, but congressional Republicans will now become much better on spending issues. They’ll no longer face pressure to go along with Trump’s profligacy and they’ll have a partisan incentive to oppose Biden’s profligate agenda.

P.S. Whether you’re happy or sad about the election results, remember that it’s always appropriate to laugh at the clowns and crooks in Washington.

President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Tom Selleck, Dudley Moore, Lucille Ball at a Tribute to Bob Hope’s 80th birthday at the Kennedy Center. 5/20/83.

__________________________

Dan Mitchell is very good at giving speeches and making it very simple to understand economic policy and how it affects a nation. Mitchell also talks about slowing the growth of government and he gives credit to Clinton and Reagan.

Probably my favorite subject that Dan has covered is the Laffer Curve. I got a chance to hear Arthur Laffer speak at Memphis St University in 1981 and Laffer actually predicted what would happen in the next 7 years because of the Reagan Tax Cuts and all of his predictions came true. What did we learn from the Laffer Curve in the 1980′s? Lowering top tax rate from 70% to 28% from 1980 to 1988 and those earning over $200,000 paid 99 billion in taxes instead of 19 billion!!!! The funny thing is that the world saw what we did and followed along. The drop of the industrialized countries during this same time was 26% (from 68% to 42% on average). It reminded me of Milton Friedman 1980 book “Free to Choose” and his answer to the 11% inflation that President Carter was dealing with in 1980. Reagan put Friedman’s solution into action and 5 years later inflation was under control.

Below is a fine article and video from Dan Mitchell.

(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic advisers.
(R Row, from front to rear) Milton Friedman, George Shultz, Pres. Ronald Reagan, Arthur Burns, William Simon and Walter Wriston & unknown at a meeting of White House economic

I’ve narrated a video that cites Economic Freedom of the World data to explain the five major factors that determine economic performance.

But that video is only six minutes long, so I only skim the surface. For those of you who feel that you’re missing out, you can listen to me pontificate on public policy and growth for more than sixty minutes in this video of a class I taught at the Citadel in South Carolina (and if you’re a glutton for punishment, there’s also nearly an hour of Q&A).

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell

Published on Apr 2, 2012

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel J. Mitchell speaks to cadets economics and conservatism. This is the 10th lecture in the seminar series titled “The Conservative Intellectual Tradition in America.”

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There are two points that are worth some additional attention.

1. In my discussion of regulation, I mention that health and safety rules can actually cause needless deaths by undermining economic performance. I elaborated on this topic when I waded into the election-season debateabout whether Obama supporters were right to accuse Romney of causing a worker’s premature death.

2. In my discussion of deficits and debt, I criticize the Congressional Budget Office for assuming that government fiscal balance is the key determinant of economic growth. And since CBO assumes you maximize growth by somehow having large surpluses, the bureaucrats actually argue that higher taxes are good for growth and their analysis implies that the growth-maximizing tax rate is 100 percent.

P.S. If you prefer much shorter doses of Dan Mitchell, you can watch my one-minute videos on tax reform that were produced by the Heartland Institute.

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