POCKET GOFER 2
Download the Pocket Gofer 2 Here
ON VOLUNTEERISM
- HUMAN NATURE
- WELFARE YESTERDAY AND TODAY
- OUR VISION OF VOLUNTEERISM
- MUTUAL BENEFITS
- CONCLUSION
A capitalistic free-market democracy means a minimum of intervention by government into citizens’ lives. We think this is a good way to live, for nearly all people.
However, it seems that no matter what kind of government a society may select (or, more likely, have imposed on it) there will always be some losers among the winners.
We believe in a political and economic environment that creates lots of winners and very few losers. The pocket gofers are aimed at this objective.
For various reasons some folks adjust poorly to any situation. These reasons are different for each individual.
We have learned that in a free society a loser need not and generally does not stay a loser. Folks freely move into and out of poverty, in the latter direction often with the help of a church, other private charity or some form of education or training.
Every society faces the problem of determining whether a socially challenged person is really hurting or is faking it. We will see how our system of caring for the poor discourages freeloaders.
The majority who are producers help non-producers through donations of time, talent, and money. If citizens allow government to get involved in this task they will be forced to pay taxes.
In both of these situations it is important that producers perceive non-producers as either children, past their working age or truly incapable. Otherwise they will either become discouraged and give less, or possibly revolt against paying taxes to support loafers and fraud artists.
Incapability is often temporary. This means that producers must also perceive those on the dole as making every reasonable effort to get off it, get work, and start contributing.
We conclude that for any system to work well there must be a minimum number of non-producers. Under this condition producers will voluntarily support those who cannot contribute. Caring is a part of human nature.
We include among the producers those who may not be in paid work at some point in time but are still capable. Examples are those who have assets producing for them and others, such as stocks, bonds, and savings. Investments create jobs and wealth.
A spouse who remains at home to care for babies and small children is a producer. He/she is directly assisting a working asset, the gainfully employed spouse.
Effort, love, devotion, and discipline are needed to develop future working assets. Sounds corny, friends, but our children are in fact the future of the US of A.
HUMAN NATURE
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without helping himself.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson possessed insights into human nature. We freely choose to amend his remark to include women.
As humans we feel good about doing things for others with no planned monetary compensation in mind (Pocket Gofer 6). The grouches in this world are their own worst enemies.
We believe that people are generally good, want to be good, and be perceived by others as good. But we concede that there is a flip side to human nature. This can cause some of us to be bad guys from time to time, and others to be bad nearly all of the time.
Nevertheless our faith in human nature has us believing that even the most devilish among us can and will be good given the right incentives. This is because, deep down, they want to be so. (We will learn that democracy relies on this faith.)
This pocket gofer will describe how the wrong incentives have screwed up actions based on our concern for the poor. It will show that these wrong incentives connect to the flip side of human nature.
Then it will present for our discussion a vision that we call volunteerism. (It’s actually a new twist on an old vision.) This system is based in the positive side of human nature.
We don’t pretend to make good guys/gals out of all the bad blokes. However, if we get excited over this idea we may be amazed to see even pedigreed grouches having second thoughts.
And the impact on our tax load? Well …… hang in there.
WELFARE YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Historically a Big Government presence in any society has meant tall wealth for a few at the expense of many losers. A market economy works best with small government.
These components of society encourage medium wealth for the many along with earned and inherited big wealth for the few and a minimum of losers.
The costs hit no one hard, because in a market economy new wealth can be and is created. This is done mainly through human creativity, working hard and smart, thinking and risking scarce money in places where it can bring a good return. (In Pocket Gofer 8 and others we will see how a free market can be bent by special interests.)
As we indicated, there are also a few losers. This is the group we care about here.
WELFARE BACK THEN: In the 19th century there were poor farms and county homes for those who had come upon hard times. Life was generally tougher then, so there were a lot of these people.
Churches supported orphanages. Families often took in poor relatives, who would do farm work for food and bed. Citizens had very little money to spare for government to tax, so public welfare was minimal and local. People had to rely on themselves, and they did this.
In theory the system worked well. Few citizens were left destitute, there was no huge government bureaucracy, little drug addiction, and very few families weighed down by absent fathers.
However, there was a flip side. Living conditions on poor farms were often intentionally tough, to provide an incentive for a person to get back on his/her feet. There were loud complaints about costs.
Finally there were few organized attempts to rehabilitate those who needed help. The result was sometimes a leap out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Assistance remained local until the early 1930s. Neighbors helped their own, presumably because they cared about one another. Families and neighbors were closer back then.
