The Press-Dispatch
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OPINION There have been many frauds of historic proportions—for example, the financial pyr- amid scheme for which Charles Ponzi was sent to prison in the 1920s, and for which Franklin D. Roosevelt was praised in the 1930s, when he called it Social Security. In our own times, Bernie Madoff's hoax has made headlines. But the biggest hoax of the past two gen- erations is still going strong—namely, the hoax that statistical differences in outcomes for different groups are due to the way oth- er people treat those groups. The latest example of this hoax is the joint crusade of the Department of Educa- tion and the Department of Justice against schools that discipline black males more of- ten than other students. According to Secre- Red Ink on the rise By Ed Feulner When it comes to regulations, President Obama's message to his conservative critics seems to be: Message re- ceived. Early last year, he vowed to crack down on over-zealous rule- making, noting that the "rules have gotten out of balance" and "have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs." He's right— they have. But actions speak loud- er than words, don't they? For regardless of how tough the president may talk on regulation, his ad- ministration has enacted far more major regula- tions—and significantly more expensive ones— over the first three years of his presidency than the Bush administration enacted during its first three years. This runs counter to what we've heard from the president's apolo- gists. Over the last sever- al months, they've been bragging about his rule- making record. As the president himself said during his most recent State of the Union ad- dress: "I've approved few- er regulations in the first three years of my presi- dency than my Republi- can predecessor did in his." But a new report from The Heritage Founda- tion, "Red Tape Rising," shows just the opposite is true. This administra- tion has been on a rule- making tear. Specifically, during the three years of the Obama administration, 106 new major regulations have been imposed at a price tag of more than $46 bil- lion annually—and that's on top of nearly $11 bil- lion in one-time imple- mentation costs. How does this compare to the number of major regulations that were im- posed under President George W. Bush? It's al- most four times high- er. And the cost? About five times higher. Some- thing's "gotten out of bal- ance," all right. With so many rules being laid on the backs of business- es both large and small, is it any surprise that job creation has been so slow for much of the latest eco- nomic recovery? In December, the Na- tional Federation of Inde- pendent Business asked small-business owners to name their single big- gest problem. The num- ber-one choice, named by 19 percent of those who responded, was "regu- lations and red tape." It came in ahead of "poor sales" (though it's easy to see how all these new rules depress sales). That's up from 15 per- cent a year ago. Clearly the regulatory burden is getting heavier. And you can be sure that the weight of that burden is being shared. The costs of these regu- Continued on page 3 Wednesday, March 21, 2012 The Press-Dispatch Observations by Thomas Sowell The big hoax tary of Education Arne Duncan, this disparity in punishment violates the "promise" of "equi- ty." Just who made this promise remains un- clear, and why equity should mean equal outcomes despite differences in behavior is even more unclear. This crusade by At- torney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is only the lat- est in a long line of fraudulent arguments based on statistics. If black males get punished more often than Asian American females, does that mean that it is somebody else's fault? That Continued on page 3 The media endorse Barack Obama The no-spin zone—by Bill O'Reilly Writing in this space two months ago, I laid out the me- dia advantage that President Obama has in his quest for reelection. According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, 32 percent of jour- nalists say they are liberal, 53 percent moderate and just 8 percent conserva- tive. Ask John McCain how the press treated him in 2008 if you want specif- ics on the tilt toward Obama. A great illustration of media bias is the recent dustup over Sandra Fluke. She is the liberal activist trotted out by the Democratic Party to deflect the contraception issue away from the "church-state" controversy the White House was losing and into the more emotional "women's health" arena. Nancy Pelosi herself organized a press dog-and-pony show for Fluke, who por- trays herself as a law student having a rough time paying for birth control pills. She wants the feds to pick up the tab through mandated insurance bene- fits even though the pills cost about $9 a month at places like Wal-Mart, and are distributed free at health clinics under Title Ten legislation. But you won't find those facts being discussed much in the national media. No, for them, Fluke is a victim of a cru- el system that wants to unduly burden American women. Sure. Of course, Fluke was handed an enormous gift by Rush Limbaugh when he made demeaning comments about her. Immediately, the commit- ted left-wing media machine, led by the amazingly dishonest Media Mat- ters website, cranked