Celebrating the Truly Stupid Cost of Government

Hooray! Wake up tomorrow and go make money for yourself for the first time all year.

Stupid Factor: 4/10.

July 16, 2008
Happy Cost of Government Day

By Grover Norquist

This year Americans have worked until today, July 16, to pay for the total costs of federal, state and local government. This is 197 days of the year consuming 53.9 percent of national income. Over the past 22 years, in only four years (1982, 1983, 1991 and 1992) did Cost of Government Day fall later in the year.

Federal spending will consume 83.7 days. State and local spending will consume 50.5 days effort. Federal regulations cost 4l.7 days and State regulations cost 20.9 days. The spending data is precise, the regulatory burdens are understated.

Compared to when George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 200l, federal spending now consumes an additional three days of your life in 2008. The burden of federal regulations increased by one day after having remained stable as a percentage of the economy for the previous four years.

State and local spending increases cost Americans six additional days since 2003. Since the election of more liberal governors and state legislators in 2006, state spending has increased by 13.5 percent relative to the general economy.

Not all states are the same. Connecticut citizens with a more expensive state and local government burden will have to wait an additional two weeks for their cost of government day: July 31. Virginians work two days longer than the average American and Maryland citizens toil a full work week more until July 21.

Federal spending has increased $867 billion from 2001 to 2008 or stepping past September 11, federal spending has increased $570 billion dollars from 2003 to 2008. Since the 2003 tax cut on capital gains and dividends, the economy has grown by $2.9 trillion, federal revenues have shot up $785 billion. But had the federal government limited federal spending to grow only as rapidly as the economy since 2000, the budget would have been in balance by 2006 and in surplus today.

Politicians and pundits tend to focus on the federal deficit. But the deficit is the uninteresting and unimportant number that is the difference between two very interesting and important numbers: total government spending and total taxes raised. A government that costs one hundred dollars of spending where ninety dollars are taken in taxes and ten are borrowed is as expensive and burdensome as one where the government takes and spends all hundred. No money is freed up for the economy by taking an additional ten in taxes. The true cost of government, whether paid for today through taxation or borrowing, is total government spending plus the regulatory burden paid by consumers in higher prices.

The last fifteen years have been a unique period in American history. Since the 1993 Clinton tax increase that passed without a single Republican vote--there has not been a net tax increase passed by Congress and signed by the president. Fifteen years without a legislated tax hike.
That is the longest period in American history going back to George Washington. Since 200l, there have been 15 tax cuts. Some small. Most temporary.The pro-growth tax cut of 2003 created economic growth that by2008 increased the number of American jobs by eight million, real per capita income grew $2,887, the stock market increased by $3.7 trillion in value and federal revenues jumped by $785 billion. Those tax cuts lapse in January 2011 and already the markets are anticipating losing those gains.

The next president and Congress will not only need to maintain the relatively pro-growth lower tax rates on individual income and investments, but -- as Cost of Government Day painfully reminds us - deal with the true costs of government: total government spending and the regulatory burden.

Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform and author of Leave Us Alone " Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives.
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Thanks Grover for ruining my Tuesday but making my Wednesday that much sweeter.

Wishful and Stupid Thinking?

A baseless tirade of whining about how bad things are as the author drinks a latte and taps away on his Mac. Hope he was sitting at one of the Starbucks that is closing down.

Stupid Factor 6.5/10

Americans may be losing faith in free markets



Things are hard all over the financial landscape, and politicians and experts are now looking with favor at more, not less, government involvement in the economy.



By Peter G. Gosselin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 16, 2008



WASHINGTON -- For a generation, most people accepted the idea that the core of what makes America tick was an economy governed by free markets. And whatever combination of goods, services and jobs the market cooked up was presumed to be fine for the nation and for its citizens -- certainly better than government meddling.



