Category Archives: Milton Friedman

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 35

February 17, 2011 – 9:21 am

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The Reagans have tea with Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the White House residence. 11/9/85 .

I remember when I visited London in July of 1981 and the whole town was getting ready for the big royal wedding between Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Above you will see them pictured with President Reagan.

I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient?

The case against abortion does not rest here, however, for medical practice confirms at every step the correctness of these moral sensibilities. Modern medicine treats the unborn child as a patient. Medical pioneers have made great breakthroughs in treating the unborn — for genetic problems, vitamin deficiencies, irregular heart rhythms, and other medical conditions. Who can forget George Will’s moving account of the little boy who underwent brain surgery six times during the nine weeks before he was born? Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.

What more dramatic confirmation could we have of the real issue than the Baby Doe case in Bloomington, Indiana? The death of that tiny infant tore at the hearts of all Americans because the child was undeniably a live human being — one lying helpless before the eyes of the doctors and the eyes of the nation. The real issue for the courts was not whether Baby Doe was a human being. The real issue was whether to protect the life of a human being who had Down’s Syndrome, who would probably be mentally handicapped, but who needed a routine surgical procedure to unblock his esophagus and allow him to eat. A doctor testified to the presiding judge that, even with his physical problem corrected, Baby Doe would have a “non-existent” possibility for “a minimally adequate quality of life” — in other words, that retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty. The judge let Baby Doe starve and die, and the Indiana Supreme Court sanctioned his decision.

Federal law does not allow federally-assisted hospitals to decide that Down’s Syndrome infants are not worth treating, much less to decide to starve them to death. Accordingly, I have directed the Departments of Justice and HHS to apply civil rights regulations to protect handicapped newborns. All hospitals receiving federal funds must post notices which will clearly state that failure to feed handicapped babies is prohibited by federal law. The basic issue is whether to value and protect the lives of the handicapped, whether to recognize the sanctity of human life. This is the same basic issue that underlies the question of abortion.

The 1981 Senate hearings on the beginning of human life brought out the basic issue more clearly than ever before. The many medical and scientific witnesses who testified disagreed on many things, but not on the scientific evidence that the unborn child is alive, is a distinct individual, or is a member of the human species. They did disagree over the value question, whether to give value to a human life at its early and most vulnerable stages of existence.

Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value. Some have said that only those individuals with “consciousness of self” are human beings. One such writer has followed this deadly logic and concluded that “shocking as it may seem, a newly born infant is not a human being.”

A Nobel Prize winning scientist has suggested that if a handicapped child “were not declared fully human until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice.” In other words, “quality control” to see if newly born human beings are up to snuff.

Obviously, some influential people want to deny that every human life has intrinsic, sacred worth. They insist that a member of the human race must have certain qualities before they accord him or her status as a “human being.”

Events have borne out the editorial in a California medical journal which explained three years before Roe v. Wade that the social acceptance of abortion is a “defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition, or status.”

Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 3)

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Little known presidential facts:

  1. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter, the first Southerner elected to the presidency following the Civil War, restored U.S. citizenship to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.i
  2. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated the broken ankle of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth and whose name led to the saying “Your name is mud,” received a presidential pardon in 1869 from Ulysses S. Grant.i
By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife, Ronald Reagan | Comments (0)

Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 34

February 16, 2011 – 6:30 am

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Nancy Reagan photo with Lab School Honorees Tom Cruise, Bruce Jenner, Cher and Robert Rauchenberg in State Dining Room. 10/30/85.

My wife Jill loves to watch the reality show “Keeping up with the Kardashians.” Bruce Jenner who is pictured above is one of the main characters in that show since his wife is Kris Jenner is the mother of all the Kardashians.

Oh Bruce! The lovable dad and former Olympic champion is always the last to know what’s going on. Take a look.

I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.

June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.

EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.

Reagan: “If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it.”

Over the first two years of my Administration I have closely followed and assisted efforts in Congress to reverse the tide of abortion — efforts of Congressmen, Senators and citizens responding to an urgent moral crisis. Regrettably, I have also seen the massive efforts of those who, under the banner of “freedom of choice,” have so far blocked every effort to reverse nationwide abortion-on-demand.

Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart. This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade. At first, only a minority of Americans recognized and deplored the moral crisis brought about by denying the full humanity of our black brothers and sisters; but that minority persisted in their vision and finally prevailed. They did it by appealing to the hearts and minds of their countrymen, to the truth of human dignity under God. From their example, we know that respect for the sacred value of human life is too deeply engrained in the hearts of our people to remain forever suppressed. But the great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.

