A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties (8 page)

Partisanship is a huge obstacle to fairness. The founders could scarcely have dreamed how bitter the rancor of the eventual two-party system would become. At the time that the Constitution was written, American political parties were in their embryonic stage. Most political figures were focused on what was good for the nation rather than what was good for their political constituency. Unfortunately, that did not last.

Shrewd politicians realized that by making their ideas into an identity with a party label, they could consistently attract voters who were not paying attention to specific issues. Today party politics have reached the point where many people
consider allegiance to their party more important than allegiance to the nation. This is a dangerous trend, and in order to rectify it we will need strong leaders who are not hyperpartisan but are looking out for the good of everyone.

These leaders must be statesmen rather than politicians. Politicians tend to do things that will get them reelected and promote their ideological notions. Some politicians actually do care about their constituencies and try to live by a code of ethics, but most seem to be motivated primarily by their desire to win elections. Statesmen are wise people who express their ideas in ways the people can understand. They are unconcerned with reelection but very concerned about carrying out the will of their constituents and doing what is right for the country. Only statesmen have the courage to risk alienating their parties in order to do what is right for everyone. Only statesmen really serve the general welfare, and they do so by making sure that the laws apply equally to all citizens.

When the founders wrote that the government should promote the general welfare, they didn’t mean that the government should take money from one group to support another group. It will be difficult for us to ever achieve a sense of fairness in America as long as taxes are levied in different ways for different groups of people. The sense of injustice can poison relationships and create animosity where none should exist.

I can still remember vividly the heartache and bitterness I felt as a child when I was treated unfairly by teachers. When I was in third grade, my teacher made me sit under her desk like a dog for the whole afternoon because of a minor infraction.
When I was in fourth grade, a male teacher paddled me because a female student, who was the teacher’s pet, told a lie about me because she knew that the teacher would take her side without question. Although I have long since forgiven those teachers and try not to hold grudges, I remember that the feeling of injustice was more unpleasant than the actual punishment in both cases. Similarly, when people feel abused by a system of taxation that affords favors to some while punishing others, the resentment breeds class warfare.

No group of American citizens should be singled out for extra taxation and no group should be spared taxation on the federal level. A flat tax may be the only tax that truly treats everyone fairly and thus promotes the general welfare. Under a flat tax, each citizen pays the same percentage, and there is no danger of the government favoring one group over another. An added bonus of the flat tax is that it makes politicians think twice before raising it. If raising taxes means that everybody suffers the same proportional increase, raising taxes will upset everybody, not just a small group of people. These angry voters will make their voices heard and vote the responsible politicians out of office.

Another way to make sure taxes treat everyone fairly is to close all the loopholes in the tax code. When accounting tricks let some people avoid paying taxes, unfairness automatically enters the system. A fair tax code will not overtax, but it also will not provide tax shelters or tax reductions to anyone.

Taxation is a topic where multiple opinions vie, with everyone quite convinced of the validity of their solution. A proportional income-tax system with no loopholes is the only way to avoid injecting personal biases into the argument. A proportional income-tax system also allows the rate to be set quite
easily at whatever level is necessary to sustain government functions. Depending on the needs of the nation, legislators would be able to raise and lower taxes in order to best serve all citizens.

Promoting the general welfare does mean that the government should do things that enhance the lives of its citizens. The government should build and maintain infrastructure that supports population growth, business, and self-improvement endeavors. It should not, however, meddle in the affairs of all the citizens or control every aspect of their lives, as is done in many communist and socialist countries.

There are those who think that the government should be responsible for the well-being and basic needs of all of its citizens. There is nothing in the Constitution that imposes such a responsibility on the federal government. In fact, this attitude is harmful. A culture of dependency can rapidly develop when people are provided with things rather than with opportunities. We all have acquaintances or relatives who continually want to borrow money from us, and if we allow it, the requests are never ending and the money is almost never repaid. After a while, most people stop making such loans, recognizing that they are enabling undesirable and self-destructive behavior. In my opinion, promotion of the general welfare includes creating an environment conducive to the expansion of the number of good jobs. It means creating opportunities for advancement and enhancing the ability of citizens to care for their families. It does not mean doing things that promote dependency.

I know something of government dependency. I grew up in a single-parent home with a mother who had been able to attain only a third-grade education and who was functionally illiterate. She worked multiple jobs in order to maintain her self-sufficiency, although she occasionally did accept some public aid. She did not think that receiving public assistance was a good thing, and she constantly drilled into both my brother and me the need to work hard and to become self-sufficient citizens. Fortunately, we were able to achieve that goal and to provide a comfortable life for her in her old age. I believe she understood, even with her limited education, that if her children achieved great success, not only would they be happier but she too would end up in a much better place. By the same token, when our government concentrates on providing opportunities for self-support rather than handouts, in the long run it will have many more productive citizens. These citizens will strengthen the fabric of the country and provide an economic base that is much more capable of promoting the general welfare than handouts are.

In the late 1960s the idea of creating general welfare programs for the people became popular. Since that time, we as a nation have spent several trillion dollars on general welfare programs. One would think that such a high level of expenditure would ensure success. It would not be unreasonable to believe that today there would be fewer people on food stamps, fewer single-parent homes, fewer people involved in the penal system, and less poverty in general. None of these problems have decreased, though. There is no need to demonize those who have been responsible for this tremendous waste of resources, but we can hope that they too have the
ability to objectively analyze the results of such spending and join in the effort to truly improve the lives of all Americans.

