Sunday, October 1, 2017 14 Pages No. 48 of the 129th Year USPS No. 295-420 50 centswww.kingfisherpress.net

TIMES FREE PRESSEst. April 22, 1889 - Oklahoma’s Oldest Continuously-Published NewspaperKINGFISHER&

By Gary ReidKT-FP Publisher Emeritus

Ron Clough of Kingfisher has always loved animals.

Thirteen years ago, his neighbor, Donna Mese, intro-duced him to miniature horses and he was hooked.

Now he’s “down to” 42 head of them at his place on North 13th Street, north of Kingfisher.

One of them, Ash Creek 2020 Vision, recently won the title of world champion.

The 7-year-old gelding was proclaimed “World Champion: Single Pleasure Driving” at the international miniature horse show in Fort Worth, Texas, in September.

The horse is home-bred and raised by Clough, who started Vision in training until, recog-nizing his potential, he turned his education over to profes-sional trainer Tammi Nutall of McAlester.

Ron and wife Kim had met Nutall at miniature horse shows and decided she was the person to train their horses.

Miniature horses are 34 inches tall or under at the with-ers (the base of their mane).

The Clough horses are registered with the American

Miniature Horse Association (AMHA).

Clough bought his first horse, a bred mare, from a lady at Piedmont.

“It’s like potato chips; you can’t stop at one,” Clough said with a chuckle.

He currently has 35 mares and seven stallions.

He says he gets attached to his animals and it’s hard for him to sell them.

He still owns the mother of his world champion, Ash Creek Sugar Coated, and he plans to raise more babies from her, but the sire, which he also owned, was killed by a light-ning strike so that particular match will not be available again. However, the Cloughs still have four horses in train-ing, including Ash Creek 2020 Vision.

The single pleasure driving horses have a singular high, driving gait in which the front legs are picked up to a high level while they drive with their back legs.

They move similarly to a gaited riding horse and some are ridden by smaller riders (under 50 pounds).

But Clough’s horses com-WORLD CHAMPION — Ron Clough of Kingfisher sits in a buggy pulled by his miniature horse, Ash Creek 2020 Vision, who recently won the title of “World Champion: Single Pleasure Driving” at the international miniature horse show in Fort Worth, Texas. Standing with them is professional trainer Tammi Nutall of McAlester. [Photo Provided]

Local couple owns world champ horse

By Gary ReidKT-FP Publisher Emeritus

Kingfisher High School art students have received a taste of life in the real art world thanks to the combined ef-forts of KHS art teacher Summer Scott and professional artist G. Patrick Riley of Oklahoma City.

Riley served as visiting artist in Kingfisher for the past two weeks under a program called Small Support Grant for Schools, a program of the Oklahoma Arts Council.

Riley provided instruction in three art forms during his visit here, subtrac-tive sculpture, additional sculpture and clay modeling.

Scott provided the enrichment program for her students by writing a program grant, supported by KHS Principal Todd Overstreet, to finance Riley’s two-week enrichment session here.

Riley is the former chairman of the art department at Southwestern Okla-homa State University, a position he left due to the health of his mother. He subsequently served as arts coordinator for Oklahoma City Schools and is a per-manent member of the Oklahoma Arts Council’s Artists in Schools program.

A graduate of the University of Oklahoma in Norman where he earned his bachelor’s degree, he has a master’s degree from Oklahoma State Universi-ty and has done work on a doctorate. His specialties include sculpture and acrylic painting.

One of his most noteworthy works is the 28-foot tall stainless steel eagle

KHS ART students take advantage of the opportunity to learn from professional artist Patrick Riley, center. From left are Trevor Bellon, Will Taylor, Tate Taylor, KHS art teacher Summer Scott, Riley, Andrea Becerra, Maricza Lopez, Izzy Smith and Cole Tatum. [Photo Courtesy KHS Photography]

Artist shares real-world experience at KHS

[See Artist Page 13]

[See Champion Page 13]

Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Kingfisher will break ground Sunday, Oct. 8, on its new building project.