What, then, is the real issue? I have often said that when we talk about abortion, we are talking about two lives — the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child. Why else do we call a pregnant woman a mother? I have also said that anyone who doesn’t feel sure whether we are talking about a second human life should clearly give life the benefit of the doubt. If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.

Milton Friedman on Donahue Show. Friedman influenced me tremendously in 1979 when I read his book Free to Choose. (part 2)

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Little known presidential facts:

  1. Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman did not attend college. Harry Truman is the only twentieth-century president without a college degree.b
  2. The capital of Liberia is called Monrovia after President James Monroe.k
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Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 26(How to cure inflation)

February 8, 2011 – 6:27 am

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Pt 3 Friedman on how to cure inflation

Tennessee Ernie Ford & Lucy video clip

Below you will see a picture of Lucy with the Reagans. Last night my wife and I watched an episode of  “I Love Lucy” with cousin Ernie. It was great. You will notice a clip from that show above.

Reagan deserves credit for bringing inflation down. Take a look at the clip above from Milton Friedman’s film series. The strategy that Reagan adopted is in the 30 minute program which I have posted the last 3 days. Reagan bought into what Friedman had put forth. The liberals had all criticized it before Reagan’s strategy was put into practice. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.”

The late Walter Heller, a Keynesian who had served as John Kennedy’s chief economic adviser, summarized the conventional wisdom most succinctly in 1980: “The[Reagan] tax cut would simply overwhelm our existing productive capacity with a tidal wave of demand,” thus accelerating inflation.

Amazingly, even after inflation had fallen by more than half by late 1982, Reagan’s skeptics believed the progress on prices was a temporary aberration. Economist Paul Krugman, now of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Larry Summers of the Clinton Treasury Department warned in November 1982 of a coming “inflation time bomb.” “It is reasonable to expect a significant re-acceleration of inflation in the near future,” they wrote. “A significant portion of the slowing of consumer price inflation since 1980 does not represent a reduction in the underlying rate.”

Here are the simple facts: Jimmy Carter took office in 1977 and there was 6.5 inflation. That was followed the next year by 7.6%, then 11.3% and finally 13.5% in 1980. At this point I saw the film by Milton Friedman on how to cure inflation. What was the result over the next few years? I had read that Friedman’s policies had been put into place at the Fed in 1979 and here are the results: 1981- 10.3%, 82-6.2%, and 83-3.2%.

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.

Little known presidential facts:

Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant, 1822-1885) smoked at least 20 cigars a day and, after a brilliant war victory, a nation of well wishers sent him more than 10,000 cigars. He later died of throat cancer.i

    1. Dwight D. Eisenhower had an affair with his wartime driver, Kay Summersby (1908-1975). Kay later wrote a book called Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight D. Eisenhower in which she claims he was impotent.e
    2. John F. “Jack” Kennedy most likely had the most active extramarital sex life of any president. He allegedly slept with Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, stripper Blaze Starr, Marlene Dietrich, and many other women including White House staffers, secretaries, stewardess, campaign workers, strippers, and acquaintances of trusted male friends. The FBI taped sounds of him and Inga Arvad making love.d
nasa
Teddy Roosevelt and his family could walk in stilts
  1. Every member of Teddy Roosevelt’s family owned a pair of stilts, including the first lady.k
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Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 25(How to cure inflation)

February 7, 2011 – 1:15 pm

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Michael Jackson stands with President Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan on the South Lawn of the White House before the pop star received an award from the president for his contribution to the drunken driving awareness program.

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President Reagan and Nancy Reagan posing with Rock Hudson at White House State Dinner for President De La Madrid of Mexico. 5/15/84 .
You will notice the picture of Rock Hudson above. I had read a story about Pat Boone getting to minister spiritually to Rock Hudson before he died. I had read earlier that Hudson had been an atheist earlier in his life, but I knew that many times people do revisit their beliefs when they get a terminal illness. Therefore, I called American Family Radio’s show “Today’s Issues” when they opened up for phone calls for their guest Pat Boone and here is basically what he said about his encounter with Rock Hudson:
Roy was his real name, though the world knew him as Rock Hudson. A major, iconic movie star, he  was homosexual. But the world didn’t know that, until he was famously revealed to be dying of HIV/AIDS. He, and those close to him, knew well that if his sexual proclivities were known, he could never have been the superstar ladies’ man, the poster boy for handsome hunkdom. So he and those who profited from his stardom kept it quiet until almost the end. 

My wife, three friends, and I were with him the night before he died. In his lovely, quiet Beverly Hills home, he was terribly ravaged by the disease.

