Did the Stimulus or ARRA Work?

Did the Stimulus Work?

When you look at the program as a whole, the picture is not nearly as uncertain. Home buying jumped during the very period when a tax credit for home buying was in effect. The same happened with corporate investment. State spending stabilized in the middle of last year — just as states were hearing about their stimulus awards — even though state revenues were continuing to fall at the time. Consumer spending has risen faster than income growth would suggest, but about as fast as you’d expect given the combination of income growth and stimulus tax cuts.

More broadly, job cuts began shrinking just as the stimulus was going into effect last year, and the stock market began rising shortly after it passed. The stimulus was by no means the only reason, but it appears to have been a significant one.

Based on its economic models, the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that between 1.4 million and 3.4 million workers who have jobs would be unemployed if the stimulus hadn’t been enacted. Three of the best-known private economic research firms — IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com — have come up with similar estimates. The average estimated effect on employment is about 2.5 million jobs.

Nariman Behravesh, IHS Global Insight’s chief economist, has a nice way of summarizing what the bill did (and, to some extent, didn’t) do: “It prevented things from getting much worse than they otherwise would have been. I think everyone would have to acknowledge that’s a good thing.”

You would think conservative Republicans would just change the subject. The economy did a nose dive while they were in charge. The country lost trillions in wealth - people lost jobs and their homes. They apparently would have done nothing to fix the problems that happened on their watch.  Conservatives Continue To Claim The Stimulus ‘Failed,’ After CBO Report Said Otherwise

This effort comes in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showing that the economic stimulus package is having its intended effect — creating or saving 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs — albeit in a weaker than anticipated economy.

Republicans, though, have said that additional jobs legislation “would meet resistance.” They’re justifying this position — aided by the conservative media — by claiming that the “failed economic stimulus” has not created jobs, despite the CBO reporting otherwise. Here’s a roundup of conservative statements that have occurred after the CBO released its report:

    Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA): The 800-billion dollar stimulus bill that Washington passed has failed to create – or save – the jobs it promised…There is now talk of a second — or is it a third – stimulus bill…More government spending, more bailouts for states, more transfer payments to individuals, expanded government agencies.

    RNC Chairman Michael Steele: [Obama's] failed economic stimulus has considerably added to our national debt, skyrocketing it to a record-breaking $1.42 trillion in 2009…This time using a “jobs summit” to distract from the 10.2 percent national unemployment rate as well as President Obama’s and Congressional Democrats’ plans to unleash a second wave of stimulus spending on the American public, known as Stimulus II.

    Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): Washington Democrats staked their credibility on a nearly trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ that was supposed to be about putting people back to work…Given the last 11 months of outrageous ‘stimulus’ claims, the American people are right to wonder whether Washington Democrats can be trusted to create jobs and cut the deficit.

    Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: [T]he stimulus has been a manifest bust, much as the critics who appeared on our pages predicted. As the recovery continues, sooner or later the economy will begin to create new jobs, thank heaven. But the stimulus won’t have much do with it, except insofar as the higher taxes to finance the runaway spending further retard private investment and hiring.

For their part, Republicans have organized an economic roundtable for today, chock full of former Bush administration and McCain campaign staffers who, among other things, are responsible for the Bush tax cuts and Medicare Part D. Cantor also released a jobs plan yesterday, which Andrew Leonard characterized as a “magic pony jobs plan.” “Cut regulations. Freeze spending. Cut taxes. No new taxes. That’s the plan,” Leonard wrote. New CBO Report Finds Up to 3.6 Million People Owe Their Jobs to the Recovery Act

Anti-American Republicans of the Week - Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) and State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R)

Anti-American Republicans of the Week - Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) and State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R)

Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) is expected to soon sign a Voter ID bill passed by both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature. When she does, South Carolina will become the second state in the country to pass such legislation this year, although Voter ID bills are being considered by GOP-led state legislatures nationwide. According to the ACLU, “nearly 180,000 voters in South Carolina – most of whom are elderly, student, minority or low-income voters – will be disenfranchised as a result of this discriminatory bill.” The NAACP adds that it “immediately disenfranchises eight percent of registered voters in the state.” But while the new law will be very bad for the voting rights of minority groups, it’s already been very good for one person: the man who proposed it. State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R) received the South Carolina Republican Party Legislator of the Year Award this week for his role writing and sponsoring a bill that will kick thousands of South Carolinians off the voter rolls:

