The War on the truth... I mean Poverty

Helping to solve poverty, one statistic at a time.

With the economy tanking and unemployment on the rise, Washington has taken a decisive step to combating the rising number of people who officially live at or below the poverty line. As you probably know, the Federal Government claims that a person is living in poverty if they make either at little less than $11,000 per year for single people or $21,000 a year if they are a family of four. While these numbers are not realistic or based upon any meaningful data about who much it costs to live, it is the number that the Government uses to assign benefits. In previous years the number of poor people in America ranges around 10%, a shocking figure for a nation of plenty. But as wages fall or remain stagnant and with more American’s finding themselves out of a job, this percentage will most certainly grow. Therefore, the powers that be have come upon an immediate remedy for the growing number of people who are considered poor, lower the poverty line!

Yes, that’s right. In an almost unbelievable move the Federal Government will be changing the amount of a person’s income it considers to be at the poverty line. They will lower it to an unspecified amount that will be announced early next year. Not since the Reagan Administration declared ketchup a vegetable has such an incredible bit of stupidity ever been attempted by our anointed leaders. This bit of Stalinesque number crunching can’t be interpreted as anything else than an attempt to hide the true state of this economy and avoid the on-coming train wreck if promised “entitlement” benefits were actually paid to those who were originally intended to be their beneficiaries. Given the amount of real inflation in the economy, one would have expected at least an upward modification of the number.

Though no fan of the governmental dole, this changes seems to come right out 1984 and can not be a good sign for the economy. The announced reasons for the change are hardly worth repeating and clearly only a screen. However, given the size of our national debt, the on-coming governmental health care disaster, and the rising tide of “entitled” people, this move is a callous and dishonest play to limit their financial exposure while never addressing the central problem that the promises of a social safety net creates.

Yet, this maneuver seems to be one of several, propaganda tricks that Washington has been pulling the last few weeks. As an example, we are told that the Banks are paying back the TARP funds because they no longer need them and credit is freeing up. Only later do we hear that the President called the Banks to the carpet and demanded they make loans (I.e. There is still a credit crunch for the average consumer). Or that the Swine Flu vaccination effort was a success, but then we find out that a good portion of the vaccines were either too weak or administered wrong. Not to mention that the death rate is comparable to the regular flu thereby raising the question as to why the government spent millions of dollars on a vaccine that may not have been needed or effective. Overall, Washington seems to work overtime to remind me of an old Oscar Wilde quip: “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics”.

Another Chapter in the Annals of Government in the Land of Oz.

This weekend, without much fanfare or coverage from the media, one of the most popular bills before the House of Representatives was given the “Washington as usual” treatment. This treatment resulted in a very good and needed bill being tied to a horrible and counter-productive piece of legislation, thereby effectively killing it while providing political cover for those who do not want effective control over the Federal Reserve Bank. First a quick overview of the facts.

The Audit the Fed bill (HR 1207) was a plain, simple and popular piece of legislation meant to hold the secretive Federal Reserve Bank up to scrutiny for its past and recent actions with tax payer dollars. This bill was so popular that the public outcry for the bill caused every Republican Representative and a good number of Democrats to co-sponsor the bill. In total, this bill had 313 co-sponsors, enough to assure passage. The sponsors, in order to drum up more support and to get a wider audience for its central premise (that the Fed Bank had a lot to answer for) allowed the bill to pass through Rep. Barney Frank’s Committee on Finance, a brave move on their part. Despite a blatant attempt to gut the bill by some Democrats on the Committee, it passed the first major test of the Committee (the mark up). However, this would be the high point for this bill.

For you see that Committee Chair Frank also had another bill regarding the Federal Reserve Bank which was meant to create yet another agency to oversee our financial institutions and would expand the powers of the Fed Bank. As is his prerogative, Chairman Frank added HR 1207 as an amendment to this bill. As a result, every Republican voted against HR 1207, including Ron Paul, as it was part of a incredibly bad piece of legislation, while the Democrats got to vote for it. Meanwhile, over in the Senate, the members are ready to either remove HR 1207 completely or pass it with significant changes. The Companion Bill to HR1207, S.604, languishes in committee with only 30 or so sponsors and no hope of a floor vote, much less passage. If the bill just passed contains enough of HR 1207 coming out of the Senate or Conference Committee, the hopes of reviving the core ideas behind HR 1207 die with this bill. Additionally, Judd Gregg, Republican Senator from New Hampshire, has come out to say that he would filibuster any legislation like HR 1207.