We wonder what the system would be like today if the government had not leaped into the local scene during the Great Depression. In 1930-32 this disaster hit the economy like a hundred hurricanes and a hundred floods, all at the same time.
There were no jobs, and no one had any money. Poor farms, county homes, churches, and charities were overwhelmed. The federal government didn’t seem to know what to do. A national crisis came on.
In 1933 Franklin Roosevelt took office as president and his New Deal was installed. The government spent tons of money to create jobs for those without. Old age, survivors, and disability insurance programs were created, which we know as Social Security.
These programs helped hardly at all. Roosevelt became a hero primarily because he led the country through a grisly war.
This was what finally lifted the economy out of the Great Depression. (A war can do this, but unfortunately this too has a flip side.)
In 1945-6 “Johnny” came marching home, “Rosie” was there to greet him warmly, and along came the post-war baby boom. Our society entered what became known as the affluent era: rich and powerful. (Too powerful; see Pocket Gofer 11.)
Many of Roosevelt’s public spending programs continued even though the reason for their existence had vanished. Bureaucracies live and grow forever.
We citizens didn’t mind so much, as the war had expanded the economy and it seemed like we could easily afford such public expenditures. The kicker would not appear until years later.
From the beginning of our democracy citizens had maintained a healthy skepticism of what their governments at all levels were doing. The founders of our country had built this skepticism into the Constitution.
Politicians have always been opportunists. Right after WWII they leaped to take full credit for the economic recovery thru creation and continuation of huge social programs. Having been dragged through hell, our recent ancestors bought their arguments.
Here began an era where citizens entertained an abiding faith in their government’s ability to solve social problems. This faith dogs us even today.
It has got to the point where someone who complains is considered a grouch, a weirdo or a terrorist. We need to remind ourselves that without complaints and actions based on them we would still be English colonists.
Johnson in his book Modern Times provided an interesting comparison. “Between 1949 and 1979, defense costs rose ten times —– but remained roughly 4-5 percent of GNP, or total national output. But welfare spending rose 25 times, from $10.6 billion to $259 billion, and its share of —— GNP — tripled to nearly 12 percent.”
In the 1960s Presidents Kennedy and Johnson probably figured that if FDR’s social programs went over well with citizens let’s have more of the same. They and members of their congresses appreciated the potential for trading on public concern for the poor in order to win votes. Born after WWII, a new breed that we call the career politician acquired a high public profile (Pocket Gofer 3).
This is how the Great Society, Model Cities, and War on Poverty programs got started. They quickly grew into multi-billion-dollar money pits.
Maybe multi-billion-dollar doesn’t fully cut it. The War on Poverty and many other programs for the poor has to date dumped at least $6.6 trillion into poor areas, mostly in inner cities.
AND NOW: Friends, that’s $6.6 trillion of our money, or about $70,000 for each family of four in America. And we have more people classified as poor now than we had in 1965.
About 30 years ago William Simon calculated that if all the money spent by all levels of Big Government on behalf of the poor were just given directly to them, each family would receive $40,000 each year. If this gift were combined with what a family makes each year by one means or another, they would be poor no more.
Jeff Jacoby in the Raleigh, NC News & Observer 8/1996: “What is hellish and brutal is the welfare state. It has lured millions of girls and women into ruining their lives by bribing them to have children before they have husbands.
“It has subsidized an explosion of illegitimacy, detaching fathers from their families. It has peddled the narcotic of something for nothing, poisoned whole neighborhoods with a bias against work and spread the delusion that the poor cannot — indeed, must not — help themselves.
“When welfare was (first) federalized in 1935, it was a modest program for helping widows with young children. Out-of-wedlock childbirth was rare then, frowned upon, and economically impractical.
“But in the 1960s, as welfare benefits were dramatically increased, the taboo against illegitimacy began to break down. Having a baby out of wedlock — once a ticket to shame and misery — became a ticket to monthly checks, rent subsidies, and food stamps.” We producers were forced to pay for this thru taxes.
We will learn later in Pocket Gofer 15 and others why central government programs never end. They can only grow larger and larger, even when the objective (as above) is not being accomplished.
The poor took the toughest hit when Hurricane Katrina visited New Orleans and the Gulf coast. Responsibility for getting timely help to these people was assigned to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.
After 9/11 President GW Bush poured $billions into this huge bureaucracy. Because its many responsibilities included fighting terrorism, it was too tangled in red tape to react to Katrina (and Rita and Wilma).
