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Human Events...
Government Creates
Poverty
by John Stossel
04/27/2011
The U.S. government has “helped” no group more than it has “helped” the
American Indians. It stuns me when President Obama appears before
Indian groups and says things like, “Few have been ignored by
Washington for as long as Native Americans.”
Ignored? Are you kidding me? They should be so lucky. The government
has made most Indian tribes wards of the state. Government manages
their land, provides their health care, and pays for housing and child
care. Twenty different departments and agencies have special “native
American” programs. The result? Indians have the highest poverty rate,
nearly 25 percent, and the lowest life expectancy of any group in
America. Sixty-six percent are born to single mothers.
Nevertheless, Indian activists want more government “help.”
It is intuitive to assume that, when people struggle, government “help”
is the answer. The opposite is true. American groups who are helped the
most, do the worst.
Consider the Lumbees of Robeson County, N.C. -- a tribe not recognized
as sovereign by the government and therefore ineligible for most of the
“help” given other tribes. The Lumbees do much better than those
recognized tribes.
Lumbees own their homes and succeed in business. They include real
estate developer Jim Thomas, who used to own the Sacramento Kings, and
Jack Lowery, who helped start the Cracker Barrel Restaurants. Lumbees
started the first Indian-owned bank, which now has 12 branches.
The Lumbees’ wealth is not from casino money.
“We don’t have any casinos. We have 12 banks,” says Ben Chavis, another
successful Lumbee businessman. He also points out that Robeson County
looks different from most Indian reservations.
“There’s mansions. They look like English manors. I can take you to one
neighborhood where my people are from and show you nicer homes than the
whole Sioux reservation.”
Despite this success, professional “victims” activists want Congress to
make the Lumbees dependent -- like other tribes. U.S. Rep. Mike
McIntyre, D-N.C., has introduced the Lumbee Recognition Act, which
would give the Lumbees the same “help” other tribes get -- about $80
million a year. Some members of the tribe support the bill.
Of course they do. People like to freeload.
Lawyer Elizabeth Homer, who used to be the U.S. Interior Department’s
director of Indian land trusts, say the Lumbees ought to get federal
recognition.
“The Lumbees have been neglected and left out of the system, and have
been petitioning for 100 years. ... They’re entitled, by the way.”
People like Homer will never get it. Lumbees do well because they’ve
divorced themselves from government handouts. Washington’s neglect was
a godsend.
Some Lumbees don’t want the handout.
“We shouldn’t take it!” Chavis said. He says if federal money comes,
members of his tribe “are going to become welfare cases. It’s going to
stifle creativity. On the reservations, they haven’t trained to be
capitalists. They’ve been trained to be communists.”
Tribal governments and the Bureau of Indian Affairs manage most Indian
land. Indians compete to serve on tribal councils because they can give
out the government’s money. Instead of seeking to become entrepreneurs,
members of tribes aspire to become bureaucrats.
“You can help your girlfriend; you can help your girlfriend’s mama.
It’s a great program!” Chavis said sarcastically.
Because a government trust controls most Indian property, individuals
rarely build nice homes or businesses. “No individual on the
reservation owns the land. So they can’t develop it,” Chavis added.
“Look at my tribe. We have title and deeds to our land. That’s the
secret. I raise cattle. I can do what I want to because it’s my private
property.”
I did a TV segment on the Lumbees that I included in a special called
“Freeloaders.” That won me the predictable vitriol. Apparently, I’m
ignorant of history and a racist.
The criticism misses the point. Yes, many years ago white people stole
the Indians’ land and caused great misery. And yes, the government
signed treaties with the tribes that make Indians “special.” But that
“specialness” has brought the Indians socialism. It’s what keeps them
dependent and poor.
On the other hand, because the U.S. government never signed a treaty
with the Lumbees, they aren’t so “special” in its eyes. That left them
mostly free.
Freedom lets them prosper.
Read it at Human Events
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