Kansas Meadowlark blog recast. Earl Glynn of Overland Park has reformed his Kansas Meadowlark site from a blog to a news site along the lines of the Drudge Report. Glynn’s full-time job is working for Kansas Watchdog.
Economics in one lesson next week. On Monday, four videos based on Henry Hazlitt’s class work Economics in One Lesson will be shown in Wichita. The four topics included in Monday’s presentation will be The Lesson, The Broken Window, Public Works Means Taxes, and Credit Diverts Production. The event is Monday (April 11) at 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at the Lionel D. Alford Library located at 3447 S. Meridian in Wichita. The library is just north of the I-235 exit on Meridian. The event’s sponsor is Americans for Prosperity, Kansas. For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.
Government shutdown guide. Americans for Limited Government reports on What happens if the government shuts down? :Well, nothing really, and the consequences of a shutdown are really rather mundane. The worst part of it all, Congress would still be working, oh, and all government museums and tourist sites will close.” Tourist sites closing: that’s the “Washington Monument Strategy,” where any threatened cuts to the National Park Service will first cause a closing of the Washington Monument. Instead of looking for the ways to save money with the least impact, agencies propose cuts with the most impact first. … The Washington Post has more, noting that only essential government employees would work during the shutdown. Which causes me to ask: Why do we have non-essential government employees?
Halve the deficit by doing nothing. Writes Ezra Klein: “Just let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2012, as they’re currently scheduled to do.” But this is not “doing nothing.” It’s government taxation at a higher level than present, which is far from nothing. It’s redirecting resources from the productive private sector to government, which almost always means less effective application of these resources. The Wichita Eagle editorial board approved enough of this that they mentioned it — favorably, I think — on their blog.
State debt worse than federal. While many are aware that the U.S. federal government is awash in debt and that any plan to forcefully deal with this problem is denounced by liberals, the states, collectively, are in worse shape. Washington Examiner explains: “House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin talked Tuesday about cutting federal spending by a staggering $6 trillion in the next decade and in the process eliminating the $14.3 trillion national debt. As incredible as these numbers are, all 50 states face perilous fiscal times as well, but they are less able to cope than the federal government. States can’t print money, as the federal government can, and they are far more limited in whom and how much they can tax. There is one common factor here, though: Washington and the state capitals are drowning in red ink largely because professional politicians promised excessive entitlement benefits without making provisions to pay for them. … These liabilities are coming due as the baby boomers begin to retire, which means entitlement reform — at the federal and state levels — is likely to be the defining political issue for the next decade.”
This Week in Kansas. On “This Week in Kansas” Chapman Rackaway, Kenneth N. Ciboski, and myself discuss local elections in Kansas, and then the Kansas Legislature. Tim Brown is the host. “This Week in Kansas” airs on KAKE TV 10 Sundays at 9:00 am in Wichita, and 11:30 am Saturdays on WIBW in Topeka.