Oklahoma Ci ty Archbishop Paul Coak-ley will celebrate mass at 10:30 a.m., followed by the blessing of the land and ground-break-ing ceremony.

The 6,000 square-foot addition to the church campus will include a new parish hall capable of seating 175 people, a chapel for daily masses for pa-rishioners and school children that will seat

35-40, four meeting rooms and a storage area.

The addition will be constructed in an area south of the church and east of the rectory and will be connected to both buildings.

A covered drive and walkway, allowing easier access to the church during inclem-ent weather, and a courtyard will help tie the new addition to-gether with the existing church and rectory.

Tom Garrett, Judy Grellner and Dean Fin-ley served on the build-ing committee, along

with the Rev. Francis Nguyen, church pastor.

The current church has been a fixture in the 300 block of South Main Street since 1906. It was built to replace the city’s first Catholic church, founded in 1889, which was de-stroyed by a tornado.

Kingfisher native Mark Krittenbrink of Norman is the architect on the new building project.

A picnic celebra-tion will follow the ground-breaking cer-emony, including face painting, inflatables and games.STS. PETER and Paul Catholic Church’s planned addition will connect to existing buildings. [Drawing Provided]

Local church breaking ground on new addition Oct. 8

sculpture that graces the judicial center, the building where the Oklahoma Supreme Court convenes, in Oklahoma City.

He said the sculpture, which includes six pieces welded to the wall, required almost a year to complete.

Scott teaches a variety of art types in her KHS classes including visual art, television, 3-D sculpture and print-making in addition to sketching and painting.

Her own specialties include calligraphy and typography.

Riley became interested in art as a student at Ada schools when he took a part-time job at a grocery store setting grocery ads with hand-set type.

After high school he attended East Central

2 Sunday, October 1, 2017 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press

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“Caring Beyond Prescriptions”

Starting September 24th

100 years ago – “The school boy should really learn that the ripest, biggest plums are at the top and that the majority of his classmates will be crowding for places to pick around the base of the tree, where the small fruit grows. There is plenty of room at the top. The best things in life require considerable effort to get, and that’s why the strongest men and women have them.”

Sept. 26 • Kingfisher Daily Times

75 years ago – “A hamburger fry was enjoyed Mon-day evening at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Bengs, honoring Marion and Amos Hale, who will return this week to the U.S. Navy.

“Others present were Mr. And Mrs Clifford Leitner and son, Miss Loriean Cooper, Ben and Dorothy Bengs, Margaret Mae and Mary Ellen Bengs, Wilma and Ardath Hale, Helen Bengs of Cushing, James Arnold of Enid and Pauline and Earl Bengs.”

Sept. 24• Kingfisher Times

50 years ago – “The Kingfisher County Barber Assc. has been granted a price increase by its state board, effec-tive last week. The regular haircut price went up from $1.25 to $1.50 per person.

“Leonard Taylor, county barber association president, said the county-wide move affects 18 barber shops.

Other barber shop services also were raised. All shampoos went up $.25 except the glove shampoo which jumped $.50-to $1.75. Massage, tonic and shave prices remain the same.

“The barber association debated a price increase in 1961 but decided against the move. The state board of bar-ber examiners granted the present price increase last week.

“Taylor said the raise is primarily to meet new state demands for sanitation in barber shops.”

Sept. 25 • Kingfisher Times

25 years ago – “Johnsons of Kingfisher has received Chrysler Corporation’s highest honor, the Award for Ex-cellence, for outstanding achievement in the areas of sales performance, facilities and community relations.

“‘This is the 11th straight year that Johnsons of King-fisher has earned the distinguished award,’ Tom Pappert, vice president-sales Chrysler Corporation, said.”

Sept. 23 • Kingfisher Times

Dover fourth, fifth and sixth grade students recently took a field trip to the Tiger Safari in Tuttle. In science, students researched the various animals that they would see at the Tiger Sa-fari and in English/language arts they read and wrote about animal sanctuaries. While at the Tiger Safari, they were able to interact with turtles, snakes, a baby kangaroo and a baby lemur. Taking part in the trip were, from left, front row: Ethan Brumback, Trey Dhonde, Seth Higginbotham, Irving

IN THE DAYS OF...