    Regarding the Voter ID Bill, Clemmons says, “Voting is a special American right. We have a duty to protect that right and to prevent Chicago-style election fraud. By requiring photo-identification to vote we are insuring the credibility of elections and instilling faith in a process designed to detect and prevent abuse…I’m humbled by the title ‘Legislator of the Year’, but I’m grateful that it has been presented at such a pivotal time in the legislative progress of the Voter ID Bill so as to reinforce the SC Senate’s determination to cast that final vote to make Voter ID the law of South Carolina!”

The prize is one of the state’s top distinctions and is presented to one elected official each year “for dedication and conspicuous service.” Clemmons, Chairman of the House Election Law Subcommittee, has led the charge for a Voter ID law in South Carolina for the past three years. His attempts had been successfully blocked until this session. But now, with victory finally in sight, Clemmons’ relentless efforts to make voting more difficult for people who tend to vote Democrat are at last being recognized and commended by his colleagues:

    “Representative Clemmons has been instrumental in securing the integrity of our voting process and ensuring clean elections by helping to move the Voter ID Bill through the South Carolina House of Representatives, and for that I am grateful,” said Karen Floyd, the outgoing Chairwoman of the South Carolina Republican Party.

The allegation of widespread voter fraud is, of course, a Republican myth. An exhaustive investigation of voter fraud during the Bush administration turned up only 38 cases nationally between October 2002 and September 2005 — of which only 13 resulted in convictions. One editorial in a South Carolina newspaper called voter fraud “the phantom menace,” and pointed out the law requiring all voters to present ID at the polls will cost over $1 million to implement at a time when unemployment in the state is still well above the national average. Governor Haley and House members also insisted on passing a “clean” version of the bill that will not allow early voting in the state, which, as one paper put it, “shows a partisan bias.”

When South Carolina Republicans tried to push through a Voter ID bill last year, state Sen. John Matthews (D) pointed out that the proposal was all about keeping blacks from the polls, reviving painful memories of South Carolina’s checkered racial history. “I operate from history, and my history tells me it’s more to this than is being presented — that we are trying to fix a problem where there is no problem,” Matthews said.

While there is always an underlying racism in Conservative efforts to lock out certain voters this one also includes, as a kind of bonus I guess, a war on the basic democratic rights of students and retired seniors. On top of the regular racism the attack on the rights of the elderly is also an attack on those serving in the military - who frequently use early and absentee ballots to vote. 

How Much Has Convervatism Stole From The U.S. Economy Since 2007?

The Consequences of Conservatism - Loss of Wealth Stunning During Great Recession

The 2012 presidential primary season is already upon us and the Grand Old Party is, not surprisingly, engaged in a grand old opportunity to rewrite history about the causes and consequences of the Great Recession. So it’s time, once again, to set the record straight.

The Great Recession was so great not just because of very sharp unemployment increases but also due to an unprecedented decline in wealth—as the Federal Reserve detailed in a report released this week. That wealth destruction is key to understanding the Great Recession since massive house price drops led to a foreclosure crisis that then fueled massive layoffs. Much of the unprecedented wealth destruction in 2007 and 2008 can be traced back to failed economic policies under President George W. Bush, when opportunities to put the economy and the labor market on the right track were ignored.

Incoming President Barack Obama’s hand was thus forced to first pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to save the economy from sliding deeper into an economic hole amid rising job losses, and to then tackle the problems that had been ailing the economy and American families—low incomes and rapidly rising prices for health care and energy—for the previous eight years.

Wealth destruction probably doesn’t adequately capture what happened in the early stages of the crisis. Wealth was vaporized at a breathtaking, eye-popping speed. American families lost a total of $19.4 trillion (in 2010 dollars) in household wealth from June 2007 to March 2009, when the stimulus started to take hold. First it was the housing market, and then it was the housing and the stock market together that tanked. American families lost $6.4 trillion in home value during this period.

