Special Interest Groups Pose Taxing Problems
In North Carolina, it is a new political day. The Republicans take over and promise cuts, but they will find some proposed changes will be thwarted by court rulings and will find it is illegal to cut some areas of the budget. No longer do we live in an independent state, but in one of 50 states whose rights under the US Constitution have been abrogated by the state courts, Congress and the Supreme Court.
A single issue will point out the problem these new legislators face. This same issue will point out a more compelling problem that we should all face. It is brought to the front by the presumed mental illness of Loughner of Arizona, but it has long been an expensive and controversial issue in North Carolina and every other state: how the taxpayers deal with the issue of mental illness. It is an issue with many facets and complications, with various groups jockeying for position.
One group is the advocates for the mentally ill. Just as advocates for every special interest group imaginable, their purpose is to get special treatment for their group at the expense of the taxpayer. Disability Rights North Carolina, for example, identifies itself as “an independent, private not for profit organization … to ensure the rights of all state citizens with disabilities through individual advocacy and system change …” They are lawyers and lobbyists.
Then there are the state agencies involved in providing services to the mentally ill. They are bound by current law and generally seek to provide the services legally required within the monetary constraints the legislature provides.
On another side are the courts. Supposedly they are to apply the law as written by the legislators, within the limits of the applicable constitution. Let us just say judicial restraint is a nice theory.
Then there are the taxpayers. Working to make their own ends meet they are required by law to pay taxes to support those who can’t or won’t support themselves.
Finally, there are the mentally ill. Unable to support themselves independently, they require support from others, in this case the taxpayers, to pay for their cost of living.
The question is: How should these varied interests work together to achieve a common goal? What should be the reasonable result of the combination of interests? It could be a fairly simple answer, but is not. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our society, due to the governing structure we have evolved, the answer has to do with competing and lawsuits. Instead of working together, the varied interests become adversarial. For an example of this we need only see the report by Michael Biesecker, of the Raleigh News and Observer, from December 2009, where the advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina sued the taxpayers of North Carolina, via the NC Department of Health and Human Services, for more money for their special interest.
This lawsuit is not singular; similar ones are found throughout the United States as the US Justice Department, in coordination with various advocacy groups, seeks to impose its will about how to administer to the mentally ill upon every state in the union. From the N&O report:
The federal government said in a legal filing Wednesday that state budget cuts to programs that help people with mental illness and developmental disabilities live on their own violate the individuals’ civil rights …
The lawsuit got a boost Wednesday when the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief supporting the case and asked a federal judge to issue an injunction against the state.
Disability Rights filed the suit Dec.11 on behalf of Marlo M. and Durwood W., two North Carolina residents who rely on state services to live in their communities rather than an institution. Their last names are withheld in the legal filings to ensure their medical privacy …
Durwood W., 49, has lived in his own apartment for the past 10 years as the recipient of federal and state Thomas S. dollars. The funding is named after a class action lawsuit that successfully challenged the lack of services available to people with both intellectual disabilities and mental illness. Marlo M., 39, has lived in her own apartment for more than five years, supported by federal and state dollars.
Legislators exempted Thomas S. clients from most of the severe cuts in the current state budget. But they did not mandate that these services be preserved. Local community mental health agencies have enacted further cuts and restrictions.
In its brief Wednesday, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department wrote that North Carolina’s lack of protections for Thomas S. funding violates federal law. Further, they say the budget cuts will likely result in Durwood and Marlo ending up in institutions, where it will cost taxpayers even more to care for them.
And this is how the game of take from the taxpayers to give to the special interest group is played. If the legislatures don’t give them what they want, they go to the courts or the federal agencies or both.
This year in North Carolina, we have a legislature that says it is putting the taxpayer first. That will be a change and it is a change which the advocates of special interests will not like, nor is it one the courts will necessarily like nor the federal agencies. Notice the subtle distinction here: I didn’t say state agencies, but federal. The reason for that is that the state agencies try to follow state law so if the legislature changes it, they will change their policies and programs to comply. But the federal agencies don’t care about state law. Their opinion is they are more important and more powerful than the state legislatures.
In this game of take and spend taxes there is no underlying philosophical pinnings of how to make decisions, and this is the problem. Take the last paragraph in the quote from the news article. Restated it says keeping funding recipients in institutions will cost taxpayers more than keeping them in individual houses. That may or may not be true in instant case, but if the recipients are unable to care for themselves or provide for themselves, it is not true. The comparison may be made with college dormitories. Would it be cheaper to keep each student in a separate house? The answer is obvious. In the care of the mentally ill, the advocates don’t care about expense. For that matter neither do the courts or the feds and, of course, the recipients aren’t going to say spend a reasonable amount.
The issue is actually fairly simple. How much should taxpayers spend per person to maintain another person’s lifestyle? The more difficult question is how to determine that number. Should taxpayers spend more on them than the average family makes? Since this transfer payment is in fact a form of welfare it should be treated as such. It is welfare with special services, so the cost will be more. But those we should consider most are the taxpayers, not the recipients. The recipients are seeking a free ride using the force of law to take from the taxpayers. As they are taking from others using the force of law, they should get as little as possible within the constraints of a moral society seeking to help others. But the advocates and lawyers and courts will oppose reason. As this is what legislatures throughout the country face on every front.
The taxpayers pay a little bit here and a little bit there until their burden is 27 percent. The taxpayers work for what they receive. The question becomes: How much should someone who does not work, for whatever reason, receive from those who do? The advocates, the federal regulators and the courts say ‘as much as we want to take’. On every front of cutting expenditures, the issue will be the same. Those receiving will work hard and loud to keep their free ride. If you want to keep your money, you must work just as hard telling your legislator to keep taxes low.
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