He couldn’t speak, and his emaciated body bore no resemblance to the one millions of women had dreamed of. But his eyes shone as our little group gathered by his bed to pray with, and for him. Obeying the admonition in James 5 in the New Testament, I poured a little oil on his bare chest and rubbed it in with my hand, praying for him to be healed and restored. He smiled gratefully at all of us.

His countenance had brightened, and his friend/caregiver Tom exclaimed, “Roy, tomorrow is going to be a better day! I’ll lay out your ‘happy clothes’, and maybe you’ll feel good enough to get up . . . ”

But early the next morning, as Tom opened the shutters to admit the first rays of the sun, Roy, in his “happy clothes,” slipped away to join  our friend Jesus. I believe, since he gave his last days to their Lord, we’ll be together again . . . and I so look forward to that.

My wife and I still watch the three movies that Hudson did with Doris Day. They are my favorite movies even today. I plan to watch the movie “Giant” Feb 8th at the Dave Elswich Monthly Classic Movie Night when it plays  at the Market Street Theater  at 7pm. Another great movie that Hudson did some great work in.
Inflation had to be brought down and the liberals said Reagan’s strategy was stupid. However, it worked and the liberals had all criticized it before it was put into practice. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.
The Reagan-Volcker anti-inflation policy may seem noncontroversial today, but it is noteworthy that at the time the decisions were made, there was very little consensus about how to defeat inflation.
In 1980, for example,economist Paul Samuelson wrote that “two-digit price inflation is a distinct possibility for much of the decade of the1980s.” He predicted an inflation rate from 1982 to 1987 of 9.4 percent a year. The Democratic party was endorsing a host of inflation-fighting measures that were economically wrongheaded and almost certain to fail. During the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries, Jimmy Carter’s anti-inflation policy included credit controls and gas rationing while Ted Kennedy, his opponent, endorsed wage and price controls.
Most Keynesian economists had predicted that Reaganomics would make inflation worse, not better. Hobart Rowen of the Washington Post stated the conventional wisdom by arguing that the Kemp-Roth tax cuts would be “dangerously inflationary.”
He added, “There is nothing in the [Reagan] fiscal program–in the view of those not addicted to supply-side theory–that works against inflation.” James Tobin, a Nobel prize winner and an informal Clinton administration adviser, also had warned of the inflationary impact of Reagan’s tax cuts and had called instead for “a five-year period of gradually declining wage-increase guide-posts.”
I hate to only give you a portion of the episode “How to Cure Inflation.” Therefore, I gave you the first third this morning and now you can have the 2nd third. I promise to give the last third first thing tomorrow morning.
Part 2 “How to Cure Inflation” by Milton Friedman in his film series “Free to Choose.” This clip is 9 minutes.
1980 Reagan commercial
Little known presidential facts:
  1. Robert Lincoln is the only man in U.S. history known to have witnessed the assassinations of three different presidents, his father, James Garfield, and William McKinley. After he saw anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoot McKinley, he vowed he would never again appear in public with an incumbent president.i
  2. Much has been written about Lincoln-Kennedy assassinations coincidences, including:
    1. Both had seven letters in their last names.
    2. Both were shot in the head on a Friday seated beside their wives.
    3. Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre. Kennedy was shot in a Lincoln Limo, which was made by Ford.
    4. Lincoln was in Box 7 at Ford’s Theatre, and Kennedy was in Car 7 of the Dallas motorcade.
    5. Both assassins had three names with 15 letters (John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald).
    6. Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and was captured in a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy in a warehouse and was captured in a theater.
    7. Both were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in ’46 (1846/1946), were runners-up for their party’s nomination for vice president in ’56, and were elected president in ’60.
    8. Both were succeeded by southern Democrats named Johnson.k
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Ronald Wilson Reagan Part 24 (How to cure inflation)

February 7, 2011 – 8:39 am
Always at home on the range, President Reagan rides at his California ranch, Rancho del Cielo. He spent 335 days of his eight-year presidency there relaxing.

President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday anniversary

Always at home on the range, President Reagan rides at his California ranch, Rancho del Cielo. He spent 335 days of his eight-year presidency there relaxing.

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Ronald Reagan talks about the “American Miracle” that was started with the tax cuts. This is his last speech to the nation as president.

