Brookfield Basics

I wrote earlier this month about health care, and the need to implement consumer driven initiatives into this area of public policy. I have been traveling and have not had the time to complete this subject.

But the plan unveiled by the Democrats of the State Senate regarding universal health care is one that warrants some short and immediate comment. The damage inflicted by this plan would be so far-reaching and so utterly irreparable, that it is something every citizen of this State should seriously consider. It would be nothing less than a carcinogen unleashed upon our State’s economy and fiscal health.

When considering large matters like this we too often get bogged down in the detail of it all, and pretty soon we can’t see the forest for the trees. If we are to understand how flawed this plan is, we need to step BACK a bit, and think of it in BIGGER terms.

Mark Twain once remarked that, “the only difference between a man and a dog is that a dog won’t bight the hand that feeds him”. Nowhere is Twain’s insight more clearly demonstrated than in such misguided legislation.

More than fifteen years ago P.J. O’Rourke, the former Rolling Stone columnist turned superb political writer and commentator, succinctly and acidly observed that, “if you think health care is expensive now, just wait until it’s free”.

I have written frequently about the laws of economics. They are immutable, and operate with or without our consent or approval. One of those immutable laws is that the more you TAX something (such as wages and employment), the LESS you will see of it. And the more you SUBSIDIZE something (such as the indiscriminate and unbridled provision of “free” health care), the more DEMAND you will see for it. We KNOW these things to be true, and no rhetoric from Madison can obviate that surety.

So when you consider this horrific plan, don’t get caught up in its detail. Focus on the BIG picture and the BIG questions.

Ask yourself what the logical outcome is of laying SIGNIFICANT additional taxation upon employers and wage earners.

Ask yourself what the logical outcome is of using those tax proceeds to provide “free” and unlimited health care to ANYONE who decides they want it, when they want it, and how much they want to receive.

Ask yourself what this will do to the population of this State in terms of numbers and content. Who do you think it will attract to Wisconsin and whom do you think it will drive out?

Then ask yourself what the implication of all of this is twenty years from now, as your kids and grand-kids decide where they want to live.

THESE are the questions to consider. THESE are the questions to put to your legislatures.

More on consumer driven health care and public policy soon.

Part I of this article dealt with the historical framework and political experiences that formed the Founders views with respect to this issue. In Part II we’ll consider what the First Amendment says, and where the phrase “separation of Church and State” actually came from. Following is the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”.

So where does oft-quoted term “wall of separation between Church and State” come from? It was in a letter penned by Thomas Jefferson to the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut in January of 1802, many years after the US Constitution was ratified. Wrote Jefferson:

“I contemplate with sovereign reverence the act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’, thus building a wall of separation between Church and State”.

Many activists on both sides of this issue who now cite the “separation” phrase don’t know its origin, and don’t know the context of Jefferson’s letter, which I don’t have time to go into. So whatever one’s views on this, let’s at least understand what the language of the Constitution says and what it DOESN’T say, and where the “separation” phrase originated.

My views on this matter have little to do with my RELIGIOUS beliefs and everything to do with my POLITICAL beliefs.

The writings of the Founders leave no doubt as to their views on the role of religion in the formation of our societal fabric and the effective functioning of governments. That said, America was NOT founded as a Christian nation; it was founded as a political entity. The Founders fashioned and established secular political institutions, then took great care to define and limit the authorities of the Federal Government so that the people of America would have the liberty to pursue their conscience on such matters.

They saw our Federal Government as having no role in establishing ANY particular creed or religion. But there can be equally little doubt that they intended all powers and authorities that were not specifically ascribed to the Federal Government to be the sphere of States and localities across the Nation, so that their Legislatures could debate and decide such matters according to the desires and will of their respective citizenries, and then be accountable for their decisions on such matters at the polls.

It seems to me we have traveled a very long way from the language contained in the First Amendment. Today we see un-elected and unaccountable members of the Federal Judiciary, and an army of lawyers in their wake, issuing supposedly binding decrees over how the good people of Dallas or Brookfield may or may not decorate their civic buildings at Christmas time. Or what proclamations of law and antiquity are allowed for display in their public buildings. Or where local communities can or cannot hold particular ceremonies deemed to be of great importance to the people of those communities. And all of this is done while ascribing to the Constitution language it does not contain, and intentions of the Founders for which I see no evidence.

To me this is not about religion. It is about political liberty, and what processes and institutions are used to determine such questions.

