INSIDE
Beauty blogger shares tips
PAGE 2
Students debate abortion
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Women head to NIT tourney
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A talk with Tina Fey PAGE 5
WEDNESDAY
MARCH 20, 2013
Wednesday High 70, Low 48 Thursday High 73, Low 61
VOLUME 98 ISSUE 69 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
CHRISTOPHER SAUL/The Daily Campus
Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard University, spoke at the Tate Lecture Series Tuesday in McFarlin Auditorium.
Ferguson warns of America’s decline Katelyn Gough News Editor kgough@smu.edu Renowned historian Niall Ferguson told a full McFarlin Auditorium about the looming institutional deterioration of America. While many point to America’s fiscal deficits and growing debt as indicators of its downfall, Ferguson has a different theory. “The deficits are just symptoms of the financial crisis,” Ferguson said. According to Ferguson, the deficits are merely the result of an issue that needs to be addressed for any hope of growth and improvement in the American economy. While many have written on
how poor countries become rich through economic development, Ferguson said the problem with the United States is facing — a fall from rich to poor — is rarely tackled. “Much less has been written on how rich countries can become poor by letting their institutions deteriorate,” Ferguson said. He introduced what he believes are the four forms of institutional degeneration that the U.S. suffers from: the breakdown of contact between generations, the growing complexity of regulation, the rules of lawyers holding merit over the rules of law and the overall decline of civil society. “In each of these four dimensions we have problems,” Ferguson said. “But they are
flexible—our problems are man-made.” Beginning with the generational misbalance, Ferguson said the main problem are the fact that “taxes and benefits today are the same as the taxes and benefits of the next generation of Americans.” “The present generation of America is living to a frightening degree at the expense of future generations,” Ferguson said. As America continues to age, this problem will only grow. Generational inequality is the central problem of our times, Ferguson said. “The problem gets worse the longer you leave it.” But with the only sure-fire, immediate solution meaning extreme and unrealistic tax increases or government
spending cuts, there is no safe way to stop the entitlementcaused budgetary problems the nation has. He said that generation misbalance can ultimately be linked back to the other main problem —what Ferguson refers to as excessive regulation. “What’s going on is regulation is becoming ever more complicated,” he said. “There are only 21 countries in the entire world where it has gotten harder to do business in the past seven years.” The United States is on the list. “It is harder to start a business in New England than it is in Old England,” Ferguson said. He named the country’s complex tax code as the main
culprit that just keeps growing. “It has allowed the legal regulation complex to grow,” Ferguson said. This issue then leads into Ferguson’s theory that the lawyer is now greater than the law. Nearly every business attempting to start requires a lawyer’s counsel. “The United States is underperforming, its court of law is not the [best].” Ferguson was quick to clarify, however, that he was not placing blame on lawyers alone. “I want to blame it on our entire society,” he said. The overall decline of civil society is responsible for America’s decline, Ferguson said. While the U.S. was once admired and revered for the
willingness and efficiency of the American people addressing their societal problems first hand, civil society has lost its problem solving ability. Ferguson said this has been caused by growth in entitlements and entitlement spending, which is a product of America’s political environment. “The surest way to kill off voluntary association and selfhelp is to create a welfare state,” Ferguson said. He explained that America slowly but surely has gone “from being a warfare state to being a welfare state.” Past what some may have considered harsh—but necessary—words, Ferguson ended on an optimistic note.
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Bush center
feature
Presidential library to house 43,000 artifacts
Mark McKinnon talks ‘no labels’
ERIC SHEFFIELD Video Editor esheffield@smu.edu The scene is September 2001. It’s been just three days since the attacks that not only defiled the Manhattan skyline, but the Land of the Free itself. A southern twang echoes lightly over the still smoldering rubble to thousands of rescue workers shoveling debris and treating injuries. A worker shouts towards the voice, “I can’t hear you!”
The next words boom louder than ever. “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked down these buildings will soon hear all of us!” Smoke clears and the tall, broad shouldered speaker is revealed standing atop a mound of dirt. President George W. Bush, holding a megaphone to reach the thousands of ears that were present that day at Ground Zero. That megaphone is just one of the 43,000 artifacts that are going to be stored in the Bush Presidential Library that is opening in just two months. “I believe the megaphone is perhaps our most iconic artifact,” Alan Lowe, the director of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, said “and at this point, we do plan to use it in our permanent museum exhibit.” In addition to mementos from the historic moments of Bush’s presidency, the library will feature gifts that the former president received from world leaders, celebrities and everyday people. “These artifacts are physical reminders of an amazingly
important time in our nation’s history,” Lowe said. In 2010, during the library groundbreaking, some of the items were on display at a temporary exhibit in Meadows Museum. These items included the baseball that was thrown as the first pitch at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series, the 9mm pistol that Saddam Hussein was carrying when he was captured and jewelry given to the Bush family by the king of Saudi Arabia. However, in 2010, there were only about 50 artifacts displayed, just a fraction of the total amount. “There are so many interesting objects that it is difficult to just place a few,” Lowe said. But Lowe did mention a few interesting artifacts that will make their way into the exhibit including a baseball bat signed by 46 of the 62 living members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, a Peter Max portrait of President Bush and a black Gibson electric guitar given to the president by B.B. King. All 43,000 artifacts are being
See BUSH page 3
Julie Fancher Assignments Desk Editor jfancher@smu.edu Former Chief Media Advisor to President George W. Bush, Mark McKinnon spoke to members of the Dallas Press Club about his organization No Labels last night. McKinnon spoke at the KERA building in Dallas and then fielded questions from members of the audience on the impact of No Labels. The objective of No Labels, which was founded in 2010, is to gather Republicans, Democrats and Independents to push Congress to work together and to get more done. In order to understand the fruition of No Labels, McKinnon described his background and how he came to realize there was more important matters than just the label of your political affiliation. McKinnon was originally a member of the Democratic Party until he met former Gov. George W. Bush.
JULIE FANCHER/The Daily Campus
Mark McKinnon speaks to members of the Dallas Press Club last night.
“I’ve been able to watch the arc of politics in the country for the last few decades,” McKinnon said. He then became a member of the Republican Party and worked with Bush on his 2000 and 2004
Presidential campaigns. “One of the things that attracted me to Bush was that he was a Republican, but very different than the Republicans
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