I knew how to cure inflation a year before Ronald Reagan took office and I had no doubt that if he was elected that he would stop the excessive inflation we had experienced in the late 1970’s. Reagan was an admirer of Milton Friedman and he believed his film series had the answer to the problem of inflation. I also had seen Friedman’s film series and knew that the cure to inflation would work. How did I know that? I had become convinced by watching a 30 minute film  by Milton Friedman. I will show all 30 minutes in the next three posts. Here is the first post:

Take a look at this 8 minute clip below:

(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

Inflation was very high when Reagan took office and many said Reagan’s plan of tight money for 5 years would not work. William A. Niskanen and Stephen Moore have sent the record straight in their October 22, 1996 paper “Supply-Side Tax Cuts and the Truth about the Reagan Economic Record.” I will be sharing portions of that article with you over the next few days.

The Federal Reserve, Not Ronald Reagan, Deserves the Credit for Ending the 1970s Era of High Inflation
One man is more responsible for the political success of the Reagan presidency than any other, and his name is not Ronald Reagan. It is Paul Volcker, the man Jimmy Carter appointed as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. A relatively stable currency has been the basis . . . for the economic boom of recent years. . . .
And Volcker did it. In October 1979 he persuaded his colleagues to starve inflation of the dollars it feeds on. President Reagan did little to help. In fact, his deficits worked against Volcker’s efforts (New Republic editorial, September 9, 1985, p. 7).


The conquering of inflation in a very short time was primarily a result of tightening monetary policy under Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker. Volcker deserves high praise for the change in policy. But Reagan clearly warrants a large part of the credit for endorsing the overdue correction in Federal Reserve policy from the high-inflation 1970s. A major element of Reaganomics, in addition to the tax cuts, was sound money–a policy the nation had not followed since the late 1960s. The Federal Reserve’s policy of sweating out inflation took place with the explicit approval of the Reagan administration, even though that policy contributed to the deep recession of 1981-82and the unexpectedly large and immediate fall in inflation was a major factor in the budget deficit explosion in the early 1980s.

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President Reagan and Nancy Reagan talking with James Cagney, recipient of the Medal of Freedom, in the Blue room. 3/26/84.

Little known presidential facts:

  1. In 1945, Congress voted to commemorate the work FDR did for the March of Dimes by putting his profile on the coin.i
  2. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to ever be photographed at his inauguration. In the photo, he is standing near John Wilkes Booth, his future assassin.k
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Brummett: Estate tax is okay because it affects few people

January 27, 2011 – 3:09 am

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Series on Estate Tax Part 6

Milton Friedman clears up misconceptions about wealth redistribution, in general,

and inheritance tax, in particular. He shows that this tax does hurt families and

our society. The questioner suggests a 100% inheritance tax but that would

destroy a society. Likewise Brummett below tries to downplay the harmful

effects of the tax by saying it is alright since less than 1% of the USA will be

affected, so lets stick it to them despite the harm it causes to family businesses.



In this series on the Estate Tax I will be quoting portions of the article “The Economic Case Against the Death Tax,”(Heritage Foundation, July 20, 2010) by Curtis S. Dubay. Dubay is a Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Number of Estates Paying Death Tax Not the Issue. A common argument in favor of the death tax is that it only affects a small number of estates and as such has a small impact on the economy. By that logic, a tax that only one taxpayer paid would be an ideal tax, even if that tax ground the economy to a halt. The number of taxpayers that pay a particular tax is economically irrelevant. What matters is the impact the tax has on the economy. By this more accurate metric the death tax is a poor tax because it is a large weight dragging down economic growth.


The number of estates subject to the death tax has declined steadily since passage of the 2001 tax relief. That package steadily phased out the death tax by reducing its rate and increasing the portion of estates exempt from the death tax from $1 million to $3.5 million, before doing away with the death tax entirely in 2010. In 2000, before the tax relief packages began, 52,000 estates paid the death tax. As a result of the increased exemption level, by 2008 (the latest year of available data) just over 17,000 estates paid the death tax.


Fewer estates paying the death tax has reduced the economic cost it imposes, but as long as the death tax remains in place it will continue to slow economic growth, destroy jobs, and lower wages. It is little consolation to workers that remain unemployed or see their pay stagnate because of the death tax that the impact of the tax has been slightly lessened.

Current proposals to resuscitate the death tax and set its exemption level between $3.5 million ($7 million for married couples) and $5 million ($10 million for married couples) would still subject estates that support the most jobs and generate the most economic activity to the death tax. Even though these estates are the most able to afford expensive planning measures to lower their death tax liability substantially, they often cannot escape the tax entirely and therefore still pay large tax bills. These large estates support more economic activity, generate more income, and support more jobs than the estates that would continue to fall below the threshold.


