A few days ago I posted a piece (CELEBRATION, ANYONE?) that featured the following paragraph:

“Black History Month reminds me of that portion of an application form that asks for the race of the applicant; race is not supposed to matter but everyone knows that it does—especially to Liberal policy-makers and administrators. Despite the Civil War, a civil rights movement, several acts of congress, amendments to the constitution and ongoing preferential treatment Liberals are still convinced that new and institutionalized racism is the cure for past racism. They must believe that new injuries cure old injuries.”

The Census Bureau provides for us another example of the “Liberal policy-makers and administrators” that I wrote about in that paragraph. Question #8 of the 2010 census form asks: “Is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” If the answer is ‘yes’ there are several boxes for you choose from that identify the specific type of “Hispanic” that you are. Among the selections are “Mexican”, “Mexican Am.”, “Chicano” (Does anyone know which country “Chicanos” come from?), “Puerto Rican” and “Cuban”. By the way, can someone explain to me what the difference is between a “Mexican” and a “Mexican Am.”?

If you answer ‘no’ to question #8 question #9 then, allows you to declare what race you are. A few of the options include “White”, “Black”, “African Am.”, “Negro”, “American Indian”, “Chinese”, “Japanese”, “Filipino”, “Vietnamese” etc. Apparently none of these groups was special enough to merit a whole question just about them—they had to be lumped in with the “White” people. Let the healing begin!

The concept of being judged not be the color your skin but by the content of your character was a fundamental component of the Civil Rights movement that I once supported but, it is not a component of modern Liberal philosophy. Liberals are obsessed with race and skin color. I wouldn’t mind their obsession if they quietly kept it to themselves but, they keep forcing it on the rest of us. They’re not interested in simple equal protection of the law for all people. Instead, they want to engage in social engineering by redistributing wealth and bestowing rewards and preferences on some groups based upon their victim status and voting value to Liberal politicians.

If Liberals were really ‘liberal’ in the true meaning of the word they’d quit asking the rest of us intrusive and insulting questions that keep the nation racially divided. Leave us alone!

Goldwater Institute
News Release

PHOENIX—A rural school district in Yavapai County, Arizona, has gone to court to stop four taxpayers from seeking any public records from the district, from suing the district and from filing complaints about the district with state oversight agencies. The Goldwater Institute has agreed to represent the four women and today requested that the Yavapai County Superior Court dismiss the case.

“Is every parent going to be afraid now to request records about their children, which they are entitled to see?” said Barbara Rejon, one of the defendants. “Are taxpayers no longer going to be allowed to see records about how a school district spends money? If the school district can do this, it’s going to shut everyone down. No one is going to be able to ask questions or anything.”

The Congress Elementary School District is located in southwest Yavapai County near Wickenburg. In January 2010, the school district filed a court motion for a preliminary injunction against Ms. Rejon, Jean Warren, Renee Behl-Hoge and Cyndi Regis. The district claims the four women have been harassing local officials with repeated requests for information about school district operations.

Goldwater Institute Investigative Reporter Mark Flatten wrote Wednesday about the lawsuit and the efforts of these four women to hold the district accountable for complying with state law. Most of the time, the women have requested basic public records such as minutes and agendas for school board meetings. Such documents are widely recognized as protected by Arizona’s public records law and should be available for review upon request by anyone. Behl-Hoge, Regis and Rejon also have sought school records about their own children, as parents are guaranteed access to such records under both state and federal laws.

Mr. Flatten found the Congress school district has a history of violating these laws, as documented by the state attorney general and the state ombudsman.

Shortly after learning about the district’s lawsuit, the Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation offered to represent the four women.

“The district is acting like a classic schoolyard bully,” said Clint Bolick, Goldwater Institute director of litigation. “We will take whatever action is necessary to protect our clients’ rights and to deter other government officials from even thinking about taking such outrageous actions to silence citizens.”
 
If the Congress school district’s lawsuit is successful, it could inspire other governments in Arizona to pursue legal action against taxpayers that request information. Mr. Flatten quoted assistant state ombudsman Liz Hill as saying many other government agencies have discussed filing similar lawsuits to curtail the number of requests they receive for public records.

