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Responsibility #49
(written prior to July 1992)
To the People of the United States of America:
We continue with the discussion of the second direction of attack to end poverty--Community Self Achievement. This battle concentrates on sustaining all who are poor and near poor in body, mind, and spirit--accomplishing this as much as possible through self-help. We have already covered sustenance in food, shelter, security, and family care and discipline.
For (5) education and training; all individuals and family members would be receiving education, training and instruction toward improving their lives while in, and enhancing their prospects of escape from, poverty. For the children, the emphasis would be to provide the home and neighborhood environment that is conducive to their taking full advantage of their school attendance. Adults would receive the training necessary to do the jobs in which they would be hired--food production and distribution, Neighborhood Construction Corps, Rural and Town Construction Corps, Neighborhood Security Patrols, nursery and pre-schools, family services, and other neighborhood self-help enterprises. Adult education classes would be held in subject matters that would prepare people to live better lives: family values, health, nutrition, personal and home cleanliness, social graces, opportunities for learning, etc. For their welfare payments all able-bodied would be required to devote over 40 hours a week to jobs, education and training, family raising, and community support.
For (6) jobs; in addition to the neighborhood sustenance jobs, Neighborhood Industries could be set up on a non-compete with private industry basis. For example, poor and near poor could be taught to make clothes for the poor by employment in small scale sewing shops. Machines and materials plus instruction and supervision could be provided by volunteers, charities, or government.
Now let us proceed to the third line of attack to end poverty--Special Family Boosts. Here the battle is to satisfy the second co-equal objective: to provide skills, attitudes, and job opportunities necessary to escape from and remain out of poverty. Working with industries and unions, the government would require on government contracts (and request in general) that companies train and employ the poor and near poor for a portion of their jobs. The government would supplement this with courses at high schools, community colleges, or universities, to provide the necessary individual and family attitudes and skills.
Finally a novel approach has been made feasible, through the forthcoming closure of military bases throughout the country. Many of these bases could be used for on-going, long-term, Special Family Boosts. Poor and near poor families could be quartered on the bases, for stays of one to four years, for accelerated escape from poverty. The children would receive special schooling, to quickly bring them up to educational standards for their grade levels. Families would be taught family values, discipline, money management, and other topics that would insure good family practices upon leaving these Family Development Centers. Adult dropouts would be tutored to get their high school diplomas. The government, through competitive contracts, would arrange for satellite plants to be operated on the Centers, to provide apprenticeship type training and experience, for skills needed by manufacturing and service industries.
Having dealt with Poverty, let us look at the other side of the coin, Wealth. In the eyes of those in poverty, if you are not poor nor near poor, you are wealthy to one degree or another. So we will proceed with that definition in mind.
Wealth is one of the most abused and usurped factors in our American democratic republic. Political actions in regard to wealth are our greatest obstruction to a "more perfect union". "Justice" will never be fully established until property rights are considered as sacred under the Bill of Rights as all other rights. "Domestic tranquility" can never be insured so long as the poor have little or no hope of escaping poverty, and those with some wealth fear that elected and appointed officials will cause them to lose it. "The general welfare" can only be promoted when the Congress and the President stop transfer payments, from taxes levied on the general public, to special interests in the form of deductions and subsidies.
It was not always this way. Our founding fathers did not envision an omnipotent federal government, which could redirect the wealth of its citizens almost at will. They had a strong regard for property. In the Constitution, they were careful to limit the power of the central government to derive revenues, for its limited functions. The sources of federal revenues were enumerated and they were qualified by words and phrases to insure that they were equitably applied--"apportioned", "pay the debts", "common defence", "general welfare", "uniform", "each person", "in proportion", "any state", and "no preference".
Although the consensus of the signers was that the Constitution was adequate in and of itself, it was agreed to amend it by a Bill of Rights. Among the Bill of Rights was further overt expression of the protection of wealth from the hand of the federal government in the phrase: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation".
All this protection came to an end on February 25, 1913. Although the Supreme Court had previously declared income taxes unconstitutional, they were ratified by We the People as Amendment Article XVI. Unlike our founding fathers, we did not see fit to limit the federal government in the application of the new tax. The modifying phrases were of the opposite genre: "from what ever source", "without apportionment", and "without regard". No limits were placed on our Congress and our President. The federal government was now omnipotent, and (sans Supreme Court action to the contrary) free to take private property without just compensation at will. We were hornswoggled.
The raison d'etre for our "public servants" now is to play the role of Robin Hood; id est, to take from the one and give to the other (and not necessarily from the rich to the poor). Our candidates unabashedly proclaim to God and all: "I'm going to give more to the 'middle class'." [Middle class left undefined, whose to pay instead left unstated.] "I'm going to give relief from capital gains tax." [Left unsaid is that mainly the rich will benefit, nor is mention made that others have to pay instead.] "No new taxes." [Had you asked, you wouldn't have been told, that this means your children and grandchildren will pay instead, many times over.]
Its obvious we have to rethink Wealth, more like our founding fathers would. Don't go way!
Publius IV
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