The Wall Street Journal reports that new data (.pdf) from the Department of Agriculture shows that in the U.S. “some 70 percent of households that relied on food stamps last year had no earned income”:

While the recession technically ended in 2009, a sluggish economic recovery left millions out of work or underemployed and leaning on the government for assistance last year.

The Agriculture Department’s annual snapshot on the characteristics of food stamp households, released Friday, shows that seven in 10 households receiving food stamps had no earned income last year, though many got other forms of government benefits.

Nearly 21% of households on food stamps also received Supplemental Security Income, assistance for the aged and blind. Some 21.4% received Social Security benefits. Just 8% of households also received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the cash welfare program.

But some 20% of households had no cash income of any kind last year, up from 15% in 2007, the year the recession began, and up from 7% in 1990.

That’s partly because most household heads who were receiving food stamps were also out of work. Just 21.8% of them had jobs in 2010, while 19.8% were jobless and looking for work.

According to an interactive map on the Journal’s website, Florida had among the highest percentage of people on food stamps without an earned income. The states with a higher percentage included Kentucky, Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Massachusetts reported the highest percentage: 80 percent.

The Journal also reported that “food stamps may be emerging as a lifeline for families after their unemployment insurance expired [and] just 6.7% of households who received food stamps were getting jobless benefits.” It as also reported that “nearly half of all food-stamp recipients, 47%, were children under the age of 18. Another 8% of recipients were age 60 or older.”

Poverty and unemployment has been a persistent problem in Florida. The last Florida jobs report shows that unemployment remained unchanged from one month to the next. In August, Florida also had the second highest number of mass layoffs in the nation. Many of Florida’s largest cities are struggling to rebound from the recession.

Gov. Rick Scott maintains the state is on the “right path.”

While the key monitoring tool was dropped for the 2009-2010 school year, the documents from LDOE also show a host of measures — on-site visits and mandatory internal investigations — were taken to monitor schools during the spring and summer high-stakes testing season for academic years 2007-2008, 2008-2009 and 2009-2010.

An erasure analysis — a once-arcane accountability device that has garnered increased public awareness following high-profile testing impropriety scandals in Pennsylvania,New Jersey and Georgia — is part of a portfolio of precautions undertaken by state education officials to prevent cheating on standardized tests. The process consists of examining electronic bubble sheets on which students record their answers for a high rate of wrong-to-right answer erasures. Typical explanations for why students change test answers include copying answers from other pupils, teacher intervention or as one newsletter released by the Louisiana School Board Association alleged, administrative and state-level meddling to change the answers.

Charles Hatfield, a former superintendent in charge of testing and accountability of what was the unified school district (Orleans Parish School Board) in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina struck, explained erasure analysis in greater detail. “They [the analysts] scan the bubble sheets following a mathematical algorithm,” he said, “meaning from a statistical point of view, it is highly unlikely that so many wrong-to-right erasures can occur.”

The motivations for test tampering are numerous, but many education experts point to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as incentivizing testing corruption given the high-stakes nature of the national education policy. States are rated by how many of its schools clear cut-marks; schools that post poor results can lose funding or suffer staff layoffs, while in extreme cases of chronic underperformance, the school is handed to charter operators. In recent weeks, high-profile education officials like U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and firebrand education historian and NCLB critic Diane Ravitch have called for the law to be expunged. The two camps disagree on a replacement.

In seeking an explanation for the one-year suspension of erasure analysis, LDOE spokesperson Rene Greer told TAI the economic downturn burrowed an unexpected $247.9 million budget deficit for 2009-2010 into the state coffers, leading to across-the-board cuts. LDOE absorbed $4.15 million in cuts as part of the department’s effort to “provide the maximum support for students and teachers, while maintaining the integrity of the testing program,” said Greer.

As a consequence, however, the cuts included the elimination of the erasure analysis as well as the development, printing and distribution of interpretive guides and other testing reports.  The decision not to have the vendor conduct the erasure analysis saved the department $58,459. According to The Notebook, Pennsylvania — where dozens of schools were flagged recently for wrong-to-right erasures that analysts calculate were very likely the result of testing improprieties– spent nearly double that for its 2009 erasure analysis, though the Keystone State’s population exceeds Louisiana’s, 12.7 million to 4.5 million.

