African-Americans and Election 2000 by Dr. David Barton
In 1911, President Woodrow Wilson wisely observed:
A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.1
This is still true today, especially concerning African-American history. Since February is celebrated nationally as Black History Month, and since four specific historical inaccuracies related to blacks and politics were prominent throughout Election 2000, this newsletter will review the history of African-American involvement in the political process.
DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, & BLACKS
One of the more surprising statistics of Presidential Election 2000 was the cohesiveness of the African-American vote: blacks supported Democrats with a percentage higher than any other voting block. For example, among traditional Democratic constituencies, union members voted for Democrats by a margin of 62 to 34 percent, and homosexuals by a margin of 70 to 25 percent, but African-Americans voted for Democrats by a margin of 90 to 9 percent.2 Judging by such results, one could easily assume that blacks have a long tradition of support for Democrats. Such, however, is not the case.
Historically speaking, political rights were largely unknown for blacks in America until after the Civil War. Slavery had been introduced into America by the Dutch in 1619 and subsequently enforced upon the Colonies by British authorities prior to the American Revolution. The American Revolution marked the first change in the political rights of African-Americans, and many black patriots fought for and achieved their freedom while fighting for the Colonies during the American Revolution.
Although the attitude toward the century-and-a-half institution of slavery began to change during the Revolution (with over half the States abolishing slavery), emancipation still was not available to most blacks in Southern States, even though Free Blacks (as opposed to Slave Blacks) in Southern States did begin to taste some political freedoms not available to them before the Revolution. For example, in Southern States, many Free Blacks gained the right to vote, saw educational opportunities opened to them, and were largely treated the same as whites under the criminal codes3 – franchises not available to Slave Blacks.
The opposition to slavery that first emerged during the American Revolution continued to grow following the Revolution. The pulpit grew louder in its denunciation of slavery, led especially by Quakers, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Unitarians, and Methodists, as well as by prominent political leaders like John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster. In fact, many Founding Fathers who advocated the abolition of slavery in the 1770s and 1780s were still pursuing that goal half-a-century later.
One such Founder was Rufus King, a signer of the Constitution from Massachusetts. In 1785, King persuaded the Continental Congress to prohibit slavery in all American-held territories, and in 1789, as a member of the first federal Congress, he obtained passage of a measure to prohibit slavery in federally-held territories. Due to these efforts, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Iowa were all admitted as free rather than slave States.4
However, in 1819, the Missouri Compromise was introduced in Congress to alter those 1789 prohibitions. Under that plan, States would be admitted to the Union in pairs – six slave States with six free States. King, still a member of Congress, vigorously opposed the modification of his original plan and fought the admission of any federal territories as slave States.5 Other Founders still alive at that time expressed similar opposition to the Missouri plan.
For example, Elias Boudinot – a president of Congress during the Revolution and, in 1789 as a member of Congress, a supporter of the ban on slavery in federal territories and all new States – warned that if the Missouri Compromise passed, “there is an end to the happiness of the United States.”6 A frail John Adams worried that lifting the slavery prohibition would destroy America;7 and an elderly Jefferson, then living in political retirement, was appalled at the proposal, declaring:
I had for a long time ceased to read newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands. . . . But this momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell [announcement of death] of the Union8. . . . In the gloomiest moment of the Revolutionary War, I never had any apprehensions equal to what I feel from this source.9
Notwithstanding this opposition, and because so many of the other Founders who opposed slavery had by then died (e.g., Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, William Livingston, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, James Wilson, etc.), the Missouri Compromise passed.
The issue of slavery became a bright line of demarcation in America, with the abolition movement being countered with equally staunch opposition from the supporters of slavery. Not surprisingly, political movements formed reflecting the opposing views, with measures like the Fugitive Slave Law (allowing slaves who escaped to free States to be brought back into slavery), the Lecompton Constitution (written by pro-slavery forces in Kansas), and the Dred Scott decision (declaring that blacks were property and that Congress could not restrict the spread of slavery) galvanizing the differences between the movements.
Following a vote in Congress to extend slavery into the Northwestern Territory in May, 1854, twenty House Members coalesced themselves into a group they titled “The Republican Party.”10 Its declared purpose was to support the original anti-slavery principles of the federal government. The first Republican Platform (1856) therefore declared:
Resolved. That with our Republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the inalienable right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . . . That, as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery.11
(Significantly, six of the nine planks in the original 1856 Republican Platform condemned slavery or focused on securing equal civil rights for all.)
Offering Col. John C. Fremont as its first candidate for President, the anti-slavery Republican Fremont lost to pro-slavery Democrat James Buchanan. Two years later, in 1858, Republican Abraham Lincoln faced Democrat Stephen Douglas in a race for U.S. Senate in Illinois. That campaign became famous for the Lincoln-Douglas debates, with Democrat Stephen Douglas defending slavery and Republican Abraham Lincoln opposing it. Although Lincoln lost that senatorial election, two years later in 1860, he won the presidency against Douglas, and for the first time Republicans became the prominent party in Congress. Under Lincoln’s leadership, the Republican vision of equality moved forward with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, followed by subsequent civil rights bills passed by the Republicans in Congress.
The Republican Platform of 1864 on which Lincoln was re-elected continued its original opposition to slavery, even advocating a constitutional amendment to abolish that evil:
Resolved, that as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic, and that we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the government, in its own defense, has aimed a death-blow at this gigantic evil. We are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.12
That proposed amendment became reality when, as the Civil War was drawing to a close in 1865, the Republicans enacted the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. However, because Southern Democrats sought to evade the civil rights guarantees intended by the 13th Amendment, Republicans subsequently passed the 14th and 15th Amendments guaranteeing civil rights and securing voting rights for all former slaves.
African-Americans promptly joined themselves to the Republican Party that had secured their freedom, for not only had Republicans fought for the rights of blacks against Democrats but Republicans also offered blacks political opportunities never before available to them. In fact, so strong was the black affiliation with Republicans, that in many of the Southern States following the Civil War, the State Congresses were dominated not only by Republicans but by black Republicans. And numbers of black Republicans were elected to Congress. For example:
In 1869, Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) from Mississippi became the first black in Congress, holding the position of U.S. Senator, being elected as a Republican to fill the Senate seat previously held by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Revels later served as the Secretary of State of Mississippi. He was an ordained minister, serving both as a pastor and as a chaplain during the Civil War.13
In 1869, Republican Joseph H. Rainey (1832-1887) from South Carolina became the first black member of the U.S. House of Representatives.14
In 1870, Jefferson Franklin Long (1836-1901) from Georgia was elected to Congress and was also a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1880.15
In 1871, John Mercer Langston (1829-1897) of Virginia was appointed by Republican President U. S. Grant as a member of the Board of Health of D.C., and in 1876, he was appointed by Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes as U.S. Minister and Consul-General to Haiti. Langston also was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1876 and 1890, and was elected to Congress in 1890.16
In 1873, Robert Smalls (1839-1915) of South Carolina was elected to Congress, having previously served as a Republican member of the South Carolina House and Senate.17
In 1871, Robert Brown Elliott (1842-1884) was elected to the U.S. House after having served as Speaker of the House in South Carolina. Shortly after his election, Elliot faced off in a debate over a civil rights bill against three pro-slavery Democrats: Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia (the Vice-President of the Confederacy elected as a Democrat to Congress after the Civil War), James Beck of Kentucky (elected in 1867), and John Thomas Harris of Virginia (elected in 1871).18 Following an attack by those three Democrats against the civil rights bill, the Republican Elliot rose and responded:
Mr. Speaker . . . it is a matter of regret to me that it is necessary at this day that I should rise in the presence of an American Congress to advocate a bill which simply asserts rights and equal privileges for all classes of American citizens. I regret, sir, that the dark hue of my skin may lend a color to the imputation that I am controlled by motives personal to myself in my advocacy of this great measure of natural justice. Sir, the motive that impels me is restricted by no such narrow boundary but is as broad as the Constitution.19
Elliot then went on to recount how African-Americans had fought for America during the Revolution, during the War of 1812, and during the recent Civil War. He then concluded with this stiff rebuke against the Democrat Stephens:
He [Stephens] offers his government, which he has done his utmost to destroy, a very poor return for its magnanimous treatment, to come here to seek to continue, by the assertion of doctrines obnoxious to the true principles of our government, the burdens and oppressions which rest upon five millions of his countrymen [slaves] who never failed to lift their earnest prayers for the success of this government when the gentleman [Stephens] was asking to break up the Union of these States and to blot the American Republic from the galaxy of nations.20
The fact that, Elliot, a black, was such an accomplished and effective orator incensed the Democrats. As the American Methodist Episcopal Church Review reported:
Mr. Beck of Kentucky, and other Democratic members of the House who had felt the force of Mr. Elliott’s rhetoric to their discomfiture, could not deny the merit of his speeches, so they denied his authorship of them. . . . The charge of non-authorship was made by Democrats upon the general principle that the Negro, of himself, could accomplish nothing of literary excellence.21
The Review also described Elliot’s work among recently-freed slaves:
From county to county he traveled, teaching them the first lessons in self-government. They sat as children at his feet and learned from his lips the principles and deeds of the Republican party which had liberated them and their children from cruel bondage and which was now to give them that silent but potent motive power: the ballot – the safeguard and bulwark of American freedom. . . . Thus early he won for himself their confidence, and for the Republican party [their] love and devotion.22
There were many other notable black Republicans, including John Roy Lynch (1847-1939) of Mississippi. In 1873, Lynch was elected to Congress and was also a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1872, 1884, 1888, 1892, and 1900. In fact, Lynch presided over the 1884 National Republican Convention in Chicago. (Interestingly, African-American Sen. Edward Brooke presided over the National Republican Convention in 1968, as did African-American Congressman J.C. Watts, Jr. in 2000. While three African-Americans have presided over Republican National Conventions, only one African-American, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke in 1972, has made it as high as Vice-Chair – not even Co-Chair – of a Democratic National Convention.) In 1889, Republican President Benjamin Harrison appointed Lynch as Auditor of the Treasury for the Navy Department, and in 1901, Republican President William McKinley appointed him Army Paymaster.23
In 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce (1841-1898) of Mississippi was elected to the U.S. Senate – the first black to serve a full term in the Senate. In 1881, he was appointed by Republican President James A. Garfield as Registrar of the U.S. Treasury.24
In 1875, Charles Edmund Nash (1844-1913) of Louisiana was elected to Congress – the first African-American to represent Louisiana in Congress.25
In 1889, Henry Plummer Cheatham (1857-1935) of North Carolina was elected to Congress and also was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1892 and 1900.26
In 1890, Thomas Ezekiel Miller (1849-1938) of South Carolina was elected to Congress, having previously served in the State House and Senate.27
In 1893, George Washington Murray (1853-1926) of South Carolina was elected to Congress and also was a delegate to several Republican National Conventions.28
In 1966, Republican Edward William Brooke III (1919- ) of Massachusetts became the first black to be elected to the U.S. Senate after the 17th Amendment (providing for the direct election of Senators rather than their appointment by State legislatures), thus making him the first black ever elected to the Senate by popular vote.29
There are many more black Republican officeholders worthy of mention, one of whom is the Hon. Pinckney Benton Stuart Pinchback who, in 1872, served as Governor of Louisiana, becoming the first black Governor of any State.30 Additionally, the first black presidential electors were Republicans and included Robert Meacham, B.F. Randolph, Stephen Swails, and Alonzo Ransier. In fact, black Republican James H. Harris was part of the committee which in 1868 informed U.S. Grant of his nomination for President.31
There are many other examples of how blacks achieved numerous political firsts within the Republican Party; and so great were the gains of blacks in the Republican Party that in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan was formed to battle both Republicans and blacks with the declared purpose of breaking down the Republican government and paving the way for Democrats to regain control in the elections.32 As a result, blacks were terrorized by murders and public floggings (relief was granted only if blacks promised not to vote for Republican tickets, and violations of this oath were punished by death), and Republican officials were attacked both at home and at the office. In fact, in 1866, Democrats, in conjunction with the mayor and the city police, attacked a Republican Convention of blacks and whites in New Orleans where they killed 40 and wounded 150.33
In historical retrospect, the story of the Republican Party is largely of their opposition to slavery and racism while that of the Democratic Party is largely of their support for it. Similarly, African Americans made their most significant political and civil rights progress while affiliated with the Republican Party.
