Income Inequality and Government Policy

The very strongly socialist Democrat Party has made what it calls the problem of income inequality the cornerstone of their party platform.  It is the justification for calls for raising the minimum wage once again.  It justifies further and endless entitlement programs.

But is income inequality any more of a problem than are the inequality of the following characteristics of an individual?

• Intelligence
• Morality
• Energy
• Friendliness
• Athleticism
• Goal-Directedness
• Height
• Attractiveness
• Benevolence
• Sexual Prowess
• Humor
• Knowledge
• Loyalty
• Productivity
• Interest in movies and TV
• Interest in partying and drugs
• Interest in politics
• Interest in reading
• Interest in spending time with children

No.  A desire to reduce income inequality by the application of government force is very much similar to the desire to reduce the inequality of any of these other individual traits by the use of government force.  In all cases, the use of force for such a purpose is an attack upon individuality itself.  It is most certainly an attack on the freedom of the individual to make his own choices and to own and manage his own life.

Some people choose to work 30 hours a week and watch 40 hours of TV a week, while others choose to work 70 hours a week and watch little TV.  Perhaps instead of transferring the extra money earned by the 70-hour worker to the 30-hour worker, we should tax people for the income they did not earn while watching TV?  That is only fair, especially considering that the harder worker generally did more to improve the standard of living of his fellow Americans.

Yet it is also the case that we Americans are actually far richer than most other people in the world.  Consequently, if income inequality really were a problem that should be leveled by government, then it would have to be performed by ceding American governmental sovereignty to the United Nations.  Even poor Americans are too rich by world standards and should be deprived of much of their income to equalize the human condition with respect to income.  Look at the percentage of people in the world with higher incomes than the following incomes:

$1,400               48.1%
$20,000               3.6%
$25,000               2.0%
$32,400               1.0%
$35,000               0.81%
$51,939               0.28%, this is the median US household income in 2013, US Census Bureau
$75,000               0.11%
$100,000             0.08%
$125,000             0.07%

Only 0.28% of households in the world have incomes greater than the median household income in the USA.  So, let those who are serious about eliminating income inequality by a simple re-distribution of income give away almost all of their own income until that equality is achieved around the world.  As the income of the lower half, less than about $1400 a year is increased, the dividing line between the poorer half will rise and those Americans earning only $1400 a year will start to receive redistributed money.  But, those earning the outrageous sum of $20,000 a year will always be contributors in the self-sacrificial duty to raise the income of the poorer half of the world population.

Well, alright now, but many Americans are only thinking of income inequality as a problem within the confines of American, because its great usefulness as a political power tool is in the context of the Democrat Socialist and generally the Progressive Elitist effort to transform the USA.  Why would these people think of income inequality as a problem to be dealt with as a matter of principle.  No, it is just a convenient tool to increase the power of government and of those who wield great influence over the government.  The aim is not to achieve income equality even in the USA.  It is to pretend to redistribute some money in the name of reducing income inequality so the government can be made more powerful.  A more powerful government can do even more to make those who have pull in Washington still richer than the present special interest control over Big Governments makes these cronies of Big Government.  A real effort to eliminate income inequality would defeat the real purpose, just as offering a real education in government-run schools defeats the real purpose of having government and special interest control of the schools.

A very interesting study of income inequality was produced from U.S. Census Bureau data from 2012 which shows the Gini index of income inequality by congressional district in the US.  Those districts with Democrat representation are shown in blue, while those with Republican representation are shown in red.  The plot below shows the districts in order of Gini index, where a higher Gini index represents a greater income inequality:

It is immediately striking that congressional districts most dominated by Democrat Representatives are those with the highest income inequality.  At the lowest and highest levels of income inequality the rate of inequality changes the most.  Let us look at these two ends of the spectrum of American income inequality more closely:

Democrats represent 23 of the 25 most income unequal congressional districts, while Republicans represent 13 of the 25 districts with the least income inequality.  Republicans are predominant in those districts with more nearly normal distributions of income.  Now, we cannot immediately assume that Republican representation reduces income inequality.  But, we should at least be asking whether there are reasons why Democrat representation might be adding to income inequality.  The rational man wants to know.

We should attack this question with some knowledge of where Democrats hold representation in the House of Representatives.  The results of the 2012 election are shown in the map below:

The Democrats dominated the big cities of the Northeast and the Pacific coast, some highly Hispanic and Native American areas of the Southwest, the union strongholds in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri, a few concentrations of black voters in the Southeastern states, and a complete dominance of New England.

