Lawrence W. Reed: A poverty program that worked
We’ve become accustomed to think of fighting poverty as a 20th Century undertaking, with the federal government leading the way. For that reason, this quotation from an American president might come as a surprise: “The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America.” Those words came from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 4, 1935. A moment later, he declared, “The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief.” As we know, it didn’t. Indeed, 30 years later Lyndon Johnson would take “this business of relief” to new and expensive heights in an official “War on Poverty.” Another 30 years and more than $5 trillion in welfare spending later, a Democratic president signed a bill that replaced the federal entitlement to welfare and allowed states to implement work requirements, time limits, and other measures to encourage personal responsibility. As Ronald Reagan observed, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.” We paid an awful price in lives and treasure to learn some things the vast majority of Americans of the 19th century — and the chief executives they elected — could have plainly told us: Government welfare programs encouraged idleness, broke up families, produced intergenerational dependency and hopelessness, cost taxpayers a fortune, and yielded harmful cultural trends that may still take generations to cure. Washington, Adams, and their successors in the 1800s DID fight a war on poverty — the most comprehensive and effective ever mounted by any central government anywhere. It was, in a word, LIBERTY, which meant things like self-reliance, hard work, entrepreneurship, the institutions of civil society, a strong and free economy, and government confined to its constitutional role as protector of liberty by keeping the peace. And what a poverty program liberty proved to be! In spite of a horrendous civil war, half a dozen economic downturns and wave after wave of impoverished immigrants, America progressed from near-universal poverty at the start of the century to within reach of the world’s highest per-capita income at the end of the century. The poverty that remained stood out like the proverbial sore thumb because it was now the exception, no longer the rule. Our free and self-reliant citizenry spawned so many private, distress-relieving initiatives that American generosity became one of the marvels of the world. U.S. population in 1900, at 76 million, was 14 times its 1800 level, yet per capita GDP had quadrupled. That explosion in production and creativity translated into a gigantic leap for average personal income and a steep plunge in the portion of Americans living in abject poverty. In a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives years before he became our fourth president, James Madison declared, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” Like the three presidents before him and the next 20 or so after him, Madison knew that if liberty were not preserved, poverty would be the least of our troubles. Meanwhile, the poor of virtually every other nation on the planet were poor because of what governments were doing TO them, often in the name of doing something FOR them: taxing and regulating them into penury; seizing their property and businesses; persecuting them for their faith; torturing and killing them because they held views different from those in power; and squandering their resources on official luxury, mindless warfare, and wasteful boondoggles. Americans of all colors pulled themselves out of poverty in the 19th century by ending slavery and creating wealth through invention and enterprise. Then they generously gave much of their income — along with their time and personal attention — to the aid of their neighbors and communities. Government assistance often displaces what private people and groups would do better and more cost-effectively if government stayed home. Politicians are not more compassionate than the population that elects them. And politicians rarely spend other people’s money more effectively than those people to whom it belongs in the first place. Based on time-honored values and Constitutional limits, Americans got the poverty issue right for more than a hundred years. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that in the last century, as we increasingly abandoned what worked and put government in the poverty business, the problem has become as chronic and intractable as the expensive bureaucracy erected to eradicate it. ••• Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta, Georgia and author of the new book, Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character and Conviction. This essay is adapted from his chapter in the 2015 anthology, For the Least of These: A Biblical Answer to Poverty.