According to data from the Internal Revenue Service “smaller estates (under $3.5 million) make up the bulk of filers—more than 60 percent between 2002 and 2007. Large estates (over $10 million), however, contributed between 18 percent and 30 percent of the total revenue in the same time frame, indicating a disproportionate distribution of tax liability.” Subjecting these estates to the death tax again would continue to put a large number of workers at risk of seeing their wages idle or their jobs destroyed.

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Good intentions of Government officials not enough

January 16, 2011 – 4:02 am

 

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Series on Estate Tax Part 5
Many times government will be filled with “do-gooders” and they will have the best intentions. However, the end results of their plans do not help the people they want to help. Milton Friedman also points out that their are many private companies that want the trade policies of the government altered to “help the little guy in the street,” but they really want to help themselves.

There are few people that benefit from the estate tax, but insurance companies and lawyers probably are on the top of the list. Many times results of government actions do not match the original intentions of the lawmakers. This is the case with the estate tax.
Milton Friedman noted:

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results…Almost all government programs are started with good intentions, but when you look at what they actually achieve, there is a general rule. Almost every such program has results that are the opposite of the intentions of the well-meaning people who originally backed it.”

In this series on the Estate Tax I will be quoting portions of the article “The Economic Case Against the Death Tax,”(Heritage Foundation, July 20, 2010) by Curtis S. Dubay. Dubay is a Senior Analyst in Tax Policy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Who Benefits from the Death Tax?

Despite its devastating impact on the economy, jobs, and wages, the death tax has persisted for more than 90 years in its modern form and could well survive this year’s moratorium unless Congress acts soon. An entrenched group of special interests that benefit from the death tax and hold large sway with Congress are the reason for the resilience of the death tax:

  • · Estate tax lawyers and planners. Even though they face large death tax bills, estates from wealthy families pay considerably lower taxes than they otherwise would—because of estate tax lawyers and planners. Wealthy families hire expensive estate lawyers to arrange their affairs in a legal manner to minimize the impact of the death tax on their estates, or in some cases escape liability all together. Estate tax lawyers and planners have an obvious vested interest in seeing the death tax remain in place. As long as it does, they can continue to collect lucrative fees for arranging estates to minimize death tax liability. The fees paid by families to minimize their death tax liability are a drag on economic growth. The families could invest the resources they use to protect their estates so businesses and entrepreneurs could create new jobs; instead the money is diverted to protect the estate from the death tax.
  • · Life insurance companies. As long as the death tax remains in place, life insurance companies will continue to collect premiums from family businesses that cannot afford estate lawyers and planners but want to protect their businesses. In order to protect their assets from being liquidated when they die, these families purchase life insurance policies that will pay the living members of the family enough to cover the death tax liability when a family member passes away. The life insurance policies are expensive, but not as expensive as estate tax lawyers and planners. The life insurance companies enjoy increased profitability while they continue to collect premiums for policies to protect against the death tax year after year. The premiums families pay to insurance companies siphon off limited resources that the families could use to expand their businesses and add new workers.
  • · Large businesses. The death tax is an impediment for family-owned businesses that could expand to compete with larger businesses because it creates a large disincentive for the family businesses to expand. If a family-owned business grows large enough, it will push the value of the family’s estate over the death tax’s exemption level and the family will owe a hefty amount when the current owner dies. Faced with endangering the life of the business because of the death tax, many families choose to keep their businesses smaller than they otherwise would have. This prevents them from competing more forcefully against larger businesses that are not family-owned and do not have to worry about the death tax.Large businesses also benefit from the death tax in another more direct way. Even though some family businesses choose to remain small to keep the death tax at bay, others take the risk and grow as large as possible. When a family member passes away these family-owned businesses often lack the necessary cash to pay the death tax, as explained above. If the family cannot raise the cash necessary to pay the death tax from selling certain assets, it is forced to sell the entire business. Larger businesses can then buy these competitors and acquire a larger share of the market in the process. These transactions sometimes occur before a death occurs so the family does not have to go through a difficult and complicated transaction during a period of mourning.
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Today I am profiling St lawmaker Cecile Bledsoe.

 

Cecile Bledsoe

Wed, Jan 7, 2009

Legislators, Senators

cecile-bledsoeR-Rogers

 

Senate District 8
Three terms in the House, 1999 to 2005
Committees: Public Health; City, County and Local; Joint Legislative Audit; Joint Performance Review.
Special connections: Her husband, Jim, is a surgeon who retired from private practice and now works for a firm that assigns him to other hospitals out-of-state on an as-needed basis. Has two sons who are doctors but they practice in other states. “If I’m sponsoring medical-related legislation, I want people to know that I have no family members with a practice in Arkansas,” she said.
How to reach her: Home phone: 479-636-2115. “I check my home phone.” Legislative e-mail also works, but please “put your town. Otherwise I can’t tell if someone’s writing me from Denver or from Rogers.” E-mail: bledsoec@arkleg.state.ar.us.
What you should know: Was unopposed in her bid for a vacant Senate seat. Was been active in her community, local causes and in Republican campaigns long before running for office.
Her priority: Public health in general and setting up both a trauma center system statewide and a satellite medical school in Fayetteville in particular. Also interested in mental health issues. Wants more accountability in school spending.
Firmest prediction for the session: Organizing a system for the state lottery will take a lot of lawmakers’ attention.