Trillions of dollars are sometimes hard to grasp, so think of it this way: One complete house (at 2008 prices) was lost every 1.7 seconds during the Great Wealth Destruction. And this doesn’t even count what happened to American families’ rainy day funds and retirement savings.

The story of the Great Recession unfolded very quickly after that. The drop in home values meant that fewer people wanted to build and buy new homes, putting a lot of construction workers out of work. And the drop in home values put many borrowers underwater, meaning they owed more on their mortgage than their house was worth, precipitating a massive wave in foreclosures. This ultimately threatened to bring down the entire U.S. financial system but it also tightened credit such that businesses couldn’t expand, even if they wanted to. Jobs disappeared across all industries, not just in construction, leading to the highest unemployment rate in almost 30 years.

This crisis did not fall from the sky. We saw it coming. My colleague Scott Lilly and I pointed out in 2004 that the economic trends that ailed the economy and led to the sharp rise in household debt were unsustainable. American workers lived through the weakest labor market since the Great Depression after the previous recession ended in November 2001. Yet prices for key household items such as health care, energy, transportation, food, and housing rose, often at runaway speed. American families only managed to pay their bills by borrowing on their credit cards, for large consumer items and on their homes. The massive debt boom was a reflection of the economic squeeze American families were in during the 2000s.

The sad part is that the Great Recession could have been prevented. The George W. Bush administration had several opportunities to seriously address the unfolding crisis.

There were several chances to promote faster growth. The first opportunity came early in 2001 when Congress negotiated a tax bill pushed for by the newly inaugurated president. Rather than shovel enormous amounts of money to the top income earners with a tax bill that cost well more than $1 trillion in the first 10 years, the money could have been used to stimulate economic growth by giving middle-class families a boost and by investing in needed infrastructure such as new energy sources.

OK, so policymakers missed the boat on this one. But Congress had another chance to address the looming crisis when President Bush pushed for another tax bill in 2003. This one was intended to stimulate growth through cuts in taxes for dividends and capital gains, among other things. The bill was derided by many economists as a woefully ineffective way to turn the economy around and to bring stronger job growth to American families. And true to this prediction, the years after the bill’s passage were marked with job growth that was about one-third below its long-term average.

And there were opportunities to start to tackle high costs, particularly in health care and energy. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, a key piece of the Bush policy agenda, which added prescription drug benefits to Medicare, explicitly excluded two mechanisms that could have helped lower costs—allowing drug reimportation from other, cheaper countries such as Canada, and permitting Medicare to use its market power to negotiate lower drug prices.

In addition, several versions of an energy bill that would have brought more alternative fuels and promoted greater energy efficiency were negotiated but never passed—in large measure because President Bush either did not make energy reform his priority or because he directly opposed the upfront costs necessary to invest in the country’s energy future.

We are now climbing out of the hole that the failed economic policies of the Bush administration created. That’s why the more proper name for the Great Recession should be the Bush Recession.

Indeed, President Obama took office and led the economy out of recession in June 2009, though much more remains to be done. Household wealth has been growing, at least outside of housing wealth, because the stock market has been doing OK. American families are now down only $12.8 trillion from where they were in June 2007. Job growth has come back for more than a year but we still have more than 7 million fewer jobs than at the start of the recession in December 2007. And the unemployment rate has been gradually declining from a high of 10 percent at the end of 2009.

Wealth would be much lower and unemployment much higher without the constant policy attention of the Obama administration. The administration took massive quick steps necessary to prevent another Great Depression with the passage of the stimulus packet in early 2009. It also paid constant attention to economic growth and the labor market with support for small businesses that couldn’t get credit; with a health insurance bill that promises to lower health care inflation; with a financial regulatory reform bill that will shine some lights on the shadier players in the financial market; with a push for an energy bill that would have promoted alternative fuels and increased energy savings; and with extended unemployment benefits for those caught in the mess due to no fault of their own.

As bad as the Great Recession was, it could have been much worse, even though that seems hard to believe. Remember that when conservatives try to run from the record of the Bush administration’s failed economic policies while also trying to reintroduce the very same failed policies. The consequences of conservatism were dire then and would be again.