Louisiana’s testing vendor is Data Recognition Corporation (DRC). Through another FOIA request, TAI learned the state entered a contract with the company to the tune of roughly $9 to $13 million a year, spanning a decade of services beginning in 2005. DRC received a no-bid contract extension in 2010 worth nearly $44.5 million. DRC prints, issues, writes, grades and analyzes Louisiana’s No Child Left Behind-compliant state tests. LEAP, iLeap, GEE (the high school exit exam) and several tests geared toward students with limited English proficiency and learning disabilities all fall under the purview of DRC.

“While the erasure analysis is a one tool the agency has used to ensure the integrity of Louisiana’s testing program, as the data indicate, historically this analysis has resulted in an inconsequential percentage of tests being voided statewide,” wrote Greer in an email to TAI. “Thus, the utilization of the erasure analysis alone does not validate nor diminish the reliability of the state’s testing program or accountability system.”

Indeed, for the 2010-2011 school year, 1,533,000 tests were administered statewide, with 214 of those voided for exceeding the number of wrong-to-right answer erasures. In the Recovery School District, the state-run set of campuses that were taken over following Katrina with many then placed under charter operators, 38 tests were voided out of 63,966 administered after an erasure analysis.

The chart below chronicles four academic years of erasure analysis voids, meaning scores for tests flagged are marked with a zero which can impact a school’s overall School Performance Score — the index used by Louisiana in compliance with No Child Left Behind school assessment rules.

LDOE also supplied TAI with testing violations reports beginning in 2007-2008 through 2009-2010.

For ’07-’08, 82 members of LDOE staff visited 238 test sites in 56 school districts during the spring testing season. The report from the Division of Standards, Assessments, and Accountability and Regional Service Centers concluded, “access to test documents was controlled and security procedures were followed.”

However, site visitors recorded springtime violations at 47 sites, 21 of which had “severe testing irregularities.” For heightened violations, the state orders the district to conduct an investigation, identify the cause of the transgressions and form a corrective plan of action to avoid repeat offenses, which is then submitted to the LDOE officials. Violations are represented by a per-incident basis, with the potential for many occurring in one school. At Laurel Elementary in New Orleans, for example, 13 violations were cited over irregularities concerning the answer sheets of six students taking the English Language Arts exam and seven students taking the math portion. Those scores were voided.

Scott Norton, Ph.D., assistant superintendent at LDOE’s office of student and school performance, said districts with significant violations receive follow-up inspections the next year, adding, “sometimes the on-site monitoring is unannounced.”

He elaborated: “The state has a policy in the assessment bulletin that districts have to follow. [These include] a chain of custody for the test documents and a secure locked location for where the testing material is held.”

For 2008-2009, LDOE staff made 257 test site visits in 66 districts, with additional visits to charter special schools. Eighty-three evaluators were sent out, and, according to the report summary, “[a]ny school with a record of prior test security problems was likely to be visited; the remaining visits were scheduled at random.”

The report noted that during the springtime monitoring sessions, 50 sites had minor testing irregularities, while 18 had more severe violations that required a corrective action plan. The Recovery School District, unpopular to teacher and labor groups as well as community activists for its swift school turnaround process and what they call misleading student performance data, had 26 springtime violations noted in ’08-’09. For 2007-2008, RSD was flagged for 27 of the total 137 violations recorded throughout the state. RSD schools are, according to the state, long-struggling schools.

RSD students in New Orleans, a city in which most of the district’s schools are concentrated, struggle with high rates of poverty and higher rates of suspensions, arrests, and draconian school enforcement policies.

Despite the budget cuts and no erasure policy, in 2009-2010, there was a surge in LDOE personnel conducting on-site testing evaluations: 157 LDOE employees were sent out to 378 sites, plus charter and special schools. 54 violations were recorded, of which 12 were significant. 27 occurred at RSD.

Greer told TAI, “Louisiana has the most notable and recognizable accountability processes in the country.”

Relying on 2009 Pennsylvania state data that was never published, The Notebooklearned that in some instances, the likelihood of wrong-to-right erasure marks on student bubble sheets happening in earnest was smaller than the equivalent of dividing one by the product of a trillion multiplied by a trillion. Some 60 Pennsylvania schools were nabbed for possible cheating through the erasure analysis.