Reconstruction can proceed at a moderate pace, so maybe Big Government can yet pull this one out. But then, maybe not (Economist 9/2005):
“In the real world of Washington, two factors will loom largest in how the government approaches reconstruction: political ideology and, more important, the power of lobbyists.” There must be a better way. Stay tuned.
Harry Browne in his book Why Government Doesn’t Work: “Still, as of 1962, the federal government was only a minor participant in the ugly business of demoralizing the poor, and the problems were minuscule compared to today’s.
“Shortly after the US government declared war on poverty, the downward trend in poverty came to a halt. It became obvious — that the more money the government gave to the poor, the less people would strive to avoid qualifying for help.
“Social welfare spending by all levels of government had increased to $1,165 billion ($1.1 trillion) in 1991, from $63 billion in 1962.”
Two recent books include Susan Meyer’s What Money Can’t Buy, and Consequences of Growing up Poor, edited by Greg Duncan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. They conclude that government transfer money does little for physical or mental health in kids.
We conclude that we cannot get rid of poverty by allowing our government to give our money to the poor. In fact, we know of no social problems that can be cured by throwing taxpayer money at them. We were shocked when we discovered this.
POLITICAL HAY IN THIS GAME: Career politicians knew this years before we did. For government, poverty is more political than economic. Political parties use it to rag each other, usually during election campaigns.
Campaigning politicians seeking votes will trumpet the benefits of their latest proposal to end crime or welfare (as we know it?). There may not be any money available, but this too is of no concern to the politician.
Finally, following through to see if any good was done is also very low priority. Just bank those votes and move on.
We taxpayers are interested in our money, but when the income tax man comes round we are forced to give up great gobs of it. He/she feels no obligation to tell us what will happen to our money.
The truth is he doesn’t know. See Pocket Gofer 14 on respect for taxpayers’ money.
That information is available in our (relatively) free society, but the government doesn’t want us to see it. This attitude makes it so difficult for us to follow up that very few of us even try. Friends, if we are paying the tab we have a right to know.
Our free press will help us, we might think. Think again. The news media are largely controlled by Washington and state governments, in spite of the First Amendment to the Constitution (free speech). See PG5.
How do they get away with this balderdash? That is another story; see Pocket Gofer 19.
Contractors working on behalf of the poor often kick back into corrupt politicians’ re-election campaigns part of the megabucks they “earn” by bidding against little or no competition. Bureaucrats build their empires more easily because we don’t know what they are doing. Finally, tons of money are wasted because we taxpayers are not watching.
Now we see why little of that $6.6 trillion actually got to the poor, and what did robbed them of their self-esteem. This is the reality.
We are purposely kept in the dark, but managers of private organizations oriented to the poor work at helping them. They can see through the charade, and so they avoid helping those poor who are receiving “help” from the government. Ronald Reagan: “The scariest nine words in the English language: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Their reasoning is simple: precious resources will be wasted or ripped off. The government horns in and messes up private efforts. A recent study estimated that every dollar of public welfare crowds out 30 cents of private donations.
THE AGE OF SPECIALIZATION: In our society politicians enjoy approximately as much credibility as used car salespeople and lawyers. To build credibility they seek the services of highly trained professional behavioral scientists.
These experts have essentially taken responsibility for solving social problems away from citizens in communities. They use fancy intellectual tools to define the problem, create a different language to use in discussing it, generate “the best” solution, and a plan for activating it.
Then they bugger off to the next problem (and batch of government grant money), leaving local people to carry out the plan. But they had almost no part in the planning and therefore don’t understand it.
Experts see no need to truly listen to the poor. Haven’t they studied their problems in universities for years?
Before the age of specialization citizens cussed and discussed issues face to face. They would hack away at it until some kind of agreement was reached that nearly all could live with. Occasionally they would ask an expert a few technical questions, and then go on cussing and discussing. Over time a specialist knows more and more about less and less, until he/she eventually knows everything about nothing.
What has got lost in the shuffle is the fact that this was democracy. This was people getting together to help themselves. They “knew the territory,” having lived there all or most of their lives. Their approach to the problem may lack the apparent sophistication of the experts, but they knew the real problem.
And they knew how to put the solution into practice, because it was their solution. People support what they help to create. We will get acquainted with this vitally important truth in Pocket Gofer 4.
As if this is not enough, politicians practically always ignore the reports generated by the experts. Their tunnel vision includes only votes. Hiring experts (with taxpayer money) is done only to add credibility to their public images.
EQUALITIES: Equality of opportunity is political equality. It means basic human rights for all.