Christian E. Weller is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and associate professor, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Unfortunately the financial reform bill passed by President Obama and Democrats before far Right radical Republican got a majority in the House in the 2010 elections, was watered down by Republicans and a few conservative Democrats. Whether financial reform works or not is highly dependent on regulators enforcing regulations, rather than item by item laws. If Republicans have their way - they are currently working to weaken reform by cutting funding - we'll be right back to where we were in 2007. The big shadow banking system is still in place and they are still too big to fail. The only way to get to where we should be - making protection of the middle-class a priority - is to restore a progressive liberal Congress in the 2012 election cycle.

University Officials Conclude Latest Investigation Discrediting Breitbart and His Right-wing Propaganda Web Sites That Turn Out Some of the Most Insidious Lies On The Internet,

University of Missouri officials Monday issued a statement concluding that Andrew Breitbart-promoted videos smearing university lecturers were "highly distorted through splicing and editing." This is just the latest investigation to discredit deceptively edited videos promoted by Breitbart.
University Officials: Big Government Video Was "Highly Distorted" And "Out Of Context"

Big Government: Videos Prove Professors Teach "Fear, Intimidation, And, Even, Industrial Sabotage." In April, Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment website posted a series of clearly edited videos and claimed they showed evidence of, among other things, professors "instruct[ing] students on how fear, intimidation, and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools." [BigGovernment, 4/25/11, 4/25/11]

Fact: Big Government Eliminated Crucial Context And Qualifying Statements From Video Excerpts. Media Matters obtained and reviewed the context of remarks highlighted in the video Breitbart promoted. The video clearly excised crucially qualifying statements in a way that changes the meaning of what the speakers were saying, including portions where a professor explicitly rejected violence as an ineffective tactic. [See the truth HERE]

Andrew Breitbart and his parade of proto-fascist writers cannot win arguments based on the truth, so they constantly and brazenly resort to lies, misinformation and half-truths.

Republican Crook of the Week - House Education Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

Republican Crook of the Week - House Education Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

The for-profit higher education industry, known as subprime schools for their rampant abuses and systematic fraud, is fighting back aggressively against proposed regulations from the Department of Education. The rules call for schools to show that a higher percentage of their students actually gain employment after graduation in order for for-profit school companies to qualify for taxpayer money. As we have reported extensively, subprime colleges have hired an army of lobbyists and have declared “war” against reform advocates.

House Education Committee Chairman Rep. John Kline (R-MN) has been the industry’s best friend. Kline repeatedly slipped provisions into House spending bills to restrict the Department of Education from implementing more oversight over subprime schools. Kline pushed the effort, essentially a bailout to a multi-billion dollar industry that receives ninety percent of its money from the government, while industry lobbyists astroturfed support on Capitol Hill.

With the release of first quarter campaign donations, an examination of Federal Elections Commission disclosures by the Wonk Room has found that Kline received nearly $50,000 from for-profit colleges so far this year. Notably, on March 15, 2011, two days before the House passed his amendment against the Department of Education, Kline received $21,200 from the same companies:

    Mark Perry, President of San Joaquin Valley College: $2,500 on 03/15/2011.
    Rex D Spaulding is President of North American Trade Schools Inc: $1,000 of 03/15/2011.
    Alva R Sullivan is President And CEO of Sullivan University: $2,400 on 03/15/2011.
    Robert F Herzog is VP at IN Business College: $1,000 on 03/15/2011.
    Daniel M Hamburger is CEO at DeVry Inc: $1,000 on 03/15/2011.
    Lawrence D Earle is CEO of Carrer Point College: $1,000 on 03/15/2011.
    Corinthian Colleges Inc. PAC: $4,000 donation to Kline for Congress on 3/15/2011.
    Education Management Corp PAC: $2,500 on 03/15/2011.
    NELNET Higher Education Access PAC: $2,400 on 03/15/2011.
    Westwood College Fund: $1,000 on 03/15/2011
    Duncan M Anderson, CEO of Education Affiliates Inc: $2,400 on 03/15/2011.

Kline, who received another $100,000 from the industry last year, also hosted a brazen fundraiser with subprime college lobbyists on March 8th. That means for two straight weeks, industry lobbyists funneled cash to Kline so he could help them drain more taxpayer money without properly educating their students.