New York Daily News reported in early August that the New York State Education Department stopped using erasure analysis in 2001, though is considering reinstating the oversight tool in light of cheating scandals in Atlanta and Philadelphia.

On its website, the SBA List is keeping a “State by State Scoreboard” showing that to date, approximately $60,399,000 in federal and state funding has been stripped from Planned Parenthood affiliates in eight states. SBA breaks down that total amount by how much Planned Parenthood has been “defunded” in each state:

• Indiana: $2 million
• Kansas: $330,000
• New Hampshire: $1.8 million
• New Jersey: $7.5 million
• North Carolina: $434,000
• Tennessee: $335,000
• Texas: $47 million
• Wisconsin: $1 million

The SBA List has essentially declared war on the “abortion giant.” On its website, SBA notes that: “Our efforts during the federal budget fight gave Planned Parenthood a black eye.” The group recently garnered much attention surrounding a presidential pledge to support only judicial nominees and cabinet members opposed to abortion rights in most cases, to defund Planned Parenthood and to support a national “fetal pain” bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Americans United for Life (AUL) has similarly taken credit for the state-by-state defunding trend. Last week, the group released a report accusing Planned Parenthood of financial and criminal wrongdoing and distributed copies of this report on Capitol Hill. As The Florida Independent reported, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, has suggested he might look at the report and launch an investigation of Planned Parenthood, telling POLITICO PULSE:

“I believe my Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee should review the findings of this report and possibly hold a hearing on why taxpayers are funding Planned Parenthood with its record of abuse and violations of state laws. The American people deserve a concrete reason for funding Planned Parenthood; a reason I do not believe exists.”

In the past, Stearns has identified himself as a friend to the anti-abortion rights movement and several times has introduced legislation to give federal funding to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” but his proposed legislation has never moved. Back in February, Stearns promised anti-abortion rights groups that he would call a hearing to investigate Planned Parenthood, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Since Planned Parenthood released a rebuttal, fact-checking AUL’s report, the anti-abortion rights groups has renewed its call for a congressional investigation and has released its own rebuttal (PDF) to Planned Parenthood’s rebuttal. On Tuesday, Kellie Fiedorek, staff counsel for AUL, is scheduled to discuss her organization’s allegations against Planned Parenthood at a Bloggers Briefing sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.

Districts can also sponsor change internally, leaning on new interactive media platforms to break outdated modes of learning while preparing students for a future that not only relies on technology for convenience, but demands its understanding to stay competitive globally.

A story in The Iowa Independent, a sister publication of The American Independent,highlights a school district in the Hawkeye State that has dropped textbooks and workbooks for grades six and up in favor of laptops. Van Meter Community Schools has become a model institution, hosting 500 educators and dignitaries as they glean the best approaches to free up learning while upping a student’s knowledge intake.

On a costs basis, relying on high-tech consumer items comes down to $50 per device, saving the schools money on workbooks that were the largest expenditure as it dropped the bound paper and leased roughly $150,000 worth of Apple Macintosh laptop computers and products.

The author of the story, Beth Dalbey, writes the district began mapping its tech-focus education approach six years ago over concerns a fast-growing portion of the county would swallow the small school system.

Here is a sample of the story that illustrates some of the advantages to an interactive classroom:

Behind Van Meter’s looking glass, students – or learners, as they’re known in the lexicon of 21st-century education – are more likely to browse the World Wide Web than traditional library shelves when researching papers and presentations. It’s a world where computer literacy is integrated in early childhood education, and young learners use technology to join a national celebration of Dr. Seuss’s birthday on Read Across America, or to drop in virtually on the Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska, where they find real-world applications for geography, math, history and biology. Or they might, as aspiring filmmaker Michael Kinley, 13, was on a typical morning in the classroom, be involved in a video chat with a classmate in Alaska about the scheduling commitments they both would have to make to include a young man from India in their fledgling virtual video editing club.

Laptop and tablet computers, smart phones and an emporium of other hand-held gizmos make it easier to personalize each student’s education and tailor instruction of the state’s core curriculum in areas that ignite their passions for learning, according to Van Meter school officials. What students research is important, educators say, but not as important as knowing how and where to access information, how to source and verify it, and how to apply it to real-world situations – a skill set that Carver says makes Van Meter graduates “some of the best prepared kids In Iowa” as the information age ends and what he calls the age of creativity and imagery begins.

