The Federal Raid on Liberty; E. W. Dykes

This illusion is heightened by the fact that some sections Mr. Dykes is an architect in Canton, Ohio. [ 188 ] do indeed enjoy a temporary advantage because of a grant. But the strong tendency is toward equalization of such "advantages," until few if any will have escaped the taxes that are the other side of this subsidy coin. Suppose the question were asked this way: Do you think that the federal government ought to grow? In other words, do you think the government should spend more of your money, taking added powers unto itseH? Put it that way, and hardly anyone would give an affirm ative nod. But let's get down to cases. A Project Begins Here's what happened in my town-and it could just as easily happen in yours, if it hasn't already. Ask my fellow citizens about a bigger government, and I be lieve most of them would answer no. But when the issue concerned an expressway in the community, let's see how they acted. One of our public spirited councilmen won dered why we send so much money to Columbus for roads but seem to get so little of it back. So he was ap pointed chairman of a committee to find the answer. Our chairman and his committee went to Columbus and came back, after several months of discussion and delibera tion, with a promise of major assistance for an express way right through the center of town. This would be a part of the state highway· system.

A catch in this proposal requires that we put up some of our own money "to show good faith." The entire project will cost some $13 million (latest estimate of a [ 189] figure that tends to rise). Of this, we are to pay approxi mately $1.7 million, while the state and federal govern ments will make up the balance. A project of this size and nature can touch off quite a controversy in any community, and it did. Opponents of the expressway argued that it would ruin the park system which it is to parallel, or cross in places; also that anyone in his right mind builds highways around cities rather than through them. I mention these points only to emphasize that, as far as I could tell, no one expressed any real concern over the method of financing. The only references I recall were by proponents of the measure who insisted that we must get "our fair share" of the taxes we already pay. A four-mill income tax for raising the city's share of this expressway passed rather easily, not overwhelmingly-but with a comfortable margin. And we are pretty hard on tax measures in our town, too.

Taxes for local improvements usually have a hard time .. Bribed with Our Own Money One of the questions I've pondered with friends on several occasions is this: "What if the issue on the ballot had been: One Expressway-$13 million? How would Canton voters have reacted?" So far, I have found no one who believes it would have carried-not one person. The expressway is entirely within the city limits. Its total cost is $13 million. Nearly everyone thinks it is a desir able improvement. Yet no one believes that the voters would have been willing to pay for it. This frightens me. [ 190] If we can assume that state money is reasonably dis tributed around the state, and if federal money is simi larly apportioned· to the various states, then the express way will cost us not $1.7 million-not $13 million-but probably between fifteen and twenty million dollars. You can imagine what the voters would have said to that I Why this higher :6gure of $15 million or more? First, there is the brokerage we have to pay when our money travels roundabout through several bureaus and thence back to us. People have to be paid to shuffle·all those papers and tie red tape around them. Secondly, Canton citizens pay more than a proportionate per capita share of taxes both to the state and to the federal government.

Besides paying more than an equal share of the costs for such projects, our community probably gets back fewer project dollars per capita; and that makes the ratio still worse for us. Rather than argue that point further, I'll rest my case on the known figure, which is $13 million. We probably would not have bought the expressway with that price tag on it. Nevertheless, we have bought it-and it looks to ·me as though we were bribed with our own money. It reminds me of the proposition the doctor offered a patient who needed·a blood transfusion: ':;;We have no blood available right now, so we'll just take a pint out of your right arm and put it in the left one." I'm not opposed to expressways. I'm happy to use them, just like anyone else. I just don't like to have them financed the way ours was handled. I believe it will ever be to the people's advantage to know exactly what things [ 191 ] cost so that each of us may judge what other things he'll have to forego in order to make that particular purchase.

Otherwise, what we will forego in the end will be our freedom, our form of government, our legacy to our children. We will destroy the t:t:mainspring"of the human progress we have known. And that price is too high! Queer Bookkeeping Suppose you and your wife have a joint checking ac count. Your wife comes running up to you one day and says: t:t:Dear, I just bought a new refrigerator; and when I looked in the checkbook, there was only enough for the down payment. Why don't you write a check for the balance?" And so you do. But you somehow get enough money in the bank first. So it is with federal aid. You write the down payment and t:t:they"pay the balance but, one way or another, you put up all the money-plus the carrying charges. By what delusion do men hope to get a $13 million product by paying $1.7 million? How are people drawn into spending money for something they wouldn't buy if it had the full price tag on it? And is there anything really dangerous in such a process? Well, not unless there is danger in a mammoth, centralized government.