LONG AGOCompiled from the files

of old Kingfisher newspapers

Longhorns visit tigers and more

Soto, Shelby Gilbert, Fernanda Montes, Riley Buck, Ashley Gamez, Marianna Gamez and Joleidy Flores; middle row, Edwin Soto, Esmeralda Calderon, Joi Caldwell, Luis Ruiz, Jaidann Benedict, Cody Barker, Cooper Cranford, Pedro Tarango and Victor Sigala; and back row, Fatima Aboite, Camilla Gamez, Katelyn Harviston, Karlee Harviston, Gabe Biggs, Lexi Holt, Ashton Caldwell, Brisedia Montes, Marvely Flores, Gabby Cervantes, Hope Caldwell and Kelsey Gilbert. [Photo provided]

Kingf i sher Winter Nights currently has more than $30,000 in its oper-ating fund to begin work toward opening night of this year’s Christmas lights displays and holiday events programs.

Kingf i sher Winter Nights scheduled for Nov. 25 through Dec. 25 at King-fisher Park.

Shilah Jerkins, chairper-son for the event, said the new big attraction this year will be a skating rink.

“We are still working out

the particulars regarding times and charges, but it will definitely be up and running on opening day,” she said.

Jerkins said the group “learned so much” after operating the event for the first time last year.

“We are now fully pre-pared to anticipate changes and we’ve learned from trial and error efforts last year,” Jerkins said.

“And even though it was exhausting, I think all would agree that it was a

SHILAH JERKINS, right, chairperson for Kingfisher Winter Nights, was the featured speaker of the Kingfisher Rotary club this past Tuesday noon. Accompanying her for the event were, from left, Kelly Joppa and Terri Peck, committee members, and Leah Joppa, who attended as a guest of her dad, Rotarian Eric Joppa, who introduced the team to the club. [TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff Photo]

Group tells Kingfisher Rotary of plans for even better ‘Winter Nights’ in 2017

huge success, not only in appearance, but in achiev-ing one of our main goals, which is bringing visitors to our community.”

Terri Peck and Kelly Joppa, committee members who also spoke at the meet-ing, said that most volunteer time slots were filled by local groups and organizations, but there were still a few yet to be filled.

[See Rotary Page 12]

Lomega has announced its schedule for Oct. 2-7 as follows:

Tuesday - Sophomore candle meeting, 11:15 a.m.; Tulsa State Fair: steer and

heifer show at 10 a.m. and

Lomega announces weekly school schedule[See Lomega Page 12]

Building on Faith, Family and Tradition

Everyone Is Invited To Join Us During Our

GROUND BREAKINGCELEBRATION

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Sts. Peter & Paul Catholic Church309 South Main Kingfisher, OK (405) 375-4581

~ MASS AT 10:30AM WITH ARCHBISHOP COAKLEY ~

Following Masswill be the

Blessing of the Land and actual

Ground Breaking

A Picnic Celebrationwill follow the ground breaking

PLEASE JOIN US & BRING YOUR FAMILY

Face Painting • Inflatables • GamesDJ • Music & Dancing

Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press Sunday, October 1, 2017 3

Emmanuel Lutheran Church’s 8th Annual

Concert on the LawnSunday, OCtOber 1

Lots of Musical Entertainment•FREE FOOD •Activities For the Kids

NEW LOCATION • NEW LOCATION

NEW LOCATION • NEW LOCATION

4:00-7:00 p.m.At The Exhibit Building

Kingfisher Co. Fairgrounds

A Free-Will offering will be taken & donated to Wheatbelt AMBUCS

for the Kingfisher Park Playground project.

218 N. MainKingfisher, OK

405-375-4257

•Beautiful, Fresh Cut Flowers•Bridal Registry •Unique Gifts• Cards •And More!