Narrowing the income gap between top earners and bottom is part of social and economic equality. It means equality of results and not equality of opportunity. A lot of us don’t appreciate the importance of this distinction. Today’s believers call themselves “progresives.”
Political equality is built into the Constitution. Politicians and the press hype economic equality because they think we will go along (and vote) due to our concern for the poor. Quite aside from the politics involved, we will chance a few numbers to show that narrowing the annual income gap between rich and poor is impractical.
| ANNUAL INCOME | 2000 in $ | 2005 in $ | INCREASE |
| Rich Family | 200,000 | 240,000 | 20% |
| Poor Family | 20,000 | 40,000 | 100% |
| Income Gap | 180,000 | 200,000 | 11% |
Rich folks didn’t get that way by being dumb. However, our wealthy family here increased its income by only 20 percent over five years.
By contrast, our poor family increased its annual income by 100 percent over the same time period. They really hustled to improve their financial situation.
Nevertheless the gap widened by 11 percent. So much for all the politician and press hype.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER: We can jack statistics around just like anyone else, but in researching and writing the pocket gofers we have no political ax to grind. Rather, we are interested in getting at truth and reality.
If a lot of us get interested in truth and reality there will be lots of copies of the pocket gofers in lots of pockets, purses and mobile phones. There will be lots of discussion, and free and open debate.
If we can accomplish this our world will change. We cordially invite anyone who is ticked off at our government to jump in and help us make this change, for us and for our children.
Economic equality can be measured, so government officials like to push this one. Thru it they can presumably reflect our concern for the poor. But they don’t listen to the poor (who don’t vote much), most of whom when they think about it want only a decent shot at self-improvement.
This is human nature. They don’t want money thrown at them, as this is degrading and they have to take a lot of flack anyway.
They want to be able to hold their heads high, so each can say to himself, “I’m makin’ it.” We who have never been there seem unable to identify with this deep concern.
We wish this feeling could be measured, but it can’t. It lies in people’s perceptions.
We citizens continue to give billions (about $298 billion in 2008) to non-government organizations who are helping the poor. We wonder how this might change if we got the government out of the welfare business and tried our system for a few years.
Milwaukee had a mayor named John Norquist. This thinking and fire-breathing revolutionary had many ideas, and it didn’t take much to get him started talking about them. One argument that he pushed with extra enthusiasm was that the government has no business sticking its fingers into the welfare business.
Today poor families’ annual incomes average roughly 25 percent more than that of a middle class family in 1900, allowing for inflation. In 1890 two percent of people in Massachusetts were on public assistance, and that was local help.
Today our whole culture is far wealthier, but only one of about 80 welfare programs (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) recently included five percent of the population of MA.
Today a typical poor family in this country reports an annual income about eight times as big as has an average family in the rest of the world. A recent study demonstrated that many poor families in a recent year spent about twice as much as they reported in income, so they are also making money on the sly.
The poverty line is the amount of annual income below which a family is deemed to be in poverty. Economists think it reveals little about poverty, as reported income only very poorly matches family well-being. Poor families often have “informal” (possibly illegal) income, and government-provided health care and education are not included in the measure.
A Heritage Foundation report borrowed statistics from the central government departments of Housing and Urban Development and Commerce. Nearly 40 percent of all “poor” households in 1991 actually owned their own homes.
More than 3/4 of a million “poor” persons owned homes worth over $100,000 and 71,000 owned homes worth over $300,000. Fifty-six percent of “poor” households owned microwave ovens, 91 percent had color televisions, and 64 percent owned their own car.
We have learned that bureaucrats are oriented to problems and not to solutions. Bureaucracies apparently never die.
They just keep on and on, growing bigger, even if their original purpose has long since evaporated. Gradually a new objective takes over: self-perpetuation and growth.
Bureaucrats love poverty as do politicians. At least up until recently, it seemed that there was no end to the money. Bureaucracies thrive in green soil.
Friends, this doesn’t compute. The theory is to help the poor. So much for theory; we’re talking about results here. Seriously, were our public servants providing genuine incentives to get poor people into productive work?
Because bureaucrats thrive on problems, this arrangement suits them perfectly: a guaranteed supply of problems from one generation to the next. We wonder if Presidents Kennedy and Johnson honestly thought that this system would win the War on Poverty.
It’s a matter of perception. If a poor person thinks he/she can’t, that’s the reality. Parents and teachers of small children understand this point.
Thus the “welfare trap.” Big Government controls poor people’s lives, just as did communist governments those of their citizens.
