The Corruption of Politics

January 11, 2012: There is an economic and political analysis circulating written by Porter Stansberry, an investment manager in Maryland, who has some pretty startling opinions about corruption in Politics. He says: “One of the biggest factors in the decline of the American civilization is the link between welfare, education, crime and politics.”

It has been almost 50 years since the start of the War on Poverty, President Johnson’s program to radically increase domestic spending. But in fact if you compare speeches about these programs from the mid-1960s until today, you will find the verbiage never changes. These programs and their various spinoffs have been at the center of Democratic politics ever since that time. President Obama is merely echoing the same call for social justice that Robert Kennedy used in his ill-fated 1968 campaign for president.

It is routinely alleged in national debates that something is fundamentally unfair and un-American about the huge “wealth gap” between the poorest Americans and the wealthiest. Some politicians like to argue that the poor never have a real shot at the American dream, and as a nation, we owe them more and more of our resources to correct this injustice. But most important, it is alleged that only the government has the resources to correct this inequality. This is a dangerous notion…

First it promotes the idea of entitlement. The American idea of entitlement argues that because you were born into a rich society, other people owe you something. This idea has become pervasive in our culture. It underlies the basic assumptions behind the idea of a “wealth gap”. Implicit is the assumption that successful Americans haven’t rightfully earned their wealth; that in one way or another they have taken advantage of the society and have an obligation to give back most of what they have “taken”. The more obvious problem is the idea that the government is responsible for fixing the “wealth gap”. But the government has proved wholly ineffective at dealing with poverty in America. It is far more likely to be true that government efforts are the cause of the wealth gap rather than the solution.

But besides the soaring rhetoric, besides the promise of a “chicken in every pot”, what have these programs actually achieved? We have seen the wholesale destruction of urban communities across America, urban communities that have overwhelmingly become populated by the poor, mostly African American. If the intention had been to destroy urban black communities, you could have hardly done more damage than the last 50 years of Democratic policies.

Most Americans don’t realize how dangerous these communities have become. That is primarily because talking about this problem is seen as racist. That is nonsense as the victims of these policies are primarily black people. Discussing the possible solutions to this problem isn’t racist, it’s humanitarian. Sooner or later the people of these communities are going to point the finger at the real culprit, the politicians who have lied and pandered to them for decades, all the while stealing from them at every turn.

Here are some eye opening statistics: Texas taxpayers spent $175 million in 2009 to imprison residents from a small part of Houston, only 10 zip codes out of 75. Thus people from neighborhoods that are home to only about 10% of the city’s population account for more than 33% of the state’s entire $500 million annual spending on the State’s prisons. In Philadelphia the numbers are similar. Over one half of the State’s $500 million budget for prisons is spent on 25% of that city’s population. In New York Taxpayers will spend $539 Million, over half of the state’s prison budget, to imprison residents from 16% of New York City’s population living in only 24 of 200 different neighborhoods. In all these neighborhoods, the population is overwhelmingly poor and black. Life in these places reflects a complete collapse of Western civilization. The common denominator in all these communities is a breakdown in the family and the resulting collapse of the school system. What you have left is crime- violent and political.

Socialism and the Destruction of Detroit

The King of collapsing and imploding cities in America is Detroit. In that city, only 27% of the black male students in the school system graduate from high school. This is not a racial problem. Only 19% of the white male students graduate from those same schools. In 1961, Jerome Cavanaugh, a Democrat, was elected Mayor. He ushered in a new kind of politics. He was white but got elected by promising to give Detroit’s African American population the civil rights they deserved. But he didn’t stop there. Seeing the political advantage to serve this community’s interests, he did all he could to bring government benefits and government spending to Detroit’s black community. Cavanaugh brought socialism to Detroit. Having served on President Johnson’s “Model Cities” task force, he created a program to turn a nine square mile section of the city with 134,000 residents into a “Model City”. To help finance the effort, Cavanagh pushed a new tax through the State Legislature and a “commuter tax” on city workers. He promised the mostly poor and black residents of the Model City area that the rich would pay for all these benefits. He bought their votes with taxes they didn’t have to pay. Federal agencies and the Mayor were soon telling people where to live, what to build and what business to open or close. In return the people received cash, training, education and health care.

But the people didn’t like being told what to do or how to live. Not surprisingly, the Model City program was a disaster for Detroit. Within five years it had helped trigger a complete breakdown of civil order and the city’s population began to rapidly decline. In July of 1967 when police tried to arrest 80 people in a night club including two Vietnam veterans whose return the folks were celebrating, the neighborhood began to riot. The scene turned into the worst race riot of the 1960s and over 40 people were killed, commercial buildings and homes were set on fire while looters operated freely. Over 5000 people mostly black became homeless. The rioting lasted for five days while the Mayor did nothing to stop it. Finally President Johnson sent in two Divisions of paratroopers to put down the insurrection.

The situation destabilized the entire city. Most of the people who could afford to leave did. Over the next 18 months, 140,000 upper and middle class residents, almost all white, left the city. The Model City area lost 63% of its population and 45% of its housing units. So what did government do? They expanded the Model Cities program in 1974 and arm wrestled General Motors to contribute $488 million in exchange for certain tax concession to fund it. Even with all their power and all the money centralized planners couldn’t succeed with any of their plans. Nearly al the upper and middle class citizens left Detroit. The poor fled too. As said, the Model City area lost 63% of its population and 45% of its housing units from the inception of the program through 1990.

Today, the crisis continues. Recently 9000 seized housing units were offered in an auction beginning at $500 but had no bids. None of this is surprising. It’s exactly what you’d expect to see given the implementation of a socialist scheme like a Model Cities program. Quite simply, coercion doesn’t work for economic development and you can’t tax yourself into economic prosperity, President Obama’s policies notwithstanding. It might buy votes but sooner or later the voters will realize all that has been promised is a lie.

With such a disasterous experience for a commuunity, one would think that their Representative in Congress would have been voted out of office, but no as a matter of fact John Conyers Jr, the Congressman who represents that area of Detroit has been re-elected everytime he ran since 1965 and with huge majorities. He is the second longest serving congressman in the House. In similarly blighted areas in places like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Houston and of course Washington DC, you find the same thing, a Congressman who rarely faces opposition in his reelection campaign. The formula is a political system that features transfer payments, government jobs and lucrative government contracts to voters in exchange for political support- and in many cases outright bribes. they do all of these things under the cover of “Progressive ” politics and “Social Justice”

On Man’s Opinion— Bud Brewer