This sad conclusion to our popular effort is an object lesson for us all. Even clear, popular and timely legislation doesn’t stand a chance in the current government we have. Washington appears more detached and further away than ever. The Byzantine ways of our Congress/political establishment has insured that the American People will never learn the truth about what’s going on inside this private, secret, all powerful bank. Our Congressional Delegation now enjoys the political cover of supporting HR 1207, but never really having to pass it. The many voices of citizens from around the country were drowned out by the hum of the business as usual machine in Washington.

But does this mean that we should lose heart? Should we give up? No, and a thousand times no! Instead, it clarifies something we have been saying for a long time, but have not heard ourselves. Washington is the problem, not the solution. Until we change how we see Washington’s role in our lives, Washington will not change. While Pat, Peter, and Bernie can stay snug in their governmental cocoons oblivious to our cries, we have at our finger tips another way.
For change to occur in Washington, it has to start in Montpelier. We can’t camp out on the doorstep of Mr. Leahy’s, Welch’s and Sander’s Offices, but we can make our presence know in Montpelier and with our local representatives. We may not be a player at the tables of the powerful along the Potomac, but we have the power of proximity with our elected representatives in Montpelier. The change I speak about is not cosmetic or simply a question of personnel occupying an office, it is a sea change of expectations, ideas, and political atmosphere. Not just talking about legislation, but whether such legislation is required or appropriate. Not just talking about responsive representatives in Montpelier, but representatives who understand the appropriate role of government. Not just changing the attitude in Montpelier, but the attitude of all Vermonters, away from “let government do it” to “let's make it happen.” In all, instead of continuing the well-worn hobby of Washington, issue chasing, we must start a new, different effort toward enforcing and support fundamental principles that made this nation and state great. The first step, is to demand them at home, before we try them in the Land of Political Oz.

The Gray Mountain State

As longtime readers know, the Demographic Deathwatch is not a novelty dance craze but a recurring feature of this column. But it’s not just for Europe, Russia, China, and Japan anymore! Some parts of America are acquiring demographic profiles that would qualify them for EU membership.

Take the Green Mountain State. As Howard Dean was fond of saying during his 2004 presidential campaign, “Vermont is the way America ought to be.”

If it is, we’re all done for. Its marquee brands are either Canadian-owned (Vermont Castings wood stoves) or European-owned (Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) and any non-foreign economic activity in the state long ago had any life regulated out of it.

But never mind all that. I ventured across the Connecticut River the other day and picked up the local paper, the Journal Opinion of Bradford, Vt. And among the other front-page headlines (“Newbury Will Mail Town Reports”; “Upcoming Sand Pile Talk”) was a story on how local school districts were in merger talks. No underlying reason was immediately given for the suddenly pressing need to merge: It seemed to be accepted as a natural feature of life that you can’t do anything about. And then a gazillion paragraphs into the story, the reporter finally explained what was going on: Throughout Vermont, student enrollment at public elementary and secondary schools is declining. According to figures from the state’s Department of Education, there were 104,559 students at those schools during the 1999–2000 school year. Last year, that figure was down to 92,572. Which is quite a drop. In fact, Vermont school enrollments have declined 13 years in a row. Since 1996, they’ve fallen by 13 percent, slumping below 100,000 in 2004 and projected to fall below 90,000 in 2014. The part of the state that my corner of New Hampshire borders is admittedly rural, and it’s not an unusual phenomenon for small towns to drain population to the big cities. But a couple of days later I was in the capital, Montpelier, and its school board is in merger talks with the neighboring towns of Berlin and Calais.

If schoolkids are thin on the ground, the state’s total population has held steady — 604,000 in 1999, 621,000 today. So Vermont is getting proportionately more childless. Which is to say that Vermont, literally, has no future. One school-board member whose enrollment has bumped from 600 to 500 and is now heading down to 400 told the paper: “What are we going to do? We’re not holding our breath that the state is going to solve this problem.”