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HOW MAY WE PRAY FOR YOU?Are you or others close to you facing personal or spiritual problems?

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BINGOGAMES

RAFFLE

A pair of state legislators were on hand Sept. 22 at Okarche Fire Department to disperse operational funding checks to several local fire departments. Operational funding is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry Division as a direct pass-through from the Oklahoma state legislators. Some 855 certified departments in the state each received a check in the amount of $3,844.20. Funds will be distributed in two equal parts. Pictured are, from left, Ken Stoops, ISO field representative; Jonathan Cross, NODA executive director; Sen. Darcy Jech, R-Kingfisher; Cecil Michael, NODA rural fire coordinator; Loyal Fire Chief Richard Meyers; Rep. Mike Sanders, R-Kingfisher; Big 4 Fire Chief Billy Grey; Pied-mont Fire Chief Tyler Moffet; Hennessey Fire Chief Bert Gritz; Melvin Mashburn, GGEDA rural fire coordinator; Tom McNally, retired rural fire coordinator; Okarche Fire Chief Steve Liebl; Omega Fire Chief Kris Eaton; Ryan Gibson, Kingfisher Fire Department captain; Mark Gardner SWODA rural fire coordinator. [Photo provided]

Local FDs receive operational funding checks

Pat Rother, nephew of the Blessed Father Stanley Rother, and Mike Baustert were the guest speakers of the Kingfisher Lions Club last Thursday.

Their topic was the re-cent beatification of the martyred Catholic priest, who was murdered by a politically-motivated death squad operating in the high-lands as civil war was raging in the Central American country of Guatemala.

Baustert told of the pro-cess and procedure that the Catholic church follows to name a saint, and Rother told of the human side of his uncle regarding his many visits to Okarche, where he was raised, and of the poor rural Mayan parishioners he pastored from 1968 until his death in 1981.

Both men, raised in Okarche and members of the Holy Trinity Catholic Church, related personal memories of Rother’s visits to Okarche.

“I think he knew he was going to die down there,” Rother said.

“Everyone was telling him not to go back. But there toward the end, on his last visit home, he kept reas-suring family and friends that he would be OK. He would take precautions to avoid danger and it would all work out.

“Looking back now, I think we all realize that he was downplaying the dan-ger because he didn’t want us to worry about him,” Rother said.

Both Baustert and Roth-er had very clear memories of the Ford Bronco he would drive all the way up from Guatemala, through Mexico and into Okarche, in order to break down farm equip-ment, load it up to the brim and then drive back down to his parishioners, in order to help them farm in a more proficient manner.

“He was very mechani-cally inclined,” Rother said.

SPEAKERS Mike Baustert, left, and Pat Rother, right, with Kingfisher Lions Club member Chase Farrar. [TIMES-FREE PRESS Staff Photo]

From Okarche to sainthood: Lions Club told about continuing process to anoint Father Stanley Rother

“My dad, who was the youngest child in the family, tells us all that he would tear up the family machinery when they were younger and both on the farm, and Uncle Stan would follow behind him and put it back together.

“It’s really amazing that he had such a hard time with Latin while struggling to get through the seminary, because he was fluent in Spanish and the Mayan local dialect, which was not a written, but only a spoken language,” Rother noted.

Rother’s family went last summer to the parish Father Stanley pastored and he passed around photos

taken during the trip.“The people there truly

loved him. He was very special to them and two of the big reasons why were that he made the effort to really learn and understand the local dialect, and he was such a hands-on priest, who was also a friend,” Rother said. “He was also a very good farmer and mechanic and he actively worked to help them farm and was showing them how to im-prove their lives.

“Unfortunately, that drew the attention of the death squads, because they didn’t want the people to make better lives for them-selves and he gave his life

for them as a result.”Baustert said the final

step to sainthood was the validation of a miracle.

