Utah Free Press

Politicians Keep The Money Flowing.

Originally published on March 12th, 2006, by Rich Okelberry

For those of you that don’t follow Nebraska’s Unicameral. There has been a debate raging over how tax payer’s money should be doled out to a certain group of organizations. The reason this particular issue has come to the fore front is because the money in question is going to health care providers that specialize in abortion. Without the abortion issue being a part of the equation, the subject certainly would have never been featured on the front page of our local newspaper as well as local news broadcasts.

The controversy is spiraling around a plan by State Senator Tom Foley. He originally claimed that he wanted the money normally given by the state to mainly abortion clinics for pap smears and testing/treatment for sexually transmitted diseases to go to a wider range of health care providers, like hospitals and private doctors. An organized opposition of lobbyists and for these “women’s health” clinics along with a few State Senators have claim that Sen. Foley is lying and merely wants to try and shut down organizations like Planned Parenthood by denying them the money. The lines have been drawn, the Senators have taking sides and the mud has begun to fly. Ed Howard of nebraska.statepaper.com has claimed to know of an email that was sent by Sen. Foley to his sympathetic colleagues outlining his ‘devious’ plan.

While some reference has been made in other media sources as well, I have yet to find an actual copy of the email. Amidst all of the controversy that surrounds this issue, I feel that the central, core problem is not being addressed. Should tax payer’s money be given to any group or organization that uses a lobbying group to ultimately send some of the money directly into the legislator’s war chests? The argument that government funds are only being used for the purposes for which they are earmarked is completely ridiculous.

If for example, removing these funds from a group’s incoming revenue stream causes the group to cease operations then the group cannot pay the Lobbyist who in turn passes some of the funding back into the pockets of the politicians. Follow this hypothetical: Say a woman of modest means goes to Planned Parenthood for a pap smear. Being of limited resources Planned Parenthood charges the state, on behalf of the woman, say $50 for the exam. The state gives $50 for the approved procedure to Planned Parenthood who with little or no over-sight takes some of it to pay the doctor, the lab tech and so on. Once everyone involved in the procedure gets their cut of the pie the remainder goes into a general fund to help pay operating costs like rent, heat, electricity and supplies. Sounds completely legitimate up to this point right?

As we continue to follow the money we find that part of Planned Parenthood’s operating costs include paying a profession Lobbyist that is charged with among other things ensuring that Planned Parenthood keeps getting those tax payer dollars. The Lobbyists, now takes their cut from the money and uses the remainder for donations to legislators. The Legislators put it in there re-election fund and eventually use it get re-elected. Ultimately, this practice creates a direct conflict of interest for the legislators, who if ethical, should refuse the funds. Now I can hear all of you liberals grinding your teeth and thinking to yourself that I’m just an anti-abortionist and that I’m as disingenuous as Sen. Foley, right?

So let’s look at one more possible example. Let’s say tax payers dollars are being used to fund a Christian School that just happened to be employing their own Lobbyist who in turn was using the money to help keep politicians that support the program in office. The hail of criticism from the left would be unrelenting. And you would probably hear the same ‘opponents’ for the Foley plan arguing that we shouldn’t be depriving our inner city schools of those valuable education dollars. The argument would be just as contrived and back door and Sen. Foley is accused of being because what they would ultimately be arguing is that some of the money would eventually find its way into the church coffers.

Ultimately, the only way to resolve this issue is to prohibit any organization that receives any tax payer funds from providing a single dollar in contribution to politicians. I am not saying that they can’t lobby and express their concerns. That is pure freedom of speech and is an integral part of our government. They just can’t do it with even a cent of our collective funds because it is nearly impossible to track every cent and how it is individually spent. This will go not only for abortion clinics, but farmers receiving subsidies or the NRA who might want the government to fund one of their youth education programs. My final point is short. People do have the right to restrict tax payer dollars to any group they choose. There is no such thing as an entitlement to tax dollars. If we say that we as a majority of citizens don’t want funds to go to abortion clinics, the NRA, school lunch programs or to make pornography more accessible to the blind, we don’t have to do it. Period. So get over it.