To learn more about this lawsuit, Congress School District v. Warren, click here, or to read Mr. Flatten’s investigation click here. The Goldwater Institute is an independent government watchdog supported by people who are committed to expanding free enterprise and liberty.
 
To get Goldwater Institute news and information direct to your cell phone click here.

Give the people the home-court advantage
By Ralph Benko

We send our elected representatives far from home to conduct The People’s business. We send them to Washington, D.C. where they form what our flyboys (and flygirls) call “a target-rich environment” for the lobbyists and for the political party leadership.

We send them far from us … to conduct our business. There was no other way in the 18th, 19th, and most of the 20th century. In the 21st century, of course, this is absurd.

As things now stand, it is too easy for lobbyists and party leadership to “get at” our elected legislators. And too hard — impossible, on a concentrated basis — for voters to spend “face time” with their representatives.

We plain folks, and our representatives, would be well-served by changing the rule requiring our legislators to vote from the floor of Congress. And this could be done by a simple rule change, no legislation or constitutional amendment required.

The Constitution simply provides that “a majority of each [chamber] shall constitute a quorum to do business” and does not even specify “present,” much less what that would mean in the 21st century of webcams, Skype, videoconferencing, broadband internet or other technologies out there. The rules of both the House and Senate provide that a quorum is assumed unless a quorum call shows that it is not.

Sheer proximity is a very powerful thing. Lobbyists consider “face time” the crown jewel of their pursuit. Proximity is a soft force, but a powerful one. In sports parlance, it’s called “the home court advantage.”

By a simple rule change, our legislators could give themselves permission to vote from their district offices. Not require it. Simply permit it. From there, they could tele-speak, by Web, and tele-listen, by Web.

Now, they listen by closed circuit TV and speak rarely enough. They could speak more conveniently, and thus more often, by Webcam than they do now, and from home.

In fact, they could invite their constituents to form a “studio audience,” changing the chemistry rather dramatically.) They could make a district office home-base for most of their staff, instead of doing it backwards, as now. (Jobs for constituents! What a concept!)

Travel is such a hassle, the cost of maintaining two homes beyond the reach of most of our legislators. Under such a rule, it is highly likely that a lot of members would vote, more and more often, from their district offices. (Many of their wives, or husbands, would see to it!)

More time in the District means less in D.C., and it would be a lot harder, and more expensive (all that travel!) for the lobbyists to smooth talk them and for party leadership to twist their arms.

At home, they would be much more in touch with the people who they represent. With much less wear and tear.

Of course, they would still come in to “the office,” to confer with one another whenever useful, attend major ceremonial occasions, committee meetings when important issues are genuinely at stake, hear out the lobbyists, raise money, get on TV, even play poker or attend prayer breakfasts (depending, of course, on party affiliation) with their colleagues. This would tip a balance. Right now, it’s easy for the lobbyists to get at them in concentrated doses and hard for constituents to get heard.

Legislators! Give yourselves permission to vote from your district offices: Amend Rule XX. Only the (unfairly maligned) lobbyists and the (fairly maligned) party leadership lose.

For them … our pillows will be soaked with tears. For the people … and for you … it’s win-win. Give the home court advantage back to your homies!

Join the People Powered Congress social site here.

Ralph Benko, a principal of Capital City Partners, of Washington DC, is the author of The Websters’ Dictionary: How to Use the Web to Transform the World, the eBook of which may be downloaded without charge from www.thewebstersdictionary.com. He has given himself permission to work from a home office, where he gets far more accomplished than at “the office.”

From the Washington Examiner

Big Government had a recent column on ClimateGate, offering that it wasn’t the only Progressive Science scam pushed on the public, and states that “Eugenics” is one major global Progressive-produced catastrophe, but there is another example of Progressive Left political maneuvering that crippled a nation and brought the weight of an oppressive centrally-controlled bureaucracy on the heads of honest and diligence scientists, now known as “Lysenkoism.”

The roots of ClimateGate, with falsifying date, suppressing data that didn’t’ support the theory, and intimidating scientists as “skeptics” or even the more blatant, “unbelievers,” is found in the Soviet Union’s past, their embrace of a junk science called “agro-biology” or as Elof Axel Carlson described it, “a toxic blend of politics and pseudo-science.”

Actor and non-scientist Ed Begley, Jr. had a micro-climate-change of overheating when arguing that the only climate authority was “peer-reviewed” scientific journals. He was quite adamant, repeating “peer-reviewed” as often that it seemed to be a talisman, but about two hours too late to have heard the “thud” of the next shoe to drop from what appears to be a ClimateGate centipede, that the supposedly independent and non-partisan peer-reviewed” journals were under heavy pressure and manipulation of editors and selection of papers to refuse to publish anything that countered in any way the ClimateChange narrative, a total usurpation of the scientific process of open review – the system of checks and balances.

“Peer-reviewed,” the world has just discovered, has been nothing of the sort when it comes to the pseudo-science of “global warming”.  Actor Begley’s position of “peer-reviewed” turned out to not have been spoken from standing on solid rock, but from a tree, a precarious perch on a dead limb that was being sawed off as he spoke. http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/11/24/ed-begley-jr-loses-it-on-fox-news/ 

But there is nothing new under the sun, and those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. This combination of politics, science and public policy machinations can be found in the career and wreckage left by one man, Trofim D. Lysenko of the Soviet Union.

T.D. Lysenko (1898-1976) was a half-educated man of science; he didn’t finish his studies and remained defensive through his life towards those with better credentials and experience than he. One might say he learned just enough to be dangerous, developing a new theory, “agro-biology” which mixed known processes of agronomy and plant genetics, with theoretical and unproven evolutionary concepts. His theory appealed to the Soviet “New Man” thinking, upending the old orders, a “political” view applied to agriculture.

The Soviets had a problem; most of Soviet agricultural land was more north than America – of the latitudes of Canada, not the reliable American breadbaskets of warmer Iowa or Illinois. They have a short growing season, with no room for error, therefore much of Soviet agricultural plant research was focused on developing hardier and more productive strains of wheat. Lysenko caught the attention of the Soviet central planners when he proposed a radical method that he claimed would shock wheat into developing new characteristics that appealingly would produce a sort of “revolutionary” wheat fit for the “revolutionary” Soviet Union. And, like Lysenko’s education, “agro-biology” had just enough grounding in proven science to be convincing, especially to people who didn’t know anything about agriculture, agronomy or plant genetics. Soviet scientists who worked in those fields took a look, did some of their own peer testing and began demurring.

Lysenko used his rising political power to enhance his data to promote his theory, reduce criticism, remove scientists from their positions, chase them from the field and in several cases, most notably Lysenko’s chief critic and professional competitor, Nikolai Vavilov, the man arrested, stripped of his position and literally sent to a Soviet prison where he died, a broken, innocent man. The rest of Soviet science took note, and shut up. They had to eat, after all. But there wasn’t much to eat after Soviet Central Planning decreed that the debate was over, “the science settled” and the “consensus” was that Lysenko’s methods were to be applied to all Soviet agriculture. Harvests dropped, the Lysenko-processed wheat didn’t produce the results Lysenko had predicted, had published and had promoted – a national, policy-contrived disaster.

The parallels between the Soviet centralized commitee promotion of Lysenko because his rhetoric fit the Soviet Progressive ideology, and “Climate Change” are ominous – the bullying, the falsification of data and the outright professional, political and bureaucratic smothering of dissenting opinions should be an important lesson to recall when presented with ClimateChange data, claims and computer modeling that fly in the face of observable reality. That the environmental movement has such luminaries as former Soviet President Gorbachev who after losing the free election for Russian president with an abysmal 3% of the vote, morphed into a “green” advocate, after stating that the “environmental movement was the last best hope of communism.”  A strategy of going “Green” that would lead to “Red,” should be a reason to closely examine the claims, the direction and the veracity of anything presented by people who have no backgrounds in science whatsoever. The mountain of emails discussing elimination of dissent, hijacking the peer-review process, collusion and obfuscation, and the exposure of the faulty computer codes written for climate modeling shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it’s welcome and concrete proof that “Global Warming” and “ClimateChange” are politics and power, not science or actual weather. This fraud as it still unravels with almost daily exposure of yet more admissions of hiding data, manipulation to produce desired outcomes, is becoming more and more suspicious as a way to create a basis on which massive taxation and redistribution of wealth was going to be justified, negatively affecting billions of people around the world, arguably the biggest single planned theft in human history.

“In other words, the primary task of the politics of science was to ensure that science served the political end of the people and its government.”     The Lysenko Effect, by Nils Roll-Hansen

Resources:  The Lysenko Effect, by Nils Roll-Hansen;    The Lysenko Affair, by David Joravsky
.

The Obama Ministry of Truth continues to blatantly lie and denigrate all who oppose them.  But if one would take the time to turn off Idol for one night, you might find out the the “Party of No” has been working their collective butts off coming up with idea after idea.

The virtual embargo on reporting Republican legislation has allowed Democrats and their allies in the media to keep up the “Republicans have no plan” attack. Just hours after the president’s speech, for example, the Democratic National Committee released a new commercial claiming that Republicans “refuse to offer a plan” to reform the health care system.

Just for the record, in case you want to check them out, these are the bills proposed, so far, by Tom Price [Head of the House GOP Study Committee] and his allies in the House:

• H.R. 77 The Health care Incentive Act

• H.R. 109 Americas Affordable Health Care Act of 2009

• H.R. 198 Health Care Tax Deduction Act of 2009

• H.R. 270 TRICARE Continuity of Coverage for National Guard and Reserve Families Act of 2009

• H.R. 321 SCHIP Plus Act of 2009

• H.R. 464 More Children, More Choices Act of 2009

• H.R. 502 Health Care Freedom of Choice Act

• H.R. 544 Flexible Health Savings Act of 2009

• H.R. 917 To increase the health benefits of dependents of members of the Armed Forces who die because of a combat-related injury

• H.R. 1086 Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2009

• H.R. 1118 Health Care Choices for Seniors Act

• H.R. 1441 Ryan Dant Health Care Opportunity Act of 2009

• H.R. 1458 Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act of 2009

• H.R. 1468 Medical Justice Act of 2009

• H.R. 1658 Veterans Healthcare Commitment Act of 2009

• H.R. 1891 Sunset of Life Protection Act of 2009

• H.R. 2520 Patients’ Choice Act

• H.R. 2607 Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2009

• H.R. 2692 CAH Designation Waiver Authority Act of 2009

• H.R. 2784 Partnership to Improve Seniors Access to Medicare Act

• H.R. 2785 Health Care Paperwork Reduction and Fraud Prevention Act of 2009

• H.R. 2786 Patient Fairness and Indigent Care Promotion Act of 2009

• H.R. 2787 Medical Liability Procedural Reform Act of 2009

• H.R. 3141 Strengthening the Health Care Safety Net Act of 2009

• H.R. 3217 Health Care Choice Act of 2009

• H.R. 3218 Improving Health Care for All Americans Act

• H.R. 3356 Medicare Beneficiary Freedom to Choose Act of 2009

• H.R. 3372 Health Care OverUse Reform Today Act (HealthCOURT Act)

• H.R. 3400 Empowering Patients First Act

• H.R. 3438 Access to Insurance for all Americans Act

• H.R. 3454 Medicare Hospice Reform and Savings Act of 2009

• and H.R. 3478 Patient-Controlled Healthcare Protection Act of 2009

Obama is right, other than these 32 bills, [all written in 2009] the GOP has absolutely no ideas to present.

“It’s frustrating,” Price says. But Republicans believe that in the end, the public won’t buy the administration’s line. “The American people are smarter than that,” Price says. “They know there are alternatives out there. That’s what August was all about.”

Yeah, and that is what November will be about too.

I don’t think it is a surprise to anyone the hypocrisy of the current administration. The filibuster was the “savior” of democracy under the “totalitarian terror” of the Bush administration and yet it is now the bain of democracy. The difference between conservatives and liberals is conservatives want the legislative process to be cumbersome. A hindu sage once said, “before we bring down the heavens, lets sit down and think a little while.”

Click the link to watch the video..

Biden: “I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”

So, stop “crying” already.

by Byron Schlomach Ph.D.
Goldwater Institute
 
Today, the Arizona Senate Committee on Appropriations will consider an important measure from Senator Jonathon Paton which would require all levels of government (including cities, towns, counties, school districts) to disclose in detail how they spend taxpayer money. It would also require the state to maintain a website where anyone could get quick access to information on every government in Arizona that has the power to levy taxes on them. Those governments would post details on a website about every expenditure and tax revenue collected, like an online checkbook register for city hall or the county courthouse.

This bill also would require government agencies and departments to establish performance benchmarks and list them for the public to review. Accurate crime statistics and details about county prosecutions would have to be reported as well.

For little cost, information about government operations can be made available 24 hours a day to people researching on their home computers or even on their cell phones. Most local governments have websites now, but the information they post often is so general that it doesn’t provide any real insight into how it conducts the people’s business.

The primary objection to these websites is that they will be costly to create and maintain. But experience proves otherwise. State Treasurer Dean Martin launched a transparency website in the midst of budget cuts, and states like Virginia, South Carolina, Kansas and Texas put spending information online using only existing resources. Nebraska created its spending transparency website, which does much of what this bill would require, for only $40,000. Some software companies, like ProcureNetworks, are even offering software to government agencies for free.

I have a question for those who use cost as a reason to oppose spending transparency: considering the recent declines in government revenue, how can we afford not to engage citizens more comprehensively in determining spending priorities and hunting down new efficiencies?

Taxpayers who foot government’s bills deserve the widest possible access to information on how their money is spent. Perhaps then Thomas Jefferson’s vision will be fully realized.

Dr. Byron Schlomach is an economist and the director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute.

Finally Arizona is drawing the line against more federal incursions into Arizona’s sovereignty.  Cap-n-Trade is a disaster to any developed society and to think that Senator McCain remains staunch in his belief that its the right thing to do is completely beyond belief.

The McCain/Palin position from 08

Cap and Trade Nullification

“Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen (R) of District 5 needs your help! She and Senators Gould and Grey are the primary sponsors for Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 1050. Together, they have made Arizona the fourth state to introduce Cap and Trade nullification legislation, and this bill has “teeth”!

Known as the “Freedom to Breathe Act”, the legislation, if passed, would make it illegal for “..any governmental official to enforce within the borders of the state of Arizona federal laws or federal regulations purporting to restrict intrastate emissions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide or other greenhouse substances is herewith declared a violation of civil rights and unlawful under Arizona state law.””

Senator Allen addresses the AzFRW on Cap-n-Trade

At last an idea who’s time has come … sure beats missing committee hearings like her left-of-center opponent seems to.  Here is the full story:

http://arizona.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/02/cap-and-trade-nullification-arizonas-freedom-to-breathe-act/

A m e r i c a n  P o s t – G a z e t t e

Distributed by C O M M O N  S E N S E , in Arizona

Tuesday, February 16, 2010  

The duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county. He has law enforcement powers that exceed that of any other state or federal official.

This is settled law that most people are not aware of.

County sheriffs in Wyoming have scored a big one for the 10th Amendment and states’ rights. The sheriffs slapped a federal intrusion upside the head and are insisting that all federal law enforcement officers and personnel from federal regulatory agencies must clear all their activity in a Wyoming County with the Sheriff’s Office. Deja vu for those who remember big Richard Mack in Arizona.

Bighorn County Sheriff Dave Mattis spoke at a press conference following a recent U.S. District Court decision (Case No. 2:96-cv-099-J (2006)) and announced that all federal officials are forbidden to enter his county without his prior approval ……

“If a sheriff doesn’t want the Feds in his county he has the constitutional right and power to keep them out, or ask them to leave, or retain them in custody.”

The court decision was the result of a suit against both the BATF and the IRS by Mattis and other members of the Wyoming Sheriff’s Association. The suit in the Wyoming federal court district sought restoration of the protections enshrined in the United States Constitution and the Wyoming Constitution.