I suppose by “the state” he means the department of education or, in a more general way, Montpelier. But in a very basic sense there is no “state”: Graying ponytailed hippies and chichi gay couples aren’t enough of a population base to run a functioning jurisdiction. To modify Howard Dean, Vermont is the way liberals think America ought to be, and you can’t make a living in it. So if you’re a cash-poor but land-rich native Vermonter taxed and regulated and hedged in on every front, you face a choice: In the new North Country folk wisdom, they won’t let you fish, so you might as well cut bait. Your outhouse is in breach of zoning regulations, so you might as well get off the pot. Etc. When he ran for president, Howard Dean was said to have inspired America’s youth. In Vermont, he mainly inspired them to move somewhere else. The number of young adults fell by 20 percent during the Dean years. And what’s left is a demographic disaster: The state’s women have the second lowest birthrate in the nation, and the state’s workforce is already America’s oldest. Last year, Chris Lafakis of Moody’s predicted Vermont would have “a really stagnant economy” not this year or this half-decade but for the next 30 years.

True, more gays appear to have moved in. In European terms, homosexuals are Vermont’s Muslims — no disrespect to either party, I hasten to add, before you press that fatwa button. And gay second-homers still require enough of a local populace to generate a scenic plaid-clad coot or two chewing tobaccy on the porch of a still-operating general store: It’s kind of a downer to drive past a bunch of abandoned farms and collapsed barns en route to your weekend pad.

Nowhere in the news reports of school-merger talks does anyone suggest trying to reverse the policies that drive out young families and make Vermont — what’s the word the eco-types dig? — “unsustainable.” When it comes to “climate change,” it’s taken for granted that we can transform the very heavens if only we cap’n’trade’n’tax’n’regulate you even more.

But the demographic death spiral? That’s just a fact of life, to question which puts you beyond political viability. The new Vermont prefers poseur politics and solutions for non-problems. A couple of years back, Gov. Jim Douglas, one of those famously moderate GOP New Englanders, finally noticed something was wrong in Green Mountain schoolhouses. So he acted decisively, signing legislation to protect the environment by forbidding school buses to run their engines while waiting for children to board.

Tough on the kids: On many buses, there are too few students to generate much in the way of body heat. But you’ve gotta be able to prioritize: “This is a great step forward for our state,” declared the governor. The wheels are coming off the Vermont bus, but at least its engine won’t be running as the thing falls apart.

Mark Steyn

The Seldom Told Story of Plymouth Commune

The politicization of American History may be a natural outcome of our highly partisan society, but it is not an acceptable one. Many of the stories historians choose not to share have relevance to current situations and deserve to be told in their entirety. Partisan historians may not like the conclusions people draw from these stories, but still it is the people’s right to receive factual information and form what opinions they may.

One such story is that of the earliest New World colonists, in particular of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Plantation. With Thanksgiving upon us it seems a good time to revisit their experiences when they first settled on the American continent. The real story is much more interesting than the simplified version we learned as school children and offers valuable insight into solutions to our economic problems.

Over half of the 101 Pilgrims who first landed on Cape Cod were dead within the first few months of their arrival, victims of disease, harsh weather conditions and malnutrition. Over the next three years, 100 more settlers joined Plymouth Plantation, but the colony was barely able to feed itself. According to William Bradford, the first governor of the colony, the Pilgrims were so destitute that "many sold away their clothes and bed coverings [to the Indians]; others (so base were they) became servants to the Indians and would cut them wood and fetch them water for a capful of corn; others fell to plain stealing, both night and day, from the Indians ... ."

Why was this happening? New England may not have the most temperate climate or the most fertile soil, but the Native Americans had managed to grow food and feed themselves. What prevented the Pilgrims from doing likewise?

The answer, it turns out, was an incorrect political economic decision imposed on the colony by the investors in the Mayflower. Before you blame capitalism (a term which had not yet been coined) and bankers, however, understand that the cause of the Pilgrims’ problems was the decidedly anti-capitalist property distribution scheme these investors imposed. They assumed that common property ownership would be the most profitable arrangement under which the Pilgrims could work and produce in order to pay back the money fronted them for their voyage. These investors turned Plymouth Plantation into a collectivized farm.

The results were disastrous. Where there is not ownership there is no pride and little incentive. Governor Bradford explained it this way: "For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense." Those who did more of the work also felt it unjust that they should receive no greater reward than those who did little, Bradford said, and husbands resented that their wives were forced to cook and care for men to whom they were not married.

The problem was solved when each household was given a private plot of land to tend. "This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious," Bradford reported, "so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble and gave far better content."

Bradford blamed the failed collectivization experiment on "that conceit of Plato," referencing the Greek philosopher’s advocacy of collective ownership of land, and said those who believed communal property would make people "happy and flourishing" mistakenly thought themselves "wiser than God."