As I read history, the Founders would have deemed such matters best decided by the States and municipalities, and would have been horrified at the notion of a Federal District Judge in Florida or Ohio, or an attorney sitting in Spokane, forcing their views and interpretations of the Constitution upon the people of Brookfield or Elm Grove.

That’s how I see it - how about you?

The television ads have begun – the big guns will not be far behind.

I saw the first one last weekend and it featured a Congressman advocating the need for universal, government-sponsored health care. It’s time to start thinking about this, as it will be a huge component of the 2008 Presidential race and the attendant public policy debate.

Everyone who reads this article (both of you!) is either a current or future taxpayer. Everyone who reads this article has already been a user of health care, and will obviously remain one. I believe the most fundamental concept we need to grasp when considering this complex issue is this:

HEALTH CARE IS A CONSUMER GOOD.

We may not like that, but it is a reality that exists independent of our desires. And like all consumer goods, health care reacts to and is governed by the laws of economics. No legislation, no matter how well intended, can change that.

An ever-increasing amount of our tax dollars is required to pay for health care. The budgets of our school districts, universities, municipalities, States, and the Federal Government are being consumed by health care and other benefits. At the same time we are witnessing the inexorable death of the U.S. auto industry as it hemorrhages fiscal red over the cost of benefits it extends to the employees of GM, Ford and what used to be Chrysler.

The ever growing appetite of government to consume health care and retirement benefits, and the ever shrinking ability of the private sector to support this appetite, is a dynamic that sets us on a collision course.

Until we stop this destructive path of just simply paying more every year for the same played-out old plans, we will continue towards a political upheaval of enormous proportions. This will rapidly become our most dominant domestic public policy issue, with the immigration issue actually being a sub-set of this. We will continue to see less and less resources to fund the products and services we want FROM government, as budgets are almost wholly consumed by paying the costs of benefits of those who work FOR government.

We can talk about the high cost of government until the blue states turn red and vice-versa, but until we put this issue of health care on the table and discuss it in a serious and dispassionate manner, we won’t get anywhere. We are presumably all in this together – both private and public sectors. So let’s have the debate.

Part of the debate needs to be the consideration of substantive reform of health care, rather than just placing the same broken system into the hands of the Federal Government with the expectation that somehow this will “fix it”.

When it comes to health care, substantive reform means consumer driven health care. It will be brutally difficult work, but not as difficult as the political warfare that will result if we don’t.

Some specifics on C.D.H.C. - what it looks like and the impact it can have - later this month, after I finish up with Church and State.

I am behind on a few issues but can’t let Independence Day pass without a brief comment.

During the age of the internet, when we have unparalleled tools of learning and all of history’s recorded events at the command of our keyboards, we often think of our Country’s Founders as being perhaps hearty and brave, but considerably less educated than we are. But the group of men and women who founded our Republic and fashioned its political institutions were the most learned and educated in our nation’s history. Their knowledge of history, philosophy, literature, politics, government, natural law and theology was profound. To read their letters and dissertations today is to view prose of such beauty and analysis of such depth and insight, that they stand unmatched for over two centuries.

This morning I think of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Never have two men been so linked in the history of their respective country, and rarely have two personalities and temperaments engaged in the same cause been more dissimilar. Adams was the short, paunchy, but hearty New England farmer and barrister. He had little in terms of worldly means, but all that he had was self-made. Jefferson was the southern aristocrat planter, the very embodiment of nobility in a country that claimed to have none. Tall, lean, and graceful, he invented and built many devices such as a therapeutic chair for his bad back and a dumb-waiter for serving the wines he so loved. His home at Monticello is not only a thing of architectural beauty; it is a small museum of artifacts and inventions. Adams rarely drank anything stronger than apple cider, and pruned his own trees in the orchards he and his wife Abigail so loved.

Jefferson penned and both would sign the Declaration, risking all they had by doing so. Both would serve their fledgling country with long stints abroad as Ambassadors, spending years away from the their beloved homes. Both would serve their new country as President, struggling to serve in the mighty shadow of Washington.

Then, as the new Country established its political identity, the two inseparable partners became bitter political enemies, their disputes rising out of differing views of the role of the new Federal Government and the Office of the Presidency.

But after each retired to private life, they mended their relational fences and engaged in a long-running correspondence, which left us with a priceless legacy of thoughts, reflections, and wisdom.

And finally, in what can only be described as an almost surreal twist of history, both died on the same day.

That day was, incredibly, July 4th, 1826 – the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration to which they had pledged “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”.