Spurred by the continued housing crisis, turmoil in financial markets, spiking oil prices, disappearing jobs and shrinking retirement savings, the nation and its political leaders have begun to sour on the notion that the current market system is the key to a fair, stable and efficient society. Yeah, forget a couple hundred years of free markets bringing us from itinerant farm workers to 40 hour a week whining babies with flat screen satellite television in high definition. That was an abysmal failure based on the last 12 months.





"We're at a hinge point," said William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who helped craft President Clinton's market-friendly agenda during the 1990s. "The strong presumption in favor of markets, which has dominated public policy since the late 1970s, has been thrown very much into question."Now, to a degree not seen in years, politicians and outside experts are looking with favor at more, not less, government involvement in the economy.Of course, Americans always grouse during troubled times. And as market advocates are quick to point out, the current run of bad economic breaks has yet to result in the throwing over of free-market principles in favor of some drastically different approach -- such as a government-directed economy.





"There may be a backlash against markets at the moment," acknowledged Kevin A. Hassett, economic studies director at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and an advisor to presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain. "But the backlash doesn't seem to be informed by any alternative view of how the world works."





Yet the sheer volume of setbacks that people have been dealt has sent consumer confidence to some of its lowest levels in half a century, according to Reuters/University of Michigan surveys. A remarkable 84% of Americans are convinced that the nation is on the "wrong track," according to a recent Gallup poll. In just the last week, the financial markets have provided ample new evidence that markets are not working smoothly. Washington had to ride to the rescue of two government-chartered mortgage giants -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which hold or guarantee nearly half of the nation's $12 trillion in mortgage debt -- after investors all but extinguished the pair's market value amid fears that falling home prices would push them into insolvency. Meanwhile, federal regulators seized IndyMac Bancorp, a $32-billion mortgage lender based in Pasadena, in what regulators called the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history. And the already battered stock market took another sharp dip. The fact that experts keep pushing back the date when conditions may improve and the failure thus far of any national leader -- including either of the major-party presidential candidates -- to offer a convincing vision of how America will make its way back to sustained prosperity suggest that the current crisis will probably be very different from other recent economic bad patches. So may Americans' reaction to it. Even the Bush administration, which took office arguing that the Social Security crisis could be solved, in part, by tying some of retirees' future benefits to Wall Street, has begun advocating more government regulation of financial markets.





When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are government-chartered but investor-owned, began to teeter last week, the administration quietly went to work on possible government action. "If the pendulum swung away from government toward much greater confidence in markets during the last generation, the pendulum is clearly swinging back again now," said Daniel Yergin, whose 1998 book with coauthor Joseph Stanislaw, "The Commanding Heights," chronicled the worldwide spread of the free-market credo."Everything is weighing in at the same time, and that affects how people view markets and government," Yergin said."Nobody in this country really believes in unfettered free markets, and nobody really believes in socialism," said UC Davis historian Eric Rauchway, but economic crises of the past have produced constituencies favoring the reining in of markets and regulation of the economy -- constituencies that ultimately grew large enough to produce change.





Consider just a few of the things that are pushing people in that direction now: The price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has nearly doubled in the last year, while that for a barrel of crude oil has more than doubled, cutting short Americans' love affair with gas-guzzlers and driving the nation's trucking, auto and airline industries into deep trouble. Most mainstream economists assert that these increases are simply the logical outcome of booming global demand meeting limited global supply. But the price run-ups seem out of whack with demand, which has increased only about 1% worldwide. Hey stupid, this is not a one for one relationship. Since production (supply) is practically static in the short term, prices must rise enough for 1% of consumers to stop buying it. 2-3 cents a gallon doesn’t logically seem like that kind of number does it? Please America, be smarter than this.





The mismatch has fueled suspicion among many Americans and their political leaders that the third financial bubble of the decade -- after tech stocks and housing -- is underway, this time in energy. Both presidential candidates have fingered market speculators, rather than the forces of supply and demand, for helping drive up prices. What about the doubling of steel prices? Must be those speculators at work again right? Oops, turns out there is no futures market for steel. Anyone want one guess why prices are rising? Say it with me stupid presidential candidates: supply and demand.