Those who blame the "greedy investors" for this debacle miss the point. The Pilgrims were not in conflict with those who had enabled them to flee to the New World but with each other. Some saw an opportunity to slack off while others supported them, and those willing to work became decidedly less willing when they saw no more benefit to themselves than to their lazy fellow colonists.

As is always the case when an economic system fails, it was a failure of human nature rather than the system. But since human nature itself is eternal and does not seem to change no matter how hard utopians try to force it to, it makes sense that a system which accepts human nature and works with it to produce the best results will succeed.

That system, then, as now, appears to be one of free enterprise and respect for property rights. Today, more than at any time in our nation’s history, we are moving toward a collectivist economic system. Socialism, wherever it has been tried, has failed to, in William Bradford’s words, create a society that is "happy and flourishing." Rather, collectivism more widely and equally distributes misery and poverty. The Pilgrims learned this lesson quickly and corrected their mistake. Why would we now condemn ourselves, as Santayana warned, to repeat history?

Audrey Pietrucha is interim county coordinator for the Bennington County Campaign for Liberty and founder of the Southern Vermont Liberty Council.

Health Care Insurance: A Human Right?

It has become politically popular to equate human desires and wants with human rights. This is, in fact, the battle cry of some factions in the fight for a government-run health care system. But is health care a human right? Let’s examine this premise.

The human rights of Americans are defined by our two founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration, stated it thus:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .”

The Constitution of the United States codified this philosophy by instituting a federal government limited in scope and function. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, specifically mention certain unalienable rights with which the government is forbidden to interfere. Among these are our rights to speak freely, both in written and spoken form; to worship according to the dictates of our consciences; and to bear arms for self-defense as well as protection from foreign enemies and domestic tyranny.

The founder’s understanding of what constituted a human right was informed by the writings of political philosophers from throughout history, from Plato and Cicero to Locke and Blackstone. When they wrote of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” they expressed their belief in the importance of the individual, his freedom to use his time and talents to pursue opportunities - though with no guaranteed outcomes - and his right to accumulate property in order to provide for himself and his loved ones security and prosperity.

A confusion of the term “right” has led to the current misunderstanding that anything deemed necessary or even desirable must be a right. But a right is something that, by definition, should not involve the usurpation of a fellow citizen’s rights.

Associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said “The right to sing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.” In the case of health care, once the proponents of universal health care begin swinging their fists they are going to be hitting a whole lot of noses. Unfortunately, the kind of damage inflicted won’t be so easily taken care of in the local hospital emergency room, with or without insurance.

Though it is not in vogue to speak of financial rights these days, they are, in fact, supposed to be protected. They include the right to keep the fruits of one’s labor – these days that’s usually money – and the right to use those fruits as one sees fit. By expecting others to pay for healthcare, the “healthcare is a human right” crowd explicitly violates these rights. To put it bluntly, something cannot be a right when it forces others to sacrifice their own rights.

Another important argument against the concept of health care as a human right is the lack of a clear definition of what health care is. While in its most basic form one would expect it to include preventative care (for example, immunization), and medical and surgical treatment of established illness, does it also include organ transplantation, cosmetic surgery, infertility treatment and the most expensive medicines? For something to be considered a human right the minimum requirement should be that the right in question is capable of definition.

Slogans such as “Health care is a human right” sound reasonable and make great rally signs but, when examined, they do not bear up. Is health care a human right? No, it is a personal responsibility.

Audrey Pietrucha is Interim Coordinator of the Bennington County Campaign for Liberty and founder of the Southern Vermont Liberty Council.