I am pretty sure the highly Hispanic and the highly black concentrated districts are responsible for many of the least income inequality districts the Democrats hold.  These districts are often uniformly poor, which is not a good thing.  It would be wonderfully good if these districts had more higher income people, to state the obvious.  Any district would benefit from more higher income people, provided that income was obtained in the private sector.

But most Democrat districts tend to be the high density population districts of cities and their nearby metropolitan areas.  Good fences and low population densities make good neighbors, but these conditions are lacking in cities.  As a result, there is a tendency for city dwellers to want more control over their neighbors.  They cannot achieve this on their own, so they enlist government with its monopoly on force to perform this function.  They therefore vote heavily for Democrats.  There are few exceptions to this rule.

High population densities also lend themselves to making great fortunes.  The best CPA in Russell, Kansas will only have a very few well-off clients, while a CPA with no better ability in New York City might well have many wealthy clients.  A very good restaurant in Stilwell, Oklahoma, the Strawberry Capital of the World, with a population of 3,840 people, will make less money than will a restaurant of the same quality in many parts of Chicago or its suburbs.  The networking possibilities of a major metropolitan area and its financial institution advantages will lend themselves to extreme wealth creation for a least some people.  So, we cannot blame Democrats across the board for these advantages that contribute to income inequality, except where that networking is used to provide a greater than average influence to special interests over governments.  This is a big exception, because we know that this kind of pull is used to increase the fortunes of a few cronies at the expense of the many who have little or no such pull.

Among those who have no pull are those who live in the inner city and sometimes suburb school districts with notoriously bad decades-long Democrat control of the government-run schools.  These schools are run as holding pens for children, for the advantage of government employees who staff them and the labor unions that represent school employees, as indoctrination centers for the mythical wonders of Big Government, and very often for the advantage of cronies who provide excessively expensive services and goods to the school systems.

The child victims too commonly do not graduate from high school.  Those who do often read at the third grade level, cannot write a coherent sentence, and know nothing about history, economics, science, and math.  Wonder of wonders, these city school children commonly have little ability to earn decent incomes as adults.  Very high percentages cannot finds jobs.  Many turn to crime and/or become dependent on drugs and/or welfare programs.  All of these income depressing effects are aided and abetted by the Democrat-controlled governments.

The problems do not end here.  The cities are more likely to have severe licensing laws for professions and jobs, which greatly limit entry into these jobs.  Those who start poor are more likely to be kept from becoming more wealthy by these restrictions.  Cities also produce a plethora of regulations, which hit small businesses especially hard.  This makes it harder for a poor person to succeed by creating his own small business.  Democrat city governments commonly favor labor unions, whose members add to their income by depressing the income of larger numbers of non-union members.  Once again, the Big Government model adds to income inequality, this time by suppressing the income of the poor.

Yes, Democrats might be more concerned that income inequality is common in America because it is more common in their districts.  So, they make more of it.  But, their governmental principles, insofar as they have any, embrace many policies that make income inequality greater.  They increase the income of those favored by the government, who are commonly not those they imply are favored in their speeches aimed at the poor and minorities to gain their votes.  They depress the future and present incomes of the poor and the minorities they claim to champion.  The governments they control are not righting wrongs of the private sector.  They are not righting wrongs of the government sector. 

This will not change no matter how often they pose as champions of income equality, because the wrongs their Big Government model does are inevitable by the nature of Big Government's need to sustain itself.  In comparison, competition and individual choice are very effective in limiting any injustices created in the private sector.  In the Big Government model, the government sector is characterized by force and a disrespect for the individual.  That lack of respect for the individual reduces the probability of individuals increasing their wealth all across the spectrum of incomes, but seems to act as a more severe depressant of the incomes of the poor who have no real pull in Big Governments.

Maryland Gun Control Infringement of the Right to Self-Defense

Oh, the many pleasures of corresponding with one's representatives in the state legislature and the federal government as an exercise in the right to petition one's grievances ends only in frustration.  One can always count on a Progressive Elitist standard viewpoint from these representatives, at least in the most un-free state of Maryland, known most erroneously as the Free State.  This state, long ago, provided perhaps the best unit to fight in the American Revolutionary War.  At that time, there sure was no prohibition against owning a military-style weapon.

The Progressive Elitists of Maryland are most united in the belief that while one may have a right not have one's hunting rifle prohibited, a weapon designed for self-defense is to be absolutely prohibited.  In this Progressive Elitist viewpoint, no infringement means only that any barrier an individual should have to overcome to exercise a right must not amount to an absolute prohibition, except in some cases.