At a recent hearing, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) cornered the federal official whose agency regulates the market where oil futures are traded. "How is it that the market isn't working to the benefit of the consuming public?" the lawmaker demanded. Hey Dingle, how is it you managed to get elected with such a limited knowledge of economics and such lousy people skills? The agency has launched a number of studies to discover whether speculators are behind the price increases, the official answered."Don't tell me you're doing studies!" Dingell shot back. "You've spent more than a year sitting idly by" while oil prices jumped. And so have you. Thankfully.





At least half a dozen measures have been introduced in Congress to limit speculation or to tax oil company profits. Similar anger -- and similar legislative efforts to intervene in the marketplace -- can be seen in housing. While Americans have been accustomed to some fluctuation in the value of their homes, most expected their houses to rise in value over time. And for much of the last several decades, that's what happened. But not this year! Scandal! Betrayal! Lock the doors and find the perpetrator of this madness! How dare the price of my home decline in a year, this might be the end of television shows such as “Flip This House”.



But starting in mid-2004, the upward arc of house prices began to flatten, and by 2007 it was falling -- sharply. Prices, especially along the West and East coasts, have skidded as much as 16% during the last year alone, their steepest decline in two decades. Many analysts predict further slippage. In large part, the rise in house prices and the recent plunge grew out of an almost unregulated corner of the mortgage market -- the one for riskier loans. As with fuel, "the message that Americans are getting is that something went wrong with the markets and you got hurt," said economist Robert E. Litan of the Brookings Institution and the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo. Yes, we tried to lend to some crappy credit risks because everyone said what a wonderful world it would be if everyone owned a home. Turns out many of you aren’t responsible enough and can’t be trusted. I’d like to take you all out and shoot you but I think we just won’t lend to you anymore. Oh well…





"With energy, it's the speculators. With housing, it's predatory lenders or crummy credit-rating agencies or stupid banks. We're not ready to throw out markets altogether," he said, "but we want government to do something about the excess." Stupid banks? How about stupid people asking for loans they can’t afford? Or is that a little too Phil Gramm for you? Let me also add my own scourge to the list-the stupid media. A similar pattern of hopes raised and hopes dashed shows up in global trade and retirement investing. Americans entered the new century convinced that "we had a new economy built on services and information technology that would let us win globally," said Harvard economist Robert Z. Lawrence. "The whole premise of globalization in the year 2000 was that it worked well for us and the other developed countries but that the developing countries would need help," Lawrence said.Today, virtually all those optimistic assumptions have been turned on their heads. Life sucks, go home and watch it unfold on your flat screen TV. "We've seen unprecedented growth in the developing countries, while the developed countries are being led into a slowdown by the United States," Lawrence said."We've found out that instead of services and information technology, it's all about oil and other commodities" that are not the nation's strong suit.





Finally, when it comes to investment, especially for retirement, recent years have brought unsettling disappointments as the stock market has failed to regain and maintain the peaks that it reached in 2000. An investor who put a dollar in a broad market index fund early in this decade not only would have made no money by today but would have lost a little of his initial amount.That's a far cry from the 1990s, when people told pollsters that they expected to make 15% annual gains indefinitely. That was equally as stupid as believing it will return nothing for the rest of time. Historians watching the nation's current economic and financial troubles say that just because Americans don't throw up their hands about markets and rush to an opposite pole, such as socialism, it doesn't mean that change isn't underway. As UC Davis' Rauchway pointed out, the devastating panics and depressions of the late 19th century eventually resulted in the progressive reforms of the early 20th century and, later, the New Deal of the 1930s. Today, Americans are not ready to throw out markets altogether, said economist Litan, but "what people may be demanding is New Deal lite." Nah, I demand that you all stop crying and go to work or school or whatever will make you stop believing that the last few months are bringing on Armageddon.

"When the going gets tough...the tough get, get, get a going"
-Billy Ocean

Snake Oil for the Stupid

The following is commentary from the author. Stupid factor 0/10.