In fact, in the history of Congress, 105 black Americans have been elected – 101 to the House and 4 to the Senate; and of the 4 blacks elected to the Senate, 3 have been Republicans (the lone Democrat was Carol Mosley-Braun, elected in 1992 and defeated in 1998). And even today in 2001, there are 39 black Members of Congress: one Republican and thirty-eight Democrats. The black Republican (one of 271 combined Republicans in the House and the Senate) was elected by his Republican peers to a position of Republican leadership in this Congress; but of the thirty-eight black Democrats (from among the 262 combined Democrats in the House and the Senate), none was elected by his Democratic peers to any leadership position.34
AL GORE, GEORGE BUSH, AND THE THREE-FIFTHS CLAUSE
Judicial appointments were an issue during Presidential Campaign 2000. Bush promised to appoint “strict constructionists” who would support the wording of the Constitution rather than rewrite it, while Gore promised to appoint judges who viewed the Constitution as a living, organic document, reflecting the philosophy set forth by Supreme Court Chief-Justice Charles Evans Hughes who declared, “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”35
Gore, trying to capitalize on the differences in their philosophies, and exploiting America’s historical illiteracy, repeatedly warned black voters:
When my opponent, Governor Bush, says he’ll appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Count, I often think of the strictly constructed meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written – how some people (slaves) were considered three-fifths of a human being.36
According to Gore, Bush apparently would appoint racist Justices to the Supreme Court. This is based on Gore’s belief that the three-fifths clause of the Constitution was a pro-slavery provision – a provision declaring blacks to be only three-fifths of a person. Significantly, however, the three-fifths clause was not a pro-slavery clause, and it did not relate to human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery apportionment provision designed to limit pro-slavery Southern representation in Congress.
The Constitution allowed one Representative to Congress for each 30,000 inhabitants in a State. Since slaves accounted for more than half the population in some Southern States, slave-owners in the South therefore wanted to count slaves as if they were free inhabitants, thus potentially doubling the number of their pro-slavery representatives to Congress. The abolitionists from the North strenuously objected to counting the slaves, knowing that the fewer the pro-slavery representatives in Congress, the sooner slavery could be eradicated.
Interestingly, the anti-slavery Founding Fathers, in debating this representation question, actually used many of the South’s own arguments against them. One such example was that of William Paterson of New Jersey, a signer of the Constitution later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President George Washington. Adopting the Southern arguments that slaves were property, Paterson argued that since “Negro slaves. . . . are no free agents, have no personal liberty, no faculty of acquiring property, but on the contrary, are themselves property, and like other property, entirely at the will of the master,” then those slaves should not be used to calculate representation to Congress because, according to “the true principles of representation,” legislative assemblies were the result of citizens sending representatives as their “substitutes.”37 Since slaves could not attend a meeting of citizens or send a substitute in their stead, they therefore should not be used to allow slave-owners to gain more representatives to Congress.
Further exploiting the absurdity of the Southern reasoning, other anti-slavery Founders argued that if slaves were nothing more than property but still were to be counted for the purpose of congressional representation, then livestock in the North should also be included as the basis of calculating Northern representation. For example, according to the records of the Constitutional Convention:
Mr. [Elbridge] Gerry [signer of the Declaration from Massachusetts] thought property not the rule of representation. Why then should the blacks, who were property in the South, be in the rule of representation more than the cattle and horses of the North?38
James Wilson of Pennsylvania, a signer both of the Declaration and the Constitution, agreed:
Are they [slaves] admitted as citizens? Then why are they not admitted on an equality with white citizens? Are they [slaves] admitted as property? Then why is not other property admitted into computation?39
The anti-slavery leaders fully wanted Free Blacks to be counted, but not slaves, since counting slaves would increase the influence of slave-owners. Furthermore, Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of America’s first abolition society, argued that if only Free Blacks were counted, it would have the “excellent effect of inducing the colonies to discourage slavery and to encourage the increase of their free inhabitants.”40
When the issue finally came to a vote at the Constitutional Convention, slave-owners proposed that slaves be counted as full persons for purposes of representation. The motion lost, with only the most strident slave-owning States supporting the measure.41 With it clear that slaves would not be used as the means of doubling Southern representation, Benjamin Harrison, a slave-owner in Virginia, proposed a compromise, suggesting that two slaves be counted as one freeman.42 The slave States, however, rejected this proposal, wanting all slaves fully counted.43 The final compromise was that only sixty percent – that is, three-fifths – of slaves would be counted to calculate the number of Southern representatives to Congress.44
Yet, even though this measure reduced the number of slave-holding representatives to Congress, it was still seen as unfair by many in the North. In fact, the Massachusetts legislature passed a resolution objecting to the three-fifths clause because, in slave-holding States, “a planter possessing fifty slaves may be considered as having thirty votes, while a farmer of Massachusetts, having equal or greater property, is confined to a single vote.”45 Clearly, the three-fifths clause was only a ratio used to calculate the amount of representation and had nothing to do with the worth of any individual.
Based, therefore, on the self-evident historical records, two prominent professors summarize the meaning of the three-fifths clause:
[T]he Constitution allowed Southern States to count three-fifths of their slaves toward the population that would determine numbers of representatives in the federal legislature. This clause is often singled out today as a sign of black dehumanization: they are only three-fifths human. But the provision applied to slaves, not blacks. That meant that free blacks – and there were many, North as well as South – counted the same as whites. More important, the fact that slaves were counted at all was a concession to slave owners. Southerners would have been glad to count their slaves as whole persons. It was the Northerners who did not want them counted, for why should the South be rewarded with more representatives, the more slaves they held? Thomas West, Professor of Politics 46
It was slavery’s opponents who succeeded in restricting the political power of the South by allowing them to count only three-fifths of their slave population in determining the number of congressional representatives. The three-fifths of a vote provision applied only to slaves, not to free blacks in either the North or South. Walter Williams, African-American Professor47
Many of today’s leaders, both black and white, tend to misrepresent the meaning of the three-fifths clause. Al Gore’s invoking the three-fifths clause against George Bush is proof of this fact, and even Jesse Jackson makes the same uninformed claim. In the Shadow Convention of Los Angeles in August, 2000, Jackson complained: “There was a lot of talk a few weeks ago [at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia] about the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. In that Constitution. . . . African-Americans were considered three-fifths of a human being.”48
Those who make this claim would profit from a study of Frederick Douglass, the great black leader and abolitionist. Douglass said that after his escape from slavery, he initially believed (like Gore and Jackson) that the Constitution was pro-slavery. As he explained:
Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with a class of abolitionists regarding the Constitution as a slaveholding instrument . . . it is not strange that I assumed the Constitution to be just what their interpretation made it.49
However, when Douglass became a writer and a spokesman for the abolition movement, he found that accuracy and truth were important, and so, as he explained:
My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject, and to study, with some care. . . . By such a course of thought and reading, I was conducted to the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States50 . . . not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and spirit an anti-slavery instrument.51
How could Douglass say this? Had he not read the three-fifths clause? Yes, he had; and based on his own study of the facts, Douglass learned to praise the three-fifths clause as an anti-slavery provision. Gore, Jackson, and others could learn an accurate view of history and the Constitution from the example of great black leaders like Frederick Douglass!
AL GORE, GEORGE BUSH, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS AND VOTING RIGHTS ACTS OF THE 1960S
When blacks were interviewed following Election 2000, many explained that they had supported Gore for fear that if Bush were elected President, he would take away the right of blacks to vote – a charge circulated by Gore supporters. The basis for this charge is the fact that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 will be up for renewal under the next President, and – according to current folklore – Republicans are racists who oppose civil rights; why – as the argument goes – they even opposed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s and certainly would continue to oppose them today! Actually, historical facts prove just the opposite.