The interesting thing about this situation is that the poor are not the only ones victimized. Others include us, as we have been paying for 50+ years with less than zero results.
“Us” is a big number. We conclude that the only winners in this one are the politicians, the bureaucrats, the contractors who get work aimed at “helping” the poor, and their employees. None of these folks are poor, and together they add up to a small number when compared to us.
We often wonder whether the government is actually taking from the poor more than it is giving. That monthly check is pretty regular, but we have seen the flip side: entrapment, frustration, aggression (crime), escape (drugs), and destruction of families and self-esteem.
We admit that we cannot measure these reactions as easily as we can put a number on a poor person’s “benefits.” Nevertheless we wonder if that check minus all the rest makes less than zero.
FRAUD: Many of the poor direct their frustration toward working the system. Some 60+ years ago New York City’s generous welfare programs created a Mecca for freeloaders.
In 1943 the city’s population was slightly greater than in 1993. But during that 50-year period the number on welfare increased from about 90,000 to over one million. Births of illegitimate babies went from 3 to 43 percent of all births. In 1943 there were 43 gun-related murders, which increased to 1,537 in 1992.
In 1994 the Big Apple elected a tough new mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. He ordered the bureaucrats to do some checking.
Results showed that around 50 percent of several thousand of rejected applicants did not live where they said they did. Only nine of these returned to claim an official error.
A large number had other income that they did not report on their applications, and/or were not who they said they were. Thousands told barefaced lies.
Random fingerprint tests showed that around one quarter of the 1,500 tested were claiming benefits in both New York and New Jersey. Many more than these were double dipping in counties in New York State.
We suspect that in many places it had become a game. No prize for guessing who is picking up the tab.
We salute leftists in our culture for their persistence in the face of facts. They often argue the virtues of a “spontaneous” and “natural” lower class culture.
We see little that is natural about taking money, food, and housing for no work performed. We note that during the 19th century millions of Polish, German, Irish, French, Dutch people and others immigrated into this country.
Many of them passed through Ellis Island after admiring our Statue of Liberty. Few of them had more than fifty cents in their pockets.
They built this nation, and without welfare. We wonder how many of them would have descendants on the dole today if there were.
As for “spontaneous,” we would let anyone do anything he/she likes, so long as he doesn’t injure the rights of others and we don’t have to pay for it. Because being forced to pay through taxes injures our rights as citizens.
During the 19th century an English bloke named Thomas Mackay said, “The country can have, there is no doubt of it, exactly as many paupers as it chooses to pay for.” Splash enough money around and provide the wrong incentives and the result is predictable.
Truth lurks in the shadows, even in Washington. By 1996 politicians and President Clinton saw that the public was steamed. A law was passed that required welfare queens to look for work, and if they didn’t find it payments would eventually stop anyway.
Social do-gooders raised hell; the law was cruel and racist. But it proved a success beyond even its supporters’ dreams.
In 1994 there were 5.1 million families on welfare, and now it is down to 1.5 million. Unemployment for single mothers was 43 percent for years, but by 2003 it had dropped to 10 percent. The rate of never-married mothers on the mooch went from over half in 1996 to one-third three years later.
How to explain these phenomenal numbers? Friends, this is simple: poor people saw an opportunity to regain their dignity.
The kicker here is that no one can put a number on this vital component of a person’s life. But the poor obviously did not need a number.
Today fewer than half the working mothers who have left welfare continue to get food stamps, even though many are still entitled to them. Now we can see why.
Recent minor changes in the welfare laws (naturally hyped as major by politicians) have caused a mass exodus from the rolls in many states. This tells us that many of the “poor” don’t need the “assistance,” accepted the money as a gift from the taxpayer, and are relieved to get their dignity back.
Reports from seven states give some early results of these changes. Between 61 and 71 percent of families had an employed adult at the time of survey, generally full-time although at a low wage.
These results strongly suggest that denial of that monthly welfare check gets folks off their duffs and out there looking for work. They further suggest that many of those on welfare felt trapped in it, or were genuine freeloaders.
Put another way, removal of that check created a freedom to do for themselves. They could hold their heads high.
Did the career politicians in office in 1996 recognize the value in setting people free? The CATO Institute’s Michael Tanner commented on what these shysters actually did.
“The first step is to recognize that the 1996 welfare reform legislation falls far short of what is needed to fix the system. Let’s look at some of the problems.
The five-year time limit on welfare payments to the unemployed poor sounds good; probably bagged a bunch of votes. But “Most welfare recipients use the program for far less than five years ——–.”
Furthermore several states put in waivers. Finally, the limit applied to only 4 of 80 welfare programs.
