What A Difference A Spine Makes

By Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

[The Virtuous Cycle]
“When the economy is growing, the wealthy more easily accept a smaller share of its gains, because they can still come out ahead of where they were before.  Simultaneously, when everyone else enjoys a larger share, they more willingly pay taxes to support public improvements.  It’s a virtuous cycle.
Slow or no growth has the reverse effect.  Economic gains are so meager that the wealthy fight harder to maintain their share. The middle class, already burdened by high unemployment and flat or dropping wages, fights ever more furiously against any additional burdens, such as tax increases to support public schools or price increases resulting from regulations limiting carbon emissions.  It’s a vicious cycle.” -Robert Reich

“...as the captain of a ship is bound to be the last man to leave his ship in case of wreck, and to share his last crust with the sailors in case of famine, so the manufacturer, in any commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering of it with his men, and even to take more of it for himself than he allows his men to feel; as a father would in a famine, shipwreck, or battle, sacrifice himself for his son.”
- John Ruskin

What a difference a spine makes. 

For the first time in ten years, North Dakota has a Governor who is not afraid to fight for his budget. 

And his enemies know it.

The enemies of Republican Governor Jack Dalrymple, however, are not to be found among dwindling numbers of the official opposition party, the Democratic/NPL. These men and women are generally favorable to the Governor’s budget, and their votes will be there when it matters.

Governor Dalrymple’s real enemies are to be found amidst his own Republican Party, in the hearts and minds of those who oppose any legislation that might raise the standard of living of their fellow citizens at the expense of the wealthy and the powerful.

They, like the Republican Party of “No” in Washington, are addicted to the doctrine of low wages for the middle class, low taxes for the wealthy, increasing restrictions on working people and a slavish devotion to foreign corporations. 

While waving American flags and admonishing us to “buy American,” they ship our jobs overseas and our incomes to Wall Street executives. Then they laugh and tell us we don’t work hard enough or manage our money well enough, while we look in vain for merchandise in our local stores that actually is made in the U.S.A. 

In addition they pander to merchants and corporations who hire illegal immigrants, while setting the bonfires of resentment against those immigrants, who are treated even worse by many of those same corporations in their own countries.

There is no doubt such men have been successful since the late 1970s in their campaign to sequester productive wealth of this country in the hands of fewer people.
By 2007, the top 1% of Americans was paid 23% of the nation’s income.

Then came the crash of 2008, politely referred to as the “Great Recession.”

In 1928, the year before the Great Depression, distribution of wealth was exactly the same as in 2007, 1% of America’s population holding 23% of its income. The crash of 2008, therefore, was not a coincidence. It was an economic certainty. The only difference was that some of the instruments of the New Deal to mitigate unemployment had managed to survive onslaughts of the High Priests of low wages and taxes.

Despite rosy pictures painted by the Chamber of Commerce, we are not out of the unemployment and underemployment mess by any means, in the country at large or even in North Dakota with its uncommonly large budget surplus.

Although “better off” than President Obama and Congress, the challenge for Governor Dalrymple and the North Dakota Legislature will be to translate a surplus into meaningful increases in take home pay and quality of life for the average North Dakotan, not just for those who happen to be fastening onto the bounty of the Bakken. 

Men and women in power in North Dakota also need to pay heed to the wisdom of the Japanese in the past 50 years. They distinguish between “standard of living,” measured by economic indicators, and “standard of well-being,”  measured by the ability of citizens to enjoy the fruits of their labor in a safe, clean and healthy environment.

I have no objections to progressive spirits arising within the Republican Party in North Dakota, and therefore have a few modest proposals for our new Governor and those legislators who are not afraid to do the right thing instead of giving in to the gospel of greed, parsimony and the “Old Scrooges.”

:: Priority 1: Only recently discovered by the Bismarck Tribune, is a need for state government resources to massively aid beleaguered western North Dakota counties in the widening and maintenance of their roads, not just for the more expeditious extraction of oil, but also for the safety of their citizens. In addition, water and sewer issues need to be massively addressed by state revenues, without waiting for aid from a federal government attending to the needs of 49 other states in much worse shape financially than we are. A friend of mine who has lived near Medora all their life, told me that one of the local oil extractors whose heavy trucks cause the usual havoc, fixes up the Billings County roads every spring rather than leave them in a deteriorated condition, owing to the inattention of the previous governor. It’s just good business rather than altruism, but it makes sense.

