March 4, 2008 | Volume 10  | Issue 10|

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"Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security." ---William F. Buckley, Jr.

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Pollock'$ Contribution
Source: LUBA Tales from the Parish Line, 3-4-07

 One of the wealthiest men in North America, Louisianian Oliver Pollock's contribution to the American Revolution was the nation's single largest. He also used his influence to convince the Spanish to drive the English out of Baton Rouge. And when his money ran out, he pledged his credit to the limit to furnish the Americans with urgently needed supplies. Ten years after America won its independence, he proudly received his citizenship. The town of Pollock, Louisiana, was named for the man who invented the dollar sign ($) and, by today's standards, gave nearly $322 million dollars to the cause of freedom.

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Poverty's Cause
Source: Heritage Foundation, 3-4-08

A leading national authority on poverty says the so-called anti-poverty proposals unveiled yesterday by [Presidential Candidate] Hillary Clinton ...would further expand the welfare state.  Senator Clinton (D-New York) says the goal of her plan is to cut child poverty in half over the next 12 years by implementing universal pre-kindergarten programs and allowing children to begin the Head Start program earlier. Under her estimated $6-billion-a-year proposal, school breakfast programs would be universal in low-income neighborhoods and schools would be barred from serving junk food. Robert Rector, senior research fellow on welfare and family issues at the Heritage Foundation, says Clinton refuses to acknowledge the two primary causes of child poverty -- out-of-wedlock births, and parents living on welfare instead of working. "She wants to ...put the responsibility on the U.S. taxpayer, who already spends about $450 billion a year fighting poverty," says Rector, "while [at the same time] specifically avoiding the issue of changing the behaviors that are the cause of poverty." Rector cites statistics indicating that 38 percent of children born in the U.S. are born outside of marriage, without a father in the home; and among blacks, 69 percent. "That is the overwhelming single, strongest cause of poverty," he states.