The rhetoric said that welfare programs would be turned over to state governments. This is a crock. “So citizens will continue to send their money to Washington, Washington will take a cut off the top, and the states will be told how much to spend on welfare and on whom those funds should be spent.”
And we suckers will send more of it: “The new law actually continues to increase welfare spending by more than $70 billion over the next seven years.” Politicians love money, and they have far greater access to it than do the riffraff, courtesy of the same riffraff (as they perceive us producer/taxpayers).
“Instead of ‘reforming’ failed programs, we should eliminate the entire social welfare system for individuals able to work. —————. Individuals unwilling ——– fall back on the resources of family, church, community, or private charity.”
Tanner quoted Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Centesimus Annus:
“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the welfare state leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase in public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need.”
No need for public welfare. No need for government involvement at any level, as we will see.
OUR VISION OF VOLUNTEERISM
Friends, we have sketched out a colossal boondoggle. How do we dump this monster and put in something that works? We stuffed our pipe with this one and puffed on it for a long while.
Volunteerism is voluntary giving. This is important. We would tell the uncaring taxman to back off.
Volunteerism includes the donation of time, effort, talent, money or some combination to help those who truly need assistance. The approach connects closely to our natural human desire to help others.
It fits in with the notion of small government and free markets (Pocket Gofer 15). It also allows a bare minimum of poor people to fall through the cracks.
Assistance works infinitely better when it is freely given by caring people and not administered by bureaucrats whose care is directed at the wrong objective. Non-government assistance is we helping our own, not public officials helping themselves to votes while appearing to help the poor.
The key here is voluntary. Instead of the tax person turning us upside down and shaking us, we would give because we want to. The scrooges among us would be free to hoard their wealth while we persuade them to loosen up a little.
This is what a free market democracy is all about. Individuals are free to do as we please so long as we don’t infringe on the natural rights of others.
We do this by exercising our basic human rights and obeying the laws of the community that we helped to put together. See Pocket Gofer 16.
Volunteers get their kicks out of solutions, not problems. Recipients of assistance would know this, and so they would accept caring because they would know it is sincere. This might be their first experience with that vital component of being human.
Someone who can say to himself “I’m making it” may return to an agency and offer his/her services on behalf of others. These men and women would be valuable resources. They have been there, and so they could relate to those who are in deep soup.
Another key to success in volunteerism is choice. Choice relates to individual freedoms. When the taxman is put off we would have much greater latitude for making decisions concerning what we do with our extra money.
The taxman has ever so gradually taken more and more of our hard-earned money. In 1900 the total tax load on a typical family, including all taxes of every kind and level of government, amounted to 5-6 percent of that family’s annual income.
Today that number is about 45 percent, and climbing toward fifty. This means a lot of choices not available to taxpayers. It means that Big Government is chomping into our basic human freedoms (see Pocket Gofer 15).
With our proposal each of us could decide whether and how much money, time, and talent to freely give wherever and whenever we so choose. It would be our money again.
We earned it, and we would again have the right to dispose of it as we see fit. And we can change our minds anytime.
Organizations like the National Charities Information Bureau, the American Institute of Philanthropy, the Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator would provide information to help us make decisions. They monitor assistance agencies to keep them honest, and to see that money donated does the most good.
There are thousands of foundations thruout the world that are aimed at helping people or organizations. Many are focused on the poor. Most include wealthy donors; a prominent example is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Citizens interested in volunteering money can find these on the web. Those interesting in contributing time, effort and/or talent can find local organizations.
Once we have given money to a cause we believe in, could we follow up to see that our money is being used wisely? Recall that we haven’t the foggiest notion what happens to the money squeezed out of us in taxes.
WATCHDOGGERY: This points to two additional keys, which are local activity and control. We could plan to give some money to a local agency and check it out before making any commitment. Our money would not take the scenic route: to Washington where around 25 percent gets skimmed off the top before it comes back our way via a block grant or in some other form.
A wise bloke once said “Raise money where it will be spent.” We like this one, because we are acquainted with the flip side of human nature.
Parting with money always hurts a little. Thoughts about what else we might have done with that money sharpen our natural curiosity about what it is doing for others.
We could check up on that. This is where control enters the picture. We could tap into information collected by control organizations like those mentioned above.
We might also take a couple of hours and personally check on the agency that received our generosity. If we don’t get a warm reception or cannot learn what we want to know we will scratch this outfit off our list for future giving. There are other agencies that are doing similar things for the poor (competition).