There are other models for eschewing rising pressure from school choice advocates like the American Federation for Children and the Obama administration to allow more charter schools and privately managed education groups to operate in public districts.

In New Jersey, a program called the Interdistrict Public School Choice Program allows schools with open enrollment slots to offer those spaces to out-of-district students through a lottery. When it was envisioned 12 years ago, the program was meant to allow students to move from one crowded district to a less cramped one. Last year Republican Gov. Chris Christie signed a law allowing any jurisdiction to participate, with over 50 districts signing up. For small schools, it’s a boon to their enrollment and their finances as money travels with the student.

But that’s not the only benefit to this open student exchange. An April article from MyCentralJersey followed a particularly diverse school’s decision to enter the program:

But the deciding factor…was the impact of the Global Awareness Group, an issue-oriented and civic-minded after-school activity that stocks local food pantry shelves, sells baked goods for a women’s shelter and raises money for international victims of poverty, human rights abuses and catastrophe.

[…]

Justice Hehir, 17, president of the Global Awareness Group, will have graduated by 2012-13, yet she said she is excited about the possibility of the program expanding with interdistrict students. The more students in the program, named GAG for short, the greater impact it can have, said Hehir, now a junior. “More people from different towns can further the potential to carry change,” she said. “In terms of what we can do to get messages out there and getting people involved as global citizens, it’s a great opportunity.”

An audit of the program written by researchers at Rutgers University before the program was scaled up in 2010 concluded [PDF] the interdistrict choice effort has been successful in allowing the state’s public education system to be more responsive to parents and students. However, their findings also showed the limited number of district participation was hurting the other goals of acquiring an-across-the-board enrollment equilibrium. It is likely those concerns have been mitigated with the program’s expansion.

The media-heavy curriculum observed in Iowa is not an isolated case either. Websites like EdSurge are dedicated to expanding technologies into the classroom, helping teachers practice their profession more freely and with greater agility. And while Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post opined the increased role of media and software could make many teaching positions redundant, other commentators propose instead educators will become (PDF) facilitators of knowledge, helping students use the available tools to learn what they want.

NPR’s Robert Smith reports on research from Jeffrey Thompson, an assistant research professor at the University of Masachusetts-Amhert’s Political Economy Research Institute, and Cristobal Young and Charles Varner, sociologists at Stanford and Princeton Universities.

Thompson’s study (PDF), published in April, is a statistical analysis of migration trends in New England, as compared to state tax rates in the region. Thompson concludes that while high tax rates may make a given state less appealing for people already planning a move, there is little to no evidence that people leave states when taxes go up. He writes:

The vast majority of households that move to a different county or state indicate employment, family, and housing-related matters are the main reason behind their move.

The limited available research on the impact of taxes on cross-state migration suggests that taxes do not play a very important role.

Thompson writes further that on an individual level, those with higher incomes tend to have stronger financial and community ties to where they live, discouraging interstate emigration. Back on the statewide level, the decrease in migration to a high-tax state is actually vastly offset by increased revenue from high taxes, resulting in net benefits to the state economy and job market:

States raising taxes will see somewhat fewer migrants choose their state as a destination, but offset and reverse this impact when they use increased tax revenues in ways that attract people and create jobs. Because the migration impacts of unemployment are so much greater than for taxes, when states use additional revenue to create jobs and lower unemployment, the net effect is to decrease out- migration and attract more people to the state.

Young and Varner’s study (PDF), set to be published in next month’s edition of the National Tax Journal, examines the consequences of New Jersey’s so-called “millionaire tax,” a 2004 tax increase of 2.6 percent on any New Jerseyite making more than $500,000 a year. Young and Varner found that not only did those hit with the tax not leave in any significant numbers, but that earners making just below the $500,000 cutoff left at about the same rate, suggesting that even among top earners who’ve moved from New Jersey since 2004, taxes have had very little impact on their decisions to do so.

The paper bolsters evidence from a 2009 study in which Princeton demographer Douglas Massey showed that, at most, 0.7 percent of those affected by the “millionaire tax” had left the state for tax reasons since 2004. While their departure cost New Jersey $38 million in annual revenue, the money collected from the remaining 99.3 percent has added nearly a billion dollars a year to New Jersey’s coffers. The net economic gain from instituting the tax has been an average of $857 million a year.