The first civil rights act was that of 1866, passed by Republicans in Congress, making it illegal to deprive a person of civil rights because of race, color, or previous servitude. Subsequent civil rights laws were passed by Republicans in 1870, 1871, and 1875 to allow the national government in Washington, D.C. to protect black Americans from white-dominated Democrat Southern State governments. However, it was nearly a century later before similar additional civil rights laws were passed.
Why the delay? As explained by Professor Robert D. Lovey, author of A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States of America, “the nationalization of black civil rights came to a complete end in 1892 when the Democrats gained control of the presidency and both houses of Congress for the first time since the Civil War. By 1894, this Democratic Congress had succeeded in repealing most of the civil rights laws that had been enacted during the post-Civil War period, most importantly the provisions that had to do with voting rights. This wholesale removal of protections left the black citizen in the South almost completely at the mercy of Southern State governments, and the result was a rash of State laws protecting the right of white citizens to segregate themselves from black citizens in many aspects of social and political life.”52
African-Americans, therefore, being the victims of Democratic-sponsored racism and segregation, continued their loyalty to Republicans well into the 20th century. In fact, in the 1932 presidential election, incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover received more than three-fourths of the black vote over his Democratic challenger Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Roosevelt, however, won the election; but because civil rights bills were widely opposed by Southern Democrats, and because Southern Democrats had been a key constituency in his victories, Roosevelt chose not to introduce civil rights bills. He did use executive orders to help further some civil rights, and he also established a Civil Rights Section in the Justice Department; he even directed much of the spending of the “New Deal” programs toward blacks. As a result, black voters slowly began to switch from the Republicans to the Democrats. As one civil rights historian explains, “In the years following the New Deal, the Democratic Party found it best to win black votes with economic benefits rather than by advancing the cause of black civil rights.”53
Following President Roosevelt, Democrat President Harry S. Truman did propose a civil rights bill, but it was not passed; and its introduction effectively ruined Truman’s relationship with Southern Democrats in Congress.
Even though Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower knew that it would be difficult to change the Southern Democrat’s belief in racial segregation, he determined to eliminate racial discrimination in all areas under his authority. He therefore issued executive orders halting segregation practices in the District of Columbia, in the military, and in the federal bureaucracy. Furthermore, Eisenhower was the first president to appoint a black, Frederic Morrow, to an executive position on the White House staff. Eisenhower consequently received significant support from black voters in his reelection to the presidency in 1956. In 1960, he introduced a civil rights bill, but it was promptly blocked by the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although a Republican Senator and the Republican Attorney General proposed compromise language, it, too, was rejected by the Democrats.54
When Democratic President John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960, he was less willing than Eisenhower to utilize executive orders to promote civil rights. In fact, Kennedy delayed for more than a year the signing of an executive order to integrate public housing. But following the violent racial discord in Birmingham in 1963, Kennedy finally sent a major civil rights bill to Congress and then aggressively worked for its passage, but was assassinated before he could see its success. To achieve passage of the measure, Democrat successor Lyndon Johnson resurrected the compromise language proposed by Republicans under Eisenhower in 1960, thus breaking a Southern Democratic filibuster of the civil rights bill and allowing Johnson to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.55
While these two important civil rights acts were signed into law under a Democratic President, it was the Republicans in Congress who made possible the passage of these Acts, for even though the Democrats controlled both Houses by wide margins, they still could not garner enough of their own votes to pass the bills. In fact, in the House, only 61% of the Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act (152 for, 96 against) while 80% of Republicans voted for it (138 for, 38 against).56 In the Senate, only 69% of Democrats voted for the Act (46 for, 21 against) while 82% of Republicans did (27 for, 6 against).57 The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not have been possible without the strong, cohesive support of the Republicans. In fact, all Southern Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act, including Sen. Al Gore, Sr., who voted with the Southern Democrats against civil rights whenever the occasion arose.58
One other important civil rights note is that after the Democrats regained control of the federal and of many State governments in the 1880s and 1890s, they instituted what became known as “white primaries” to keep blacks from being placed on the ballot.59 Democrats also developed poll taxes to keep blacks from voting because, according to prominent Democrat leader A.W. Terrell, the 15th Amendment guaranteeing black voting rights was “the political blunder of the century.”60
As confirmed by Encyclopaedia Britannica, “the Democrats amended their State constitutions or drafted new ones to include various disfranchising devices. When payment of the poll tax was made a prerequisite to voting, impoverished blacks and often poor whites, unable to afford the tax, were denied the right to vote.”61 How effective were the Democratic poll taxes in keeping blacks from voting? In Texas alone, 100,000 blacks had voted before the poll tax was instituted but only 5,000 afterwards.62
While an attempt was made in 1943 in Congress to repeal the poll tax instituted by Southern Democrats, the repeal failed, with the floor of Congress becoming the site of ugly racist rhetoric.63 It was not until 1966 that the poll tax was ended, and it had only been in 1944 that the “white primaries” had finally ceased.
Significantly, it was not Democrats, but the Republicans, who had long championed the repeal of the poll tax. In fact, as early as 1896, the Republican platform declared:
We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast.64
Clearly, then, the charge that Republicans in general, and George Bush in particular, would not extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is completely without any factual basis and relies solely on historical revisionism.
Yet, despite the unequivocal (but often unknown) records of history, today’s blacks often hold an opposite view. As African-American professor Ronald Walters explains in Black Oklahoma Today:
[Blacks] vote their interests and when it appears that a person or party doesn’t particularly like them, they will take their business elsewhere. The “elsewhere” for blacks has generally been with Democrats, largely because of the feeling that, even though Democrats have also done them wrong, they feel that Democrats are less prone to be racist than Republicans.65
However, as black media personality R.D. Davis of Alabama correctly observes, “History tends to unilaterally and falsely depict Republicans as racists when Southern Democrats truly deserved this title.”66
FAMILY VALUES, BLACKS, AND PARTY POLITICS
The history of blacks in the American political process shows that blacks were originally drawn to the Republican Party for its values and made their greatest strides in civil rights and elected representation under the Republican Party, but by economic allurements begun under President Roosevelt, were finally enticed to join the Democratic Party. Notwithstanding their change in party affiliation, the current values of African-Americans not only are generally more conservative than those of whites but are still best represented by the Republican rather than the Democratic Party. For example, recent polls demonstrate that blacks:
- oppose the legalization of marijuana by a margin of 75% to 21% (while whites oppose it by a margin of 73% to 24%);
- support English as the official language by 84% to 15% (whites by 82% to 16%);
- support a constitutional amendment to return prayer to schools by 80% to 17% (whites 71% to 26%);
- oppose same-sex marriages by 71% to 23% (whites 66% to 29%);
- support educational choice by 73% to 24% (whites 57% to 39%);
- support charitable choice by 74% to 24% (whites 51% to 46%); and
- support a flat tax by 51% to 24% (whites 52% to 44%).67
Additionally, blacks:
- support the death penalty by 64% to 31% and
- support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution by 75% to 24%.68
Ironically, the Democratic Party – as demonstrated both by its platform and by its voting record in Congress – not only opposes school prayer, educational choice, a flat tax, charitable choice, and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution but also supports same-sex marriages – all positions opposite to those held by most blacks.
While African-Americans currently have more in common with Republicans than with Democrats, it has been a lack of knowledge of the political history of African-Americans that has allowed the current fallacious misportrayals to be accepted – a fact made clear during Presidential Election 2000.
SUMMARY
In short, an historical review of black involvement in the political process demonstrates that: (1) African-Americans made their greatest political advancements in the Republican Party (in fact, while Democrats have talked the talk, Republicans have walked the walk); (2) the three-fifths clause was not a racist, pro-slavery provision in the Constitution but rather was an abolition part of the Constitution; (3) the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s were the product of Republicans, not Democrats, and therefore were not in danger from Republicans in this election; and (4) black values generally continue to be conservative and are best reflected by the values expressed in the Republican rather than the Democratic platform.
Even though it was Democrats who actually committed the racial injustices of which they accuse Republicans, many today believe just the opposite, thus affirming a statement attributed to William James (the father of modern psychology):
There is nothing so absurd but if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.
Now, more than ever, President Woodrow Wilson’s declaration is true:
A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.69
[For more information on the struggle for African American Civil Rights see our Setting the Record Straight resource (in DVD, VHS, and Book format); we have also cataloged our Black History resources here]
ENDNOTES:
1. William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, Encyclopedia of Quotations (FAME Pub., Inc., 1996), p. 697.
2. MSNBC Presidential Exit Polls, Nov. 7, 2000.
3. George M. Stroud, Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America, (Philadelphia: Henry Longstreth, 1856), pp. 171-177. The difference in the treatment of African American and white criminals pertains more to a distinction made between slaves and free blacks than it does to color. In Virginia, 52 out of 68 crimes are treated identically between black and white offenders. These sixteen laws either deal with breaking and entering or sex offenders. In fact, only seven laws for Breaking and Entering treat blacks differently than whites, and the differences in these cases are slight. Likewise, nine laws pertaining to sex offenders only vary in the case of an interracial offense.
4. Robert Ernst, Rufus King, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), p. 369; See also Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1927 (USGPO, 1928), s. v. “King, Rufus.”
5. Robert Ernst, p. 369.
6. George Adams Boyd, Elias Boudinot: Patriot and Statesman 1740-1821, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1952), p. 290.
7. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1856), Vol. X, pp. 385-386, letter to Thomas Jefferson on December 18, 1819.
8. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. XV, pp. 248-250, letter to John Holmes on April 22, 1820.
9. Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), Vol. XII, p. 157, letter to Hugh Nelson on February 7, 1820.
10. Eugene V. Smalley, A Brief History of the Republican Party, From its Organization to the Presidential Campaign of 1884 (New York: John R. Allen, 1885), pp. 25-27.