This fact is not lost on the manager of the organization. He/she knows that his best source of additional donations is existing donors.
It is the same in the private sector. A customer buys something and receives good service. When in the future he/she is again in the market his first thought will be a return trip to where he was previously treated well.
Volunteer organizations would be local, or should be. They would staffed by local people who have lived in the area for years, and so they have a good grasp of the nature of its problems. (International charities would solicit thru local branches, rather than contacting individuals.)
The mix of difficulties that drag down any individual recipient is unique to him/her. Volunteers would know this, and so they would realize the importance of listening carefully to and working closely with their “customers.” We can readily see that the communication gap here is far smaller than that between bureaucrats and their paid field workers and the poor under the present system.
A tried-and-true strategy for liberation from poverty is widely known: before having a baby earn a high school diploma, reach age 20, and get married. Responsibility for implementing this strategy cannot be placed anywhere else but in the person him/herself.
We didn’t mention drugs. An oversight? No. We think a kid on drugs cannot accomplish the other goals.
William Raspberry in the Raleigh, NC News & Observer 8/1998: “It is no exoneration of racism, political indifference or economic unfairness to teach our young people what many of us know from experience: that what we choose to do matters more than what is done to us.” This is why we should value a government that gives us the freedom to choose.
Raspberry wrote about individualism: a black writing for other blacks. In another column just previously: “—— virtually the entire civil rights leadership has been hell bent on proving that both the passing of the era of oppression and the dawning of a new era are myths. The truth, they insist to sustained cheers, is that racism rules, black folks can’t catch a break and what passes for good news is nothing more than white folks becoming cleverer about masking their unrelenting racism.”
Such claims have always been the bread and butter of the civil rights movement. Any significant progress by individual blacks and “leaders” lose their hold on the limelight, and maybe their jobs.
Can’t have that. Blind to anything except sensationalism and controversy, the news media cooperate. (Raspberry noted that blacks should stop digging for excuses and start digging for gold.)
Local volunteers know the territory. Therefore they could accurately separate people in genuine need from the freeloaders. Under the present system bureaucrats actively recruit both types of customer; the more the merrier.
If we go for the proposal here in Pocket Gofer 2 our taxes would be drastically reduced. Several huge government bureaucracies would be eliminated.
We are not prepared to put numbers on this one. Let’s wait until the whole pocket gofer program goes into effect. We know the impact will be considerable.
With locals helping locals there will be far less opportunity for waste or fraud. We are students of human nature.
This means we are deep believers in accountability. It is extremely hard for even a born shyster to rip off something when he/she knows someone is constantly looking over his shoulder.
For socialism to function at all, however inefficiently, a strong, repressive central government is necessary. Without this an enlightened public would have an opportunity to vote against socialism. Therefore the notion of “democratic socialism” is a contradiction in terms. See PG4.
We have today a welfare capitalist economy. As Big Government grows bigger and stronger we are slowly moving toward a socialist economy.
As we read, think about, and discuss the pocket gofers we are becoming an enlightened public. No matter how many smoke and mirrors we get from politicians, truth always lurks in the shadows.
They know this and it makes them paranoid. More on this in Pocket Gofer 19.
Rich DeVos once said, “Nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as they spend their own.” If local people gear up to solve a local problem they will not only understand it better than can any outsider. The resources to solve it, including money, are also local.
People act on their perceptions. Many years ago a baseball plate umpire bragged, “I calls ’em as I sees ’em, and they ain’t nothin’ till I calls ’em.” Often a player or manager will perceive a pitch as a ball when the umpire calls it a strike. He may act on that perception and go toe-to-toe with the ump.
Both saw the same pitch. The truth is, it was a …….? (This particular search for truth is futile.)
As volunteers we need to have our customers perceive that we care about them, in order to sincerely help them to help themselves on their way back into the world. We would not volunteer unless we cared, but it is their perceptions that count.
MUTUAL BENEFITS
Organization managers would realize that their agencies’ survival and development depend on donations and volunteers. They would therefore be oriented to donors, recipients, volunteers, and their paid staff (if any). Their challenge would lie in combining the interests of all of these groups so that members of each can work effectively with others toward a common objective.
Each participant must perceive benefits from his/her gifts of time, effort, talent, and money. The payback may not include money, as Pope John Paul II indicated above. It must only be positive. Recipients must see how the organization can and will help them.
If a manager cannot arrange resources in order to provide an environment wherein all will perceive benefits the organization will be in difficulty. No manager can continuously do so for all.
This is why some people besides recipients will leave and be replaced. But then, so it is in a private company.