[he] flips open his ringing cellphone and says “Hey, Gov,” raising a finger to pause an interview as he steps from the room. “We talk a lot,” he says later, grinning broadly, when asked about Chris Christie. “A lot.”

So when the 58 year-old DiVencenzo was found to have quietly “retired” in August in order to collect a $68,856 pension along with his regular $156,207 salary, a practice known as “double dipping,” Christie’s response was notably muted.

“Let’s not just isolate one person on this. Everyone else is doing it,” he said. Of course, “everyone else” hadn’t been advocating for passage of the very law that would’ve made the practice illegal. Asked if Joe “Double D” should be characterized as greedy, a charge the governor has leveled at other allegedly rapacious public employees, Christie responded, “The fact of the matter is everyone defines greedy in different ways.”

But when 76 year-old Lorretta Weinberg, a state senator who ran against Christie as the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2009, voluntarily disclosed that she had begun to collect a pension to supplement her $49,000 salary after losing much of her savings in the Bernie Madoff scandal, Christie said she deserves a “hypocrisy award.”

“She is the queen of double standards,” Christie charged. “No matter how long you’ve been around here, the hypocrisy meter has to tilt on her.”

Last night, union leaders held a mock “retirement party” for DiVincenzo, wishing him  “success and happiness” on his “well-deserved retirement.”

“Planned Parenthood performed 324,000 abortions in 2010. That should be enough reason to ensure that it never receives another taxpayer dollar from our government,” Bachmann said. “But alarming new revelations about Planned Parenthood raise questions about whether the organization is breaking the law.”

Bachmann was referring to a video released by LiveAction, an anti-abortion group that specializes in ambushing Planned Parenthood clinics, that appears to show a Planned Parenthood staffer in New Jersey telling a pimp and his prostitute how to obtain services for girls as young as 14.

“Live Action has turned its video over to law enforcement authorities, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder,” Bachmann said in a statement. “I am calling on those authorities to fully investigate this case and to prosecute any offenders to the fullest extent of the law.”

But Planned Parenthood beat LiveAction to it. After the group, posing as a pimp and prostitute showed up at a half-dozen clinics across the country, Planned Parenthood called the FBI to report a potential sex-ring involving minors.

And, the group fired the staffer in New Jersey who provided advice on circumventing the law.

“The Planned Parenthood staff member reacted professionally to a highly unusual person posing as a patient,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement. “After the encounter, the staff member immediately notified her supervisor, who subsequently notified members of Planned Parenthood’s national security team, who are working with the FBI, which is investigating these visits.”

As the New Jersey Star Ledger editorial board pointed out, the sting in New Jersey merely found a bad employee, not rampant corruption in the organization.

At least a dozen clinics in six states were visited in January by men claiming to be involved in sex trafficking, Planned Parenthood officials said. Each time, employees notified authorities. Planned Parenthood also said it sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Jan. 18 with concerns about sex trafficking and a possible hoax.

Ambush journalism makes entertaining YouTube moments, but rarely proves a larger point. ACORN was exonerated. A video targeting the teachers union in New Jersey relied heavily on the words of one tipsy teacher. And Live Action actors found a lousy employee, that’s all.

The rough edited video of an apparently criminally floundering New Jersey Planned Parenthood staffer posted today on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment right-wing politics blogsite. The video is the work of Live Action Films led by pro-life activist Lila Rose. The video closely follows the pattern set by Breitbart and James O’Keefe in their debunked and illegal ACORN-sting videos, where the heavily edited footage appears to show a prostitute and pimp receiving advice on how to run their business from the low-income housing and voter-registration group staffers.

The video:

Live Action reportedly sent activists posing as sex traffickers into 12 Planned Parenthood clinics in six states this month– Virginia, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Arizona. When the pretend sex-traffickers began arriving at the clinics this month, Planned Parenthood filed a report with Attorney General Eric Holder and the FBI, which launched an investigation. The FBI found no multi-state child prostitution ring. In its own dogging around, Planned Parenthood likewise found no sex ring but only links to Rose and Live Action.

As in the ACORN case, the video caught by Live Action would appear to be fairly damning and has already provided pro-life groups with plenty of ammunition against Planned Parenthood. Yet the country has learned much in the years since Breitbart pushed the hoax ACORN video into the mainstream mediasphere to such great effect.

