The below guest opinion was published in The Montana Standard newspaper on May 7, 2009.
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Why I voted ‘no’ on the stimulus

by Senator Joe Balyeat

“Big government can’t solve our problem; big government is our problem.” — Ronald Reagan The budget recently passed by Montana’s Legislature was hailed as a bipartisan feat, including total spending of almost $11 billion and so-called federal stimulus spending of $1 billion. I voted against both spending bills. Why?

One senator characterized the federal stimulus as free money “… that doesn’t cost Montana taxpayers one dime.” Commenting near April 15, the irony was self-evident; any naïve notion that Montanans don’t pay federal taxes must come from someone who’s never completed a federal Form 1040.

More importantly, the “free money” is non-existent; it’s deficit spending, which is putting an insurmountable debt load on the backs of our children’s children.

Presently, the national debt is $11,246,599,828,489 — roughly $11 and a quarter trillion dollars. According to the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama’s spending spree will leave us with a $20.3 trillion debt 10 years from now. This is real debt which someday needs to be repaid by our heirs — debt owed increasingly to foreign nations, especially China.

America’s been living beyond its means on our children’s money. Now that this lavish lifestyle is coming home to roost, Obama’s answer is more of the same thing which initially created this mess — bailing us out by spending more money we don’t have. Twenty trillion dollars translates into $266,667 of debt on the backs of every family of four in the entire United States.

Even if you’re completely debt free personally, you’ll still owe over a quarter-million dollars as your family’s share of the federal debt. Our parents handed us the greatest nation on the face of the earth; we’re handing our children the greatest debt ever imaginable.

Is Montana’s state government any less irresponsible? While Montana’s governor and politicians talked of an austere budget, Montana’s total spending increases 19 percent over last session’s budget, which itself repre-sented a nearly 40 percent increase in government spending during the previous four years.

Montana’s current budget spends $10,787,000,000 — $10.8 billion for two years. This translates into $44,254 in spending for every average Montana family of four. In a state where the average wages are only $32,000 annually, how can our struggling private sector possibly support this much government?

Considering Montana’s high number of government employees per capita, the total government spending per private sector family balloons to $48,000. And much of this expanded spending is debt-financed. While Montana’s average wages languish near the bottom, Montana’s state government debt per capita ranks in the top 10 nationally. Moreover, that per-capita debt has increased almost 50 percent in just the last three years alone.

Much of this increased government is nothing but micro-meddling regulation of our lives and businesses. The Legislature needlessly “licensed” several more occupations this year, with further regulations making it that much harder for young people to better themselves by entering certain careers.

During one licensing debate, I announced that next session I’d sponsor a bill to license politicians, and the education requirement would be at least one course in economics. The wisdom of this ed requirement was proven during debate on the stimulus bill, when one senator (who’s lived off a government paycheck his entire adult life) made the absurdly false statement that “every economist knows that the government should spend more money during recession.” I refrained from providing names of at least a dozen economists in Bozeman alone who disagree profoundly with that notion, especially when speaking about deficit spending — squandering our grandchildren’s well-being under a mountain of inflationary government debt.

I also refrained from pointing out that expanding government’s regulatory meddling actually stymies economic growth, rather than fostering it. Will Rogers once said, “Thank God we don’t get all the government we pay for.” Update that quote n Thank God we don’t get all the government our grandchildren will be paying for.

My “no” vote was a vote against America’s self-inflicted destruction of history’s greatest economy, a vote against burdening the backs of each family with a quarter-million-dollar bad debt, a vote for my children and children’s children, a vote for giving them the same life of economic opportunity which my parents handed to me. Unfortunately, too few politicians just said “no.”

Sen. Joe Balyeat, R-Bozeman and a CPA, is chairman of the Legislative Audit Committee and Business, Labor, & Economic Affairs Committee.

Senator Jim DeMint has an impressive record in the Senate. The Junior Senator from South Carolina’s main work since his election in 2005 has centered on opposing the increase of federal government spending, both under the Bush and Obama Administrations. He has been particularly hostile to bailouts for banks and other corporations. DeMint is also a vocal proponent of Right to Work laws and, as such, opposes the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that would strip workers of secret ballot elections.

However, DeMint leaves much to be desired on social issues. According to the Charleston City Paper, “DeMint’s office has reasserted his commitment to a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.” DeMint’s position is not particularly popular: only a small majority (54%) of gay marriage opponents favor amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, according to a 2006 survey.

Opines the paper: “DeMint’s strong support for states rights, while also seeking federal involvement on gay marriage may be indicative of a larger struggle between the religious and libertarian elements of the Republican Party as it rebrands itself.”

So just like the Democrats, DeMint simply picks and chooses what issues he wants government to take an activist role in.

Gay marriage is just the most recent example of the social conservatives’ war on individual choice. And it is but one example of some social conservatives’ interest in nationalizing issues that should not be decided by the federal government.

A 2006 survey of 2,003 adults found that 55% prefer that abortion laws be decided at the national level rather than each state deciding for itself. This desire for a national policy prescription extends to other social issues, too. Despite growing antipathy toward Congress and low levels of trust in the federal government generally, majorities or pluralities also favored a national (rather than state-by-state) approach to policymaking on stem cell research, gay marriage and whether creationism should be taught in the schools along with evolution.

It isn’t just abortion and gay marriage where social conservatives want government to intervene.  In 2006, the Family Research Council surveyed its members on immigration, and, by a ratio of 9 to 1, they believe illegal immigrants should be “detected, arrested and returned to their country of origin.”

I’m not saying that illegal immigration should be tolerated (it shouldn’t be) — although Congress has tolerated it for decades.

But a rational approach to the issue does not entail rounding up millions of people and sending them away.

A Pew poll from 2006, cited by the San Francisco Chronicle, found that two-thirds of white evangelicals consider new immigrants to be a burden and a threat to American culture.  The poll didn’t even include the word ‘illegal’.

Some evangelicals seem to have massive problem with gays and immigrants — and they think the government can (and should) solve their concerns.

How about foreign policy?

Surely the religious right doesn’t want government to intervene there, right?

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case.  In fact, it was with the blessing of many social conservatives who supported unwavering authority for the Bush Administration’s War in Iraq, detaining terrorist suspects without due process rights, and torture policies.

This despite the fact that Christian Just War Theory stresses necessary cause, right intention, last report, and legitimate authority when governments wage a war. And the fact that the Constitution requires Congress to authorize war powers.

Yet the small (quiet) group of Christian evangelicals who questioned the Bush Administration’s policies on Iraq and waterboarding were labeled unpatriotic, anti-American, and bad Christians.

Voltaire once said, “Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance the most.”  Many Christians have been tolerant of others, and a few social conservatives have been able to align with libertarians via the Ron Paul movement.

Those Christians have stayed true to their principles while recognizing that government is not the solution to these complex social problems that plague society.  They need to wake up their socially conservative, evangelical brethren to the fact that using government as a tool of social coercion is unethical–indeed, anti-religious.

“I never will by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance,” said Thomas Jefferson.

Social conservatives need to practice a bit more tolerance and wake up to the fact that asking government to solve these social dilemmas is no different than activists on the left asking government for handouts.

And no different than giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Like something out of a dystopian novel by Philip K. Dick or George Orwell, the House of Representatives has voted to endorse the idea of prosecuting people for the thoughts in their heads rather than actual crimes they commit in the real world.

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 (H.R. 1913) passed the House last week with a 247 to 175 vote. Although most Republicans opposed it, 18 of them supported it. Support came overwhelmingly from Democrats, only 17 of whom voted against it. The bill will now be sent on to the Senate where there is some concern that with even less input from Republicans, the scope of the bill will be expanded to include unpopular speech as a hate crime. If it’s going to be stopped it will also have to be in the Senate, because if it passes there it will certainly be signed into law.

No one should ever be murdered or be targeted for robbery or violence because of their race or religion or sexual orientation, but there isn’t any other justifiable reason why they should be subjected to these crimes either. The crimes are just as unpleasant for the victim regardless of what the mindset or motivation of the criminal is.

We already have laws on the books at the state and federal level to appropriately punish any possible crime based on the severity of the harm done and even considerations like “special circumstances” of unusual cruelty or the age or nature of the victim. What has never been a factor in criminal prosecution is motivation of the criminal, because crimes are wrong regardless of what motivates them. The man who steals to feed his family is still a thief. The man who kills a child because the child kept him awake by crying is still a murderer. Someone who is beaten and left in a coma suffers just as much and is just as much a victim regardless of whether the motivation was robbery, his sexual orientation or the random madness of the attacker.

Our legal system is based on the idea that all men are equal under the law and that you get the same justice if you’re rich or poor, man or woman, gay or straight. A victim is a victim and a criminal is a criminal; crimes are punished because they are crimes, not because of who committed them or who they targeted. That’s a fair and unbiased application of justice. When you start creating special classes of victims or of criminals, you take the fairness out of the system and grant special privileges to some people which others don’t enjoy. You set some people above others, declaring that their suffering is more important just because of who they are. To do this makes the law unequal and oppressive, and is absolutely antithetical to the idea of a society based on universal equality.