Martin Dyckman: A European perspective on Donald Trump
“Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad Company.”– George Washington‘s 56th rule of civility and decent behavior. A recent cruise in the Baltic Sea took us to eight northern European nations where we were impressed yet again with how much alike all the world’s people are. But there is a dark side to that. In 1932, amidst a grave worldwide depression, Americans elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a decent man who told us we had nothing to fear but fear itself. At almost the same moment, the people of Germany — perhaps the most advanced nation in Europe — got Adolf Hitler. When we toured Berlin and beheld a friendly and prosperous city with an enviable quality of life, the hideous events of the Nazi era seemed almost improbable. A visit to the impressive Jewish Museum Berlin is the antidote to selective memory. To see the exhibits of Jewish life in Germany in the millennium before the Shoah, one first must pass the exhibits dedicated to the Holocaust. Nothing is held back Yes, the people who did that were decent and highly civilized by all the standards of their times. I have never thought that what happened there could not happen here in similar circumstances. And now it is happening here. A man who emulates Adolf Hitler in significant ways is poised to be the nominee of a once great, now degraded political party, and could become president of a nation whose proudest boast is to be the leader of the free world. If you doubt the parallels, read the British historian Alan Bullock‘s magisterial biography, “Hitler: A Study in Tyranny.” Like Hitler, Donald Trump inflames the latent, and not so latent, prejudices of a substantial element of the populace. The targets are different, but not the hate-filled rhetoric. Like Hitler, Trump is capitalizing on the public’s justifiable dissatisfaction with the apparent political paralysis in Washington. Hitler’s promise to end a similar situation and make government function again was his primary issue in the pivotal 1932 campaign that he won with only a plurality. Like Hitler, Trump spews hate at people — not just journalists but critics in his own adopted party — who oppose or criticize him. Like Hitler, he would tame and muzzle the judiciary. Could any threat be clearer? Like Hitler, Trump has no coherent policy positions — other than bigotry — and is conspicuously disinterested in the details of how government works. He would have his vice president do all the real work. Nothing in the Constitution contemplates that. No president has been so blissfully ignorant and lazy. Many industrialists and politicians in Germany rationalized that Hitler, their inferior in every respect but cunning, could be put to their use. They learned better, to their sorrow. Rick Scott, Paul Ryan and the other opportunists scurrying aboard Trump’s ship figure they can use him too. Ryan, for one, claims to believe that Trump would promote the congressional Republicans’ entire far right agenda. Can’t they see that Trump will do only that which promotes himself? They don’t love their country half as much as they hate Democrats in general and Hillary Clinton in particular. They would sooner see America ruined than muddle along, if not prosper, under Clinton. Why do I say that? It’s because Trump’s presence would defile an office in which almost every occupant has tried to project the senses of dignity and responsibility that are so grossly lacking in that vulgar, thuggish, bombastic, bullying, fundamentally amoral man. Trump as a successor to George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? Teddy Roosevelt? FDR? George H.W. Bush? It makes one want to vomit. Vladimir Putin likes Trump. The bloodstained boy dictator of North Korea likes him. David Duke, the professed Nazi and Ku Kluxer, likes him. What company you keep, Speaker Ryan. Welcome to the sewer, Governor Scott. Where is your integrity, Mel Sembler? Have you forgotten the Holocaust? The foreign dictators relish the prospect of someone so unfit, unprepared, unworthy and amoral defiling the White House. They figure that America would become a laughing stock, an irrelevancy, a faded former power in the hands of such an unfit, unprepared, unworthy person. You have to wonder, though, whether they weigh the risk of such a thin-skinned, irascible bully’s finger on the nuclear button. Trump’s apologists argue that he can’t be compared to Hitler because he has never had a perceptible, consistent ideology and lacks the organized cadres — the Hitler Youth, the brownshirts — who put the muscle and murder into Hitler’s campaigns. But he does have an ideology. It’s his Id, his ego, the persistent, insatiable promotion of himself, his greed. No one could be more dangerous. And he has the brownshirts too, lacking only similar organization. The people harassing Muslims and other foreigners, roughing up protesters at Trump rallies, bedeviling journalists with unspeakably anti-Semitic emails and telephone calls, are their equivalent. And, as in Germany, their vocal and physical violence is provoking the opposition into replying in kind. Two wrongs make no ri0ght. Clinton is far from a perfect candidate but, as intellectually honest conservatives have observed, the country would survive her. That it would survive Trump is far too great a risk for any honest patriot to want to take. ___ Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of what is now the Tampa Bay Times. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Darryl Paulson: Donald Trump goes a-courting
