All Things Michael Miles

A friend of mine who practices Constitutional law sent me a link the other day to a Radley Balko post (on Reason.com) highlighting Senator Orrin Hatch’s recent effort to compel the Department of Justice to spend more money investigating adult pornography.

I immediately returned the favor by informing him that Utah – Hatch’s home state – is the greatest per-capita consumer of pornography in the United States (please note that Sarah Palin’s Alaska is close behind.) That’s just awesome.

At a time when Hatch’s party wants to defund programs that protect our air and water, provide consumer protections and retrain workers for new job sectors, Senator Hatch and 100 other legislators want more money devoted to prosecuting people engaged in entertainment.

Who knows why this is so vital to our national interest? Maybe the good Senator feels that, since much of the trouble is in his home state, the prosecutions will act as a “stimulus.” More likely they will be deflationary.

The New York Times created a cool interactive exercise to solve both short- and long-term federal budget problems. It’s a lot of fun and will open your eyes to exactly what is at stake.

You can play for yourself here.

The lesson is to keep no sacred cows. I used a combination of spending cuts (68%) and tax increases (32%) to bring the country back into a surplus situation. You can see my solution here. When you’re done, post your results to Twitter so that everyone can see!