This is the response I received to my letter in opposition to the latest effort of the state of Maryland to infringe the right to bear arms from my delegate Anne Kaiser in the Maryland House of Delegates:

Thank you for writing to my office and voicing your opposition to SB281:  Firearm Safety Act of 2013, introduced by Senate President Mike Miller on behalf of Governor Martin O’Malley.  This legislation provides a comprehensive plan of reforms to make people safer and reduce preventable gun violence.  It includes provisions regarding gun licensing and fingerprinting; gun safety; and mental health safeguards and services.

Specifically, the provisions of SB 281 bans the sale of military-style assault weapons; limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds (the previous limit was 20) and requires licensing, fingerprinting, and safety training to purchase a handgun.  These provisions should reduce “straw purchases” (where someone with a record gets a friend to buy a gun on their behalf) of both assault style weapons and handguns which over time should reduce the number of illegal guns on our streets while also promoting sensible, responsible gun ownership.

Further, this initiative creates safeguards to keep guns away from people who may be a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness, while also facilitating unprecedented levels of information sharing among federal and state partners for background checks.  This bill improves mental health services in Maryland by establishing a Center for Excellence on Early Intervention for serious mental illness and expands Maryland’s Crisis Intervention Teams, Crisis Response Services, and Mental Health First Aid.  Also, this bill establishes a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene led Task Force to Improve Continuity of Care for Individuals in the Community Mental Health System.

Despite characterizations of this bill and those of us who voted for it, I fully support our 2^nd amendment rights.  I place our right to bear arms right alongside our freedom of speech, of a free press and our freedom of religion.  With each of these guaranteed freedoms comes rights and with each right comes responsibility.  And with each responsibility, comes reasonable regulations.

I believe that this bill crystallizes that responsibility in important, meaningful and manageable ways.  Crucially, the new law does not do the following:  it does not prohibit lawful citizens from obtaining or owning a handgun and it does not require additional licensing procedures for hunting rifles and shotguns.  The new law does not force citizens who lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the bill’s passage to surrender their weapon or to register it.  Furthermore, it does not require current lawful gun owners to retroactively obtain a license.

Your views are important to me and I appreciate that you have taken the time to write to me.  Please do not hesitate to contact me during the session should any other concerns arise.

 Very truly yours,

 Anne R. Kaiser

The exercise of a right comes with only the responsibility not to violate the equal sovereign rights of other individuals.  It does not come with a responsibility to expend time and effort to prove that one has such character as may be in popular approval by the government.  I should not have to prove that I will not somehow and at some future date violate the rights of others.  As for gun safety, if I already know that (as a veteran), why should I have to take a course from some state-licensed safety instructor at great expense and at the cost of valuable time?  This is an example of the state very much infringing my right to self-defense.

The 2nd Amendment clearly says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  Note that no infringement means that there shall be no barriers.  It does not mean that the barriers are such that they can be overcome and are not absolute prohibitions.

Furthermore, the prohibition on military style weapons makes no sense whatever.  The most essential reason one has a right to arm oneself for is self-defense.  Both the prohibition against so-called military style weapons and the limit to 10-round magazines are fundamental infringements on the right to self-defense.  The military uses the weapons it uses for defense.  I would use any weapon I might have for defense.  The reason we have a military is simply as an extension of our individual right to self-defense and the fact we have a military does not deprive us of any part of our right to self-defense.  Note also that this is an explicit prohibition and not a barrier which can be overcome with sufficient effort.

It is noteworthy that Anne Kaiser claims that she holds the right to bear arms as dearly as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.  Logically this means that the exercise of these critical freedoms can also be infringed by the requirement to be fingerprinted, forced to take lessons in their safe use, and that many statements and beliefs can be prohibited so long as some are allowed with due licensing of the individual.  In fact, Kaiser explicitly claims that the state can regulate freedom of speech, press, and religion.  Perhaps initially only the mentally ill and felons will be denied the license to exercise freedom of speech, the press, and religion, but I am sure we can count on the Progressive Elitists to expand the class of people denied these rights with time.

Of course, in the eyes of the Progressive Elitist, a person of the Tea Party persuasion is mentally ill.  Many of them have said this explicitly.  Since most psychiatrists seem to be Progressive Elitists, the state will have no problem finding one who will attest that someone who challenges the power of unlimited government is suffering a mental problem.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 26.2% of the U.S. population has a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.  Does this mean that the state of Maryland will deny licenses to 26.2% of the applicants because they are claimed to have a mental illness?  Probably not, since most such cases have not been diagnosed, but given the infringements of this bill, will one have to have extensive testing for mental illness before being licensed in the near future.  After all, a precedent will have been established.  How extreme and of what type must the mental illness be before one is denied a license?  Yes, she talks of being a threat to oneself or others, but this is pretty speculative stuff and does not the Precautionary Principle so beloved by the Progressive Elitists require a very low bound on the possibility of danger?  If one were ever diagnosed as having a mental illness, would one be forever denied a license to bear arms?  Given how dear the right to bear arms is for Anne Kaiser, how long before the same problems arise to get that license for the exercise of freedom of speech?  You must have much more faith in the goodwill of government than I do to feel at all comfortable with these issues.  Ignorance of history or total irrationality would be a precondition for such faith.