 

 

 

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PART 4: American Exceptionalism? Not exceptional people, just exceptional principles!!!

January 7, 2011 – 4:32 am

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Milton Friedman takes a look at Adam Smith’s  invisible hand of the market in the episode “The Power of the Market” in the film series Free to Choose. Letting the free market work has been one of the principles followed by the USA that has made our country exceptional.


Both Max Brantley and John Brummett have a problem with the issue of American Exceptionalism and I do too if the term is meant to imply that we have more exceptional people than other nations. It is my view that we have followed principles that have enabled our nation to thrive. One of those principles is that we have allowed the invisible hand of the free market to work without much regulation in the past and the result has been building a great society that benefits a great number of people.

Adam Smith wrote in the Wealth of Nations, “By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain. . . . He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. . . . By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

Milton Friedman observed:

Two hundred years ago in Scotland, Adam Smith taught at the University of Glasgow. His brilliant book, The Wealth Of Nations, was based on the lectures he gave here.

The basic principles underlying the free market, as Adam Smith taught them to his students in this University, are really very simple. Look at this lead pencil, there is not a single person in the world who could make this pencil. Remarkable statement? Not at all. The wood from which it’s made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down in the State of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make the steel, it took iron ore. This black center, we call it lead but it’s really compressed graphite, I am not sure where it comes from but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser, a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the rubber tree isn’t even native. It was imported from South America by some businessman with the help of the British government. This brass feral __ I haven’t the slightest idea where it came from or the yellow paint or the paint that made the black lines __ or the glue that holds it together.

Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil. People who don’t speak the same language; who practice different religions; who might hate one another if they ever met. When you go down to the store and buy this pencil, you are, in effect, trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of the time of all of those thousands of people. What brought them together and induced them to cooperate to make this pencil? There was no Commissar sending out orders from some central office. It was the magic of the price system __ the impersonal operation of prices that brought them together and got them to cooperate to make this pencil so that you could have it for a trifling sum.

That is why the operation of the free market is so essential. Not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more, to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world.

The USA has followed the principles of the free enterprise system for a longer period of time than any other nation in the history of the world and that has played a big part of our success. We have been using the magic of the invisible hand (of the price system) to direct us, and the result has been a great economy.

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Today I profiling State Lawmaker Jonathan Dismang:

Arkansas House of Representatives

Family

Husband to Mandy Dismang

(Daughter of Dr. David & Beverly Staggs of Searcy)

Father to Cade (age 6) & Sawyer (born July 28, 2009)

Son of Paul & Nancy Dismang

(Retired Beebe Principal and School Teacher)

Brother to Willam, Kyle & Elizabeth (Mitch Breitweiser)

Brother in Law to David & Katy White

Member of the Beebe Church of Christ

Professional

Honor Graduate of Harding University with

Degrees in Accounting & Economics

Chairman of the National Association of

Royalty Owners, Arkansas Chapter

8 Years of Public Accounting

Experience with Emphasis in Taxation

Worked to Help Provide Guidance to Over

350 Arkansas Small Business Owners

Member of the Beebe Economic

Development Committee

Member of the Searcy Regional

Chamber of Commerce

Member of the Jacksonville

Chamber of Commerce

Member of the Beebe Chamber of Commerce

Political

Freshman Representative for District 49

Chair of the ALC-

PEER Committee

Vice Chair of the Income Taxes-

Personal & Corporate Subcommittee

Member of Revenue & Taxation Committee

Member of State Agencies &

Governmental Affairs Committee

Member of ALC Personnel Committee

Member of ALC Charitable, Penal, &

Correctional Institutions

Recent Honors

Named by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette as

One of the top Six Freshman to Watch

State Senate District 29 Candidate Rep. Jonathan Dismang Champions State Government Efficiency

Little Rock, Ark. – Candidate for State Senate District 29 Rep. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, championed government efficiency Thursday when the state Board of Finance approved a plan to increase earningsfrom tobacco tax funds after recommendations he made in September.