A generation ago, the annual bill for all federal grants in-aid was less than a quarter of a billion dollars. This year's bill is $3 billion, and fifteen new programs have been suggested. Only small amounts are required in most cases to get a new program started; but then, look out! [192 ] Careful economists and historians warn us that freedom cannot stand excessive taxation. Just how much further we can go, no one really knows. But there is no point in testing it. As in Russian Roulette, there are no winners. Spending Ourselves Rich How did this federal aid business get started-and when and why? Right here in America, there are people who believe in the foreign idea of an all-powerful, cen tralized government. For the most part, I think they are people who truly believe it is the best way for society to be organized-best for all Americans when considered as a group. During the financial crisis of the early thirties it is not surprising that many such people gravitated to Washington. And some didn't just gravitate-they were sent. The country was in dire straits and was in the mood to try almost anything.

"Something new has been discovered," we were told. "With a little planning we can spend ourselves rich." And many believed it. The theory, of course, is not new. It has been tried and discredited as long as there have been governments. But people in distress forget their history easily and pretend that their own case is different any way.Many of the measures were introduced as "tem porary" programs-something to get us over the hump. But there is nothing temporary about the tendency of a bureaucracy to expand. Each new measure of interven tion increases the difficulty of turning back. Just see how hard it is for Congress to cut a measly billion out of the [ 193] budget. Measly billion? That represents more than six dollars for you and every member of your family. There are other drawbacks to letting other people spend your money for you. The Supreme Court has said, "It is hardly lack of due process for the government to regulate that· which it subsidizes." I hear people saying that if it were possible to set up an aid program without federal control, they would have little objection; but they don't see how it is possible to have such a program. I agree that it can't really be done, but I wouldn't even want it to be done. It seems to me that federal aid should mean federal control.

Controls Go with Handouts I do not favor passing out tax-collected money, which always includes some of mine, on the basis that the recipients may do as they please with it. So-called free money is almost always spent carelessly. There is some thing about human nature which allows this to happen. We have the feeling that money from the federal treasury is like manna from heaven and not our own hard-earned cash, which it once was. You can find numerous examples of such mismanagement of money acquired without the responsibility of earning it. I recall the year that a po litical decision knocked out a $5 million appropriation request for a South Pole expedition by Admiral Byrd. The same year, Marshall Plan money went to one of the Scandinavian countries, and it sent an expedition to the South Pole. This is somewhat like the case of the poor [ 194] family in the community which has a hard time with the grocery bill but somehow manages to keep an old car running. We give them money for groceries and ad monish them not to use any of it for the car. So they don't. They take our money and spend it for the gro ceries, and then they take the money they might have spent for groceries and spend it on the car.

So I repeat: Controls must be exercised over the spending of tax-collected money. And any argument against such controls is simply an argument against fed eral aid. Federal aid is part and parcel of the transformation from the free to the planned economy. A completely free economy is one in which you may spend all your money as you see fit. But the grantin-aid part of the planned economy is growing with no end in sight. How long un til all our money is to be spent this way? And if not all, where is the stopping point? Unless we draw that line, the free economy-and with it free people-are gone. Federal Direction of Our Lives One of the strongest reasons against federal aid is that it results in federal direction of our economy. Let me explain what I mean by "direction." If, by subsidies or such devices, we should reduce the price of electric power to nothing, just as many industrial plants as pos sible would do all their heating and other work by electricity. On the other hand, if we were to use sub sidies to provide "costless" coal, most plants would use [195 ] coal. Or, if we drastically reduce the price of electric power in one state or area, this "directs" plants to settle there. In other words, it is possible to cause things to happen by the use of the subsidy which might not hap pen in a free economy. But the cost is still there. Such "direction" occurs all the time under federal aid pro grams. You do things you would not do if you were exercising true freedom of choice.

Let us suppose you earn $500 a month in take-home pay-that much, after the tax deductions. Each month you decide how you are going to spend your money so much for the house, so much for food, so much for clothing, the car, and so forth. It doesn't always come out even, of course, but by and large you know where you are going to get your money and how it is to be spent. From time to time you have to make decisions, such as whether or not to take a vacation, where to go, and all the rest of it. Sometimes if you see something that you want in a store window, a decision to buy it often involves deciding what other things you'll do without. But all the time you know about where you stand. In your decision-making you constantly weigh the advantages of this or that item and how much you are willing to pay for it. Free Market in Action This is the free market in action. Producers are di rected to produce by consumer actions in the market place. Generally speaking, the most important things are [196 ] the ones you buy first while inconsequential things are by-passed. In contrast, when the government is spending your money, you no longer have the chance to make such decisions-no chance to take into account the relative advantages. of this or that item. In other words, you are virtually without choice in the situation.