This morning, the Justice Department announced that it is joining a whistle-blower lawsuit against Kline donor Education Management Corporation (EDMC), a for-profit college company owned partially by Goldman Sachs. The company, which owns the Art Institutes and other private colleges, has been accused of defrauding students in several states.

Republicans keep saying government is bad, but they always seem to benefit the most from feeding like pigs at the lobbyist trough. Like your average right-wing conservative, Kline doesn't want government to work for the people and by the people. The more government fails at its tasks the more money Kline makes. Bank robbers are such morons. If they would just run for office as a Republican they can stuff their pockets with cash and conservative voters will reward them with another term in office.

A Federal Budget By The People For The People Needs Your Support

Find True Centrism in the People's Budget

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) People’s Budget [1]—the strongest rebuke to the Robin Hood in reverse “Ryan Budget [2]” that was passed by the best Republican House Citizens United can buy—is receiving some well deserved national attention as the budget debate now moves to the Senate.

The Nation immediately recognized the sense and sanity of the progressive plan [3] to create a budget surplus in ten years--through tax fairness, bringing troops home, and investing in job creation, and others are now praising its strengths too.

“The Courageous Progressive Caucus Budget,” writes [4] The Economist.  “Mr. Ryan has been fulsomely praised for his courage. The Progressive Caucus has not. I’m not really sure what ‘courage’ is supposed to mean here, but this seems precisely backwards.”

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman describes [5] the People’s Budget as “the only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget… unlike the Ryan plan, which was just right-wing orthodoxy with an added dose of magical thinking—[it] is genuinely courageous because it calls for shared sacrifice.”

While a Democratic Senate won’t pass this budget, with some savvy and organized pressure from the grassroots and outside groups it could push its principles during the upcoming debate on the budget and debt ceiling, and an expected deficit reduction package from the “Gang of Six”.

For example, closing tax loopholes that encourage companies to ship jobs overseas, eliminating oil and gas subsidies, ending our wars abroad, taxing the mega-rich—these are true centrist policies, reflecting mainstream views. While embracing these good ideas might do damage to some Senators’ corporate campaign contributions, it could pay off at the polls (and strengthen our democracy, which ideally would be more than a peripheral consideration for our legislators).

“The public wants job creation, tax fairness, strong retirement protections and deficit reduction—none of that is in dispute,” Representative Raúl Grijalva, co-chair of the CPC, told me. “The People’s Budget has been embraced by the public and the economic community. All the Senate has to do now is lead by following. Anyone who takes a serious look around the country sees the need for a fair budget that lifts us all up together. The People’s Budget fits the bill and needs to be considered.”

An April 17 Washington Post/ABC poll found 72 percent support [6] raising taxes on Americans with incomes over $250,000 dollars per year as the best way to eliminate the national debt. The People’s Budget does just that—rescinding the upper-income tax cuts in December’s tax deal, and creating higher income tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires as proposed in Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s Fairness in Taxation Act.

A March 31 Gallup Poll indicates the top two preferences for improving the economy are to “stop sending jobs overseas” and “create more infrastructure work.” The People’s Budget accomplishes both goals, including an investment of $1.45 trillion in job creation, education, clean energy, broadband infrastructure, housing, and R&D, and finally creating a long-proposed national infrastructure investment bank [7] to support loans and grants on projects that are vital to US economic competitiveness. It would also tax the earnings of US-controlled foreign subsidiary corporations as earned income, rather than promoting offshoring by deferring those taxes until earnings are repatriated to the US.

The budget debate will play out in the Senate and the media for the next several weeks, and it can indeed be moved in the direction of a People’s Budget—if Senators hear from constituents [8] and begin to speak out in support of these principles. They need to know that these are the issues you will be voting on—a budget that makes the wealthy pay their fair share, that ends the wars and brings the troops home, that invests in infrastructure and job creation. They need to know that there is a blueprint out there that accomplishes this and it deserves their attention and support—the Congressional Progressive Caucus People’s Budget.

This effort will continue into the summer, when the CPC participates in a 12-city nationwide “People’s Tour." No matter your issue—peace, the environment, education, poverty and economic inequality—all issues will be impacted by these vital budget choices we make. Get involved [9] in the People’s fight now.