up two themes: that Limbaugh should be deported to Tonga, and that he is the real power be- hind the Republican Party. MSNBC, which is now partnered with Media Matters in the quest to dis- seminate left-wing propaganda, went wild, and so, to a lesser extent, did other national media outlets. The sto- ry line is that because the Republican candidates did not call for Limbaugh to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, they en- dorsed his attitude toward Fluke. The analysis was so hysterical that it could have been a Jon Stewart bit, and in fact it was. The bigger picture is this: Voters who do not pay close attention to pub- lic policy and political controversies are at the mercy of so-called "prevail- ing wisdom"—that is, what they hear around town, from their friends, etc. As long as most of the media, including the entertainment industry, promote one particular candidate for president, that person will have a major advan- tage in November. But informed voters know the fix is in, although there's little they can do about it. A Pew survey taken in Janu- ary found that 67 percent of Americans believe there is bias in news coverage. They are right, and it is toward the left. Few in the press are reporting the truth about Sandra Fluke. That is an indicator of what the American media have become, as well as what is like- ly to come as the election campaign unfolds. C-2 Points to ponder—by Rev. Ford Bond A few weeks ago, an ac- quaintance was in need of a new pair of glasses. He usually goes to Wal-Mart because they are close and the most affordable. Howev- er, he wanted them ASAP and could not wait the usu- al 10 to 14 days that it took Wal-Mart. So he went to a compet- itor who offered same day service. The final cost of the glasses was close to what he would have paid at Wal-Mart until the technician said, "Would you like the warran- ty?" The warranty was sep- arate from the cost of the glasses, and my friend told the gal "Wal-Mart includes the warranty." Some dis- cussion ensued, and soon the manager came over, and the pitch was made that what was being offered from their store for an extra fee was in- cluded in Wal-Mart's price. The manager said, "This isn't Wal-Mart." The re- ply was, "Wal-Mart is your competitor." The manager replied, "They are a large out-of-state retailer, and her store is just one of seven and why would you give your money to a company who takes the profits out of the local area?" The reply was, "Wal-Mart is your compet- itor" She replied, "You are mixing apples and orang- es!" "Not so," my friend said. "Wal-Mart sells glasses, and you sell glasses, so they are your competitor." The exchange went on for a few minutes, and final- A woman's perspective—by Mona Charen Is Liberalism lazy and immoral? The best advocates are often con- verts. So it is with Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute. Brooks has an important forthcom- ing book, "The Road to Freedom," which I'll dis- cuss in a minute, but it's worth pausing over the un- usual career of Brooks him- self because it says much about happiness, free enter- prise and the unique Amer- ican spirit that Brooks has spent the last decade at- tempting to save. The son of two liberal college professors, Brooks writes that when he was growing up in Seattle, "No one in my world voted for Ronald Reagan. I had no friends or family who worked in business. I believed what most everybody in my world assumed to be true: that capital- ism was a bit of a sham to benefit rich people, and the best way to get a bet- ter, fairer country was to raise taxes, increase government services, and re- distribute more income." Brooks became a professional mu- sician, playing the French horn with the Annapolis Brass Quintet and with the Barcelona City Orchestra. He al- so taught music. But a musical career didn't fulfill him. "I (had) what some considered the best job possible, yet was unhappy. . . . My friends in the or- chestra thrived on what they were do- ing. . . . They spent their vacations at classical music conventions and heat- edly discussed the most esoteric de- tails of the lacquer on their instru- ments . . ." Like most Americans, Brooks want- ed more from his career than a pay- check. He wanted to derive a deeper satisfaction. Because he had skipped college to "go pro," he began taking courses at night, eventually pocketing bachelor's, master's and doctorate de- grees in social science. By valuing work so high- ly that he was willing to dil- igently study music and then even more sedulously to mas- ter social science, Brooks was living out America's promise of the "pursuit of happiness." In his new book, Brooks argues that it is part of the American character to value work. "Americans work 50 percent more than the Ital- ians, the French, and even the Germans." Why? Cosseted social- ists in Europe would say it's because we're terrified of losing our jobs. But Brooks points to research showing that the more hours Americans work, the happier they report themselves to be. Only 11 percent of Americans say they wish they could spend a lot less time on their jobs. The American work ethic can be eroded though and will be, Brooks ar- gues, by an expanding welfare state. It isn't just that people who believe life to be unfair demand that govern- ments "equalize" outcomes. It's that once