He said a healing miracle [See Lions Page 12]

We Love You!From your

family & friends

Happy Birthday

Donna J. Major

Donna Loves Helping Others When She Can!—She is a member of the Quail Springs Methodist Church, 14617 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Oklahoma City.—After retiring from Integris hospital with 20 years of service, she helped in caring for her mother, who was ill. After her mother’s death, she started increasing her charity work.—Before that, she had gone through the offices of the Eastern Star and had been Worthy Matron at Purcell, Blanchard, and later at Cashion and Kingfisher #40. If elected, she will serve as Worthy Matron of Kingfisher for a second time. She loves the members and appreciates all the help and support of the members. Also, Donna is a past Grand Martha of OES and just went out as president of the Past Matrons Club of OKC.—She is Grand Representative to South Carolina, and president of the Grand Representatives of Oklahoma. She is in charge of the Grand Representatives Banquet at the Grand Chapter in October being held at the Scottish Rite Building in Guthrie. —Donna is currently a member in 5 Oklahoma Eastern Star chapters and is an officer in all 5, helping to raise money for all kinds of charities. She is a Grand Escort to the Association Grand Conductress of the Grand Chapter Sister Myjha Reim, Enid, OK.—With limited time to spend, she is a member of the Daughters of the Nile, a support group of India Shrine of Oklahoma City.—Member of the Kingfisher Lions Club—Support of the Chisholm Trail Museum.—Gives financial support to the FFA through the Masonic Charity Foundation.—Member of the Study Club of Kingfisher –Member of the “Foodies”, OKC—Member of the Red Hats.—Loves playing pitch with the Kingfisher couples when possible.

Thanks Donna, For All That You Do!!!

4 Sunday, October 1, 2017 Kingfisher (Okla.) Times & Free Press

VIEW

(A column of opinion by Gary Reid, Publisher Emeritus)

from behindthe plow

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Gary Reid, Publisher Emeritus

Both major political parties in the United States have seen better days.

Democrats have lost both houses of Congress and the pres-idency after a run of eight years’ domination under Obama.

Republicans while in the driver’s seat (barely) have their own problems with a president who has split the party in so many different ways it is hardly recognizable.

Top-ranked conservatives are alienated from a populist base and Democrats are wracked with controversy and scan-dal, some of it a carry-over from the Obama years.

Observers might think both parties were doomed, but New Republic observes that political parties are amazingly resilient, noting that the Whig party has been the only U.S. party to die – about 180 years ago.

New Republic says it is a near constant temptation to look at one political party or another and proclaim it at death’s door.

“Hyperbolic news coverage of elections tends to adopt rather dramatic tones — candidates ‘eviscerate,’ ‘demolish,’ and sometimes even target their opponents for a ‘murder-sui-cide,’” New Republic says. “It all contributes to this concept of elections as war, as though a party’s defeat in an election is similar to an army’s destruction on a battlefield. Candidates, journalists, and politicos only fuel this by describing indi-vidual elections as apocalyptic battles and quoting Sun Tzu.

“But politics isn’t quite like war: There are no permanent victories, and opponents are defeated but live on to fight another day,” it says, adding, “And if you understand why, you can pretty safely guess that you’ll be choosing between a Republican and Democrat in 2020 — even if those labels may not mean quite the same thing in a couple years’ time.”

Wasn’t it George Washington who spoke against political parties in early times because of the divisiveness they add to government?

Meanwhile, the death of the Graham-Cassidy Health bill has created consternation for conservatives eager to see the end of Obamacare and its unconscionable premiums and-or deductibles for everyday citizens seeking health coverage.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has offered a new option, doing health care legislation and tax reform at the same time, using budget reconciliation (and its simple majority requirement) to pass both.

Meanwhile, the leftist national media continues to harp on the idea that there is no way out except a single-payer (social-ist) health care system like other “mature” societies (which face even worse debt problems than America.)

How did people survive before the Obamacare bill passed so “we could find out what was in it,” as California Democrat Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California (where else?) so ludicrously suggested?

People knew long ago not to “buy a pig in a poke.”

Father Stanley Rother: Man for all agesThe beatification service for Father Stanley Rother,

Okarche native, at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City on Saturday, Sept. 23, was an emotional experience, not only for the family of the martyred priest but for the some 20,000 Catholics who attended the service.