We can endlessly analyze and dissect the reasons for increasing poverty in the United States, but the pertinent question is “What can we do about it?” Is dealing with poverty the responsibility of the federal government? No, it is not. However, the government does have a responsibility to promote the general welfare, so the question becomes “What does that mean?”

I believe the best way for the government to improve the lives of its citizens is to encourage the establishment of compassionate programs by business, industry, Wall Street, churches, and community groups. Not only is there tremendous wealth associated with all of the aforementioned groups but, more important, they have members in virtually every city and town in America, which means they can develop personal relationships with those in need.

Governmental programs are often faceless and unsustainable. Handouts create more dependency in the populace, decreasing overall societal productivity and depleting the resources of the agencies providing the handouts. The taxpayer base decreases, the dependent population increases, and taxpayer money runs out. Historically, when governments have taken on the responsibility of social warfare from the cradle to the grave, societies have ended up with a small group of elites at the top who own and control everything, a rapidly vanishing middle class, and a greatly expanded dependent class.

By creating the right kind of programs with or without government encouragement, the private sector can empower the disadvantaged members of our society and allow them to realize the American dream. The variety of programs that could be created is almost limitless, especially in a creative society like America’s.

The good news is that we the people can be very good at taking care of one another. I recently visited a facility in Las Vegas called Opportunity Village. Its goal is to provide jobs for intellectually challenged individuals, a group usually neglected by society. At Opportunity Village these individuals have an opportunity to earn a paycheck, an achievement that contributes substantially to their self-esteem and happiness. This beautiful organization is 80 percent funded by the private sector. I couldn’t help but notice that not only did Opportunity Village bring joy and practical help to a needy population, but the work of helping others was immensely satisfying to its staff and volunteers. This organization’s private endeavors vastly improve the quality of life of all involved.

This is just one of the many wonderful programs that exist throughout our country. When people invest their time and their money in other people within their communities, they bless their neighbors in need and improve the community as a whole. Anything the government can do to facilitate these kinds of programs, short of taking them over, will promote the general welfare.

One helpful program would be to establish dependable day-care centers, particularly in inner cities, where 73 percent of black babies are born out of wedlock. Generally with
the arrival of the first baby, the mother’s education ceases and the child and subsequent children are plunged into a life of dependency. Dependable day-care centers would allow that mother to get her GED, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, or perhaps a higher degree and go on to become a self-sustaining, independent member of society who can teach her children to be independent, thus helping to break the cycle of dependency and poverty.

Another community-based program that I have seen work facilitates the development of relationships between boys from disadvantaged single-parent homes and well-to-do businessmen. These men informally adopt boys who are clearly on a dangerous path of self-destruction and introduce them to the values found in traditional faith-based families. In many cases they pay for the private education of the youths in faith-based schools. Nearly 100 percent of those young men not only graduate from high school but also pursue higher education and become contributing members of society.

These kinds of programs are a double win, because the chosen children and their families benefit from a new, helpful relationship while the helping family benefits from the satisfaction of providing a hand up rather than a handout. The big winner is the nation, because every child we can prevent from going down that path of self-destruction is one less person we have to be afraid of or protect our family from, one less person we have to pay for in the penal or welfare system, and one more taxpaying, productive member of society who may discover a new energy source or the cure for cancer.

Breaking cycles of dependency, establishing cordial relationships between people of differing economic means, and reestablishing sound values and principles in our society can serve only to strengthen the fabric of our nation, which is what any government should want to do and which clearly promotes the general welfare. Of course, the progressives will ignore the facts and claim that I am advocating eliminating all governmental safety nets. They will say that now that I have “made it,” I want to pull up the ladder and keep others from benefiting. This kind of nonsense is typical of the scare tactics they use to maintain support for their failed policies and prevent traction for programs that would actually help the people rather than the political ambitions of ideological politicians.

Promoting two-parent homes is another way of supporting the general welfare that infuriates progressives. As a youngster growing up in poverty, I did notice that the families around us that had both a mother and a father were financially much more prosperous. Many sociological studies today continue to show that children growing up in two-parent homes are much less likely to live in poverty. Since this is a well-established fact, governmental policies and programs should support the establishment and maintenance of two-parent homes. That would be consistent with promoting the general welfare. It would also lessen the burden on society, since there would be less poverty. This kind of thinking is anathema to the politically correct crowd, who will advocate for alternative families until their dying breath. They are
totally unconcerned with the facts and cling tenaciously to their faulty ideology. I believe they would be much happier if they simply accepted the facts and were content with the existence of alternative family structures, without arguing for equivalency.

Though we tend to associate the term “welfare” with social safety nets, there are other government agencies that should promote the general welfare in other ways. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established to protect the land, air, and waters of the United States from those who would destroy them in order to increase their profits. When functioning properly, the EPA should work in conjunction with industry and academia to discover and employ the best strategies for preserving our environment while still being able to take advantage of our abundant natural resources.

Today many people act as if we can either protect the environment or develop our resources. This is ridiculous. It is eminently possible to utilize petroleum-based resources in an environmentally friendly way while at the same time encouraging and facilitating the development of clean, renewable energy sources. Over the course of time the renewable resources will probably supplant the petroleum-based ones, which is as it should be when progress is made. Certainly there is no reason for environmentalists and energy businesses to be battling each other and becoming political enemies. We are smart and capable enough to pursue more than one goal at a time.

When governmental agencies like the EPA are used to promote ideological agendas instead of the common good, they hurt our nation. But when they behave as they should, they safeguard our resources to our benefit.