If we were able to buy roads and schools in the same way that we buy food and clothing, then all these things would find their proper relative positions in our economy. We would then be able to say that the amounts spent for these things were precisely the amounts we. wanted to spend. The Case for Local Control Yes, I firmly believe that we ought to explore the potentialities of the free market for such of our wants as schools and roads, which have so long been considered a responsibility of local and state governments. But I will not here be so stubborn as to refuse to recognize the advantage of local rather than federal control. When a local project is put up for consideration, you at least get a chance to vote for it as a question by itself. And usually, you've a better chance of knowing what the project is going to cost. In our area, when it comes to a school bond issue, the committee in favor is forever showing how its cost will equal one pack of cigarettes per day if you're in a certain tax bracket, two packs in a higher bracket, and so forth. The grantin-aid project, however, requires that you put up only 5 per cent, or 10 per cent, or [197 ] perhaps you only have to ask for the money. But the other costs are there, just like the hidden part of an iceberg-and just as treacherous.

Local projects at least can be weighed with knowledge of approximate costs. And your decision can be made on the basis of that one project-not on a hit and miss arrangement of sending money to Washington and hop ing that some of it eventually gets back to you in a project someone else will have chosen for you. What could we do in Canton with the $13 million which will be spent for the expressway? We could replace our decrepit city hall. We could put storm sewers in many areas now subject to frequent Hooding. We could fill thousands of chuck-holes in the streets with something more durable than cinders. We could bring our schools up to date-all of them. We could have a modern traffic signal system. We could have all those things and perhaps others too, or we could have part of them and lower taxes-more left for our free choice in spending. And remember that freedom to choose is the distinguishing characteristic of a free man.

The Provident Pay Twice Let's look at another aspect of the federal aid idea. Most of the things for which federal aid is proposed are already being prOvided in many communities at their own expense. But federal aid involves taxing these areas more heavily than before to help finance projects in other communities which have chosen not to do such [198 ] things for themselves. So we are burdening people who pay their own way. by imposing taxes in addition to the ones they have already voted on themselves. And all because someone thinks progress 'can be forced. Much of the clamor, particularly with reference to aid for schools, has been on grounds that local communities cannot stand further debt. But the federal debt of ap proximately $275 billion already is several times larger than the combined debts of all state and local govern ments. Such an argument for federal aid lacks validity for reasons too numerous and too obvious to be repeated here.

Lets Set an Example The mainspring of human progress is individual lib erty, and individual liberty decreases as federal power increases. Federal grants-in-aid represent a significant and growing part of federal power already too enlarged for safety. The first step is to recognize it for what it is a sham and a hoax. Logic, then, calls for an immediate halt to this federal raid on liberty. Instead of clamoring for "our fair share because we're paying for it anyway," why not resist and set an example for others to follow? Why not practice what we profess to believe? Mr. Ed Lipscomb has this to say of The Personal Practice of Freedom: "There never was a salesman who really went to town if he didn't believe in his product enough to use it himseH. You can't sell Fords effectively if you ride up to see your prospect in a Chevrolet. You [199 ] can't sell Camels convincingly with a package of Ches terfields sticking out of your pocket. Your friends and acquaintances may not always believe what you say, but none will question for one moment the fact that your personal conduct and consistent personal practices speak the truth· as you see it. You cannot convince your neighbor by word of mouth that you are a believer in temperance if he sees you staggering around your house every Saturday night. You cannot convince him that you are in favor of government economy and then sign reso lutions calling for federal funds with which to build your town a bathing beach or even a hospitaL ... Freedom rests, and always will, on individual responsibility, indi vidual integrity, individual effort, individual courage, and individual faith. It does not rest in Washington. It rests with you and me."

One must decide what is· right, and order his own life accordingly. This is a good maxim to follow regardless of the situation. So this is my response to anyone who says, "Let's get our share." If my share is to he a contri bution to the destruction of the. American way of life, I will have no part of it. I cannot participate and remain faithful to myself, my children, my fellow men. [200 ] FREEDOM AND SECURITY IN UR OF THE CHALDEES tg ~ ~. t?u6lJoong ~ THE PROBLEM of relating responsibility to freedom and security has plagued human society for countless cen turies; it remains one of the most pressing burdens on contemporary civilization. Perhaps the· most difficult aspect .of its solution is man's persistent unwillingness to face the obvious dilemmas involved. As far back as in Abraham's day, in Dr of the Chal dees, Sumerian .society had achieved a balance to the problem which met both the demand for freedom on the part of some as well as the social hunger by others for security of guardianship. The implications of this ancient solution might be unpleasant to modern man, but they are nonetheless inescapable.