After lawmakers and members of the media tried and convicted ACORN of grave wrongdoing according to the lightning-fast cable news schedule, evidence related to the ACORN videos was presented to judges working according to schedules and rules of evidence established by the law. Judges presented with the unedited footage came to a conclusion opposite the one rushed into by politicians and cable commentators. ACORN did nothing illegal. The tapes backed by Breitbart and edited by disgraced activist James O’Keefe, they said, were videotape patchworks sewed together into lies. Indeed, judges on the east coast and the west coast suggested that, if there were any criminal wrongdoing captured in the tapes, it was on the part of O’Keefe, who had likely at least violated wiretapping laws.

O’Keefe was subsequently arrested for breaking into Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans, where he was again attempting to produce a hoax video. Breitbart was condemned for pushing the phony ACORN story and also for pushing an egregiously edited and defamatory video of U.S. Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod, a black woman who Breitbart made to seem an anti-white racist and who was fired as a result. Sherrod was no racist, a fact the full footage of the video Breitbart cut up and patched together to condemn her proved beyond a doubt.

In the Sherrod case, Breitbart was targeting the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, making the argument that the NAACP is racist.

This latest video targeting Planned Parenthood, underlines a pattern: Breitbart-promoted undercover video “exposés” target organizations established to provide service to minority groups and the poor.

Live Action and Lila Rose have tried repeatedly to discredit Planned Parenthood, its videos thus far lauded by pro-life activists and dismissed by the larger public and media.

Planned Parenthood spokespeople told the AP that its management is investigating whether the New Jersey clinic employee in the latest video may have violated Planned Parenthood policies. The group will certainly have to ask for the full unedited video footage to make that decision.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

In the letter, Spectra Energy Group Vice President Bill Yardley says:

Here’s the reality: There are more than 300,000 miles of pipelines in the U.S. Natural gas pipelines are the safest mode of transportation, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. These pipelines are monitored every minute of every day to ensure the integrity of the pipe and the safety of the public. In recent years, technology has improved in the manufacturing of high-caliber strength, durable steel pipe used to transport natural gas. And a series of more stringent government and public safety regulations and requirements has been established in the past decade by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Department of Transportation and other federal agencies to ensure continued focus — and improvement — of pipeline safety standards.

Texas-based Spectra Energy operates nearly 20,000 miles of natural gas pipelines in the United States and Canada.

A TWI investigation has shown that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency in charge of pipeline safety, has a close relationship with industry, having adopted by reference all or parts of 29 standards written by key oil and natural gas trade associations.

Gramm’s wife, Wendy, the board chair of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which hosted the event, also ran afoul of historians. While discussing Friedman’s dialogue with General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, about free-market policies, she said that former Chilean Pres. Salvador Allende was clinging to power against voters’ wishes before Pinochet’s 1973 coup. Historians told The Texas Independent that Gramm was flat-out wrong — Allende’s party had triumphed in an election just months prior to Pinochet’s take-over.

Revered by conservative free-market thinkers, Friedman is a polarizing figure due at least in part to how his economic theories were put into practice in the wake of major upheavals in South America and elsewhere.

At the luncheon Friday, Phil Gramm praised Friedman for his unwavering defense of the free market, even in the case of sweatshops — which Friedman said were a product of poverty, not capitalism.

Phil Gramm reprised a Friedman anecdote about how his own mother had worked in a sweatshop in New York City for three years after immigrating from Poland. Gramm said Friedman’s parents were part of the Jewish migration from Poland.

However, Friedman’s parents were not from Poland; they were from Austria-Hungary, according to Friedman’s autobiography on the Nobel Prize website.

Phil Gramm related how Friedman said that sweatshop workers make more money than average workers due to the lengthy hours involved, and that this was what had enabled his family to accumulate enough money to move to Chicago and pursue “the opportunity of the American Dream.”

However, Friedman’s parents met in New York City, where Friedman was born. They soon moved to Rahway, N.J., where his mother ran a dry goods store. Friedman earned an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey and did not move to Chicago until he was 20 years old, according to the autobiography.

Phil Gramm also praised Friedman for originating the ideas behind an all-volunteer army, flat taxes, the earned income tax credit and school choice.

“We are in a counter-revolutionary cycle in our own country,” Phil Gramm said.

This story originally appeared at The Texas Independent.