Addresses by Archbishop Paul Coakley of the Oklahoma City Archdiocese and Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome, inspired those in attendance with their tales about the humble farm boy from Okarche who overcame obstacles to become a priest and then gave up his life in service to the people of his mission at San-tiago Atitlan, Guatemala. His story has been told to countless congregations since he became the first American-born mar-tyr of the church, dying in the church in a hail of government soldier-fired bullets.

Rother wrote in a letter about the situation in which the populace had rebelled.

“The church seems to be the only force that is trying to do something about the situation and therefore the government is after us,” he wrote in a letter.

A comprehensive article about Rother’s beatification mass in Wednesday’s edition related that Rother was recalled from the mission but returned despite death threats because he did not want to leave his flock without its shepherd.

Who cannot honor a person who is willing to give his life for a cause he believes in?

Stanley Rother is one step away from sainthood in the Catholic Church.

The service was beautiful, including the music, which was provided by a choir made up of choir members from churches throughout the archdiocese.

The archdiocese invited one or two choir members from each church to participate, except Holy Trinity at Okarche, which was allowed to provide eight.

The Okarche choir members thought it was because they were from Father Rother’s home church but those who have heard the Holy Trinity Church choir sing have a different idea. They’ll tell you the Holy Trinity choir provides of the finest singing you’ve ever heard, anywhere.

Okarche members of the beatification choir were Pat Grell-ner, Theresa Schulte, Mary Nell Brueggen, Kathy Knecht, Janelle Grellner, Mary Beth Rund, Cris Krittenbrink and Jane Barby.

People go to Holy Trinity Church services early just to hear the choir sing before the beginning of mass.

And Father Rother has been elevated to a position of pre-eminence, making him one for all ages.

He is a legend in the church and in his home community. His memory will live forever.

Both parties sick but likely to stay

My friend Frank was fac-ing an all-too-common prob-lem: he owned a beautiful ranch that his kids wanted no part of. His son in California is a budding entrepreneur (he builds hothouses for pot growers), and his daughter is a vegan/animal rightist who hates cows and cowboys. So Frank responded to an ad for anyone wanting a free meal at a fancy resort to come learn about 1031 exchanges. Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? He even took his wife who constantly complains he never takes her anywhere nice to eat.

The lawyer hosting the meet-and-greet made it all sound so easy. They could transition out of their hard life as ranchers into a leisure retirement financed by rent checks just by swapping their ranch for apartments. And all the income from the sale of the ranch would be tax free!

Now, two years later Frank is deeply depressed despite being named cus-tomer of the month by Home Depot for buying truckloads of drywall and spackle to repair all the holes in the walls left by vacating ten-ants. Instead of playing golf Frank is patching roofs and replacing water heaters. He has recurring nightmares about leaky faucets. (Did you know that no two are the same?) His once peaceful life has turned into one giant honey-do list.

“Frank there are people to do all that work,” I advised. “They are called property managers and they’ll do the maintenance and collect the rents for you.”

Non-refundable“HA! You don’t under-

stand. I went from being land rich, cash poor to being apartment rich, cash poorer. At the end of the month there’s not enough money left for my wife and me to live on so how am I going to pay a property manager? Especially when the apart-ments I traded for are all rent controlled! It got so bad my

wife and I had to move into one of our apartments. What a dump. No wonder no one wants to rent one.”

“Don’t you have man-agers living in each of your buildings?”

“Are you kidding? I just spent six months and $10,000 to get one evicted, another turned his apartment into a meth lab and another throws wild parties every weekend the cops have to respond to. The police now have my number on speed dial.”

“It’s got to be physically less demanding than ranch-ing,” I said.