Consultants would be available to advise managers on how to accomplish this balancing act. These people would help to organize tasks such as planning, budgeting, staffing, communication, and control.
They could also help guide recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training volunteers. Consultants could include retired managers who volunteer their time and talent.
Feedback from recipients would be valuable for improving the organization. Managers would be hypersensitive to this resource.
They would also be sensitive to donors with questions and volunteers with concerns. Managers would be good listeners.
In any organization managers need to make changes as time goes by. People are a proven resource for information to help him/her decide correctly.
There would be competition. We saw in Pocket Gofer 1 how important this is for keeping any organization shaped up.
If the outfit is run right donors of time and money would feel good about what they have done and are doing. Recipients would feel like they are making progress toward that strongly desired state of independence. A good manager would welcome auditors from a company who supplies preliminary information to prospective donors and control info to existing donors.
Each would believe that he/she is making a significant contribution (Pocket Gofer 6). This feeling is important to all concerned people.
Society would be injured by very little drug addiction, crime, vandalism or random violence. These plagues are the direct result of feelings of utter lack of control over people’s lives, due in large part to Big Government calling nearly all the shots.
Those who receive voluntary assistance would feel more gratitude than when unknown and reluctant taxpayers are forced to cough up. They could express it in many ways, and directly, because those providing assistance would be real people, right here. Managers may arrange for some donors and recipients to meet for this purpose, if they have not done so previously.
They would become aware of good feelings as experienced by donors. This means they would be anxious to get on the giving side as soon as possible. Being human, they would want to choose to live guided by the positive side of human nature.
There may be situations where a donor family will take a personal interest in a recipient individual or family. Managers would need to factor this natural human tendency into the mix.
Today’s TV news features a non-rich black woman who is clearly not a paid actor. As she volunteers to help people during the Covid-19 crisis she says “Take what you need; give what you can.” We think this touches on both sides of volunteerism.
CONCLUSION
The current system of caring for the poor has flaws. There are winners, but they don’t include the vast majority of us taxpayers.
Many of the poor feel just as ripped as we do. The system is not in tune with human nature.
We examined these flaws and concluded that there must be a better way. We thought of one possibility which looks doable and which is surely a quantum leap better than the current fiasco. Furthermore, it connects closely with what we understand about human nature.
We have attempted to create conditions where the producers in a market economy are willing, even eager, to support non-producers. At the same time we propose to provide incentives for those who adjust poorly to society to move toward the status of producer.
This system will minimize the number of non-producers at any point in time. With a maximum of producers we will have a strong economy and rising living standards for citizens who are able and willing to work.
In the old days before the Great Depression there was caring, but little wealth. Today it’s the reverse: we have wealth but the dead hand of bureaucracy interferes with natural human caring.
We believe we can have both.
Okay- into the pocket with this one.
……. PUBLIUS II
P.S. If our program catches on and generates massive enthusiasm (we hope and pray it does this), we absolutely must guard against violence in any form. We must guard against any conditions that might create violence, such as demonstrations. We can and will make this one happen via the ballot box. (This will require something that we lack today: equal-opportunity election campaigns.)
TITLES OF OTHER POCKET GOFERS THAT WE CAN DIG
INTO, DISCUSS, CRITICIZE, AND ACT ON:
PG 1 – ON HEALTH AND FITNESS IN THE USA
PG 3 – ON THE CAREER POLITICIAN IN A DEMOCRACY
PG 4 – ON THE BOTTOM-UP APPROACH TO GETTING THINGS DONE
PG 5 – ON THE COMING OPEN SOCIETY
PG 6 – ON MAKING A CONTRIBUTION
PG 7 – ON CORRUPTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
PG 8 – ON GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF BUSINESS AND THE PHANTOM
PG 9 – IT’S ALL IN THE FAMILY
PG 10 – ON EDUCATION IN THE U.S.A.
PG 11 – ON THE U.S. AS A WORLD CITIZEN
PG 12 – ON THE U.N. AND POTENTIAL CONFLICTS
PG 13 – ON PERSONAL POWER AND IDEAS
PG 14 – ON RESPECT FOR TAXPAYERS’ MONEY
PG 15 – ON BIG, SMALL AND GOOD GOVERNMENT
PG 16 – ON DEMOCRACY AND OUR CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
PG 17 – ON LEADERSHIP IN A DEMOCRACY
PG 18 – ON WAR, WEAPONS AND PEACE
PG 19 – ON THE GRAND DECEPTION
PG 20 – ON LIFE IN A DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY