Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 3, No. 13 Paid for by the committee to place Ronald Reagan on Mount Rushmore A New Hope Good things come to those who wait. For months now, we at Spiff have resisted the urge to mention that trial of that football player accused of killing that ex-wife and that friend. We do not agree with the media circus that has surrounded this trial. In the past few months, the public has been subjected to endless stories about the defendant, the victims, the judge, the jury, the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, etc. Anyone who had ever seen that football player on a commercial for that rental car company has been interviewed by the tabloid medialibs at some point. But, finally, a beam of hope has broken through the mist and murkiness of this sad tale. No it is not the end of the trial. At this rate, that won't happen until after President Clinton and Bill have left office. The great hope we speak of is the huge drop-off in response to those insipid television infomercials. Yes, folks, that trial of that football player has interfered with one of the few areas of capitalism that gets on our nerves. According to a national publication, response to that guy that President Clinton and Bill hired to improve their images is off 30% for the first three months of this year. You know the one, the fool who looks like he is made of plastic and tells you nothing for a half hour but to be positive and then charges you a fortune to tell you the same thing on a tape. His sales are off. So are sales for such luminaries as Richard Simmons (In his case, sales aren't the only place he is off), Frank and Kathie Lee's happy marriage tapes, and everyone's favorite screaming weight-loss banshee, Susan Powter. How can this be? How could that trial of that football player have affected sales of Vanna's tooth whitener? It's simple. The same people who had no life and spent all day watching the Ronco guy spray paint his head and really thought it made him look like he had hair now have no life and spend all day watching that trial. If the trial lasts long enough, maybe we can eventually wipe these commercials, nay, these creations of evil, from the face of the Earth. As we said, if you wait long enough, even the most ignorant and wasteful thing can produce something good. Just look at President Clinton and Bill. Wasn't it worth suffering the first two years of that ignorance and wastefulness to get the new Congress? Good things indeed do come to those who wait. See, and you didn't even need the plastic guy to tell you that. Got a Whole Lotto Love It's spring. Every spring, we can expect certain things. Road construction. Flowers. Easter. Baseball (maybe). More whining about why Tennesseans have to drive to Kentucky to buy lottery tickets. The Tennessee House has already pushed forward a proposal to change the state constitution to allow a state lottery. You'd think that's a good idea, right? Allowing informed people the opportunity to change their constitution? It would be a good idea, but that's not what is going to happen. We're not going to get an informed public. We're going to get half-truths, flat-out lies, and down-right Clintonisms. We'll hear how the state will bring in badly needed revenue, and that a lottery acts as a voluntary tax. Yes, it will probably bring in revenue, but it is a tax on more than just the person who buys the ticket. It's also a tax on the business that would have otherwise received that lottery dollar. You'll be told that the money will be earmarked for education, or better roads, or the state whale recycling fund. As we've told you here before, the only thing governments earmark funds for is for spending. If they earmark 10% of the lottery income for the Committee to Change the Names of Streets Named after Dead White Guys, you can be sure that the committee will get less from the general fund. (The general fund is the total of all of the other earmarked funds.) They'll say that it's better to keep the money in Tennessee than to send the money to Kentucky. Well, since governments spend about $1.75 for every dollar they bring in, keeping the money out of the hands of the state would save us a lot of money. We'll be reminded that people want a lottery, and this is all about freedom and democracy. They don't want freedom and democracy. They want government and government. Do you want a lottery with freedom and democracy? Let people have their own lotteries. Let the people who run the lotteries make as much money as they want, as long as they deliver on their promises to award prizes. Let businesses hand out their own tickets without any of this "no purchase necessary" stuff. Not a good idea, you say? It would promote gambling, you say? Well, if individuals aren't allowed to promote gambling, neither should the government. If we want a way for people to get rich, and at the same time to add money to the state treasury, let's eliminate state business restrictions and taxes, and let people try their luck with the free enterprise system. The odds of winning aren't very good, but they're a lot better than turning a ticket into a million dollars. Run and Hyde We, the supporters of term limits, lost. We know, we know. It wasn't the Republicans' fault. It was the Democrats' fault. But the Democrats didn't disappoint us. We expect such stupidity from them. What other group could vote 80% against something that 80% of the people and 80% of the majority party support? We told you when the GOP won the elections that they were not immune to our wrath and, unlike the left, we were telling the truth. Henry Hyde, who is not often wrong in his votes in the House, was this time. In our endless quest for perfection, we have found that it is easier when you have something to work with. It's more worthwhile to get Henry Hyde up to 95% than to try to get Barney Frank to 5%. So for your viewing pleasure, we present, with comments where we want them, Henry Hyde's speech against term limits. We're sorry, Mr. Hyde. We're sorry we have a reason to write this article. Mr. Chairman, I ask that no Member ask me to yield until I finish because I do not want to be interrupted. Don't you mean you don't want to be corrected? If someone told you on election day you had to vote for a particular person, you would wonder if you were back in the Soviet Union. What is the essential differences if they tell you you may not vote for this person? They have limited your range of choices. You have narrowed the circle of possibilities. Thank you, Mr. Hyde, for comparing the Soviet Union with our founding fathers, who set up several restrictions about who can and cannot be in Congress. Have you ever been in a storm at sea? I have, and I knew real terror until I looked up on the bridge and the old Norwegian skipper, who had been to sea for 45 years, was up there sucking on his pipe. And I can tell you that was reassuring. When that dentist bends over with the drill whirring, do you not hope he has done that work for a few years? And when the neurosurgeon has shaved your head and they have made the pencil mark on your skull where they are going to have the incision and he approaches with the electric saw, ask him one question, are you a careerist? A captain's 45 years at sea prove he knows what he's doing. A dentist' years of experience show he knows what he's doing. A neurosurgeon's healthy patients are testimony that he knows what he's doing. A congressman's 20 years of creating new restrictions, new taxes, and new regulations prove he doesn't have a clue. Is running a modern complex society of 250 million people and a $6 trillion economy all that easy? When did it become your job to run our society? With a revolving-door Congress, where will we get our Everett Dirksens, our Scoop Jackson, our Arthur Vandenbergs, our Hubert Humphreys, our Barry Goldwaters, our Sam Ervins? You do not get them out of the phone book. Of course not. Congressmen are so self-important that their numbers are not listed in the phone book. The unstated premise of term limits is that we are progressively corrupted the longer we stay around here. No, Mr. Hyde. It's been very well stated. In answer to that I say, look around. You will see some of the finest men and women you will ever encounter in your life. See?!? I think our country still needs us. Why do you want to stop us from running? Why do you want to drive experience into obscurity? Have you forgotten the report card we got last November? You mean the one where America praised the experience of Tom Folly, Dan Rostenkowski, and Daffuhzit Jim Sasser? I have one piece of advice: Trust the people. Or at least trust 80% of them. Quote of the weak: "Mr. President, you're known as quite an athlete." Pat O'Brien Quote of the strong: "I have been frankly surprised by our friends on the left. I would have thought, having been defeated last fall for the first time in 40 years, that paying some attention to the American people would have been useful." Newt Gingrich Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Plaza, towering over beautiful downtown Donelson, Tennessee at 615-883-0435.