From “Finance board OKs plan to earn more from tobacco funds,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Michael Wickline, 10/1/10:

The state Board of Finance signed off Thursday on a plan to increase interest earnings on investments of tobacco settlement funds, a change that one official said could bring in $1 million more a year than those funds have been bringing in.

Autumn Sanson, chief investment officer for the state treasurer, said after the meeting that she expected the interest earnings for the Tobacco Settlement Commission to increase from about $49,000 earned in fiscal 2010 toabout $1.05 million this fiscal year.

The board’s action came a month after state Rep. Jonathan Dismang,R-Beebe, suggested the Legislature would manage the money if the board didn’t do better.

“Thanks to Representative Jonathan Dismang, the state will be earning over $1,000,000 in additional interest per year on tobacco settlement funds,” said Republican Party of Arkansas Executive Director Chase Dugger. “Dismang is the only candidate for State Senate District 29 with a proven record of increasing government efficiency and promoting fiscal responsibility in Arkansas. The Republican Party looks forward to the conservative leadership Dismang will continue to display as the next State Senator from District 29.”

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

Brummett: American Exceptionalism is really Chauvinism

January 2, 2011 – 12:02 am


I do not think that “American exceptionalism is as example of  “American chauvinism as Brummett contends. I have made it clear that in my two previous posts on this issue that I do not think that the USA has exceptional people, but has been the world’s best example of free enterprise. Let me give me an example that may seem strange at first.

Americans were given the opportunity to work in sweat shops in the end of the 1800’s, and the results of that experience has resulted in the children and grandchildren of those workers experiencing the American dream.

Read what Milton Friedman had to say about his mother’s experience in the sweat shop:

Of course she didn’t stay here a long time, she stayed here while she learned the language, while she developed some feeling for the country, and gradually she was able to make a better life for herself. 


Similarly, the people who are here now, they are like my mother. Most of the immigrants from the distant countries __ they came here because they liked it here better and had more opportunities. A place like this gives them a chance to get started. They are not going to stay here very long or forever. On the contrary, they and their children will make a better life for themselves as they take advantage of the opportunities that a free market provides to them.


The irony is that this place violates many of the standards that we now regard as every worker’s right. It is poorly ventilated, it is over-crowded, the workers accept less than union rate __ it breaks every rule in the book. But if it were closed down, who would benefit? Certainly not the people here.Their life may seem pretty tough compared to our own, but that is only because our parents or grandparents went through that stage for us. We have been able to start at a higher point.


But in the past 50 years, we’ve been squandering that inheritance by allowing government to control more and more of our lives, instead of relying on ourselves. We need to rediscover the old truths that the immigrants knew in their bones; what economic freedom is and the role it plays in preserving personal freedom.


Is America going to be exceptional in the future? It all depends on our adherence to the principles that made us great in the first place.


Take a look at Milton Friedman’s film series Free to Choose and the episode The Power of the Market.

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Today I have a State Lawmaker profile of Andy Mayberry who represents Saline County.

My mission is simple: To best represent the people of District 27 in the Arkansas House of Representatives.Like many of you, I have a growing concern about the overwhelming presence of government in our lives. I believe in smaller government, less bureaucracy, lower taxes, restrained spending, and those rights afforded to us by God as well as other liberties guaranteed to us by the Constitution. 

I believe that good government starts on the local level, and we must continue building a solid foundational leadership in order for our communities, state and country to prosper. As you know, we face many challenges, and I believe now is a time for men and women of good conscience and common sense to take action. I would appreciate your vote and additional support in this endeavor.

Thank you and may God bless,

 

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“… the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” – Benjamin Franklin
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Paid for by the Andy Mayberry for State Rep Committee

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In the immortal words of Deputy Barney Fife, I’m going to “nip it … nip it in the bud.” If you’ve been chuckling to yourself since you first heard my name, that’s OK. Plenty of other folks laugh aloud, though others never make the connection. Yes … I am supposedly named for the sheriff in the 1960s classic television program, The Andy Griffith Show. And I’m proud of it!

So what exactly is “Mayberry” thinking?

In my opinion, The Andy Griffith Show was perhaps the best television show ever made. If one has to go through life associated by name with a TV program, I’m glad to be linked with that one. To me, it humorously demonstrates the great morals, ethics and sense of small-town values I hope my daughters grow up to learn.

People in Mayberry loved their family, community, country and God. They helped their friends as well as those who weren’t necessarily their friends. And they never – not once – asked whether you were a Democrat or Republican before they offered their assistance. Perhaps best of all, they used common sense and worked together to solve problems. They were decent, kind, and always tried to do what’s right. That’s precisely the kind of thinking and attitude I’d like to take with me to our state’s capitol. I’d appreciate your vote to help me do that very thing.