What Barrack Obama Thinks…Of You.

Much was made during primary season of Barrack Obama’s seemingly elitist view of Middle Americans who “cling” to guns and religion in an effort to deal with the changing world around them. Elitist? Maybe. But Obama’s problem isn’t that you are “clinging” to something, it is that you are “clinging” to the wrong things, at least in his mind.

In 2001 Obama made the following comment: “…I would argue that affirmative action is important precisely because those who benefit typically rise to the challenge when given an opportunity."[1] Note the use of the word “given”. In order for something to be given, someone has to also be the giver. Someone must bestow opportunity on another. To Obama, opportunity is not seized, taken, grasped or won. Opportunity is not the prize at the end of a long struggle or journey. To him, opportunity is a gift from someone else, a reward for simply hanging in there. Sure you can “rise to the challenge” but someone needs to tell you what that challenge is, right? You as an individual cannot possibly be counted on to get off the couch and seize the day, so someone needs to knock on your door, get you dressed and make sure you use the bathroom before our big trip to prosperity-ville. Its nonsense, of course, but it sells.

It sells, precisely because of the prosperity that Obama denies exists. The prevalence of flat screen TVs, cell phones and personal computers among the middle class not only demonstrates how far we have come as a society in the last 100 years, it gives people serious alternatives to work. My grandfather didn’t have American Idol to come home to so putting in overtime or going to school on the GI Bill at night were legitimate ways to spend his time. Today, we are so distracted with the niceties of life that we the ambition drive in neutral and wait for government to step in and provide the opportunities we used to go out and seek. At least, that is what Mr. Obama believes.

Where does Obama develop such beliefs? From us, of course. He extrapolates stories of struggle and personal failure to us as a nation. When a woman in Michigan says “…I have been poor, and I have had to struggle, so I should get special treatment." [2] Obama doesn’t ask, what have you done to improve your life? He asks, how can we help? How can we give you what you need to succeed? What kind of special treatment should your government provide that it hasn’t? One of my favorite comedian’s was the late Sam Kinnison who famously asked the starving people of Ethiopia why they lived in a desert and didn’t “go where the food” was? Shouldn’t the same question apply to those who are struggling in high tax, low employment areas like Ohio and Michigan? While we feel your pain, perhaps we should determine what is causing it before we try to fix it. Obama is a modern day snake oil salesman prescribing the cure for you symptoms without fully understanding the disease.

Obama doesn’t think there is any real fix to problems like those of people suffering in Michigan other than government programs. A recent Wall Street Journal interview summarized his thoughts: “While Sen. McCain has argued that tax cuts -- particularly on business -- spur growth, Sen. Obama rejected that as flawed economics. "I've seen no evidence that...would actually boost the economic growth and productivity," he said.” [3] Really? No evidence? Did Mr. Obama happen to swing through Texas at any point in the last couple of years? Has he noted that low tax Texas is gaining employers and residents while high tax states like the aforementioned Ohio and Michigan are losing both? Has the junior Senator from Illinois traveled abroad recently? Has he seen the prosperity in Ireland that has been driven by the lowest corporate tax rate in Western Europe? Did his Harvard education teach him to view these as mere coincidence?

The answer is that, very likely, Obama knows better. But he believes that you don’t. He thinks that you are oblivious to the real world experiments that show how high taxation drives away jobs and business. He believes that you feel like you are owed something and he is more than willing to promise it to you. Its easy to play Robin Hood this political season, promising to take from the wealthy and give to the poor. Because Obama can’t win if we cling to guns and religion. But he can and will win if we cling to big government.



Will Rogers said it best-“Even if you are on the right track you will still get run over if you just sit there.”

[1] http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121340482731674019.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_leftbox

[2] IBID
[3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121365641014879041.html?mod=Leader-US

Stumping Without Stupidity

The campaign speech you won't hear this election season...but should.

Stupid factor 0/10.