governments undertake to equal- ize things, people begin to believe that success is more a matter of luck than hard work. A 2005 study of 29 coun- tries found that where taxes are high and wealth is redistributed through so- cial programs, people are much more likely to believe that success is a re- sult of luck. When government confiscates from some to give to others, the givers are affected. Or maybe they start out that way. Redistributionists are a lot less charitable than free marketeers. A 1996 study found that people who dis- agreed that "government has a respon- sibility to reduce income inequality," gave four times as much to charity as those who agreed. And those who dis- agreed "strongly," gave 11 times as much. Charity aids the giver as well as the recipient. Teenagers who volun- teered their time were far less likely 5 years later to report serious life prob- lems than those who didn't volunteer. Americans who donate to charities (time or money) are 43 percent more likely to describe themselves as happy compared with those who don't. When the state expands and soaks up more and more of the helping opportunities for those in need, it creates "learned helplessness" among the needy and de- prives others of the improving possibil- ities of charity and service. Americans remain, for now, an as- pirational people, less seduced by the politics of envy than Europeans. But with every passing day, that spirit is being sapped by the government be- hemoth. Brooks relates a telling anec- dote from the singer Bono. "Ireland has a very different attitude to success than a lot of places . . . In the United States, you look . . . in the man- sion on hill, and you think . . . one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion. In Ireland, people look . . . in the mansion on hill and go, one day, I'm going to get that bastard." That's the spirit of the Democrat- ic Party. It's the mode of President Obama's demonization of "millionaires and billionaires." If successful, Brooks warns, it will smother the greatest en- gine for prosperity—especially for the poor—in human history. ly the manager got the hint that unless the warranty was included at no extra charge, then he was willing to leave. In the end, the manager gave my friend an AARP discount which brought the glasses in under Wal-Mart's price. Now you ask, "What was that all about?" In this sce- nario "David," as the local business was made to com- pete with "Goli- ath," Wal-Mart, and Goliath won. As policy, the store could include the war- ranty free, but that is how it re- coups some of the cost it has to cut to compete with Wal-Mart head-to-head. P o n d e r i n g this episode, for some rea- son I connected this to American religion. First, what is Wal-Mart? It is the business model of merchan- dising in America today. For- get about its behemoth size and its connection to cheap imports. Consider what its presence in retail Ameri- ca dictates. Wal-Mart be- gan as a small town five and dime store in Arkansas. What its founder Sam Wal- ton was able to do was to reduce costs by revolution- izing the supply side and warehousing of merchan- dise. This brought about savings, which he passed along to his customers; this built his business. He was a major pioneer in the distri- The bution center, which is now considered a given in retail business. So again, how do buying eyeglasses, Wal-Mart, and religion have in common? Wal-Mart forces their com- petitors (other retail mar- kets) to compete with them. In the business world, this is called a market leader and price setter. You can't com- pete head-to-head with Wal-Mart and win. Their sheer size and volume discount drives out competitors. Christianity is suffering from the Wal-Mart syn- drome because it has allowed the secular drumbeat of modernizing to erode its core val- ues. The church is no lon- ger a cohesive unit. Though the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant denomina- tions had differences in pol- ity, they generally have held to the Apostle's and Nicene Creed and core moral be- liefs. But something happened in the mid 1900s. Liberal- ism crept into the church, and the leaders of our di- vinity schools began to de- mand that the church mod- ernize and become relevant. The Catholic Church in Vat- ican II modernized, and since then has seen a slow moral decline in its mem- bership. Look around, gone are the religious ministries Continued on page 3 Press- Dispatch MR. AND MRS. FRANK HEURING, PUBLISHERS ANDREW G. HEURING, EDITOR JOHN B. HEURING, ADVERTISING MANAGER Wednesday, March 21, 2012 Entered at the Post Office in Petersburg, Indiana for trans- mission through the mails as Periodical Mail, Postage paid at Petersburg, Indiana. Published weekly. Change of Address—Subscribers changing addresses will please give old address as well as new one along with phone number. We cannot guarantee prompt change unless this is done. Postmaster: send changes to Post Office Box 68, Petersburg, Indiana 47567-0068. Phone 354-8500 • FAX—354-2014 P.O. BOX 68, PETERSBURG, INDIANA 47567 E-mail—news@pressdispatch.net (604-340) SUBSCRIPTION RATES 3 mos. 6 mos. 1 year 2 years Pike and Surrounding Cos. ......$ 10.00 $15.00 $25.00 $45.00 Elsewhere in Indiana ................ 14.00 Outside Indiana ............................18.00 19.00 28.00 27.00 43.00 49.00 75.00