“I had a stroke last year from the stress. And I miss my cows! I swear, my apart-ments are like a miniature United Nations and I don’t speak any of the languages. I have to keep my dog on a short leash for fear she’ll get eaten. And you never know when a renter will vacate the premises in the middle of the night and leave behind an old gross couch on the street for you to haul to the dump

and an apartment that looks like a bomb went off in it. The cleaning deposit doesn’t come close to cleaning things up. They say that when you do a 1031 Exchange it has to be for “like” property but there’s nothing alike about ranching and owning apartments. They are as alike as New York City and Chugwater. When I sold my cattle at the auction market I got paid the same day. Most of these folks are four months behind!”

“Was the 1031 exchange a mistake then?”

“Let me put it this way, I’d much rather get up at 3:30 in the morning to pull a calf than to respond to a domestic disturbance. Perhaps instead of apartments I should have traded instead for the chain of bankrupt water parks, the shopping center anchored by a dying Sears store on one end and a JC Penney on the other, or the church building in Chicago’s slums.”

“Can you trade for your ranch back?”

“I’ve thought of that but the lawyer who did the trade won’t return my calls. I’ve heard he either has “relocated” to San Quentin or that he’s now peddling conservation easements in Colorado. I couldn’t afford my old ranch anyway. It’s now for sale for twice what I got paid. I tell you, that free lunch was the most ex-pensive I ever ate. I should have known that something was fishy when they served chicken parmesan to a bunch of ranchers.” wwwLeePittsbooks.com

By Michelle MalkinI’m calling foul on all the

leftists rushing to protect the NFL’s protest crusad-ers from President Donald Trump’s criticism of their national anthem antics.

Their shabby line of de-fense? The NFL is a “private enterprise” whose “rights” are being violated by those who dare to challenge the league’s political radical-ization. The anti-Trump Democratic Coalition has

even filed an ethics complaint a l l e g i n g that the president’s comments constitute a criminal violat ion

against using government offices “to influence the employment decisions and practices” of a private entity.

Funny. These fair-weath-er friends of corporate free speech and the First Amend-ment were nowhere to be found when Boston Mayor Tom Menino and Chica-go Mayor Rahm Emanuel were vowing to shut down Chick-Fil-A in their towns as government retaliation against the founders’ pri-vate religious beliefs.

As for the NFL’s status as a “private” enterprise? That’s some Super Bowl-sized audacity right there. I first started tracking public-ly subsidized sports boon-doggles with my very first watchdog website, Pork-watch, back in 1999. Since then, taxpayers at all levels of government have foot the bill for football stadiums to the tune of an estimated $1 billion every year.

Over the past decade, new tax-supported NFL sta-diums rose up for the India-napolis Colts (the $720 mil-lion Lucas Oil Stadium), the Dallas Cowboys (the $1.15 billion AT&T Stadium) the New York Jets and Giants (the $1.6 billion MetLife Stadium, the Minnesota Vi-kings (the $1.1 billion U.S. Bank Stadium), the Atlanta Falcons (the $1.5 billion Mercedes-Benz Stadium), and the San Francisco 49ers (the $1.3 billion Levi’s Sta-dium in Santa Clara).

Next in the works: a whopping $2.6 billion sta-dium for the Los Angeles Chargers and Rams and a $1.9 billion stadium for the Oakland Raiders when they move to Las Vegas. Left behind? An $83 million taxpayer debt on two-de-cade-old renovations to the Alameda County Coliseum that the Raiders are aban-doning.

Both political parties have supported massive redistribution of taxes from working people to the grid-iron’s spoiled 1-percenters. Public-private sports palace boosters employ the same bogus economic develop-ment math as the federal government’s infamous Solyndra green energy loans, stimulus rip-offs and jobs programs. Citizens are promised an enormous mul-tiplier of jobs and benefits in return for their “invest-ments.” But instead they’ve been saddled with a field of schemes.

Sports economists have concluded repeatedly that the effects of stadium sub-sidies on employment and economic activity are neg-ligible -- or even negative. Scott Wolla of the St. Louis Federal Reserve report-ed earlier this year, “In a 2017 poll, 83 percent of the economists surveyed agreed that ‘Providing state and local subsidies to build stadiums for professional sports teams is likely to cost the relevant taxpayers more than any local economic benefits that are generated.’”