11. Republican Campaign Edition for the Million Containing the Republican Platform (Boston: John P. Jewett and Co., 1856), p. 4.
12. Smalley, A Brief History of the Republican Party, pp. 86-87.
13. Biographical Directory, s. v. “Revels, Hiram Rhodes.”
14. Id. s. v. “Rainey, Joseph Hayne.”
15. Id. s. v. “Long, Jefferson Franklin.”
16. Id. s. v. “Langston, John Mercer.”
17. Id. s. v. “Smalls, Robert.”
18. Edward A. Johnson, A School History of the Negro Race in American from 1619 to 1890 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1891), p. 170.
19. Id.
20. Carter G. Woodson, Negro Orators and Their Orations (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Pub., Inc., 1925), p. 323.
21. African Methodist Episcopal Church Review (Ohio: Theophilus J. Minton) April, 1892, Vol. VIII, No. IV, p. 369, from an Article on Robert Brown Elliot. [http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/africanam/det.cfm?ID2373]
22. Id. p. 364.
23. Biographical Directory, s. v. “Lynch, John Roy.”
24. Id. s. v. “Bruce, Blanche Kelso”
25. Id. s. v. “Nash, Charles Edmund.”
26. Id. s. v. “Cheatham, Henry Plummer.”
27. Id. s. v. “Miller, Thomas Ezekiel.”
28. Id. s. v. “Murray, George Washington.”
29. “Brooke, Edward William III,” [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000871]
30. Louisiana’s African American Heritage [http://www.crt.state.a.us/crt/ocagno.htm]
31. Black Facts Online [http://www.blackfacts.com/Factdisplay.asp?ID=1029]
32. Smalley, pp. 48-50.
33. Black Facts: July30, 1866; See also “The New Orleans Massacre,” Harper’s Weekly, March 30, 1862, p. 202.
34. Congressional Black Caucus 103rd Congress 93-94 Guide [http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Govern_Political/CBC_Guide.html]
35. Charles Evans Hughes, The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes, David J. Danelski and Joseph S. Tulchin, editors (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 144.
36. Sanfra Sobieraj, “Gore says to ‘Take souls to polls,’” The Advocate (November 5, 2000).
37. Donald L. Robinson, Slavery in the Structure of American Politics, 1765-1820 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), p. 192.
38 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Max Farrand, editor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), Vol. I, p. 201.
39. James Madison, The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America, Gaillart Hint and James Brown Scott, editors (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920), p. 239.
40. Journals of the Continental Congress 1774-1789 (Washington, D.C.: 1906), 6:1105.
41. The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. I p. 581.
42. Jefferson Papers, Vol. I, p. 47.
43. The Records of the Federal Convention, Vol. I, p. 596.
44. Id, p. 597.
45. Anti-Slavery 1804 Broadsheet, Vol I. (Boston: June 22, 1804)
46. Principles: A Quarterly Review for Teachers of History and Social Science (Claremont, CA: The Claremont Institute Spring/Summer 1992), Thomas G. West, “Was the American Founding Unjust? The Case of Slavery,” p. 5.
47. Walter E. Williams, “Some Fathers Fought Slavery,” Creators Syndicate, Inc., May 26, 1993.
48. Jesse Jackson in a speech to the Shadow Convention in Los Angeles, August 13th to 17th, 2000 [http://www.shadowconventions.com/losangeles/index.html]
49. Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, (Orton & Mulligan: New York, 1855), p. 392.
50. Id.
51. Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, (New York: Collier Books, reprint 1893 of an 1888 original), p. 705.
52. Dr. Loevy, A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States of America, p. 2. [http://www.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/PS/faculty/loevy/civil%20rights.html]
53. Id. p. 5.
54. Id. pp. 7-10.
55. Id. pp. 14-16.
56. R.D. Davis, Blacks “Gored” By a Lie: Al Gore Sr., the GOP and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, (Washington, D.C.: The National Center for Public Policy Research, May 1999), p. 1. [http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVDavisGore599.html]
57. Id.
58. Id. p. 3.
59 Loevy, p. 2.
60. Mike Kingston, Sam Attlesey, & Mary G. Crawford, The Texas Almanac’s Political History of Texas (Austin, Texas: EAKIN Press, 1992), p. 186.
61. Encyclopedia Britannica, s. v. “Poll tax.”
62. Kingston, et al., p. 186.
63. Encyclopedia Britannica, s. v. “Poll tax.”
64. Thomas Hudson McKee, The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties1789 to 1905, Convention, Popular and Electoral Vote (New York: Burt Franklin, reprint 1971 of a 1906 original), p. 304.
65. Dr. Ronald Walters, “Raw Republican Racism,” Black Oklahoma Today, October 25, 1999. [http://www.blackoklahoma.com/Articles/columnists/com-ronwalters102599.htm
66. Davis, p. 2.
67. Clark Kent Ervin, “Majority of Blacks are Conservative,” MSNBC Opinions.
68. Id.
69. Federer, p. 697.
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There is Money and Then There Are Money Substitutes
by Ludwig von Mises on December 16, 2009
[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action (available in print and audio). An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for free download.]
Claims to a definite amount of money, payable and redeemable on demand, against a debtor about whose solvency and willingness to pay there does not prevail the slightest doubt, render to the individual all the services money can render, provided that all parties with whom he could possibly transact business are perfectly familiar with these essential qualities of the claims concerned: daily maturity and undoubted solvency and willingness to pay on the part of the debtor.
We may call such claims money-substitutes, as they can fully replace money in an individual’s or a firm’s cash holding. The technical and legal features of the money-substitutes do not concern catallactics. A money-substitute can be embodied either in a banknote or in a demand deposit with a bank subject to check (“checkbook money” or deposit currency), provided the bank is prepared to exchange the note or the deposit daily free of charge against money proper.
Token coins are also money-substitutes, provided the owner is in a position to exchange them at need against money free of expense and without delay. To achieve this it is not required that the government be bound by law to redeem them. What counts is the fact that these tokens can be really converted free of expense and without delay. If the total amount of token coins issued is kept within reasonable limits, no special provisions on the part of the government are necessary to keep their exchange value at par with their face value. The demand of the public for small change gives everybody the opportunity to exchange them easily against pieces of money. The main thing is that every owner of a money-substitute is perfectly certain that it can, at every instant and free of expense, be exchanged against money.
If the debtor — the government or a bank — keeps against the whole amount of money-substitutes a reserve of money proper, we call the money-substitute a money-certificate. The individual money-certificate is — not necessarily in a legal sense, but always in the catallactic sense — a representative of a corresponding amount of money kept in the reserve.
The issuing of money-certificates does not increase the quantity of things suitable to satisfy the demand for money for cash holding. Changes in the quantity of money-certificates therefore do not alter the supply of money and the money relation. They do not play any role in the determination of the purchasing power of money.
If the money reserve kept by the debtor against the money-substitutes issued is less than the total amount of such substitutes, we call that amount of substitutes which exceeds the reserve fiduciary media. As a rule it is not possible to ascertain whether a concrete specimen of money-substitutes is a money-certificate or a fiduciary medium. A part of the total amount of money-substitutes issued is usually covered by a money reserve held. Thus a part of the total amount of money-substitutes issued is money-certificates, the rest fiduciary media. But this fact can only be recognized by those familiar with the bank’s balance sheets. The individual banknote, deposit, or token coin does not indicate its catallactic character.
The issue of money-certificates does not increase the funds which the bank can employ in the conduct of its lending business. A bank which does not issue fiduciary media can only grant commodity credit, i.e., it can only lend its own funds and the amount of money which its customers have entrusted to it. The issue of fiduciary media enlarges the bank’s funds available for lending beyond these limits. It can now not only grant commodity credit, but also circulation credit, i.e., credit granted out of the issue of fiduciary media.
While the quantity of money-certificates is indifferent, the quantity of fiduciary media is not. The fiduciary media affect the market phenomena in the same way as money does. Changes in their quantity influence the determination of money’s purchasing power and of prices and — temporarily — also of the rate of interest.
Earlier economists applied a different terminology. Many were prepared to call the money-substitutes simply money, as they are fit to render the services money renders. However, this terminology is not expedient. The first purpose of a scientific terminology is to facilitate the analysis of the problems involved. The task of the catallactic theory of money — as differentiated from the legal theory and from the technical disciplines of bank management and accountancy — is the study of the problems of the determination of prices and interest rates. This task requires a sharp distinction between money-certificates and fiduciary media.
Did Paul Invent Christianity?
By Alex McFarland
Southern Evangelical Seminary President
“Is it true that much of Christianity is based on the ideas of Paul rather than on the original teachings of Jesus? My professor said that for centuries Christianity has been distorted by the church.” I was speaking to a campus Christian group at a secular university on the East coast. Several students in attendance from another college indicated that they had heard this opinion in the classroom as well.
The origin and content of the Gospel message is an important issue. Some assume that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) gives us the summation of Jesus’ teachings. Love your neighbor. Feed the poor. That just about covers it. Skeptics say things like, “Jesus never mentioned homosexuality,” or “Show me where Jesus ever said that women shouldn’t be pastors!”
Before we get to the subject of Paul, let’s think of the biblical content in three ways: there are the Jewish Scriptures (comprising the Old Testament), the actual words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels (all of which are God’s Word because Jesus is Deity), and everything else in the New Testament besides the sayings of Jesus.
Jesus said that He had not come to abolish the teachings of the Old Testament, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:43). In the four Gospels we see that Jesus quoted the Old Testament hundreds of times and taught that the authority of Scripture was timeless (Matthew 24:35; John 10:35). Jesus also promised His disciples that “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:26). Thus, Christ affirmed the Old Testament and made provision for creation of the New Testament. Jesus, in effect, has put his seal of approval on the Bible.