Happy Anniversary

It has been only a year and look how far we have come. On October 1, 2008, the Campaign for Liberty officially launched in Vermont with eight members and a little under 100 email only members. As of today, we now have 97 members and over 550 email only members. Back in October, 2008 we were only an on-line entity with little interaction with other, like minded organizations. Now we have a working relationship with several well established groups around Vermont and continue to support their efforts as our organization grows. In one year, we went from nothing to being an upcoming and important voice in Vermont Politics.
Over the last 12 months so much has happened. We have had a State Convention with over 50 attendees and some really great speakers. We have had regular quarterly meetings of our Local Coordinators. We have help create tea parties on April 15 and July 4th. We sponsored a petition drive that brought all three of our Congressional Delegates to support the "Audit the Fed" effort. We had a hugely successful fair booth at the Rutland Fair this year. The Liberty Blog and the Vermont Campaign for Liberty site were launched. Finally, we have offered seminars to the public aimed at helping our fellow Vermonters become better citizens. Looking back we have accomplished a lot with such a small group in a very "liberal" state.
But our progress does not end there. Come this January, we will be holding our second State Convention. In the Spring another round of Citizen Forums will be held throughout the State. We will be having information tables at New Hampshire's Freedom Fest and The Free State Projects' Porcupine Fest. Finally, plans are in the works to increase our presence in Vermont through media expansion and publication of our own material.
All of this success has been as a result of our members contributing their time, wealth, and skills to further the Campaign. Make no mistake, this is your Campaign for Liberty and it can only grow and continue to succeed if you continue to help it.
So, with the successes of the last twelve months in mind, let's work together to make the next twelve even more successful. We can do it, if we all contribute.

The Constitution, 10th Amendment, and the Fourth Branch

Recently a discussion has arisen in the Ron Paul Forums concerning the effectiveness of 10th Amendment Resolutions as a way to address Washington’s long history of over reaching its Constitutional Powers. As part of this discussion, a member noted that “ Our hope is not in, nor should it ever be in the Constitution”. After reading this entry, I felt compelled to write the following:

“The discussion over the Constitution misses a vital point that the previous writer has hinted at. Even the best crafted document is meaningless unless those it seeks to guide honor it. Classic examples are the Constitutions of the Soviet Union or Weimar Germany. Both, on their faces, are incredible documents which maximizes individual liberties, popular government, and a well reasoned system of governance. The only problem was that they also were only documents. Both the Soviet Union's and Germany's leaders hardly paid attention to either while paying lip service to them.

A nation of laws ruled by a government of men is a contradiction. If the rulers do not obey the law, then the law fundamentally is meaningless or at least unstable and subject to the whims of an elite, a mob, or personalities.

While agreeing with the previous writer that our hope is not in the Constitution, I disagree with his contention that "we must be good and elect good people to write good laws." Read Madison's notes on the Convention. Throughout the painful, slow process of crafting the Constitution, there was one assumption that all present held and periodically expressed. That assumption was that the American People, jealous of their liberties, would serve as a check upon the actions of a rogue government. In effect, they assumed that the Citizens would be a Fourth Branch of government. And, they felt that this assumption was so self-evident that they did feel the need to write it down.

For some reason we, as a people, have forgotten our traditional suspicion of government and our sense of ownership in our government. We, citizen's of the greatest republic known to man, failed to perform our office as citizens and let our vital role in that republic slip, leaving great power in the hands of those with great ambition, unchecked.

The simple passage of a resolution or even a bill will not effect the necessary change we seek. The fight over this bill or that piece of legislation will not alter the fact that government is treated as a separate and unrelated entity in the lives of Americans. Most Americans treat politics as a specialized field or as a seasonal sport and not directly effecting their daily lives.

For too long we have been trying to have good laws written, only to be bitterly disappointed by the works of our servants. For too long we have been trying to "elect good people", only to find that good people are few and far between despite the protestations of many claiming the role. If anything, history tells us that wanting and waiting for a white knight to come along is a sure recipe for dictatorship and disaster.

For the Constitution to work, we must make it work. We must hold everyone accountable to its provisions, regardless of party, for both have long abused this document for too long. We must demand that the lawgivers honor and obey the law first. We must keep everyone of their actions under scrutiny constantly and call them to account when they fail their office.

To do all of this requires something more than playing party politics or campaigning for this candidate or that one. It requires finding those few, precious few, citizens in a sea of people. Citizens who understand their role goes beyond Tax Day and Election Day. Citizen's who love their liberty and the fruits of it and are willing to work to maintain them. The reality is to effectuate change we don't need a majority, or a large minority. We only need an educated, motivated, and committed minority of people willing to work for the change we seek. To find that minority of citizens, true citizens, we need to look in our neighborhoods, churches, clubs, and workplaces. We must interact with the community and send out the liberty message and listen intently for a reply.

We all want liberty minded candidates to win. But in order to give them a fighting chance we must prepare the ground. Create an atmosphere in the public forum where his message will not be shunted aside. To do this, the public must be made fully aware of the message and create a network of liberty minded citizens willing to rush to his aid and work for his success. Ultimately, it requires us to model good citizenship for our neighbors and provide them with an opportunity to become involved.