Angle an extremist? Because she doesn’t want to charge toward bankruptcy?

Geoffrey Lawrence

Great common-sense post by Roger Pilon at Cato. I’m just re-posting the entire thing here:

Today Politico Arena asks:

Will Reid be able to portray Angle as an extremist?

With an air of wonder, POLITICO reports this morning that Sharron Angle, facing Senate majority leader Harry Reid in the fall elections, “has previously made eyebrow-raising statements about withdrawing the U.S. from the United Nations, eliminating the departments of Energy and Education, and privatizing Social Security.” Eyebrow-raising? As in “who could stand for such things”?

Beyond the Beltway (and even in pockets within the Beltway), there actually are people who believe that American taxpayers should not be subsidizing the play things of such human-rights-respecting exemplars as Cuba, China, Russia, and their ilk, all of whom sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council. And for some reason, we actually did have both energy and education in this country before the Departments of Energy and Education were created, hard as it may be to believe, just as we had art, philosophy, and radio before the NEA, NEH, and NPR were created. And people retired, on their own savings, before the Social Security system was invented. Speaking of which, it might be useful to note that that Ponzi scheme is now operating in the red, six years earlier than expected. Now there’s a reason to raise one’s eyebrows.

Geoffrey Lawrence

Geoffrey Lawrence

Director of Research

Geoffrey Lawrence is director of research at Nevada Policy.

Lawrence has broad experience as a financial executive in the public and private sectors and as a think tank analyst. Lawrence has been Chief Financial Officer of several growth-stage and publicly traded manufacturing companies and managed all financial reporting, internal control, and external compliance efforts with regulatory agencies including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  Lawrence has also served as the senior appointee to the Nevada State Controller’s Office, where he oversaw the state’s external financial reporting, covering nearly $10 billion in annual transactions. During each year of Lawrence’s tenure, the state received the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting Award from the Government Finance Officers’ Association.

From 2008 to 2014, Lawrence was director of research and legislative affairs at Nevada Policy and helped the institute develop its platform of ideas to advance and defend a free society.  Lawrence has also written for the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, with particular expertise in state budgets and labor economics.  He was delighted at the opportunity to return to Nevada Policy in 2022 while concurrently serving as research director at the Reason Foundation.

Lawrence holds an M.A. in international economics from American University in Washington, D.C., an M.S. and a B.S. in accounting from Western Governors University, and a B.A. in international relations from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.  He lives in Las Vegas with his beautiful wife, Jenna, and their two kids, Carson Hayek and Sage Aynne.