{"id":1209,"date":"2016-02-24T01:18:57","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T01:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/?p=1209"},"modified":"2016-02-24T01:18:57","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T01:18:57","slug":"when-brilliance-fades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/2016\/02\/24\/when-brilliance-fades\/","title":{"rendered":"When brilliance fades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Politicians take credit, but usually not blame for things that happen during their administrations. North Dakota had a great run when many other states were struggling because it was able to frack and retrieve oil. What annoyed me at the time, was the tendency of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/2011\/01\/09\/election-season\/\">politicians running and representing the state<\/a>\u00a0(translate as mostly republicans) to take credit for this prosperity. The &#8220;easy&#8221; money in hard times allowed cutting taxes and job growth. Re-election was easy and even encouraged some to encourage other states to look to North Dakota as an example. At the time, I suggested that the brilliance of the North Dakota politicians was positioning the state on top of huge numbers of dead dinosaurs.<\/p>\n<p>Changing circumstances can reveal the flaws in bad plans and claims of brilliance. I have been gone from the state and working at the University now for a couple of years. I still keep up on what is happening and I know institutions have been asked to cut budgets, leave open positions open, and make other adjustments to help the state deal with shortfalls. Today, I see the state is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.grandforksherald.com\/news\/region\/3954405-5-north-dakota-rest-areas-closing-help-offset-692-million-shortfall\">closing rest stops<\/a> in an effort to reduce spending. Perhaps this is an effort to encourage greater reliance on the &#8220;public sector&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t read much about politicians stepping up to take the same responsibility for the down turn. Pretty much the same cast of characters, but the spin will have to be a little different this election season.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politicians take credit, but usually not blame for things that happen during their administrations. North Dakota had a great run when many other states were struggling because it was able to frack and retrieve oil. What annoyed me at the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/2016\/02\/24\/when-brilliance-fades\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1210,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningaloud.com\/curmudgeonspeaks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}