Yet, the NFL, its teams and its sponsors continue to benefit from a bonanza of tax-free loans, munic-ipal bonds, rent waivers and property tax exemp-tions. Congress provided the league with an antitrust exemption that protects its monopoly broadcasting rights. Localities have raid-ed “emergency” funds to

NFL pigskins slopping at public trough

[See Malkin Page 5]

Malkin

By Adam Michel(Ed. Note: Michel focuses

on tax policy and the federal budget as a policy analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Founda-tion.)

Bold tax reform got a big boost on Wednesday.

Leaders in the House, the Senate, and the White House have all agreed on a tax outline, meaning a true update to our broken tax system could be imminent.

First, the GOP tax plan framework would lower taxes for individual Amer-icans. It would double the standard deduction for indi-viduals and thereby expand the zero-percent bracket, and it would create three income tax brackets (down from seven): 12, 25, and 35 percent, respectively.

Most simply, this will allow all Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets.

Importantly, the plan goes a long way toward fix-ing our business tax system, which makes it hard for U.S. businesses to invest in new equipment and new factories. Slow investment caused by our high and dis-tortionary taxes has limited American job creation and slowed wage growth.

This isn’t some hidden truth known only to econo-mists. Almost 80 percent of Americans understand that high corporate taxes lead to lower wages and encourage corporations to do business outside of the U.S.

The proposed new 20 percent corporate tax rate would mean a raise for hard-working Americans.

To maximize its benefits, tax reform must include permanent full expensing. This would allow compa-nies to write off the cost of investments they make in

their own workplace imme-diately, such as the cost of office space needed to hire additional workers.

Right now, the proposal grants five years of expens-ing, but that can easily be expanded at little additional cost. This simple change, if made permanent, could grow the economy by more than 5 percent over 10 years.

Without full expensing, the current system will continue to keep the cost of investing artificially high, thus discouraging business expansion.

The benefits of expens-ing are not just for large corporations. All business-es can take advantage of expensing, big and small. Permanent expensing must be a primary component of any tax reform plan that em-phasizes economic growth and job creation.

The new proposal also includes a territorial busi-ness tax system. This would put American businesses on a level playing field with their foreign competitors and finally bring overseas profits back to the U.S.

As reform moves for-ward, focus will also turn to the more contentious reforms, some of which we cannot forget.

For years, politicians have called for getting rid of “special interest tax breaks” and “closing loopholes.” That sounds good in theory, but as soon as Congress gets specific, K Street lobbyists will swarm Capitol Hill to protect their favorite hand-outs.

One of the most import-ant reforms in this vein is to eliminate the state and local tax deduction.

This provision benefits only a minority of taxpay-ers and creates a federal subsidy for expansions of government at the state

level. This forces people in low-tax states to subsidize big-government states like California, Illinois, and New York.

The state and local tax deduction is both bad poli-cy and unfair.

The tax code should not be used to pick winners and losers. The final tax package should eliminate unjustified tax subsidies that benefit politically fa-vored industries, such as the myriad tax breaks for wind farms, solar panels, and nuclear electricity production.

There are countless other examples of prefer-ences that need to go: the research and development tax credit, education tax credits, and the exclusion for municipal bond inter-est, the deduction for U.S. production activities, and the credit for low-income housing investments, to name just a few.

The president has al-ready indicated that he would like to keep some of these provisions—but up-dating the tax code for the 21st century requires more than just cutting taxes.

True reform will in-clude structural reforms like allowing permanent full expensing and rooting out all the accumulated carve-outs for special in-terests wholesale—not just the tax subsidies that are easy to get rid of.

Lastly, the GOP tax out-line includes a new lower pass-through business rate of 25 percent for business-es that pay taxes through the individual tax code, repeal of the estate tax or “death tax,” and repeal of the corporate and individ-ual alternative minimum taxes to simplify the tax system.

Tax reform just got real.: Why GOP tax plan is great news for America

[See Tax Plan Page 5]

It’s the PittsBy Lee Pitts