I am new to the forums but an old Mises fan. To properly give the historical background for my question will necessitate a pretty long post.
I am a county commissioner trying to slow leviathan down at the county level. Please instruct me if I have used the wrong forum or if I should not use the forum for my concerns as I have not used a forum of any type before. Here is the crux of my dilemma. Idaho - my state - has just signed on to taking the funds for setting up a High Risk Pool. Our county assistance director is asking us to use the pool. It is clearly a good business decision locally because we can for example use the available funding for a John Doe who is indigent. He cannot pay for his medical. (Please, no need to instruct me on this as I already do not believe that government should be in the charity business. I investigated getting our county out of the charity business and discovered that it is a long term effort which I am going to begin but for now I’m trying to limit it piece by piece) To continue, here is what the other commissioners are buying into. John Doe’s bills are huge. If we go the regular direction, we will pay the first $11,000 and the state will pick up the rest. If we accept the High Risk Pool funds we only pay the first $2,500 and the Pool picks up the rest. It is a savings of $8,500 in county funds but of course it costs the state and the Fed the rest. I have encouraged my seat-mates regularly to remember that just because it doesn’t involve property taxes it still involves taxes and guess what, by and large the folks paying the property taxes are the same ones paying state and federal taxes. Anyway, I have used three arguments to encourage the other two commissioners to vote against this.
This is not the proper role of government (ignored)
Taking this money will continue the Obamacare steamroller which will eventually bankrupt the insurance industry and will also help bankrupt the nation. Our grandchildren will pay for it etc. etc. (largely ignored)
If we take this money, the state and fed will fund this for about 2-5 years then the money will run out. The state will have to make the decision to keep or ab abandon the program. Generally handout programs are the most difficult to end so the state will then devolve the program to the counties with no funds so we will either have to say no and be the bad guys (I’ll gladly do that) or we will have to raise property taxes and the political futures of whoever is in office then will be terminated. (This got some traction)
My question - can anyone direct me to a good free market argument against the High Risk Pools? I have used material from Heritage.org that is pretty good but I could use some targeted logic and statisttical data for this as one of the other commissioners is wavering.
I hate to be so cynical but I think, in this case, your compatriots are right. There’s nothing that one county in Idaho can do to stop the juggernaut. Principled resistance is futile unless you’re planning to be a kind of Ron Paul (just using the seat as a vehicle to spread the message of liberty). Unless it comes with strings attached, just take the money. This is no different than the calculus facing individual citizens. Sure, it’s a great evil that I can get tax advantages that essentially make me a net taker of other Americans’ money but there’s no point in not taking it, it’s not a meaningful protest and it won’t change a damn thing. So the only course of action that makes sense is to just go along.
That said, maybe you should try reaching out to folks in your community and see if there’s a strong popular base for protesting the effects of Federal tyranny in your county. This would have to be more than just a “one man stand” in order for the wider public to take notice. There’s plenty of cranky county commissioners around the country. But how many have 80% of their county lined up behind them to throw off the shackles of Federal tyranny and State interference?
Also, look into the rumblings going on around Sheriffs as highest law enforcement authority in their respective counties. This has the potential to massively upset the political status quo, especially in combination with the 10th amendment movements, the pot movement (in California) and certain States’ assertion of exemption from the Commerce Clause for any and all firearms manufactured within their State. Your Sheriff has some potentially awesome powers (mainly in the “Get out and stay out!” department) if the political stars can be aligned right.
I have started an advisory council that will have legal advice and will be able counteract P&Z and propose legislative reductions to statute that will return property rights to the owners. This is to counter the possibility of any agencies I am able to get rid of that might be reinstated in the future as has already happened in our county. The Building Department was disbanded here in 1997. The agency that replaced it is essentially the same operating under a different name and issuing BLP’s - Buildingn Location Permits rather than the old Building Permits. Can you say 1984!?
This Council was created by resolution and I will be vetting the members. They must understand liberty using as references the works of Bastiat, Von Mises, Hoppe, and others of the same mindset.