Let’s get back to the question of whether or not the apostle Paul “invented” or distorted Christianity. Saul of Tarsus–a passionate persecutor of the church–became Paul the believer about AD 35. The book of Acts (written by Luke) records Paul’s salvation experience in chapters 9, 22, and 26. In his own writings, Paul also explains his conversion to faith (I Corinthians 9:1, 15:3-8, and Galatians 1:11-18). From about AD 48 until his death around AD 68, Paul wrote at least 13 of the New Testament’s books.
The fact that Paul had originally opposed and persecuted the church proves that he could not have “invented” Christianity. Paul’s use of the words “received” and “passed on”–rabbinical terms for the handing down of teachings–is significant in I Corinthians 15:3-8. In relating these facts about Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul is saying that what is presents is existing truth that he himself had received. Scholars recognize that this passage contains an early church creed (or statement of belief) that was recited by believers in the days before the New Testament had been written down. Other Scriptures that preserve the early, verbal Christian creeds include I John 4:2, Philippians 2:6, II Timothy 2:8, and Romans 1:3-4. Another notable passage is I Timothy 3:16. Not only is this a confession of belief, it may have actually been part of a hymn that was sung by early believers.
The point is this: the key teachings of the Gospel (Jesus is the sinless Son of God; He died for our sins and rose again; we receive Him as Savior through repentance and faith) pre-date Paul. Paul taught these things, expounded on these things, and was used by God to write much of the New Testament. But the core of the Gospel was being widely spread even before Paul was a believer. In the final words I Corinthians 15:8, Paul seemed to acknowledge that he was late getting to the party!
Look at Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, found in Acts 2:14-40. Peter presents the core facts of the Gospel, including Jesus’ Deity, death, and resurrection. Peter preaches the same truths again in Acts 3:12-18. In Acts 5:29-33, Peter addressed Jewish leaders, and again gives the key facts of the Christian message. By Acts 5:42, we read, “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”
Two important conclusions emerge: first, the early church knew what they believed, and the teachings were effectively passed on and preserved among the people, and second, Paul could not have “invented” Christianity because he was not even a believer until about two years after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and the subsequent events of Pentecost. The early church and the content of the Gospel are clearly shown to pre-date Paul.
Black GOP Candidates Mount Serious 2010 Bids Nationwide
Republican Party Could Change Image With an African American in Congress
“Let’s talk about race,” wrote Michael Williams.
It was September 22, six days after former President Jimmy Carter suggested that race was one reason for the special political animosity toward President Barack Obama. Williams, the four-term Texas railroad commissioner–a job, he tells everyone, that has everything to do with energy policy and nothing to do with railroads–had already dinged Carter for the remarks. But in a long blog post at his campaign website, Williams went further.
“As an African-American son of the South,” wrote Williams, “I grew up in a time and place where you didn’t have to divine intent or deconstruct code words to find racism.” The crisis in America, he explained, was the proliferation of people calling one another “racists” for their position on Obama’s policies. “We have rid our institutions of government of the practice of discrimination; if only we could rid our political discourse of the ugliness that ensues when we ascribe discriminatory motive to statements with no obvious discriminatory aspect.”
There was a nuts-and-bolts political point to this. Williams is one of the nation’s very few African-American Republicans who hold statewide office. He’s running for the U.S. Senate seat expected to be vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), a candidate for governor that year. If elected, he would be the only African-American member of the Senate, as the appointed and scandal-plagued Democrat Roland Burris is retiring next year. That means Williams is threatening to jump out of obscurity and into the position of a credible, high-profile critic of Obama.
“I don’t know if some of the criticisms President Obama has received have been about veiled prejudices,” Frazier told TWI while on the road to an event in Durango, Col., a small city with a black population of less than one percent. “But when it comes to me, Democrats are not going to be able to use some of those same tactics and rhetoric–which have actually tended to work for them–accusing me of disagreeing with the president because of his race. I’m not one of those Republicans sitting around, questioning the president’s citizenship.”
While Republican strategists have spun some outbreaks of racial dialogue to their advantage–virtually all of them feel that Jimmy Carter’s comments reflected poorly on the former president, not on Republicans–there is a stark awareness that the party’s lack of African-American faces is a problem when opposing the first African-American president. Despite the elevation of RNC Chairman Michael Steele, not many Republicans spoke highly of his attempts to turn racial controversies against the Democrats, such as his suggestion that the White House may have pressured Gov. David Paterson (D-N.Y.) to leave the 2010 campaign because he’s black. As the party has pointed to anti-tax Tea Parties for proof of political momentum, the lack of more African-American spokespeople has been notable.
“It’s hard for a white liberal to call black a Republican a racist,” said Richard Ivory, the editor of HipHopRepublican.com.
Since former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) retired in 2002, the party has had no African-American representation in Congress, and that’s led to some missed opportunities. In 2005, when then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean joked that Republicans couldn’t match the diversity of a Democratic meeting unless they invited “the hotel staff,” the semi-official Republican response to Dean came from a decidedly low-profile group of eight black Republicans in Mississippi.
In 2006, when the party ran credible African-American candidates in Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, GOP strategists gleefully turned the race card over on Democrats. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), for example, was pilloried by Republicans for saying then-Senate candidate, now RNC Chairman Michael Steele had followed his party “slavishly.” But in a bad year for the party, its top-tier African-American candidates were wiped out.
Black Republicans have no problem portraying Democrats as especially interested in bringing them down. Herman Cain, a 2004 U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia–who lost the primary to now-Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)–has claimed that Democrats want him and fellow black Republicans to “stay on the plantation.” The National Black Republican Association called the January 2009 election of Steele “the Democrats’ worst nightmare,” an accurate reflection of the reason some Republican National Committee members gave Steele a shot at the job. In an interview with TWI, Ken Blackwell–who has remained a sought-after conservative speaker since losing a 2006 race for governor of Ohio–argued that Democrats targeted him early to prevent the rise of a powerful black Republican voice.
“When I was re-elected as secretary of state, I got 42 percent of the African-American vote,” Blackwell reminisced. “That just worried the Democrat strategists and leaders. So I got targeted. If I had been running for another term as secretary of state, they wouldn’t have wasted the time on me. But a conservative, African-American governor? That’s problematic.”
Some of the party’s 2010 hopefuls have hurdles to overcome within the party. Neither Williams nor Frazier is the favorite in his respective Senate race. Despite polls showing that either of them would be likely to win their general elections, Williams trails either Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R-Tex.) and Attorney General Greg Abbott (R-Tex.), and Frazier trails former Lt. Jane Norton (R-Co.), who entered the race only last month. “Michael Williams is a black candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “How much of a chance would I give him of surviving a runoff with Dewhurst or Abbott? None.”
The prospects are better for Huddleston and West. Privately, Republican strategists suggested that they will not face serious primary challenges, and are strong contenders for support from the National Republican Campaign Committee if they post strong fundraising numbers of their own. West raised more than $550,000 in 2008 for his first race, with what he characterized as “nothing” from the state or national parties, and pulled 45 percent of the vote in a district that gave 48 percent to George W. Bush in 2004 and John McCain in 2008. West relished the idea of arriving in Washington and demanding membership in the Congressional Black Caucus.
“They don’t want that to be out there,” West told TWI. “They don’t want to see empowerment. They want to have entitlement. You undercut the people like the Jesse Jacksons, the James Clyburns, the Maxine Waterses. You know–the John Conyerses, the Diane Watsons. I am their worst nightmare and I understand that. I welcome them to come and engage me on that level.”
Huddleston, who ran and lost a campaign for the North Carolina legislature last year, may be running in a more favorable district. While Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.) easily won the seat in 2008, he was aided by a massive turnout of African-American voters who make up 28 percent of the district. Huddleston said he’d had eyeball-to-eyeball conversations with black voters who split their ballots for Obama, Kissell and him. He also hinted at a possible endorsement from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whom Huddleston called a “mentor” in his military career.
“He and I have communicated,” said Huddleston. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Alone among the Republican candidates that TWI spoke to, Huddleston balked at the idea of becoming a high-profile, go-to spokesman on racial flare-ups if he got to Congress. Democrats keep their base “stoked” when they “play the race card,” he said. “I will not be a token for anybody. If I’m on your team, you let me on because I can play the position. And if you’re a reporter and you ask me to comment on what Jimmy Carter said about race, I will give you my time. I’ll have the expectation that you come back to me to talk about national security, or about trade, or about one of the issues I actually am running on.”
According to Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist whose book “Wrong on Race” argued that Republicans should be able to capitalize on Democrats’ weak record on racial progress, Huddleston might have the clearest view of how a black Republican could take advantage of the political scene.
“Not to be crude,” said Bartlett but I think [J.C.] Watts and [former Rep. Gary] Franks (R-Conn.) were always viewed as tokens in the black community. Their election led neither to an increase in voting for Republicans by blacks nor any increased effort by Republicans to attract black votes.”
Voting With Your Feet Against Disastrous Climate Change Policy
By Deneen Borelli
November 12, 2009
It’s time to kick those expensive kicks, black Americans. Nike and Timberland aren’t working in your best interests.
Saying goodbye won’t be hard to do since these companies want to eventually make it impossible to afford their shoes.
Nike and Timberland are affiliated with the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) coalition, which wants to unilaterally impose a risky “cap-and-trade” regulatory scheme on our nation. This would raise prices on virtually everything, with costs falling the hardest on those who can least afford it.
To disrespect consumers in this way is reason enough to take your business elsewhere, but it gets worse. While asking us to tighten our belts, these companies are going to be making their shoes in countries where they can skirt the laws they want enforced here.
Essentially, cap-and-trade is a tax on fossil fuels. Businesses, in theory, will convert to alternative energy sources rather than pay higher costs for oil, coal and natural gas.
With wind turbines and solar panels in short supply right now, future suffering is inevitable. President Obama realizes this, noting in January of 2008 that “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” He also casually noted that affected businesses “will pass that money on to consumers.”
A study released by the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) also suggests cap-and-trade could kill more than 2.7 million jobs a year through 2030. The liberal Brookings Institution paints no better picture – estimating 1.7 million would be lost annually.