If you accept the doctrine of racial inequality which is behind this hate crimes bill and that some victims are more victimized because of who they are or what the criminal thought about them, then the next logical step is to start treating criminals differently based on considerations like race or gender or sexual preference. Murder is only assault if you’re a woman. Robbery isn’t even a crime if you’re a member of an ethnic minority. A beating is a friendly handshake if the perpetrator is gay. It’s the road to the complete breakdown of justice, because for the law to be just it must be applied equally.

Look at it another way. If the sentence for murder is life and a racial motivation adds 10 years to the sentence as this bill proposes, then you are giving out 10 years in jail solely for being a racist. Set the murder, which is already a crime, aside and you are punishing someone solely for the thoughts in his head. You couldn’t send someone to jail for thinking racist thoughts and writing them down and even publishing them. Why should you be able to add to his sentence for thinking those thoughts while committing a crime? The most scary part is that the next step from here is punishing the thoughts without even bothering to have an associated crime.

Ordinarily federal law only applies in federal jurisdiction, so a law like this would do nothing for anyone except the occasional gay park ranger who gets mauled by a homophobic bear. But this bill includes a particularly pernicious provision to provide grants from the federal government to local law enforcement specifically for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. This program is similar to programs from the War on Drugs, which blurred the line between state and federal jurisdiction and provided incentives for gratuitous investigations and prosecutions to keep the federal dollars coming in.

Under the grant program local law enforcement can get up to $100,000 a year and material assistance from federal agencies. In return all they have to do is let the feds come into their jurisdictions and play an expanded role in pursuing hate crimes. Of course, if they want that federal money to keep coming they need to find and prosecute hate crimes. This leaves law enforcement actively looking for crimes which they can define as hate crimes to justify the federal grant money they are receiving.

When there’s a profit motive you can guarantee that investigators are going to find hate crimes everywhere and prosecutors are going to pursue convictions as hard as they can. There won’t actually be any more hate motivated crimes than there were before, but there will certainly be more people spending extra time in jail because it was profitable to add a hate crimes charge to the case against them.

The situation is reminiscent of the Fugitive Slave Law which was in place before the Civil War, where judges were paid $5 if they ruled that the accused was a free man, but $10 if they ruled that he was an escaped slave. Not surprisingly a lot of free blacks were forced into slavery under this law in a gross miscarriage of justice which helped to push the nation into civil war.

The first truth held to be self-evident in our Declaration of Independence is that “all men are created equal,” but when you start dividing them into groups and giving those groups special legal protections you are making some more equal than others. This law debases the entire legal system, making a mockery of the principle of equality before the law on which our justice system is based. When you give select groups a superior status in the eyes of the law, you make everyone else a second-class citizen. That may appear like justice to some, but it only looks like justice when it cuts your way. When it’s your thoughts or your unpopular ideas which are targeted it’s going to look like tyranny, because that’s exactly what it is.

According to the St. Cloud Times, “Republicans in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District elected Wright County Party Chairman David Fitzsimmons, a supporter of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign last year, to be the district’s new party chairman during the weekend.”

“Fitzsimmons became Wright County’s party chairman earlier this year and joined the local party leadership just two years ago, along with the increasing participation of Republicans who supported Paul’s presidential campaign. Fitzsimmons won 136 votes on the first ballot, compared with 53 for Knoblach and 17 for Vollkammer.”

“Fitzsimmons said he hopes to expand the party’s coalition by bringing disaffected Republicans, independent, Independence Party, Constitution Party and Libertarian Party members into the fold.”

The Minnesota chapter of the RLC also received an award from the Republican Liberty Caucus for their continued chapter growth at the recent RLC National Convention.

Congrats, David!

From the Libertarian Party’s blog:

“If you’re lucky enough to live in Montana, take a moment to thank Joel Boniek.”

“Boniek, a Republican state representative from the Livingston area, sponsored legislation exempting Montana-made guns from federal legislation. It was signed into law April 15.”

“Joel’s bill applies only to guns made and kept in Montana. Supporters hope it triggers a court case over whether the federal government can regulate gun sales.”

“Boniek overcame amazing odds and defeated a Republican incumbent in the primary who voted to expand government and openly criticized tax relief efforts. He’s not your typical politician. A quiet, peaceful man, Joel lives “off the grid” and still makes his living as a crane operator, carpenter and hunting guide.”

“But Boniek’s upset win proves that voters want representatives who put freedom first, and that principled candidates who run smart campaigns can knock off entrenched incumbents – and accomplish great things in office.”

“Now, wouldn’t it be nice to have a state representative in your town just as passionate about defending your rights?”