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Mayberry receives endorsement of Arkansas Right to Life PAC
 

Andy Mayberry, the Republican nominee for the District 27 seat in the Arkansas House of Representatives, has received the endorsement of the Arkansas Right to Life Political Action Committee.

Mayberry, who is a board member of Arkansas Right to Life, is a long-time pro-life advocate. His wife, Julie Mayberry, is also a vocal opponent of abortion and has been a featured speaker at multiple Arkansas Right to Life events.

“Certainly I’m honored to receive the endorsement of the Arkansas Right to Life political action committee,” Andy Mayberry said. “It is encouraging for my campaign, and inspiring for me personally, to be one of the first two candidates in Arkansas to receive the ARTL endorsement in the 2010 general election. The fact that I join the select company of Congressman John Boozmanin his bid to become Arkansas’ next U.S. Senator makes the honor that much greater.”

Regarding the priority of pro-life issues, Mayberry said that in the grand scheme, there are none “any larger” than protecting life.

“The Bible is very clear that life is a precious gift from God, and that we are to value it,” Mayberry said. “It’s important how our society treats its most weak, vulnerable and innocent. Our Founding Fathers knew how important life is when they referenced it in the Declaration of Independence as an unalienable right endowed to us by our Creator, and I believe it is our duty to protect it. If we cannot trust an elected representative to defend the most basic and essential of our human rights — LIFE — how can we possibly trust that person with other daily issues we face such as the economy, jobs, safety and security, and education?”

Mayberry said that first and foremost, we have to work to change the hearts and minds of those who justify the killing of an unborn child.

“Regardless of the law,” he said, “unfortunately there will always be those who choose to kill and destroy. That said, I will work tirelessly with others in the pro-life movement to develop, sponsor, advocate and vote for legislation that will limit, reduce and – by the Grace of God, maybe one day eliminate – abortion.”


 

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

Ernie Dumas: Obamacare will help Arkansas

December 28, 2010 – 12:48 am

HALT: Halting Arkansas Liberals with Truth

Great clip from Milton Friedman in speech at Mayo Clinic in 1978



On July 8, 2010 Ernie Dumas wrote the article “Health law gains acceptance in Arkansas: There is a lot to like, including cash infusion for state” which was published by the Arkansas Times. Over and over in this article the praises of Obama’s health care law are sung. However, if the past can be used as a predictor of the future then the article misses the mark. Furthermore, in that article Dumas attempts to get Governor Beebe to endorse his thesis but the governor is wise enough not to jump on board so fast. Dumas wrote:

He still is concerned that a sharply expanded Medicaid program will put a significant burden on the state, even if it is eight or nine years away.

“It would be easy for me to say that it will be fine until 2017 or later since I won’t be here,” Beebe said. “I may not be here next January and for sure I won’t be here in 2017. But I have a responsibility to look at the impact things will have long after I leave.”

Unlucky for Dumas just two months later the Associated Press reported on September 9, 2010 the verdict on the cost of the new health legislation according to a government forecast. The conclusion was that “the nation’s health care tab will go up–not down –as a result of President Barack Obama’s sweeping overhaul.” The Chicago Tribune went on to comment:

“Well, duh. You can’t expand coverage by 32 million Americans and figure that will hold costs down. The Democrats sold health care to Americans with a lot of fuzzy accounting and shaky assertions about how relatively inexpensive all this would be”( September 23, 2010).

That reminds me of a youtube video I saw of Milton Friedman in a speech he delivered at the Mayo Clinic back in 1978. In it he referred to a british study by a Dr Max Gammon.

Dr. Max Gammon worked in the British National Health Service (NHS), and his study of it, beginning in the 1960s, led him to enunciate what he called “the theory of bureaucratic displacement.” In his words in what later became known as Gammon’s Law:

“In a bureaucratic system, an increase in expenditure will be matched by a fall in production. Such systems act rather like ‘black holes’ in the economic universe, simultaneously sucking in resources and shrinking in terms of ‘emitted production’.”
Dr. Gammon measured the NHS’s productivity by comparing two simple variables: inputs (defined as the number of employees) and output (measured as the number of hospital beds). He found that while inputs had increased sharply, output had actually fallen.

In fact, from 1965 to 1973 the input went up with hospital staff going up by 28% and administrative staff by 41% but the output (measured by beds occupied daily) went down by 11%. It was not for a want of patients since there was during that time period an average waiting list of 600,000 people.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Healthcare, President Obama | Comments (0)