Additionally, the NBCC study says cap-and-trade would reduce the American GDP by $350 billion a year and cost the average worker around $400 while consumer prices rise.
The little guy will suffer most. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted “most of the cost of meeting a cap on [carbon dioxide] emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline… [and] poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households would.”
Under cap-and-trade, a policy desired by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Nike and Timberland, it seems the rich will get richer while the poor get poorer.
Nike and Timberland wouldn’t feel the real pain of cap-and-trade restrictions. The proposal their BICEP coalition wants applies only to the United States. Nike makes a good deal of footwear in places such as South Korea and Vietnam. Those countries will not be affected. Timberland makes shoes in China – another country not willing to inflict cap-and-trade on itself.
Nike recently resigned from the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to protest the business organization’s opposition to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid cap-and-trade scheme. The Chamber, however, is not opposed to regulating carbon dioxide emissions as much as imposing cap-and-trade restrictions unilaterally. The Chamber is worried about the United States losing its ability to compete. Nike and Timberland seem to have put their own interests ahead of America’s.
Placing environmental desires before economic recovery is unpopular. A recent Public Strategies’ poll found 62 percent of respondents say economic recovery is a higher priority than environmental protection. A National Center for Public Policy Research-commissioned poll of black Americans found 76 percent held similar views.
In promoting his company’s cap-and-trade policy on the environmental web site Grist, Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz noted “Consumers can now discriminate.” And they should. In the face of Timberland, Nike and other companies’ disregard for their customers’ economic well-being, they don’t deserve your hard-earned money.
Many black Americans put a great deal of value on the shoes they wear, but Nike and Timberland don’t appear to put a lot of value in them. Black Americans should return the favor and buy elsewhere.
—
Deneen Borelli is a fellow for the Project 21 black leadership network. Comments may be sent to DBorelli@nationalcenter.org.
Published by The National Center for Public Policy Research. Reprints permitted provided source is credited. New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21 or the National Center for Public Policy Research.
Obamacare vs. the Working Class
Mises Daily: Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Eric M. Staib
Given the recent announcement that the government’s measure of unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, and given that the official House version of Obama’s healthcare plan, HR 3962, has now passed, a close examination of the effects of “Obamacare” on the labor market is important. It will be no surprise to readers of this site to learn that the Democrats’ bill will seriously harm precisely those poor and uninsured citizens it is ostensibly designed to help. The harm will come by compounding mass unemployment and depriving these citizens of consumption choices.
Obamacare as Labor Tax
According to pages 269–273 of the gargantuan bill,
employers of full-time workers will be required to cover at least 72.5 percent of the premium of the least expensive health-insurance plan available that fulfills the bill’s minimum criteria of “acceptable coverage.” In cases in which family coverage is provided, 62.5 percent of the premium is to be borne by the employer. Depending on the specific plan and other variables such as location, this amounts to a direct labor tax of approximately $300 per month for an individual, or nearly $700 for family coverage.
The implication of this increased cost is that workers whose revenue productivity is less than $300 per month higher than their wages will be laid off, or have their hours cut to the level that will classify them as part-time. Ignoring established labor law, the bill leaves the definition of part-time and full-time to the discretion of the Commissioner of Obama’s massive new health bureaucracy. The lower the new “Health Choices Commissioner” sets the threshold in an attempt to maximize the number of people receiving the employer contribution, the more hours of production employers will have to shave off to push their employees under the threshold, and the less those workers will take home in wages each week.
Unfortunately, the bill also requires employers to cover a (smaller) percentage of the premium of the same minimum plan for part-time workers. The effects here are even worse than above, because they weaken the ability of an employer to escape the labor tax by employing his workers for fewer hours. Instead, with a labor tax on part-time workers as well, some low-productivity workers who are currently only working a few hours per week will be forced out of work entirely.
The Burden of Obamacare
We can say, as a mathematical certainty, that this labor tax is a regressive tax. Because the tax is defined as 72.5 percent of the same premium for all workers, that absolute tax will fall more heavily on workers for whom the tax represents a higher percentage of their wages or salary.
To understand this better, we will apply a $300 monthly labor tax to the differences between wages and revenue production for two different workers. If we make the simplifying assumption that a laborer is paid 99 percent of his revenue productivity, we can see that the absolute difference between productivity and wages is larger for high-income workers.
For example, a worker producing $50,000 of revenue per month will be paid $49,500 over the same period, delivering $500 in profit to his employer. A worker producing $10,000 in revenue monthly, meanwhile, will receive $9900, for a difference of only $100. Despite the differences in their absolute return, in a free economy, both laborers are profitable hires and thus employed.
In a post-Obama America, however, only the high-wage worker will be employed, leaving the low-productivity worker out of employment. When a $300 per month charge is added to the cost of employing either worker, it is plain to see that only the high-wage worker’s absolute profit will remain positive.
The firm will continue to make $200 by employing the high-productivity worker, while it will be forced to lay off the low-productivity worker rather than lose $200 by employing him. The Obamacare health tax thus will fall directly on the same employees who are hurt by minimum wage increases: teenagers, the disabled, and disadvantaged minorities.
If they do not wish to be laid off or cut to part-time, these low-productivity workers will accept a lower salary to keep their position and work schedule. Thus, the worker who produces $10,000 monthly will offer to accept a salary of $9700 or less to save himself from a complete loss of employment or cut to part-time. These workers will offer to shift the cost directly onto themselves rather than burdening the employer with it, which would result in their unemployment.
Predictably, though, the Democrats fully intend to “protect” workers from the choice to save their jobs by working for less. Page 273 of the bill stipulates that any amount pledged for the minimum-health-insurance plan that corresponds to a fall in salary or wage will not be considered a contribution at all. Page 310 establishes a $100 per day, per case fine for any privately negotiated fall in wages. Thus, salaries will be locked in at current rates, with any cuts being considered an attempt to subvert the labor tax, and thus being subject to financial penalties.
In reality, this clause is no favor to workers, and instead acts as a wage floor to ensure that the unemployment effect will be immitigable and widespread. Because any drop in wages during the months following the bill’s enactment would be considered a violation of the employer-contribution mandate and therefore would carry heavy fines, literally all wages will be prevented from falling below their current levels.
Implementing these indirect wage floors in literally every industry during a recession is downright ludicrous. During a recession, wages rise and fall in different lines of production to align producers’ demand for laborers with consumers’ demand for the goods each type of labor produces.
In a dynamic market — that is, any market in which people are free to change their minds — different workers’ wages must rise and fall every day to accommodate changing consumer preferences. To prevent this process from taking place is to prevent the structure of production from being corrected.
These wage floors will also hasten the decline of industries that are less valuable to consumers than they were at an earlier time, but that may still be a productive use of resources at a lower price. Businesses in these industries will be unable to legally cut their labor costs to lower their prices and satisfy consumers who are less eager to buy their goods. Without this option, such firms will need to either lay off part of their labor force, or simply go out of business entirely.
Destroying Real Production
It is equally important to consider the other end of the production chain, which is to say the actual output of goods and services. By destroying the demand for marginally productive labor, Obamacare’s labor tax will necessarily destroy that labor’s end product, which is of course marginally-valued goods and services. Thus, it is rational to expect fewer late-night fast food options, less-cleanly hotel rooms, fewer sales associates at retail outlets, and the like.
While these effects may not be as easily visible as a plant closure, they are real losses of consumable utility. Free-market firms produce convenience and extra quality until the point at which it is no longer profitable to do so. Destroying the production of these goods and services would destroy the niceties that capital accumulation and progress allow Americans to take for granted.
The effect of Obamacare on the prices of produced goods is obviously inflationary. Increasing the cost of employing every single laborer by $300 a piece is certain to increase the price of all produced goods. Combining price increases with rising unemployment is hardly a laudable strategy for improving the lives of poor citizens.
Conclusion
The historic passage of HR 3962 by the House of Representatives is not an event to be celebrated. Obamacare will exacerbate the nation’s rising unemployment and will prevent wages from fluctuating according to market demand. Just as with other sectors, a supposedly beneficial social policy hurts the poorest and least-able citizens the most.
Entrepreneurs: The Real “Peace Prize” Winners
Mises Daily: Monday, November 2, 2009 by Chris Brown
We live in ludicrous times of rewarding good appearance for evil action. President Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while his war efforts intensify. But those who are true promoters of peace need attention, for they will never likely receive such ostentatious recognition for their noble efforts. Such individuals are those who take risks in a world of uncertainty, and who save or borrow capital to start a business. Such entrepreneurs promote peace by serving the customer better than the next entrepreneur through voluntary transactions in the market, rather than commanding bureaucracy in government.
As part of my entrepreneurship courses, I have students who want to start their own business listen to new entrepreneurs discuss their background, their reasons for starting the business, and of their effort to establish the business. Students usually find these speakers fascinating and inspiring, but also come away with a sense of the enormous amount of effort, capital, risk, and uncertainty that is involved in starting a business. Many of these students decide they no longer want to start their own business. They realize that entrepreneurs, too, have a boss: the customer. Mises put it this way: “Ownership of the means of production is not a privilege, but a social liability.”
One speaker, a recent founder of a small Mexican restaurant (which are not common in Australia), saved his money over 20 years and then took out a bank loan of AU$1 million dollars, with his house and car as collateral. It took him over a year to write a business plan, find a suitable location, develop a menu, hire employees, and create marketing materials before he could open to the public.
Some of this time was wasted dealing with local-council–government officials, to whom he had to pay AU$25,000 just to open his restaurant. Delays in approval by government bureaucrats meant paying rent of AU$7,000 a month for several months on an empty restaurant. This entrepreneur said dealing with local government was the most difficult and discouraging battle he had to face. (Getting credit from banks, he said, was not a problem.)
This entrepreneur still works seven days a week, from morning until evening, to get the business established. After six months, and still not at a break-even point, he realized his business is only as good as the next day’s sales. As Mises said, “There is no security and no such thing as a right to preserve any position acquired in the past.” (Human Action, p. 311)
He knows he has to continually innovate through better quality products and services, better management of operations and resources, and more accurate pricing. He also realizes his competitors next door are trying to do the same.