As for the new mental health bureaucracy this law will set up in the state of Maryland, I can only imagine the horrors to come.

It is comforting to know that more than half the number of votes needed to pass this bill in the Maryland House of Delegates may have been cast by the 26.2% of the delegate population with diagnosable mental illnesses.  The remainder of those for this bill may have been voted into office with most of the votes from the 26.2% of Maryland voters who are estimated by the very Progressive Elitist National Institute of Mental Health to have diagnosable mental illnesses.  To be sure, such mental illnesses may be far more common among the Maryland Delegates than among the population at large.

The violation of individual rights by the state of Maryland and by the federal government has become a habit.  There is nothing one can trade one's basic individual rights for that is worth the trade.  You should note that the Declaration of Independence informs us that the only legitimate function of government is the protection of individual rights.  Governments that violate those rights become morally illegitimate no matter how many popular votes the politicians may collect.   Evil thrives in the state of Maryland because collectivist politicians here collect hordes of votes.

The Maryland House of Delegates is coming to help us exercise our responsibilities.  Be afraid ...  no, be terrified!

The Right to Association with Others - The Right to Work and Hire

The equal, sovereign rights of individuals to life, liberty, property, the ownership of their own minds and bodies, and to pursue their own happiness are very broad.  Limitations put upon individuals by legitimate governments are few and strictly limited to the prevention of violence and fraud.  Among the most basic of an individual's rights are the right to work for a living.  Another is the right to associate with others for voluntary purposes, which includes such rights as the right to trade goods and services, the right to hire employees, the right to be an employee of another, the right to be a service provider, the right to be a customer, the right to use property to provide goods and services, the right to practice a profession or trade, the right to enter into a business partnership, the right to enter into a domestic partnership, the right to exchange ideas, and the right to enjoy friendships and romantic and/or sexual relationships.  The freedom to work and the freedom to associate voluntarily with others are very broad freedoms, which legitimate governments seek to protect.  On the other hand, illegitimate governments, which are much more common, seek to interfere with these basic freedoms.

Illegitimate government was defined in our Declaration of Independence.  Government which is destructive to the unalienable rights of the individual to, among other rights, the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is declared illegitimate and tyrannical.  The United States of America today is full of such illegitimate and tyrannical governments.  These governments feel especially free to interfere with our voluntary associations in trade, work, and cooperation in the following ways

• controls and regulations on the production of goods,
• mandates and limits on the employer - employee relationships, 
• the licensing of professionals and tradesmen, 
• the imposition of slavery upon employers to keep financial records and to keep tax records and file tax forms, 
• limitations on the exchange of services, 
• the dictation of who can be hired and who cannot be hired, 
• the unequal treatment of various domestic partnership combinations, 
• the denial of access to the market of very large companies, 
• the excessive burdening of small companies with laws, mandates, regulations, and paperwork,
• micromanaging safety issues not understood by governments in complex workplaces,
• micromanaging performance standards not understood by governments in complex professions,
• exaggerating safety issues to gain control and to reward special interests,
• exaggerating issues of potential fraud in the interest of control and to award special interests,
• discriminating against many professions with property taxes on their tools and equipment, which does not hurt government pets such as lawyers and accountants and actually increases their business,
• discriminating against many professions because some people believe they are immoral, such as prostitution or marijuana suppliers,
• discrimination against some people in education and the exchange of ideas,
• preventing those with little wealth or income from entering many professions or trades,
• using minimum wage laws to discriminate against the undereducated and the disabled,
• using minimum wage laws to discriminate against young people lacking previous job experience or those living in low-cost-of-living areas (popular with unions),
• limiting the number of companies providing services to bolster the income of those previously in business,
• as a change-up, forcing companies and associations to grant special privileges to unions, people of favored races, people with handicaps, and to governments,
• requiring people to purchase goods and services, such as the services of accountants and lawyers by businesses, health insurance under ObamaCare, seatbelts in cars, child safety seats, high mileage vehicle mandates, unnecessary radiation inspection services for fully contained radiation sources, 
• the regulation and taxation of fossil fuels due to unproven and scientifically wrong fantasies of man-made global warming disasters,
• subsidies for favored people, companies, institutions, and industries, such as the cake-taking ethanol, wind generation, and solar power industries,
• manipulations of the value of the dollar to favor financial institutions or exporters or importers,
• restrictions on foreign competition such as the Jones Act provisos against foreign-owned shipping,
• interference with railroad and trucking rate structures,
• bailing out companies with strong union ties, such as GM and Chrysler, at the expense of other companies and taxpaying consumers,
• the massive transfer of wealth from the private sector to governments,
• requiring the payment of labor union labor rates on government projects or by government contractors,
• crippling American businesses with much higher taxes and regulatory burdens than foreign competitors have,
• and interfering with or failing to ease restrictions on foreign trade, since every individual has the right to trade with others, even when they are in foreign nations.