:: Priority 2: Don’t release whining oil corporations from their current 11% rate of taxation. It should be higher, given the enormous profits. Real “new” revenue for fixing roads and sewers is coming from taxes on oil. Boost the infrastructure in western North Dakota and you boost the ability of the oil companies to pump out more oil and gas and more state revenues. 

:: Priority 3: Help individuals, county and local governments by enforcing laws against trespassing, which are being violated on a daily basis by oil companies in their haste to get at the oil. When a landowner agrees to lease property for oil exploration, they do not surrender that entire property to the discretion of oil drillers who trash their land and access roads.

:: Priority 4: Increase support for state agencies that are dealing with fallout from mineral production in this state, most especially in areas related to health and safety. It isn’t all about physical and medical dangers of extracting coal, oil and gas.  There is a new danger, for example, from dust of the carcinogenic mineral, erionite, extracted from the Kildeer Mountains and used on Dunn County roads, as outlined in a scientific article from Nature Magazine (12/16/10). Don’t wait for agony and ambulance chasing to attend neglect of carcinogenic minerals like asbestos in the past.

:: Priority 5: Support providers and recipients of public education at a higher level. The United States is the first nation in the world that sought to provide universal education for all of its citizens, but the expense of higher education is warping the dream of John Dewey a hundred years ago, and driving us more and more toward an elitism that is contrary to our concepts of democracy. At the K-12 level, it is only a heroic sense of sacrifice among North Dakota’s parents and teachers that keeps public results in North Dakota education from being as low as public support. 

:: Priority 6: Get tougher on crime that really kills, like drunk driving. According to statistics provided by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, one person in this country on average is killed by a drunk driver every 45 minutes. One of every 139 licensed drivers in the U.S. was arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. A practical solution has been available for the past five years. On April 6, 2005, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed the nation’s first bill requiring interlocks for all DUI offenders into law. I know it’s warmer in New Mexico, but tax subsidies, or some other encouragement to 24/7 providers of transportation for inebriates would take care of such worries in the frozen tundra months.

:: Priority 7: Support the growing awareness of drug addiction as a sickness rather than a crime or a “sin,” by providing state insurance backup through the Bank of North Dakota, or some other vehicle, for the wonderful efforts in the private sector to support those who wish to kick a drug habit.  Individual will power, family and friends’ support are often not enough. Trained, concerned professionals are also essential, but their efforts are hampered by the relatively small number of “crazies” who cause insurance rates to be so high in this field.   

:: Priority 8: Finally, create remedies for the appalling lack of respect for women in North Dakota, in attitudes as well as in legislation.

For instance, rape laws in North Dakota are inadequate compared to enlightened places like Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Wyoming, New Mexico and New Jersey. The language of the “Rape Study Committee” of the Illinois House of Representatives, by State Representative, and Chairman, Aaron Jaffe, is a devastating indictment of that State’s laws in 1982 and North Dakota laws in 2011:

“...there remains an intolerable, pervasive misperception of rape and other sexual assaults as crimes of passion rather than as violent acts of criminal aggression,...
...this misperception by many professionals and para-professionals, including police, state’s attorneys, judges, legislators, doctors, nurses, social service workers, and educators, who are mandated to deal with various aspects of sex-related crime, mitigates against their ability to provide appropriate, effective, and just response services to victims and perpetrators of such crime, and to society,...”

Until rape is defined by our Legislature in gradations of criminal sexual assault, there is little hope for women in this State that local prosecutors will have the courage to pursue convictions to match the number of recorded violations.

In designating Governor Dalrymple as a “redeemed Scrooge” I am not prejudging him or his incipient administration. I merely use the Dickens masterpiece to show how enlightened his budget proposals are compared to the priorities of High Priests in his own Party.

As Robert Reich points out in his thoughtful book, “After Shock: The Next Economy and America’s Future,” Henry Ford was denounced as a madman, a socialist, and an ‘economic criminal’ (Wall Street Journal) when he tripled his factory employees’ wages in 1914. 

Henry Ford was none of the above. 

He was just a smart businessman who wanted to make sure that his employees could afford to buy his products—Model T’s.

Governor Dalrymple has offered similar wisdom to the North Dakota Legislature. It remains to be seen whether his party will assist us in going “back to the future.”

Questions and comments: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)