I have worked to resist Federal Stimilus funds and the voters are approving in our county asking me to speak at Tea Parties etc. I am working with our Constitutional minded sheriff as you suggested and we are looking at insitituting a CAFR at our county level to show that there are monies hidden in plain sight. All of this merits an historical base but it would take pages of information as I have been at work in this county and state for over 25 years now. We are looking at establishing a Conservative (read constitutional) caucus in the legislature. This caucus has been and will in the future be responsible for measures like nullification, sound money, escrow accounts for federal taxes etc. Idaho is not rumbling we are moving and there are other local entities in this state and other states that are pursuing much the same goals:
Genuine reduction of the size and scope of local and state government
Genuine concomitant reduction in taxation of all kinds
Restoration of true property rights (if what you are doing on your property is not physically harming your neighbor then government has no role in your activities)
Restriction and ending of so-called publuc-private ventures
Coordination (as opposed to cooperation - Coordination is a legal term with fantastic implications!) with state and federal agencies to mitigate and stop destructive intrusion in local matters
The list is long. We are taking the issues as they come. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I will probably vote no on the High Risk subsidies because I’m principally opposed and because there is a rising number of folk in our county beginning to understand the nature of the timing of payments to debt - cause and effect that has the effect maybe years removed from the cause.
I know Idaho is small regarding government size but most people do not know we have possibly next to Alaska the largest natural resource base in the world. I do not exaggerate. The Silver Valley just south of me has possibly another billion ounces of silver in the next 10’ of earth. It can be responsibly mined. But I digress. I get pretty excited and I’m an old fart. Much is happening here.
For whatever it’s worth, for example, each time I vote against Stimulus funds I explain one more reason it is a bad idea. I have used the cost of each job, the philosophy that the federal government for sure shouldn’t be involved in fixing Nordman Road in a small Idaho County, the fact that monies sent hither and yon are much reduced by the time they are actually applied to a project. Reduced by attrition, corruption, admin costs etc. and many other reasons. The local paper usually prints most of what I say since they like to try to sting me but the locals are, as I said beginning to understand more than any time I have seen. Even during the years I published a local conservative paper. When I vote against the High Risk Pool idea I will bring out some statistics and reasons. I look at each opportunity as a time to educate and with modern electronic media these “teaching moments” are reaching a much wider audience than the local press intends. In the past 2 years I have had one commissioner change his mind and vote with me on private property freedom issues to the delight of the property owners and the dismay of the local command and control folks.
Good point. I guess I’m pretty damn fatalistic about the prospects of any meaningful change occuring within the confines of the status quo. The kind of people who run Chase-Manhattan bank and contributed to the economic collapse in part so they could expand their branch presence on the West coast don’t leave loose ends and so I’m pretty skeptical that a county commissioner can actually stem the tide. But Ron Paul has done far more for liberty than any small-fry politician ought to be able to do, according to the talking-heads in Washington, so I agree with the other sentiments already expressed: hats off to you!
So I guess the advice should be to follow Ron Paul’s example, as he is the most successful at this. (Whatever that would mean for a county commissioner I don’t know. Maybe call him and ask.)
I concede that you are correct that a single county commissioner can’t “stem the tide”. And I have gone from Flaming Freedom Idealism (FFI) to Measured Prescriptive Idealistic Attack Mode (MPIAM). I have begun connecting with other conservative county commissioners of which there are quite a few in Idaho and conservative legislators - again quite a few. we have collaborated on Coordination, Sound Money, Nullification with some success. I say that because just 5 years ago I was considered a tin-foil hat candidate for my ideas and now I see that some of them have become law in Idaho. I don’t claim credit at all but I was involved in their inception and some of the carrying through to final form. Things that were considered “whacko” 5-10 years ago are being debated by grim-faced legislators with a zeal that is delightful. Change is in the air and that is coming from a formerly confirmed pessimist.
Do your fellow commissioners understand what is insurable risk and what is not insurable?
I think the fastest way to get them on your side would be to convince them that this “high risk pool” will be targeted at things that can’t be insured against and it is doomed to fail from the get go.
Hmmm… I keep answering posts only to find that my answer doesn’t show up. I’ll try again…
Of course you are correct. I have made the Market argument as well as pointing out that insurance companies have ways to insure high risk and that it should be a personal choice not a government mandate. Unfortunately local officials see the economic world through a narrow lens - “How can I save MY constituents money?” Often ignoring the larger effects of their plundering of the state or fed they are mostly interested in saving local funds and paying for things with other people’s money. We may have found a way to deal with this. Last year Idaho legislated against allowing Obamacare to happen here. One of our Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys who is a freedom minded fellow is working with me on this. we might be able to make the argument that we will be violating Idaho law by participating. Might work!