Students inevitably ask him if he would do it again, knowing how difficult it is to establish a business, and after having some of the myths surrounding entrepreneurship contradicted by the founder’s experience. “Definitely,” he confidently responds, “… if you see the risk perhaps you shouldn’t start the business. I was so passionate about Mexican food I saw an opportunity.” This founder is passionate about serving customers Mexican food — an action so simple, so peaceful, and so far removed from force and war.
Such efforts, in my opinion, are not merely bordering on heroic, but are no doubt worthy of a peace prize. I cannot help but point out how absurd it is — in contrast to the voluntary, coordinating, and peaceful actions of entrepreneurs — for virtually any political bureaucrat to receive an award that has anything to do with peace. It is the seemingly small efforts of millions of hardworking, passionate entrepreneurs who make it difficult to understand why a peace prize still goes to someone who lives off the fruits of entrepreneurs’ efforts. Not only does President Obama depend on the force of taxes for his position, but he also decides how much and what to spend on with others’ money. Government merely consumes the efforts and capital of individuals. To award a political bureaucrat for this is to add insult to injury.
President Obama is not only engaged in foreign wars with some nations; he is engaged in economic wars with nearly every nation, including his own, through trade barriers and inflation, which often lead to actual war. Ludwig von Mises provided great insight on this issue. Mises realized the link between foreign trade wars and foreign wars. When countries are trading freely and frequently there is less need to protect them with soldiers and go to war over resources. When entrepreneurs are allowed to engage in production and exchange, the economic incentives to initiate war and conquest are minimized. Mises put this idea succinctly when he wrote: “War is the alternative to freedom of foreign investment as realized by the international capital market.” (Human Action, p. 502)
Murray Rothbard also recognized the likely outcomes of political intervention versus the market process:
It would be almost inevitable for such an autistic world [exchange involving coercion without receiving anything in return] to be strongly marked by violence and perpetual war. Since each man could gain from his fellows only at their expense, violence would be prevalent, and it seems highly likely that feelings of mutual hostility would be dominant. (Man, Economy, and State, p. 101)
Contrast this with the individual sovereignty found in the marketplace. Entrepreneurs only reap profits by offering something that individuals will buy voluntarily. They obviously cannot force anyone to buy their product. If they knew ex ante that their product had guaranteed demand, there would be little risk. And if entrepreneurs do not satisfy the consumer, they take a loss. Sustained losses (without government support) lead to the entrepreneur shutting down unprofitable operations. Government, paradoxically, rewards its losses with more funding and more labor.
In contrast, about the likely social outcomes of the market process Rothbard wrote,
On the other hand, in a world of voluntary social cooperation through mutually beneficial exchanges, where one man’s gain is another man’s gain, it is obvious that great scope is provided for the development of social sympathy and human friendships. It is the peaceful, cooperative society that creates favorable conditions for feelings of friendship among men. (Man, Economy, and State, p. 101)
The more entrepreneurs can engage in peaceful and coordinating actions that try to satisfy demands of consumers, the less likely war is made. Surely, noble entrepreneurs who contribute to the peaceful and voluntary exchange of property as part of the coordinating market process are worthy of peace awards. Political bureaucrats, who act as parasites on the rewards of such entrepreneurs, should be disqualified by their very nature.
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Chris Brown is a lecturer at the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship at Swinburne University. He also centrally plans the Austro-libertarian blog. Send him mail. See Chris Brown’s article archives. Comment on the blog.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO PROPOSES BUDGET CUTTING MEASURES
Last April, when Governor David Paterson and the New York City-controlled legislature adopted a New York State budget that carried a $13 billion increase in spending, I warned the Governor and his colleagues that there would be dire consequences for their actions. Now, NY faces a deficit of nearly $4 billion as a result of their actions.
Clearly, immediate and comprehensive action must be taken to address this massive deficit. That is why my Senate Republican colleagues and I have proposed a budget cutting plan that would close the deficit without raising taxes on our already overburdened New York State taxpayers . Our plan would eliminate over $3.4 billion in excessive spending.
The budget proposal put forward by my colleagues and I is the only savings plan that proposes specific spending reductions to help close the deficit. In cutting state spending, we cannot raise taxes on hardworking New Yorkers or impose costly unfunded mandates on local governments that would force them to raise property taxes. We must control state spending and reduce the tax burden if we want to create jobs and help stabilize the economy.
Specifically, my colleagues and I have proposed:
• Cutting back the $2.2 billion in general fund spending added to the 2009-10 budget by the New York City legislators who controlled the budget process;
• Cutting state agency non-personal services by ten percent to save $480 million;
• Freezing state purchases of recreational lands to save $78 million;
• Freezing planned Medicaid expansions to save $200 million;
• Reinstating welfare and Medicaid anti-fraud protections to save $34 million;
• Cutting Medicaid optional services to save $150 million; and
• Reducing state agency contract balances by five percent to save $300 million.
As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I will continue to oppose any effort to balance the budget on the backs of Upstate taxpayers just as I opposed the 2009-10 State budget last spring. We need to do more with less and cut government spending, not increase it.
My Senate Republican colleagues and I are fighting to return common sense to State government and enact these cost-saving measures to close the deficit without raising taxes. During these challenging times, New Yorkers all across our State have had to cut back. It is now time for State leadership to make the same tough decisions and comprehensively attack this budget deficit.
Sincerely,
Mike Nozzolio
Senator, 54th District
Senate Republican Recommendations For
Cost Cutting and Budget Savings
Review $2.2 billion in General Fund spending added to the 2009-10 Budget by the Legislature for possible reductions.
The SFY 2009-10 budget includes over $2.2 billion in General Fund spending that was added to Governor Paterson’s Executive budget proposal by the Democrat majorities in the Senate and Assembly. In other words, more than $2.2 billion in General Fund spending which was not originally proposed by Governor Paterson was included in the final adopted budget. All of this additional spending was discretionary and was not required under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Approximately $1.2 billion was used to restore reductions proposed by the Governor in his Executive budget and approximately $1 billion was used to finance new spending. All of these spending items should be immediately reviewed for potential reductions. Freezing all funds for new and increases to current spending programs alone would save hundreds of millions of dollars. In addition, the Democrats in both houses rejected many of Governor Paterson’s proposed legislative changes in the budget that would have saved over $100 million this year. Lastly Governor Paterson proposed $700 million in health care savings initiatives that were not included in the adopted budget which should be revisited.
10% Cut in State Agency Non-Personal Service – $480 million
Efficiency savings of 10% are assumed under this proposal. Selected categories include: equipment spending; employee travel; lease, maintenance and repairs; supplies and materials; telephone services; employee benefits and general state charges and utilities and centralized services. Potential actions include: Freeze all new vehicle purchases; Freeze all new equipment/furniture purchases; Suspend all unnecessary travel for State employees; Limit agency printing to essential services only; Limit agency mailings/postage expenses to essential services only; Eliminate all agency non emergency blackberry/cell phone usage; Turn down the heat in state buildings everyday and not just weekends; Freeze agency spending from state operation reappropriations; Freeze agency spending for employee training; Close agency regional offices; Reduce the size of agency public information offices; Freeze agency spending for conferences; Freeze all pending State rental agreements- new or renewal – to reduce space; Freeze all State agency advertising and marketing spending; Freeze all state agency public information office spending; Eliminate all State agency intern program spending; Freeze all new technology spending; Freeze equipment leases not executed; Freeze nonessential building repairs; Freeze all agency subscription service spending; Freeze agency membership payments for professional entities; Competitively bid State Employee medical/ hospital/ dental programs.
Freeze State Purchases of Recreational Land – Savings $78 million
This proposal would freeze the purchase of additional recreational land by the State. Given the State Fiscal Year (SFY) 09-10 Executive proposal to renege on the State’s current local tax obligation on existing State owned lands, the State cannot continue to purchase land. Current cash balances for this purpose would be transferred from the Environmental Protection Fund.
Freeze Planned Medicaid Expansions – $200 million by 2011-12.
All initiatives to expand the State’s Medicaid program should be stopped immediately as the State cannot afford the current program which is the most expansive in the nation. The Paterson administration is seeking to expand eligibility for Family Health Plus (FHP) to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. FHP enrollment in New York is projected to grow by another 128,000 families over the next four years. Expansions in eligibility to the Child Health Plus program should also be reevaluated. Higher Medicaid enrollment and use will add $975 million to the state-taxpayers’ share of Medicaid costs by 2011-12, according to the governor’s financial plan. Meanwhile, federal stimulus aid is supposed to expire the year after next, which will leave New Yorkers to cover more than $3 billion a year now temporarily underwritten by federal stimulus aid.
Reinstitute Medicaid and Welfare Anti-Fraud / Taxpayer Protections – $34 million
The adopted budget includes an initiative to “streamline access to coverage”. This “streamlining” of the Medicaid and welfare application process works by eliminating mechanisms designed to protect the taxpayers from fraud, waste and abuse such as the requirement for face-to-face interviews, fingerprinting and asset tests for determining eligibility. All of these safeguards should remain in place to insure that those receiving Medicaid and welfare benefits are indeed eligible under the law.
Cut Medicaid Optional Services – $150 million
The New York State Medicaid program offers nearly 2 dozen optional services not required under the Federal Medicaid program. Reducing the number of optional services to those required by the Federal government would reduce costs. Eliminating all optional services would save the state $150 million.
Cut 5% from Select Agency Contract Balances – $300 million
As of September of 2009, the undisbursed balance of existing state contracts totals more than $129 Billion. This proposal excludes the following types of contracts: authority, revenue generating, repayments to state contracts, community project fund, construction, construction related, non general fund, Department of Health, State Ed, and contracts with zero balance. The proposal assumes a 5% reduction in all undisbursed balances, of which 1% would be General Fund savings.