My fellow Americans, I know that you are suffering and in the words of William Jefferson Clinton: "I feel your pain". I know that some of you have lost manufacturing jobs to foreign workers and even though those are crappy jobs that I don't want my children doing I still feel your loss. And I know that others of you have lost at least 5% of the value of your 401K in these hard recent economic times and maybe twice of that in your home. And to help you through this time of intense trouble I am prepared to do...NOTHING.

That's right. I believe that you are strong enough to be competitive in a global marketplace and patient enough to survive a tumultuous stock market. I believe in capitalism, free markets, hot dogs at baseball games and apple pie a la mode (Yes, I know that is French but I can't be any less popular after this diatribe can I?) And I believe that trade barriers, government intervention and wealth redistribution are insulting and demeaning to you. They underestimate your ability to adapt and overcome. They are un-American.

You see, the founders of our country realized that, being human, we would try to tinker with the lives of our fellow citizens from time to time. That is why they instituted a series of checks and balances in an effort to make things very difficult to change. Therefore, if you want someone who represents the great history of our country in the tradition of Jefferson and Adams, someone who will gladly sit idly by and let free markets do their magic, well...I'm your man. If you want someone to create a government program to wipe your nose while you cry about how unfair the world is, vote for Obama. Or Clinton. Or McCain. It really doesn't matter because they are all better at running your life than you are. Just ask them.

When we were kids we traded baseball cards. And if you got two for one but both of you were happy with the trade, did it matter that the kid across from you was Chinese? No. Both of you benefited from the trade because you got what you wanted. If I want to do the same thing today with the Indian or Chinese grown ups then butt out. If you can't make something better or cheaper than the Chinese then get up earlier, stay later and get better at your job. Or go find something else to kick their ass at. But don't go whining to 60 Minutes and expect me to come riding in on a white horse named Uncle Sam with my dollar dispensing six guns. Because I think you can handle yourself. Sometimes I will be wrong about that. Some of you will fail miserably. So be it. I'd rather have a few of you fail and learn something from the experience than subsidize all of you. This would only encourage you to do...nothing. And lets be clear, doing nothing is my job. I'm with the government and I'm not here to help.

I'm Lost in the Blog, and I approved this message.

Hey Hey, Ho Ho...Stupid People Have to Go!

Playing the blame game in NYC.

Stupid Factor: 8.5 / 10

Protesters enter Bear Stearns building in New York
Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:17pm EDT

By Karen Brettell

NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) - About 60 protesters opposed to the U.S. Federal Reserve's help in bailing out Bear Stearns (BSC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) entered the lobby of the investment bank's Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday, demanding assistance for struggling homeowners. Ah, the rhythmic beat of the human voice, the gentle swaying of massed humanity, the wafting scent of cannabis and body odor. Must be a protest.

Demonstrators organized by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America chanted "Help Main Street, not Wall Street" and entered the lobby without an invitation for around half an hour before being escorted out by police.

"There are no provisions for homeowners in this deal. There are people out there struggling who need help," said Detria Austin, an organizer at NACA, an advocacy group for home ownership.
Bear Stearns employees were amused and perplexed, some taking pictures. One man in the lobby applauded. Its easier to pay for your house if you are working during the day and not bothering people by protesting at their office.

"Homeowners, that's more than $1 trillion (in mortgage debt), you're crazy," another man in a suit screamed at a protester on the street. Sir, please do not pollute this argument with facts. They get in the way of good stories about how "the man" is screwing everyone over.

The protesters blamed Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase & CoCo (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) employees for helping fuel the mortgage crisis. Shouldn't we blame the people who aren't paying those mortgages? Or is that way too fascist and sensible?

Demand for mortgage debt from investment banks including Bear Stearns encouraged lenders to drop standards to create new loans. Some lenders resorted to scams and fraud to initiate loans.
The banks repackaged and resold the debt to investors. If you give someone a mortgage and they pay it back you were just doing your job. If they don't pay it back you are the anti-Christ. Go figure.

