I swear. Our two US senators are in a neck-and-neck race to the bottom. Richard Burr knows he’s not running again — or is at least safe for another three years. So, he’s saying and doing stupid things at break-neck speed — hoping that the voters will be too distracted by the mess his twin brother Thom is making.
Burr wants to slap new taxes on athletes who accept scholarships to attend college and play sports:
Sen. Richard Burr on Thursday criticized the NCAA for its recent announcement that it would open the door to allowing college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness — and defended himself against “ignorant” critics.
Burr, a North Carolina Republican who played defensive back at Wake Forest in the 1970s, created an online firestorm earlier this week when he said he’d bring forth legislation taxing the value of scholarships if players were to “cash in.”
“If college athletes are going to make money off their likenesses while in school, their scholarships should be treated like income. I’ll be introducing legislation that subjects scholarships given to athletes who choose to “cash in” to income taxes,” Burr tweeted on Oct. 29, attracting more than 33,000 comments online, many of them blistering.
Burr played football at Wake Forest, so I am going to be generous and blame stuff like this on one too many blows to the head. For example, in the ACC, the pittance these athletes are given in scholarships is dwarfed by the gazillions the schools bring in on ticket sales, concessions, souvenirs, TV rights and the like. These schools are getting a pretty good bang for their buck.
I’d be mad as hell if people were making millions off of video games bearing my name and likeness, and I couldn’t get one cent from it. Or if a tidy sum was being made selling replica jerseys with my name and number on it.
The athletes deserve a cut of stuff like that. And that’s fine to tax THAT as income — because THAT is what it is. But leave the scholarships alone. The guys and gals who get those earn them every day with a whole lot of blood, sweat and tears. They’re putting their bodies on the line to make a whole lot of money for their respective schools. You give scholarships for talent in the classroom — and on the athletic field. Burr’s babbling could open up a real Pandora’s box that could really screw over academic scholarship recipients.
What’s really sad? DEMOCRATS are even attacking him for being too extreme and tax-happy here.
While Tricky Dick is fixated on THIS, the Democrats have hijacked the Senate committee he supposedly chairs and are using it to beat up our president.
Related
Taxable Income: YES – and beyond any scholarships. I concur.
The FALLOUT: An Unmanageable Quagmire that will OPEN Pandora’s Box. HOW?
FAIRNESS will become the Complaint du jour.
Racism? Check.
Bigger, Popular Schools get more $Money? Check.
Popular Athletes/Programs get more than others? Check (with an obligatory Misogyny thrown in).
The EXPERIMENT will be Praised – to an extent. And then that good ol’ equitable argument of “Share the Wealth” will kick in.
I’m still miffed that the ACC went to a 16-school conference. And there is NOTHING Atlantic Coast about ND… or Louisville….
GREEDY B@$T@RD$
p.s. The momentum of the ACC football games is broken by that One Extra TV ad they can show – before play resumes!
p.p.s. How do you tax a DUKE student vs. a STATE student – on scholarship? Will that change Recruitment?
This is what happens a lot of times when people have been in office too long. God have mercy on our country, it is run by a dollar.
I can’t blame him for him being in office too long, I save the blame for all those North Carolina Republican Primary voters who gave him a pass when they should have replaced him with one of the authentic conservative challengers that stepped up…..unlike the voters who couldn’t see through this phony.
Undoubtedly mr Burr is consumed with hatred of President Trump. He and his committee fiddled around the entire last Congressional session hoping for more evidence to be exposed. Seems to hope if he fiddles around long enough there will be substantial evidence in this Congress that the Senate can vote for impeachment. His good buddy, sen Warner of Va , leads Burr by the nose. He (Burr) is failing in everything he does. He should be recalled as well as a terrible Tillis. They no more represent the actual voters of NC than my dog does. Purely place holders.unfortunately most of the Republicans in Congress are also place holders. Very few even give token support to our President. Placeholders MUST be replaced!
Proof positive we NEED A CONVENTION OF STATES in the worlds worse way! COS is currently being debated in NC as well as many state legislatures across the nation. We the people were blessed with this option thanks to our brilliant founding fathers. It is time to put it in action. 15 states have already ratified it but we need 34 to be able to DRAIN THE DC SWAMP! Contact you STATE LEGISLATURE ! Force a review and ratification before we become the next Venusela and they ruin our republic. To learn more about the convention, what they seek and why, see their website! Convention of States.
Sure not a problem but only if campaign donations can be taxed.
Burr played defense at WF but he obviously got a few dingers along the way.
If I understand Diana’s post, the fact previous comments criticize current elected officials means we need to encourage other current elected officials to move to rewrite the US Constitution. Why would anyone so critical of current elected officials want to empower any of them to rewrite the Bill of Rights or drop the Electoral College and adopt mob rule?