As more and more patriotic Americans read the very anti-American Paul Ryan(R-WI)/Republican Plan they realize the center piece of that plan is all about dismantling Medicare and is a backdoor attack on Social Security. It is time for some sanity and courage in Washington. We do not have a runaway spending problem. We have a lack of revenue problem and a problem of Republicans who despite the economic collapse partly due to supply-side(voodoo) economics - still believe in that disastrous form of crony capitalism that rewards the wealthy and punishes working Americans.

Small Business and Families Under Attack From Republicans -The Dangerous and Misleading "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act"

Small Business and Families Under Attack From Republicans -The Dangerous and Misleading "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act"

H.R. 3, also known as the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," is a dangerous and misleading bill that raises taxes and increases costs on millions of individuals and families and threatens to take away coverage for abortion that women already have.

This fact sheet updates our previous analyses of H.R. 3, which can be found here and here.

See below for a PDF version of this document with citations and sources.

For a more in-depth look at H.R. 3, please see our long fact sheet below.
H.R. 3 Would Raise Taxes on Potentially Millions of Individuals and Small Businesses that Keep the Insurance Plans They Currently Have.

Right now, most insurance plans include coverage of abortion. H.R. 3 makes any small business or individual that has a health care plan that includes coverage of abortion ineligible for the small business health tax credit and the premium assistance tax credit, thereby raising taxes on potentially millions of otherwise eligible small business owners and individuals. If this bill were enacted, millions of individuals and small businesses will face significant increased costs just for keeping the comprehensive insurance coverage they currently have. Below are hypothetical examples of the harm that millions of individuals and businesses would face if they keep their abortion coverage:

    The Small Business Health Tax Credit is worth up to 35 percent of an eligible small business's premium costs in 2010 and will be worth up to 50 percent in 2014. Right now, a restaurant with forty half-time employees, wages totaling $500,000, and $240,000 per year in health care costs will be eligible for the credit. If the restaurant's health insurance plan includes coverage of abortion, H.R. 3 would increase the restaurant's taxes by $28,000.
    A single mother with two young children struggled to find insurance coverage in the individual market. Because the family earned just $24,000 per year and was not offered health insurance through her employer, the family would be eligible in 2014 to buy health insurance through an Exchange and would be eligible for a premium assistance tax credit to help defray its cost. If the family's health insurance plan includes coverage of abortion, H.R. 3 would cost a single mother earning $24,000 per year $3,173 in premium assistance.

There is more here. Republicans are hoping the public has forgotten or does not know that the Hyde Amendment already prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion. So they are using Big Government to intrude on what is a private matter between individuals and their insurance companies. 

If torture is a good thing, kind of like apple-pie according to Republicans than why are they fighting Senate investigations into torture. Would such hearings give them a chance to brag about all the good things torture has done for America. Or could it be that torture is still illegal, immoral and endangers the lives of our troops and intelligence operatives.

The death of Osama Bin Laden is a good thing. Well it is to most Americans. Conservative Republicans are pissed that the Kenya Muslim Marxist Anti-Christ President succeeded in killing Bin laden where they failed - FLASHBACK: Conservative Media Repeatedly Attacked Obama's Commitment To Fighting Terrorism

Texas Republicans Aspire to the Good Old Days of Medieval Europe

The New Know-Nothings

Texas, the extreme right’s political mushroom factory, is at it again. (See photo, right: a mushroom called a “dunce cap.”) Americans had better look out, especially if they still care about knowledge, truth, curiosity, the exploration of new frontiers, the power of literature, art, and, especially, real science.

Gov. Rick Perry’s allies are now attacking state-supported colleges and universities, insisting that research is a waste of time. They want to tie professor compensation to some kind of “how-much-money-do-you-make-us” evaluation. And on and on.

This new Know-Nothing movement is born of the unholy coupling of a home-schooling mentality with the ethics of a pyramid schemer. At bottom most of the recommendations are simply stupid. How stupid?

Consider that one of the reforms would remove the University of Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and other state-supported schools from the national accreditation process. Well guess what? Withdraw from that process and you can’t play NCAA sports. Period. It’s in the rules.