Of course, many of these restrictions on the freedom of association and work are justified with claims that public safety or the prevention of fraud make them necessary.  These claims are commonly exaggerated in the interest of some special interest, often that of the politician to award his friends and contributors being the foremost special interest.  Fraud should be combated with vigorous legal action against actual instances of fraud, not by overly active imaginations conjuring up ways in which someone in a profession might defraud a customer.  These anti-fraud prevention schemes will always cause more trouble than they address.  They gain traction, however, because many Progressive elitists believe the People are too stupid to choose their own associations well.  The People are imagined to be defenseless against fraud.  Somehow, the government will anticipate every possible fraud and prevent it.  Or so it wants us to believe.  In fact, it is mostly just successful in keeping entrepreneurs from competing for the business of a nation of sovereign individuals.

One of the best organizations in fighting such abuses of governmental power is the Merry Band of Freedom Litigators at the Institute for Justice. They have a long and successful track record of attacking irrational licensing laws and other approaches to preventing people from working and earning a living.  Here is a recent example of their work:

As demonstrated by a series of eight new reports issued in October 2010 by the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, one of the principal obstacles to creating new jobs and entrepreneurial activity in cities across the country is the complex maze of regulations cities and states impose on small businesses.  IJ’s “city study” reports are filled with real-world examples of specific restrictions that often make it impossible for entrepreneurs to create jobs for themselves, let alone for others.

The Institute for Justice has documented how police in Pine Hills, near Orlando, used barber licensing laws there, to fine barbers hundreds of dollars who had years of experience as barbers, but no license.  These raids on unlicensed barbers were used as a cover to search for drugs without a search warrant, showing how a disregard for some individual rights commonly leads to a disregard for other rights.  They also found that in eight major metropolitan areas, nearly one in three professions requires a license.  In the 1950s only about one in twenty professions needed a license.  One of the best ways to reduce unemployment is simply to let people work.  No subsidies are needed, no tax breaks are needed, and no government-sponsored training need be provided.  The governments simply need to get out of the damn way and allow people to work!

My bullet list above provides reason after reason for why Americans are unable to find jobs or to create their own jobs now.

Washington D.C. Licenses Tour Guides

Washington D.C. requires tour guides to pass a test and get a license.  Can you imagine why?  It cannot be because if an ill-informed tour guide were to say that the top of the Indian on top of the Capitol is 302 feet above the ground that this would cause great harm to the tourist.  It the tourist goes back to Indiana and tells his neighbor this incorrect fact, his neighbor will tell him, no, from the east side, at the bottom of the steps, to the top of the Indian is 288 feet.  The misinformed tourist would then have no choice but to commit suicide out of embarrassment, right?  Fortunately, in my hypothetical example, the tourist can simply point out that the Capitol was not built on level ground and there probably is a point on the ground above which the Indian does rise to a height of 302 feet.

But what really has me wondering is that there is a tour of sites haunted with ghosts.  Does the D.C. tour guide test check for guide knowledge of the ghosts of D.C.?

There must be tour guides who specialize in the Capitol, the White House, and the three main presidential memorials.  Then there must be some who specialize in the museums.  Do they all take the same tour guide test?

It turns out that the Institute for Justice has just taken the case of the tour company called Segs in the City to protect them from this licensing requirement.  I suppose the Segway tour guides will have to prove they can drive a bus and talk at the same time.  There are also walking tours.  I wonder if the walking guides also have to show they can drive a bus?

It is getting to be the case in many cities that if you want to earn a living doing anything, you must get a license. When the cities finally get all jobs covered, I expect they will begin issuing licenses for the right to breathe out CO2.  You will have to prove that you are worth the pollution you breathe out due to your social value.  If you cannot, then the politicians will be addressing the over-population problem, right?