Big Business, “Organized Crime”, and Real Prosperity
by Tommy Davis
I had a fellow state to me that Republicans are for big business and don’t care about the black community. He went on to spew forth how they (the government) should tax the rich and provide tax breaks to the people at the bottom. He seemed to blame the deficient economy and the state of the black community on capitalism and the Republicans. Thus, he voted Democrat.
When street thugs rob at gunpoint to pilfer possessions from another person it is another example of misguided hoodlums who feel that they cannot —and will not— compete for a share in our economy. They believe that they must deprive others of their material goods in order to gain an economic advantage. Armed robbers must continue to commit crimes because their income will only resume through swindle. Lacking the intellectual capital and patience to participate in the free market, they cheat and steal from those who possess wealth.
Time after time the media reports this kind of action and it is justified by shifting the blame to a legacy of slavery, racism, fiscal predicament, or capitalism.
Political speeches about taxing the rich and redistributing their wealth are no different than a robbery that hasn’t yet turned bad. When liberal socialists go after companies who make an honest living and attempt to redistribute their wealth (communism) they are stealing. If big business fails, there are no employees to provide with a tax break because they will lack employment.
As a Republican I understand that businesses manufacture a product that consumers purchase. Therefore, a fair exchange takes place. When those consumers turn around and accuse business owners of making too much money, this is nothing short of envy and wanting to “buy” the cake, eat it, and then want your money back. Also, such folks elect government officials who will penalize companies for being successful by taxing them severely; this is nothing short of criminal —- professional stick-ups that results in loss of capital that translates into unemployment and higher prices.
Entrepreneurs did not become wealthy by swindling citizens out of money. Companies satisfied the consumer by providing a product or service. When Henry Ford mass produced the automobile, the Ford Model T, he provided a manufactured good that pleased the world. We bought it. The Fords got rich. In the process, the company created a middle class who put in the work. In 1913 Henry Ford paid his employees at a rate of $5.00 per day which was the highest wage in manufacturing at that time! Profits were good until competition, coupled with collective bargaining agreements, entered the picture. Vehicles were priced too high and were less efficient than the competition.
Pathetically, now the government (under Democratic control) wants to borrow money from me (the taxpayer) to “invest” into companies “too big to fail”. Rather than provide me with a dividend (at least a discount), they want to sell me the product I help build. That’s like borrowing my car to burglarize my home only to turn and sell me my stuff back.
It doesn’t matter if Obama is president. The community (especially the black community) will still suffer because the problems are self inflicted. Those black folks who voted for Obama just because he’s black are racists and no different from the Southern Democrats who initiated the poll tax to keep white candidates in office and poor blacks from voting despite the possible economic advantage.
He will not “change” the 50 percent school drop-out rate among African-Americans, or the 70 percent illegitimacy rate regarding two parent households in black communities; and he will not transform the high murder rate (over 50 percent) committed by black males in this country.
If blacks do not save, there will be check cashing centers in predominantly black neighborhoods with a five dollar fee rather than commercial banks. There will be corner stores and clothing outlets rather than grocery stores and malls. If the police are too busy, Wal-Mart will never open a store within the city limits.
The same candidates who say that they will create jobs are promoting the very policies that cause businesses to lay off employees and slow production. The same candidates who are soft on crime are the same ones who “prevent” businesses from opening in certain communities.
Governments do not create jobs. Citizens generate employment by starting businesses constructing products that benefit society. They hire the labor to bring this innovation to pass. The government’s job is to supervise fair enterprise—-not socialize. The proper role of supervision is to create an atmosphere for growth. This involves cutting taxes to free up reinvestment capital for business owners; improving public safely, and prohibiting business regulatory fees implemented to raise money.
Time will tell how many government robberies will bring about the fatal wound to our financial prudence. In other words: time will tell which straw will finally break the camel’s back.
Is Emergency Care a Failed Market?
Mises Daily by Eric M. Staib | Posted on 9/24/2009
In response to my recent article on health-insurance mandates, I received many emails from readers who argued that mandates, as unappealing as they may be, are necessary to prevent market failure in emergency medical services.Specifically, they argued that there is a “free-rider problem” in emergency care because individuals are currently able to visit the emergency room (ER) without insurance or the means to pay, receive care, and then skip out on the bill. Such free riders force the hospital to either accept the losses or spread the costs to other patients. Therefore, the readers reasoned, there is a market failure in that health insurance is under-demanded and ER care is over-demanded, increasing health care costs and dumping them onto those consumers who do purchase insurance and pay for their visits.
As accurate as this common depiction of the symptom is, however, it misdiagnoses the disease. The free-rider problem in ER care is not a market failure, but a government failure. The Hippocratic Oath notwithstanding, hospitals only accept all patients irrespective of their ability to pay because they are required to by government regulations. These laws, which are in place in countries around the planet, result in a simple welfare scheme whereby the costs of the uninsured are transferred to insured patients. With this reality in mind, it is easy to see that the free-rider problem in ER services is not a market failure, but rather a government failure.
A Libertarian Alternative
How, then, would truly free-market hospitals handle patients who are now free riders? There is every reason to expect that these uninsured, mostly low-income people would be treated more humanely and with greater dignity than they are in the current quasi-socialist system.
Without government regulations on their payment collection methods, hospitals would be free to offer more flexible prices and payment options, and to negotiate contracts with individual consumers. Those patients with little financial leverage would be able to form creative payment plans, and those without any savings or insurance could even contract to pay for their services with labor.
Furthermore, in a truly free market for medical care, even patients who intentionally try to skip payments and thus dump the costs on others cannot. This is because, in the absence of supposedly compassionate hospital legislation, to admit oneself or someone else to emergency care is to agree to the terms and conditions of service at that hospital — most importantly, to pay for treatment.
Thus, in the libertarian society, checking out without arranging payment would constitute a violation of contract, and therefore these malicious free riders would be held accountable. In the current situation, however, such predatory patients are subsidized by others in the name of social compassion.
Another advantage of contractual enforcement of payment for ER services on the free market is that it removes hospitals from financial responsibility for those patients who are admitted to the ER by another party while incapacitated. Which party will be held responsible for the hospital bill in each case would be decided by negotiation between the two parties and perhaps even by court arbitration. Which party eventually pays is not important for this matter, though; what matters is that the hospital will be paid either way, and that other patients will no longer be stuck with the bill.
Now that we’ve seen that the free rider problem does not exist in a free market for medical care, we can address other readers’ concern that the profit-driven market process is unsympathetic to the suffering of those patients who are truly unable to pay in any way and can’t afford market insurance, but who shouldn’t simply be left to suffer.
The Market for Free Riders?
To argue that the market discards those it regards as undesirable is to both ignore the prevalence of private charity and deny the existence of the entire public-relations industry. Indeed, setting socialist doctrines aside, we can see that affectionate treatment of the poor and downtrodden is actually a very profitable endeavor.
In every market, firms of all sizes expend resources to maintain a positive public image. There are few actions better received by a community than healing and treating their vulnerable and disabled at a discounted or zero price. As such, it is absolutely foolish to believe that hospitals would not take in such customers for treatment.
In fact, if we examine the nature of prices and income differentials closely, we arrive at another instance of destructive government intervention. Price discrimination of almost every form is illegal in almost every market, and health care is certainly no exception.
Price discrimination may feel unfair, but if allowed by law it can lead to much more efficient market outcomes and higher market quantities of all goods and services. Using price discrimination, hospitals would be free to provide additional and cheaper services to low-income consumers without decreasing the price for high-income consumers.
Price discrimination would benefit the hospitals as well, because they would not only increase the quantity of services they perform and add potentially loyal new customers, but would also be able to increase the price of services to their high-income patients without losing their business.
Viewing the converse of this market outcome, then, we can observe that laws against price-fixing necessarily decrease quantities of goods and services, and squeeze marginal consumers out of the market. In the health care market, this means that those who are most in need of low-cost care are forced out of the market in the name of social justice.
In contemplating competition between medical service providers, we can deduce that the market will indeed treat people who are now free riders with dignity, but that those consumers will no longer actually be free riding on others. Instead, they will provide a valuable good to society — namely, the satisfaction that comes with supporting others in their time of need. While it may seem strange to think of this as an economic good, it certainly is, as evidenced by consumers’ willingness to forgo other forms of consumption in favor of charity.
While caring for these patients would still redistribute costs to other consumers, it would do so only to the extent that these paying consumers would tolerate it by continuing to purchase care and services. That is to say that consumers’ choices between competing hospitals’ services would, just as in any market, force those hospitals to provide equilibrium quantities of charitable care.
This efficient market quantity would therefore be determined by the charitable inclinations of insured and higher-income patients. And in a truly libertarian market, which would lack taxes, we can say that these individuals would inarguably be more giving of their own income.
Perhaps the best feature of the free-market process in a libertarian health market is that it would allocate charitable funds to their best use. In our emergency services case, this axiom of market behavior implies that hospitals will spend their charity budgets on the most destitute and impoverished patients.
Conclusion
With rigorous examination, we can see that emergency medical services function like any other market, and that the free-rider problem is the result of a government failure. Furthermore, we can safely expect that the free market would treat the most deserving of these free riders more humanely than does the supposedly compassionate central health administration.
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Eric Staib is an economics major at the University of Oklahoma. Send him mail. See Eric M. Staib’s article archives. Comment on the blog.
About Us
The Republican Review of America is one of many conservative outlets that seeks to convey to the community that a moral and responsible citizenry and a capitalist free-market economy is what works best for America. Our country’s departure from classical education, morals and values in addition to adopting destructive views contrary to our US Constitution have placed our economy at great risk. The Republican Review of America is a voice and comfort to the truly God-fearing conservative who desire to see America flourish again as a patriotic, traditional family oriented, society that has within it competitive inhabitants that will contribute to a more powerful republic for which we stand.
Regards, Chaplain (Col) Tommy Davis, DDCS
“Though the fig does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength” (Habakkuk 3:17).
