NPR’s Planet Money did an interesting segment this morning on the effects of high government spending.  They found that high spending leads to low GDP per capita which means a lack of wealth available to educate children.  We all know that our kids will have to one day pay off the debts we run up, but what we don’t know is that generating those debts actually lowers the productivity of the nation in the long term.  As such you create a situation where the kids can’t even dig themselves out of the mess we’ve left for them.

You can download the mp3 of the 4 minute and 17 second segment here, or you can listen online at the above link.

http://www.npr.org/…

Forget University of North Carolina and Michigan State.

The real drama, excitement, emotion and tension came in our first annual March Madness pool — to determine (yeah right) the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

And today, just hours after the NCAA tourney, we announce OUR winner, as voted by you. And it’s Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

Paul defeated Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina in the finals by 13 points, 56-43 percent, with 963,719 total votes cast.

The names of 32 prospective (and yes, some unlikely) candidates were in the brackets when we began this madness on March 19.

Millions (literally!) of votes were cast. Hundreds of comments were sent in. Some of them, I should add, were not that civil.

Part of it is because of my picks. My brackets showed not necessarily whom I would have voted for — that is of nobody’s concern — but how I saw it playing out if GOP voters around the country actually had these choices in the primaries and caucuses. My Final Four were Romney, Sanford, Ryan and Huckabee. I had Romney beating Sanford and Huckabee toppling Ryan, and for the championship (oops, the nomination) I had Romney over Huckabee.

You wouldn’t believe the kind of emails I got for that. Or maybe you would.

But that’s not the point. This was about how YOU voted. And, judging from the response and the emotions it caused, it was a success. People paid attention to it.

Congratulations to Congressman Paul. And whatever this means, or doesn’t, regarding 2012, it does prove one thing — that his supporters are committed and passionate.

Indeed they are. I’d love to see Paul run again in 2012. It’s a long way off though and a younger Paul may come out of the woodwork which could carry Dr. Paul’s torch in a more aggressive and politically articulate fashion.