"Blame the mortgage tsunami on Bear Stearns," read one sign. Another read, "Bear Stearns employees aren't worth $2." Yeah, put those people out of work so they can't pay their mortgages. Oh, sweet irony!

After leaving Bear Stearns, the crowd moved to JPMorgan. The protesters were easy to trace as a cloud followed them like Pig Pen from Peanuts.

"We will go to their neighborhood, we will educate their children on what their parents do. They should be ashamed," NACA founder Bruce Marks said of employees at both banks. Go to your own neighborhood and educate your own damn children. Maybe then, one day, they can have good jobs and take care of their families instead of bothering hard working people who happen to give others the opportunity to own homes without paying cash up front.

On March 16, JPMorgan Chase & said it would acquire its rival the Bear Stearns Co Inc. for $2 per share, in a deal brokered by the Federal Reserve aimed at heading off a bankruptcy and a spreading crisis of confidence in the global financial system.

On Monday, JPMorgan raised its offer to about $10 a share to appease angry stockholders who vowed to fight the original deal. Bear Stearns traded at $11.25 a share at 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) on Wednesday, up 2.8 percent.

As part of the deal, the Fed agreed to guarantee up to $29 billion of Bear Stearns assets.
The agreement has raised concerns that the U.S. government is prepared to help rescue a failing Wall Street bank while declining to bail out millions of home owners facing the possibility of foreclosure. That, retards, is because the Federal Reserve actually expects to be paid back. Just like all these poor people were supposed to pay back their mortgages. Remember that part of the deal?

If banks didn't make loans to people we'd all cry discrimination. Instead we are blaming them because people can't pay their loans off.

Stupid on the Fourth of July

The following are the comments of congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and an open letter to said congressman .

Stupid Factor: 10/10, we are talking about politicians after all!

Rohrabacher: If we bring in more people from the outside, realizing that we’re bringing the most talented people from other countries, will it not hurt those countries? And will it also not depress the wages in our own country that people like yourself would have to pay your employees in order to get quality people or in order to train people within our own society?

Gates: No, no. These top people are going to be hired. It’s just a question of what country they do their work in.

Rohrabacher: I’m really not talking about top people here. You know . . . There’s a lot of other people in society rather than just the top people. It’s the B and C students that fight for our country and kept it free so that people like yourself would have the opportunity that you’ve had. Those people, whether or not they get displaced by the top people from another country is not our goal. Our goal isn’t to replace the job of the B students with A students from India, because those B students deserve to have good jobs and high-paying jobs.


Dear Congressman Rohrabacher:

In your recent exchange with Bill Gates you referred to my compatriots and me as “…not top people” and that it is “the B&C students that fight for out country and kept (sic) it free”. I guess to you, veterans are just the people wearing funny hats and marching in the Fourth of July parade. We certainly aren’t the people with funny hats driving go carts, those are the Shriners. But I digress.

As a veteran I find your comments simply stupid and I give you an ‘F’ in diplomacy. In order to defend the honor of veterans everywhere I challenge you to an academic contest in any subject of your choice. Given your anachronistic views on jobs perhaps we can compete in economics. Or, given your struggle with grammar perhaps English? Either way, I feel confident that when Bill spoke about “top people”, he wasn’t referring to you. Being a politician obviously doesn’t indicate intelligence. After all, not only do ‘C’ students fight for our country, some of them become Commander In Chief.

Respectfully,
LITB

Stupid in the Senate

Your tax dollars at work. Stupid Factor: 8/10.

