NPR quotes professor in debt coverage
August 3, 2011

This week’s political wrangling over the national debt put more than Congress in the spotlight. Dr. John Tures, Associate Professor of Political Science, found his way into National Public Radio stories published Tuesday about fallout from the crisis.

An NPR story covering the revival of a balanced budget amendment quotes Dr. Tures about the tough choices such a measure would demand.

“People don't realize what a balanced budget amendment would mean," Dr. Tures said in the article. “People have wildly distorted ideas about what we spend money on. They think all we have to do is cut foreign aid, which makes up a fraction of the bill, and we'll balance the budget."

He goes on to argue that the discipline required by such an amendment may be the only thing that will allow Washington to control the budget in time to cope with the aging baby boomer generation.

The NPR story appears on the news outlet’s website , and also was featured on local sites as far away as Oregon and California.

Dr. Tures says the reporter was interested in his response after reading an article the professor wrote on the topic for Southern Political Report.

But Dr. Tures’ classroom dedication nearly kept him out of the spotlight.

“Believe it or not, I told him I had to call him back because I had to first help a struggling student who is so close to graduating, and a student working on a paper,” he said. “So I almost didn't get the interview.  But he called me back before the deadline, and interviewed me anyway. 

“He was pretty impressed that a college professor would do that.”