LA Clippers’ Steve Ballmer Doing the Good Mans Work
By Derek Cluff
LA Clippers’ owner Steve Ballmer has assembled a team of professionals to find out exactly what the United States is spending our money on.
When you think of the rich, some words that come to mind are: stingy, selfish, and money hoarders. Well, that’s not the case with Steve Ballmer, a man of intense passion.
The owner of the LA Clippers, was fresh off of retiring from being the Chief Executive of Microsoft in 2014. He still hadn’t bought the Clippers franchise yet, so he was looking for something to do with all of his spare time. According to the NY Times, the following conversation with his wife helped sway him into taking on an endeavor like no other:
"“But come on, doesn’t the government take care of the poor, the sick, the old?” Mr. Ballmer recalled telling her.Her answer: “A, it won’t, because there are things government doesn’t get to, and B, you’re missing it.”Mr. Ballmer replied, “No, I’m not.”"
After this conversation, Ballmer did his research and found that it was difficult to find exactly what was being spent and where it was coming from. This drove him to assemble a small team of economists, professionals, and college professors to find out where the money comes from and where it goes.
Where we are at today, in terms of researching our government, you are either going to get two points of view and little-to-no actual facts. You’re either going to get a pro-government bias or a heavy anti-goverment bias that cast a huge shadow over all the information you’re trying to dig up.
Steve Ballmer did his research and ran into many of the same walls you may have run into when trying to gather similar information. He couldn’t believe that no one else had attempted to gather and distribute the information on government spending to the people. So, the multi-billonare put together a team of economist, professors, and other professionals to gather up all the information on government spending that they could.
The gathering of the information on government spending allowed the LA Clippers owner to build an entire database on almost everything that happens in this country. USAFacts, the database created by Ballmer and his team, helps you find any and all infromation that you could possibly want to know. Using the search bar, you can find a wide range of information anywhere from the amount of much money was brought into the government last year, to how many children are currently in foster care. There is almost no limit to what you can find on USAFacts.
Ballmer told the NY Times:
"“I would like citizens to be able to use this to form intelligent opinions,” Mr. Ballmer said. “People can disagree about what to do — I’m not going to tell people what to do.” But, he said, people ought to base their opinions “on common data sets that are believable.”"
Steve, as a citizen himself, wants the US to be a better place. In order to do that, we need to work together, have different opinions, and push for the people running our great nation to do better. But, in order to do this, us citizens need to know what exactly we’re referring to when we look at the numbers. Basing our opinions on wrongful claims can not only cause us to form wrong opinions, but can transfer into wasted energy and time.
On the homepage, Mr. Ballmer reminds of us of the four duties given to us by the US Constitution. Establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. He is calling us to action, to use this information that he spent $10 million of his own money to gather.
Steve Ballmer is as good of a man as any. He saw how troubled and damaged the Clippers franchise was becoming under Donald Sterling, and he saw an opportunity in which he could help. He put down his bid of $2
billion
on the team and has helped this franchise make a 180 degree turn around. There are
more Clipper fans than ever, the logo is finally unique to the Clippers, the team is good and fun to watch mostly thanks to Ballmer’s efforts with the team.
In the arena, in his Clippers office, and in his home office Steve Ballmer strives for excellence. He wants what’s best for the Clippers just as much as he wants what’s best for the citizens of this country. The database is only the first step in bringing a balance to the skewed system that we call our american government.