Goodell: Pats have taped since 2000
Belichick told NFL commish he thought it was OK to do

Posted: Wednesday February 13, 2008 6:37PM; Updated: Wednesday February 13, 2008 11:42PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bill Belichick has been illegally taping opponents' defensive signals since he became the New England Patriots' coach in 2000, according to Sen. Arlen Specter, who said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told him that during a meeting Wednesday.
"There was confirmation that there has been taping since 2000, when Coach Belichick took over," Specter said.
Specter said Goodell gave him that information during the 1-hour, 40-minute meeting, which was requested by Specter so the commissioner could explain his reasons for destroying the Spygate tapes and notes.
"There were a great many questions answered by Commissioner Goodell," Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters after the meeting. "I found a lot of questions unanswerable because of the tapes and notes had been destroyed." I know this is hard for many Americans, but stop and think about this, please. Why is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee concerned about a team breaking the rules of its league? Is there some obscure law I haven’t found yet that says it’s a Federal crime to video tape a fat guy in a sweatshirt playing charades in a football stadium?
Goodell said Belichick told him he believed the taping was legal; Goodell said he did not concur.
"He said that's always been his interpretation since he's been the head coach," the commissioner said. "We are going to agree to disagree on the facts."
Specter, from Pennsylvania, wants to talk to other league officials about what exactly was taped and which games may have been compromised. I’m guessing Specter is an Eagle’s fan and he is still ticked about the 2005 Super Bowl. Get over it and stop wasting my money.
"We have a right to have honest football games," he said. Ah yes, “Life, Liberty the pursuit of Happiness and honest football games. And a safety net in old age. And universal healthcare. And cheap prescription drugs. And an economic stimulus package.” That has quite a ring.
Goodell noted that "we were the ones that disclosed" the Patriots' illegal taping of the New York Jets' defensive signals in Week 1 of last season. Further, Goodell said, they had an admission by Belichick.
"I have nothing to hide," Goodell said. Nope, you don’t. Not that Coach Hoodie is innocent or that the Patriots aren’t a suspect organization or that the NFL didn’t cover this up to avoid tarnishing its brand…but you have nothing to hide because you are private industry who owes nothing to Senator Spec-tator.
Goodell also told Specter that that he doesn't regret destroying the Spygate tapes or the notes.
"I think it was the right thing to do," Goodell said.
Still, Specter wants to know why penalties were imposed on Belichick before the full extent of the wrongdoing was known and the tapes destroyed in a two-week span. Asked if he thinks there was a coverup, Specter demurred.
"There was an enormous amount of haste," Specter said. How would you know anything about haste? You have been working for the government for decades! How about getting my mail to me with some haste?
He scoffed at the reasons Goodell gave for destroying the tapes and notes, particularly about trying to keep them out of competitors' hands and because Belichick had admitted to the taping.
"What's that got to do with it? There's an admission of guilt, you preserve the evidence," Specter said. As for keeping the tapes out of the hands of others: "All you have to do is lock up the tapes." Ah, yes. Ask a government official how to preserve evidence and take care of tapes. They are clearly the experts.
Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team was fined $250,000 because of the Spygate incident. The Patriots also forfeited a first-round draft pick.
Specter has questioned the quality of the NFL's investigation into the matter and raised the possibility of congressional hearings if he wasn't satisfied with Goodell's answers. Specter also raised the threat of Congress canceling the league's antitrust exemption and reiterated that in the meeting with Goodell. What is next? Investigating the Bad News Bears because that whole “hiding the ball in your glove while walking back from the pitchers mound and tagging out the runner" was probably not in the rule book?
Goodell also said he has not heard from Matt Walsh, the former Patriots employee who performed some videotaping duties for the team.
Walsh told The Associated Press last week during the Pro Bowl in Hawaii that he couldn't talk about allegations that he taped a walkthrough practice by the St. Louis Rams before the 2002 Super Bowl. New England, a two-touchdown underdog, won that game 20-17.
Goodell said he has offered Walsh a deal whereby "he has to tell the truth and he has to return anything he took improperly" in return for indemnity. Specter said he, too, wanted to talk to Walsh and perhaps offer a different deal.
Goodell also said he reserves the right to reopen the investigation if more information is uncovered.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

A note to the American voter-Senator Spector is a member of the "small government" party. That rumbling sound is our founding fathers collectively rolling over in their graves.