The Nightly Quill

With the Dole Comes Control
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Those who are complaining that government officials shouldn’t be controlling what companies pay their executives need to be reminded of an important point: He who pays the piper calls the tune. Or to put it another way, those who go on the dole are inevitably going to be controlled by the government. With the dole comes control.

Sure, it’s theoretically possible for government to just dole out money to people or companies, with no strings attached. But how likely is that? With few exceptions (Ron Paul being one of them), government attracts people who have a thirst for power, a thirst for controlling the lives of other people. And offering people a dole, especially when they’re desperate, is a perfect way to impose control on the recipients. Take our money and accept our conditions.

What does such control over the citizenry mean? It means a loss of liberty. The more a person is controlled by government, the less liberty he has. That’s why socialism — which ultimately involves total control over economic activity — entails a loss of liberty. More control equals less freedom.

Moreover, the principle applies not only to the recipient but also to everyone else. The reason is because in order to get the money to provide the dole, the government must tax people. With the income tax, the government wields the power to take whatever percentage of people’s income it wants to fund whatever amount of dole it wishes to provide.

This lesson of dole-control, unfortunately, is one that Americans are forgetting in the health-care debate. The government is promising to provide people with free or subsidized health care. But with that “benefit” comes massively greater control over the lives of the people. Government-provided health care equals significantly less individual freedom.

The irony is that oftentimes it’s the government that produces the conditions that cause people to surrender their freedom in return for the welfare dole. This is especially true in the health-care arena, where such socialist and interventionist programs as Medicare, Medicaid, licensure, and regulation have produced the health-care crisis.

Yet, rather than pull those things out by their root through repeal, government officials use the adverse consequences of those things to induce people to surrender more freedom in return for more government “benefits.” As things get worse, which they will because that’s what socialism and interventionism do, the “benefits” will grow, along with the control. At the end of this road lies total control, that is, a total loss of freedom.

I can’t help but think of the slaves in the Old South. Consider the benefits they were provided. They received free housing, food, clothing, health care, and education (i.e., on the job vocational training.) Moreover, they were provided with guaranteed employment.

What could be better than all that? Ironically, when a master wished to reward his slave for some extraordinary act, he would grant him his freedom, which meant that the former slave was now entirely on his own — i.e., no more free benefits and no more guaranteed job. How cruel!

In principle, people living under a welfare state are no different from those slaves on the plantations. As the federal government continues to expand its benefits, its control over the people expands as well. That dole and control increasingly produce a dependent, frightened, weak citizenry that looks to the government to take care of them and provide for them, especially as conditions continue to get worse. The road begins with socialistic and interventionist programs. It ends with complete socialism, complete control, and complete loss of freedom.

What is so badly needed in America is a moral revolution, a spiritual revolution, and an economic revolution, one in which people reject socialism and interventionism in all their forms and manifestations and restore their faith in God, freedom, free markets, and themselves.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Faith and Freedom
by Jacob G. Hornberger

The Harrison, Arkansas, Daily Times reports that FedEx has covered the $11,000 bill for an air ambulance to take 7-year-old Jada Harper from Houston to her home in Arkansas. The girl has terminal cancer and is expected to die within a few months. Since the ailing girl could not have survived ground transportation, an air ambulance was the only viable option, but the family was too poor to afford it.

Now, let’s assume that the federal government had a program to address this particular need and that the girl had been transported home as part of that program.

What would statists say if a libertarian were to come along and propose that the program be abolished?

They would say, “You hate the poor and the needy! Without this program, this little girl would never have gotten home to die with her family.”

But this story of this little girl and Fed Ex is precisely what happens in a free society and in a free market. While freedom provides no guarantees as to how people will choose to use their own money, the fact is that most people in society are willing to help others when they perceive an urgent need.

Moreover, it would seem self-evident that the more money people have, the more willing they would be to donate money. The less money they have, the less they’re able to help others.

The big problem facing our nation is both economic and psychological in nature.

On the economic side, the federal government is taxing people to an ever-growing extent, leaving them with less money to give away to charity. The taxes are either direct, as through the IRS, or indirect, as through monetary debasement (i.e., inflation, manifested by rising prices) at the hands of the Federal Reserve. The less people are left with, the less they are able to donate to worthy causes.

The psychological problem is that the American people have quite simply lost faith in themselves, in freedom and free markets, and in God. They simply cannot bring themselves to believe that they would survive and prosper without a paternalistic Caesar coercively providing for their retirement, health care, job loss, food subsidies, and children’s education.

The two prime examples of where these economic and psychological problems coalesce are Social Security and Medicare. All that Americans want to consider is “reform, reform, reform” of these programs. Repeal is simply not part of the debate lexicon. The thought of repealing these socialist programs strikes more fear in the hearts of the American people than that which strikes a heroin addict at the thought of losing his drug.

“How would people survive without Social Security and Medicare? Old people would be dying in the streets! You must hate senior citizens! You just want them all to die!”

But the fact is that free human beings are remarkably resilient. If Social Security and Medicare (and all other socialistic welfare-state programs) were repealed today, everyone would not only be fine, they would be better off.

For one thing, the younger generations would have an immediate and significant pay raise, given that they would no longer be burdened by the heavy taxes that fund these immoral, corrupt, and wasteful programs.

Second, many old people are wealthyf enough to handle their own retirement and health care needs.

Third, doctors and insurance companies would immediately come up with ingenious ways to handle people’s health-care needs at reasonable costs.

Fourth, older people would feel better about themselves knowing that they had lifted the enormous state-imposed tax-and-inflation burden on their children’s and grandchildren’s generations.

Fifth, the private sector would come up with ways to help those people who truly need help, just as it has with 7-year-old Jada Harper.

What is needed in America most of all at this juncture of our lives is a restoration not only of economic liberty and free markets but also a restoration of faith in ourselves, in freedom, and in God.