On May 18, 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a list of 11 judges that he would “most likely” use to select his appointees to the Supreme Court. The list of 11 names included 11 whites and eight males. Six of the 11 were appointees of George W. Bush, and the other five are currently serving on their states’ supreme court. The average age of the potential nominees is 50, compared to the average age of 68.75 on the current court. The youngest nominee is David Stras of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Stras, if nominated, would be the youngest candidate put forward for the court since the FDR administration. The response to Trump’s list of potential nominees was as expected. On the political left, Nan Aron of the Alliance for Justice Action Campaign, said the nominees “reflect a radical-right ideology that threatens fundamental rights.” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called the list “a woman’s nightmare,” and said the judges would overturn Roe vs. Wade. Conservative attorney John Woo praised Trump for starting to unify the party. “Everyone on the list,” noted Woo, “is an outstanding legal scholar.” Woo called the selections a Federal Society all-star list of conservative jurisprudence.” Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network, said the nominees have “a record of putting the law and Constitution ahead of their political preferences.” The Trump campaign said the list was “compiled, first and foremost, based on constitutional principles, with input from highly respected conservatives and Republican Party leadership.” The following is a quick summary of Trump’s potential nominees to the Supreme Court: Stephen Colloton: Member of the Court of Appeals 8th Circuit since 2003. Clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Allison Eid: Colorado Supreme Court justice since her 2006 appointment by Republican Governor Bill Owens. Clerked for Clarence Thomas. Raymond Gruender: Appointed to Court of Appeals for 8th Circuit by George W. Bush in 2004. On the Heritage Foundation list of possible conservative appointees to the Supreme Court. Thomas Hardiman: On the Court of Appeals for 3rd Circuit since 2007. Appointed by George W. Bush and unanimously confirmed. Clerked for Antonin Scalia. Raymond Kethledge: On the Court of Appeals for 6th Circuit since appointed by George W. Bush in 2008. Clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. Joan Larson: Appointed to Michigan Supreme Court in 2015 by Republican Governor Rick Snyder. Clerked for Scalia. Thomas Lee: Associate Justice on Utah Supreme Court since 2010. Brother of Utah U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a Trump critic, and backer of Ted Cruz. William Pryor: On Circuit Court of Appeals for 11th Circuit since 2004. On Heritage Foundation list of conservative appointees to the Supreme Court. David Stras: On the Minnesota Supreme Court since 2010. Appointed by Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty. Clerked for Clarence Thomas. Diane Sykes: On Circuit Court of Appeals for 7th Circuit since 2004. Previously on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Ex-wife of conservative radio host Charlie Sykes, who was an outspoken critic of Trump during the campaign. Don Willett: Appointed to Texas Supreme Court by Republican Governor Rick Perry in 2005. Willett was a frequent Twitter critic of Trump during the campaign. Among his Tweets: Can’t wait till Trump rips his face Mission Impossible-style & reveals a laughing Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Aug. 27, 2015). Low-energy Trump University has never made it to #MarchMadness. Or even the #NIT. Sad! (March 15, 2016). We’ll rebuild the Death Star. It’ll be amazing, believe me. And the rebels will pay for it (April 8, 2016). Whenever lists are announced, there is an interest in both who is on the list and who has been left off. Missing from Trump’s list of possible court nominees are Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the DC Circuit Court and former Bush Administration Solicitor General Paul Clement. Both Kavanaugh and Clement appear on most lists of conservative court nominees. It is unusual to put out such a list before assuming office. Why would Trump put out such a lengthy list at this time? First, it is an attempt to solidify support among the Republican base, in particular among those who are skeptical of Trump’s conservative credentials. Second, Trump may be trying to show he is open-minded by selecting several individuals who clearly were not Trump supporters during the campaign. Finally, several of Trump’s nominees come from battleground states such as Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan and Texas that Trump needs to win if he hopes to get elected. Although many conservatives and Republicans were pleasantly surprised by the names on Trump’s list, some are still skeptical. Conservative writer Charles Krauthammer noted that Trump said that nominations “would most likely be from the list.” “Most likely” leaves too much wiggle room for many of Trump’s critics, who note he has flip-flopped on many issues during the campaign and, sometimes, on the same day. ___ Darryl Paulson is professor emeritus of government at USF St. Petersburg.