The Electoral College, free speech and the 2nd Amendment are under attack, so we need to provide a forum to rewrite them with input from the Deep State, RINOs and today’s Democrat party? ? ? Why?
When I first became interested in government, the Left was pushing a Constitutional Convention. Then the Republicans took over a lot of state legislatures and suddenly the Left claimed to lose interest and an interesting assortment of individuals began lobbying Republicans (and even re-registering so they can pretend to be Republicans) and the whole thing was repackaged as a Conservative project.
Fortunately Trump’s actions in challenging the power and profits of the Deep State have so outraged the lunatic left that they are beginning to expose the corrupt nature of many pillars of the administrative state. Just as the Deep State and its agents were closing in on a chance to rewrite the document that protects the public from their totalitarian excesses, Antifa and the Democrat Presidential candidates who refuse to repudiate Antifa are reminding the public of the importance of the Electoral College, the 2nd Amendment, and protecting freedom of speech.
All elected officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Why ask them to violate that oath? Why support any elected official who is willing to call for a Convention to rewrite the Constitution when it is already clear the First and Second Amendment and even the Electoral College are under organized attack? A lot of money is moving behind the scenes and the general public has little idea of the efforts being made to persuade current elected officials they are smarter than our country’s founders.
As James Madison wrote years ago, talking about the possibility of a second Constitutional Convention, it “would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts but inadmissible in other parts of the Union might have a dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric. . . .Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a Second, meeting in the present temper of America . . .”
Anyone who is following current events “should tremble for the result of a Second (Constitutional Convention), meeting in the present temper of America . . .”
I used to hold your viewpoint. Then I realized that life is full of risks and doing nothing is a big risk too. Yes, CoS is scary, because the unknown is scary, and we can’t be sure what might come out of it. One could say the same for the American Revolution. Undertaking an independence movement must have been very unsettling for our forebears but the existing situation became too intolerable not to do anything. The power of today’s federal government is also intolerable and I hear no other realistic alternatives for addressing that problem.
Washington warned us against organized political parties. Our two senators are products of them, so it is no wonder that they ignore the will of Conservatives in our state. The greater problem in my opinion is the lack of interest among most senators in their original purpose – to represent the interests of their Sovereign State, which implies following the guidance of our state legislature, the people we send to Raleigh to represent us. When was the last time you heard of Senators Burr and Tillis conferring with Phil Berger to ask how they should vote in DC?
Regarding Toxhandler’s comment regarding risks: Yes, life is full of risks, but they should be risks that are worth taking as opposed to selling our birthright for a mess of pottage. Daniel Webster, a great patriot said: “A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.” If one looks more deeply into the matter, one will find that most of the amendment proposals promoted or supported by Convention of States (CoS) either 1.) open the door to an expansion of federal power or 2.) authorize unconstitutional practices that have crept into our laws. One has to wonder what their true agenda is.
CoS is like a habit-forming gateway drug. A gateway drug is not itself addictive, but leads to the use of more powerful addictive drugs. The CoS is marketed to “conservatives” as the only way to ease the pain of today’s intolerable federal government. But test runs of a Convention of States, for example the 2016 “mock” CoS convention in Williamsburg, VA, have shown that convention delegates (“commissioners”) who partake of the CoS gateway drug immediately lose constitutional acuity and drift into the hazy habit of rationalizing federal expansion for the sake of “doing something!” Sooner or later, if allowed to go unchecked, this habit will lead to a full-blown addiction and appetite for more federal power – eroding our liberties until the U.S. Constitution is destroyed.
Also, despite the fact that hopeful CoS supporters rely on the assurance the states would never pass any “crazy” amendments, there is no guarantee that the ratification process will prevent the passage of bad amendments. Even CoS lobbyists have to admit this. The best they can do is hedge by saying that is it highly unlikely.
The opening statement by Brant Clifton describes perfectly why we do not need term limits for Congress as promoted by Convention of States. He writes, “Richard Burr knows he’s not running again — or is at least safe for another three years. So, he’s saying and doing stupid things at break-neck speed.” The founders had term limits during the period of Articles of Confederation and elected not to put them in our current Constitution because they experienced the very same corruption by “lame duck” legislators. Term limits deprive “We the People” of our choice of elected officials. If a legislator does not obey the Constitution, vote that legislator out. An excellent legislator should be allowed to stay on in office, gaining in wisdom and experience, as long as he or she obeys the Constitution. The only solution is for the American people to know the Constitution that we have now and to put it into practice by filling our government with men and women of integrity and constitutional understanding.