The Butler softball team lost 11-2 at Ball State (24-11) yesterday.

Junior infielder Krista Hakola went 2-for-2 at the plate and drove in a run for the Bulldogs.

Butler split a two-game series against Atlantic 10 foe George Washington last weekend.

In the first game, the two teams were deadlocked until the seventh inning when senior Devin Brierly came in to pinch run for a walked batter. She was eventually able to score on a sacrifice fly by junior Callie Dennison.

Senior Jenny Esparza and freshman Kristin Gutierrez combined to pitch a no-hitter for the 1-0 win.

The Colonials (12-17) won the second game 4-1.

The team has a non-conference double-header against Morehead State today at 3 p.m.

In recent weeks, reports from ESPN and CBS led many to believe that Butler may switch athletic conferences within the next few years.

Butler could make the transition from the Horizon League to the Atlantic 10 conference and replace departing Temple.

The Owls of Temple are currently part of the A-10 in all sports except football.

For football, Temple is an associate member of the Mid-American Conference.

Temple is joining the Big East next season for football and all other sports the following year.

According to reports, Butler may likely be the team to fill the spot left by Temple in the A-10.

Butler would bring all of its athletic teams to the A-10 except for football, which is a member of the Pioneer Football League.

The change would go into effect beginning with the 2013-2014 school year.

Other schools that ESPN and CBS consider to be candidates for filling the A-10 vacancy are Virginia Commonwealth and George Mason.

If the crossover is made, Butler would be the second-smallest university in the league.

Butler would have more students than only St. Bonaventure, which has an enrollment of approximately 2,400.

Butler’s athletic programs would compete against schools with more than 20,000 students, such as Charlotte, George Washington University and the Massachusetts.

However, most of the schools in the A-10 have between 6,000 and 15,000 students.

The Butler athletics department declined to comment on conference affiliation or changes, other than Associate Athletic Director Jim McGrath saying that “we are members of the Horizon League.”

The move would likely benefit Butler’s men’s basketball team, which competed in back-to-back NCAA championship games in 2010 and 2011.

This season, the A-10 placed four teams in the NCAA tournament—Xavier, St. Bonaventure, Temple and Saint Louis. The Horizon League sent only Detroit to the Big Dance.

The Bulldogs would see an increase in competition and would have a traditional conference rival in Xavier.

Senior guard Rotnei Clarke has experience playing in a collegiate athletic conference more prominent than the Horizon League.

Clarke transferred from Arkansas—a member of the Southeastern Conference—last year and sat out this season with a year of eligibility remaining.

“It’s a cool thing being able to play in a power conference,” Clarke said.

The A-10 is not nearly as big as the SEC, but the A-10 tends to draw more attention from major media outlets—specifically ESPN—than the Horizon League.

Clarke said the media exposure he experienced during his time in the SEC was a good experience.

Clarke will graduate from Butler prior to any of Butler’s teams competing in A-10 play, but he said he thinks the men’s basketball team would still measure up in the new conference if they moved.

“I feel like we would compete in the A-10 for sure. No doubt about it,” Clarke said.

Like the men’s basketball team, the other squads would see an increase in competition but not necessarily unfamiliar opponents.

Men’s basketball, women’s soccer, baseball, men’s tennis and women’s tennis all played or will already play at least one A-10 team during this academic school year.

Baseball coach Steve Farley said both Xavier and Dayton, two teams from the A-10 that Butler has faced or will face this season, were in the conference when he took his current job more than 20 years ago.

Farley  also said he would be OK with the new competition, but he is wary of the way the conference is spread out.

“Fifteen-hour bus rides to places like Massachusetts, Rhode Island and upstate New York don’t excite me that much,” Farley said.

Volleyball coach Sharon Clark said she is not familiar with the A-10 but thinks it would be a little tougher from a traveling aspect as well.

As for football, scholarships are available for players in the A-10 but not in the PFL.

Reports indicate that if Butler jumped to the A-10, its football team would remain in the PFL.

In “The Obama Budget,” an article published in the February 23 issue of The Collegian, I talked about President Obama’s proposed budget for the 2012 fiscal year.

Since then, the president has made some adjustments.

Unfortunately, I still feel that the president simply does not understand the flaws of his proposals and that major changes need to be made.

The president’s initial plan, announced in February, was met with groans from the Republican side of the aisle and failed to address our country’s spending issues,  the most obvious of which are entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

On April 5, House Republicans announced their own plan, to which President Obama offered a response and an alternative plan.

In the speech he gave at George Washington University April 13, the president had a strong sound of partisanship and did not hesitate to lash out against Republicans and their proposed budget, which is being paraded by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

At one point in the speech, Obama, referring to the Republican Party said, “their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact of America.”

As our president, I feel Obama failed to properly get his message across and instead took this opportunity for political gains. After all, Obama does have a tough election season coming up and could likely use all of the help he can get.

While the president made a point to hit on key aspects of his policy, he did an abysmal job of actually offering his solutions to the subject and explaining the kinds of policies that he would enact.

Though the entire budget is too large to fully dissect, one of Obama’s provisions is a major blow to the economy and will delay any major job creation.
This is his­­ job–killing tax increases.

Higher tax revenue leads to larger government and increased bureaucratic waste.  The Republican plan seeks to keep taxes low, scale back government and promote American prosperity.

Perhaps the biggest killer of Obama’s tax plan is the burden that it places on small businesses.

Even though President Obama would love to increase taxes on the wealthy, his definition of “wealthy” is wrong and needs to be adjusted.

In Obama’s view, the wealthy are individuals who bring in an income of $250,000 or more per year.  While that is a large sum of money, groups like the American Small Business League are concerned because small businesses fall into that tax bracket as well.

It is proven by U.S. Census data that small businesses are a huge driving force in American job creation.  Obama’s plan to raise federal taxes on them is a mistake.

As pointed out by the league’s President Lloyd Chapman, not only did Obama give small businesses a meager amount of stimulus funds, he now wants to raise taxes on them.

Not only can you not tax and spend your way out of an economic crisis, putting the burden on small businesses only hinders progress.

I think the president really needs to take a step back and reconsider some of these budget provisions, particularly the ones that harm small businesses and those employed by them.