Guess what? The District Court ruled in favor of the sheriffs. In fact, they stated, Wyoming is a sovereign state and the duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county and has law enforcement powers exceeding that of any other state or federal official.” Go back and re-read this quote.

The court confirms and asserts that “the duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county and has law enforcement powers EXCEEDING that of any other state OR federal official.” And you thought the 10th Amendment was dead and buried – not in Wyoming, not yet.

But it gets even better. Since the judge stated that the sheriff “has law enforcement powers EXCEEDING that of any other state OR federal official,” the Wyoming sheriffs are flexing their muscles. They are demanding access to all BATF files. Why? So as to verify that the agency is not violating provisions of Wyoming law that prohibits the registration of firearms or the keeping of a registry of firearm owners. This would be wrong.

The sheriffs are also demanding that federal agencies immediately cease the seizure of private property and the impoundment of private bank accounts without regard to due process in Wyoming state courts.

Gosh, it makes one wish that the sheriffs of the counties relative to Waco, Texas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma regarding their jurisdictions were drinking the same water these Wyoming sheriffs are.

Sheriff Mattis said, “I am reacting in response to the actions of federal employees who have attempted to deprive citizens of my county of their privacy, their liberty, and their property without regard to constitutional safeguards. I hope that more sheriffs all across America will join us in protecting their citizens from the illegal activities of the IRS, EPA, BATF, FBI, or any other federal agency that is operating outside the confines of constitutional law. Employees of the IRS and the EPA are no longer welcome in Bighorn County unless they intend to operate in conformance to constitutional law.” [Amen].

However, the sad reality is that sheriffs are elected, and that means they are required to be both law enforcement officials and politicians as well. Unfortunately, Wyoming sheriffs are the exception rather than the rule . . . but they shouldn’t be. Sheriffs have enormous power, if or when they choose to use it. I share the hope of Sheriff Mattis that “more sheriffs all across America will join us in protecting their citizens.”

If Wyoming Sheriffs can follow in the steps of former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack and recognize both their power and authority, they could become champions for the memory of Thomas Jefferson who died thinking that he had won those “states’ rights” debates with Alexander Hamilton.

This case is not just some amusing mountain melodrama. This is a BIG deal. This case is yet further evidence that the 10th Amendment is not yet totally dead, or in a complete decay in the United States. It is also significant in that it can, may, and hopefully will be interpreted to mean that “political subdivisions of a State are included within the meaning of the amendment, or that the powers exercised by a sheriff are an extension of those common law powers which the 10th Amendment explicitly reserves to the People, if they are not granted to the federal government or specifically prohibited to the States.”

Winston Churchill observed, “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fights with all the odds against you with only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is not hope of victory at all, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

by Dave Robinson Keene Free Press March 31, 2008

by Byron Schlomach, Ph.D.
Goldwater Institute
 
Governor Jan Brewer recently sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Arizona’s congressional delegation asking for a change in federal law to allow private companies to operate rest stops on interstate highways. Federal law prevents “automotive service stations or other commercial establishments for serving motor vehicle users to be constructed or located on the rights-of-way of the Interstate System.” Right now, 13 of the state’s 18 roadside rest stops are closed as part of the state’s efforts to save money. They could be re-opened sooner if Governor Brewer’s recommendation were adopted.

In exchange for maintaining clean public restrooms, parking areas, and places for drivers to leave their refuse, companies could operate drink and snack concessions at roadside rest stops. This would be a source of revenue because private companies would have to bid for the privilege of operating within the confines of the rest stops. While federal law should be written to give states maximum flexibility, a state could restrict vendors to selling only food and beverages to minimize taxpayer-subsidized competition with other established businesses.

The federal government already allows for states to contract with private companies to provide vending machines and “motorist call boxes” at interstate rest stops. A change in federal law to allow private food-and-drink concessions would be a win for everybody. Well-written contracts would mean better-maintained facilities and more services for weary travelers.

One thing is for certain. Open roadside rest stops are better than closed roadside rest stops. If letting the private sector operate rest stops means they will stay open, then let the private sector prevail.

Dr. Byron Schlomach is an economist and the director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute.