Few things I want to highlight real quick:

Editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette Wayne Laugesen was kind enough to write a little blurb about and link to the show we did a couple weeks ago. We talked about the horribly fallacious campaign to smear the Springs with deputy director of the Colorado chapter of Americans For Prosperity Sean Paige.

While we’re on the topic of the Gazette, make sure to check out the Reason Foundation’s Colorado kid wonder Harris Kenny in his op-ed, Colorado Should be Wary of Handouts to Hollywood.

Over on our Environmental Policy page, Amy Oliver shows us once again how much green it takes to be green. Both taxpayers and ratepayers will find their wallets just a bit lighter because of this. Additionally, over on Townhall.com Amy has a little fun with our national debt. Guess how many Superbowl tickets you could buy with our national debt? You’ll have to check out Amy’s article to find out.

Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson shares his thoughts on the most recent ruling against Obamacare on his blog, constitution.i2i.org. That unconstitutional individual mandate just can’t catch a break these days…

In 1980, one of the major party presidential nominees opened his general election by delivering a speech in a small town in the Deep South that just by coincidence happened to be the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. That same candidate had previously complained about federal housing policies which attempted “to inject black families into a white neighborhood just to create some sort of integration.” He argued that there was “nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained.” That candidate was President Jimmy Carter, the Democratic nominee.

Carter kicked off his general election campaign with a speech in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Although the Klan’s headquarters were located in that small town, Carter was not appealing to the Klan vote, but was instead hoping to win the votes of the more than 40,000 people who saw him speak at the town’s annual Labor Day fair. Perhaps Carter chose to start his general election campaign in rural Alabama because he recognized that Reagan might take away some of the southern states that had been crucial to Carter’s win in 1976. As things turned out, Carter was right to be concerned; he ended up losing Alabama by 1%.

After the Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan in Detroit in July, he gave his first post-convention speech in New Jersey, near the Statue of Liberty. While the informal opening date of the general election campaign is traditionally Labor Day, Reagan continued to campaign during August, and on August 3, 1980, spoke at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi. The Neshoba Fair is large and popular, which probably explains why Democratic Senator John Glenn campaigned there in 1983, when seeking the presidential nomination, and why Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis spoke there during the 1988 general election campaign, shortly after being nominated by the Democratic Convention.

Seven miles away from the fairgrounds is the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to find many places in Alabama or Mississippi which are not within seven miles of the scene of some infamous past act of racial violence, such as a lynching.

Reagan’s Neshoba speech was 33 paragraphs, consisting almost entirely of remarks about economics and jokes about Jimmy Carter. In the middle of the speech, he discussed his experience with welfare reform as Governor of California. He began by rebutting the idea that people on welfare are lazy and don’t want to work. To the contrary, said Reagan, they were just trapped by bureaucracy. Welfare, education, and other programs would work better for their beneficiaries if they were managed by state and local governments, rather than federally:

“I don’t believe stereotype after what we did, of people in need who are there simply because they prefer to be there. We found the overwhelming majority would like nothing better than to be out, with jobs for the future, and out here in the society with the rest of us. The trouble is, again, that bureaucracy has them so economically trapped that there is no way they can get away. And they’re trapped because that bureaucracy needs them as a clientele to preserve the jobs of the bureaucrats themselves.

“I believe that there are programs like that, programs like education and others, that should be turned back to the states and the local communities with the tax sources to fund them, and let the people [applause drowns out end of statement].

“I  believe  in  state’s  rights; I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level. And I believe that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the constitution to that federal establishment. And if I do get the job I’m looking for, I’m going to devote myself to trying to reorder those priorities and to restore to the states and local communities those functions which properly belong there.”

A rather mainstream sentiment, even if some devotees of federal centralization might disagree with it. Indeed, the bipartisan welfare reform law signed by President Clinton carried out Reagan’s vision, by returning much of the control of federal welfare programs to the states.

Some ignorant people claim that “state’s rights” is just a euphemism for racism. The phrase certainly has been sometimes been misused that way, but it is false to claim that the phrase is necessarily racist. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced the “States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana Act” in the 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses.

Reagan ended up winning Mississippi by 1.4% of the vote. Both Reagan and Carter were politically smart to take the opportunity to speak before large audiences in the rural South in states where the election would be close. It would be false to say that Carter was appealing to racists because he kicked off his campaign in a town that was the current home of the Ku Klux Klan, and it would be equally false to say that Reagan was appealing to racists because he mentioned his lifelong theme of state’s rights at a county fair several miles away from the site of an infamous crime 16 years earlier. Today, columnists and commentators who tell you that the ”kick off” for Reagan’s general election campaign was an appeal to racists are demonstrating that they don’t bother to check the facts before they make extreme allegations. People who are making coded appeals to racism don’t tell their audience that the “stereotype” of welfare recipients is wrong,  and that “the overwhelming majority” of them want to work.

Last week a Denver District court judge ruled to stop the Douglas County Choice Scholarship Program (voucher program). Education Policy Center director Pam Benigno spoke with Douglas County School District board president John Carson this morning on iVoices.org. Take a listen to this iVoices podcast to hear how the school district is dealing with the ruling and what their plans are for the future.

The Colorado Springs Gazette’s editorial page editor Wayne Laugesen and Sean Paige, deputy director of Americans for Prosperity Colorado, join me to tell you why the smear campaign against Colorado Springs was just a ton of hot air.

The Independence Institute and the Colorado Springs Gazette are pleased to present the upcoming event in Colorado Springs: A Constitutional Guide to Fighting Federal Overreach.

Come join Independence Institute constitutional scholars David Kopel and Rob Natelson on Friday, September 30 from 2:00 to 6:00 PM at the downtown Antlers Hilton for this important program designed to arm citizens with reliable, factual information they need to help restore liberty and constitutional government in the United States. Participants will also learn how to identify constitutional myths that, intentionally or not, can undermine the cause.

The program discusses:
* Why the Constitution was adopted and what purpose it serves
* Untruths about the Founders and the Founding spread by those who seek to discredit it
* How the Constitution was to be interpreted.
* What key provisions in the Constitution really meant.
* How politicians and courts have destroyed limits on federal power and driven America toward bankruptcy
* How you can use the tools provided by the Constitution to help restore the Founders’ vision
* And much more!

David Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute and one of the nation’s leading experts on the Second Amendment. The author of numerous books and articles, he also teaches Advanced Constitutional Law at the University of Denver.

Rob Natelson is Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute. He was formerly professor of constitutional law at the University of Montana, and has authored numerous books and articles, including the 2010 book, The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant.

Register online here. Or Call Mary at (303) 279-6536, Ext. 102. Cost is twenty dollars and space is limited.

Check out the Independence Institute’s public affairs TV show Devil’s Advocate tonight as I am joined by Denver Post reporter Lynn Bartels and Colorado Springs Gazette reporter John Schroyer for an update on political goings on around Colorado by the reporters who cover the politics beat. That’s 8:30PM on Colorado Public Television 12. Re-broadcast Monday at 1:30PM.

White House press secretary Jay Carney took the American public on the economic fallacy superhighway yesterday. A Wall Street Journal reporter correctly asked Carney, “I understand why extending unemployment insurance provides relief to people who need it, but how does that create jobs?” Legitimate question. If Jay Carney or anyone else has the stones to say that extending unemployment insurance creates jobs, they ought to be called on it and asked to explain how exactly that happens. Carney, like the self-deluded Keynesian he is, replied arrogantly, “I would expect a reporter from the Wall Street Journal would know this as part of the entrance exam.” Watch the video of this exchange to see for yourself. Carney goes on to explain the typical Keynesian fantasy land narrative: (said in a pompous voice) “You see, when someone is unemployed they aren’t spending any money. Unemployment insurance gives them money to spend. That spurs economic growth. Duh.” He then goes on to say that economists across the spectrum agree with this analysis. Really?

I’m willing to bet that not all economists agree that extending unemployment insurance, a euphemism for paying people not to work, creates jobs on net. And that is the key here. A government policy can very easily create some jobs. But the real question is, has it created more jobs than it destroyed. And my guess is that most economists would agree that paying people not to work does indeed spur some economic production, while at the same time destroying much greater amounts of economic production. So on net it is a job and production destroyer. Taken further, if this story were true, we could all quit our jobs and collect unemployment checks while we sit back and enjoy higher and higher levels of economic prosperity!

I just so happen to be in a profession where I can talk to economists and see what they think. I first called economics professor and Independence Institute Fiscal Policy Center Director Penn Pfiffner. I explained what Jay Carney had to say and asked how he would reply. This is what Penn said,

Recent developments in the understanding of economics now point to an overall loss to the economy from extending unemployment insurance. While it does help the individual receiving the redistributed funds to continue spending, that spending is not based on increased productivity (output), therefore we’re continuing to borrow from the future in circumstances where the debt mood is already oppressing the economy.

Okay, that’s at least one economist who disagrees. Let’s talk to Linda Gorman, an economics PhD, former academic economist, and Independence Institute Health Care Policy Center Director. This is what Linda had to say,

Mr. Carney must believe that the money used to pay unemployment benefits comes from elves. In fact, it comes from businesses who have to pay the taxes that are used to support the unemployed instead of using the money to hire productive workers.

Okay, we’re two for two. Let’s talk to someone outside our organization. I thought about it and decided that I could give Professor of economics at George Mason University Bryan Caplan a call. Luckily for me, he was in his office and agreed to give me his reply to Carney’s assertion. This is what Professor Caplan had to say,

Even if that story were true, its not the whole story. What extending unemployment insurance does is help people not look for jobs. Even Larry Summers believed that unemployment insurance extensions delay people getting back into the workforce. The incentive effect against finding employment is larger than any positive effect of the unemployed spending money.

Ah-ha! Even former director of the Obama White House National Economic Council Larry Summers agrees that extending unemployment insurance only encourages unemployed people to remain without a job. What else should we expect when we’re subsidizing an activity (not working). When you subsidize something, you get more of it (people not working). I worked some Google magic and came upon this Larry Summers quote,

The second way government assistance programs contribute to long-term unemployment is by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a ‘reservation wage’—the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase [the] reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.

This was taken from his chapter on “Unemployment” in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, first published in 1999. Of course Larry Summers changed his tune on unemployment insurance after he became an economist for the Obama Whitehouse, but he can’t hide from his past life when he was a relatively independent economist.

I wonder if Jay Carney has ever heard Larry Summers speak on the effects of unemployment insurance. Maybe Larry could change Jay’s mind some day. Or maybe this Independence Institute video on unemployment benefits could do the trick.

I’ve talked a number of times about how we can tackle our federal government’s spending problem. Each time the subject gets brought up, I must make mention of the Constitution’s solution to the problem. Our Constitutional scholar Rob Natelson puts it like this: the Founders envisioned a time when the problem would be Congress itself. So what to do when Congress is out of control and won’t rein in itself? Well then it’s up to the states to take control.

The next logical question is: how do the states take control? Answer: A convention for proposing amendments! The states must come together and address the issue of runaway spending by our runaway Congress. Rob has been talking about this solution for quite some time, but after a couple years of incredibly in-depth scholarship, he’s written his masterpiece for Tennessee Law Review: Proposing Constitutional Amendments By Convention: Rules Governing The Process.

Rob’s article contains the most in-depth look at our Founding era’s historical record on Article V conventions ever put down on paper. I suggest giving it a read if you’d like to become educated on this topic so riddled with fallacies and misconceptions. Additionally, check out this iVoices.org podcast Rob did this morning with my minion. It’s probably the best overview of the subject you could get in around 20 minutes time.

In a perfect world, our queen MAD (Mothers Against Debt) Mom Amy Oliver would be the 21st century’s Rachel Carson. And I don’t mean that in the environmental way. What Rachel Carson did in 1962 with her book Silent Spring was to start a worldwide environmental movement. The book helped launch the ban on DDT. Turns out that DDT was not the evil pesticide it was portrayed as, and banning it actually kills millions of people who suffer from malaria. (oops) Despite being wrong and extremely deadly, Rachel Carson and her book were able to sound the alarm, get activists fired up, change policies, and set in motion a movement that lasts some 40 years later.

Although Amy Oliver doesn’t have a book (yet), she is on a mission to kick start a movement to get activists fired up and policies changed. In this Townhall op-ed, Amy outlines her version of the Silent Spring – what she calls our “Economic Silent Spring.”

Right now every man, woman and child in the United States is shackled with more than $46,700 of national debt and that does not include interest or unfunded liabilities such as Medicare and Social Security. Assuming we continue down the superhighway of spending, by 2015 every child in America and their parents will owe more than $70,000 each according to the U.S. Debt Clock.

Debt is the new DDT. But unlike the harmless pesticide, debt is toxic. As it grows and grows it poisons our children’s future. Amy’s plea for less spending and a brighter future for our kids is not going unnoticed. Mothers Against Debt is getting bigger each day (like our debt). More Moms are coming to understand the danger in having policies that promote the “spend now, leave bill for later” lifestyle of Washington, DC. After all, the bills we are accruing at an unprecedented rate are neatly stacking up in each and every baby cradle across the country. Forget your kid’s impending college debt. They’re already tens of thousands in the hole before they take their first class.

If Amy gets her way, the Economic Silent Spring will start a movement that lasts over 40 years and changes business as usual in Washington. Help Amy ban wreckless debt. Join Mothers Against Debt today.

[Copyright Ben Hummel at PolitixCartoons.com]