Paying for Other People's Politics; D. Bandow

The beneficiaries of federal largesse read like a Who's Who of advocates of big gov ernment. For instance, labor unions receive millions of dollars annually in grants between mid-1993 and mid-1994 the Team sters collected $3.5 million and the AFL CIO pocketed $2 million. The American Bar Association grabbed $2.2 million over the same period. The Child Welfare League of America received $260,000; the Environ mental Defense Fund collected $515,000. The National Council of Senior Citizens, which gets an incredible 96 percent of its revenues from Uncle Sam, grabbed $71.5 million, while the AARP, the prime lobbying Mr. Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the author o/The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology (Transaction). by Doug Bandow force behind cash-consuming, bankruptcy headed Social Security, collected $73.7 mil lion. Other beneficiaries include the League of Women Voters, Planned Parenthood, Families USA, World Wildlife Fund, Con sumer Federation of America, American Nurses Association, United Auto Workers, and AFSCME.

Virtually every department and agency in government contributes its share to the plunder: Labor, Education, Health and Hu man Services, Interior, EPA, and more. One of the most abusive bureaucracies is the Legal Services Corporation (LSC), which, in the name of representing the poor, has used taxpayer funds to oppose state and federal initiatives to cut spending, trim reg ulations, and reduce taxes. Americans are paying twice-first for LSC grants, and second for the bigger government promoted by LSC grantees. Even the theoretically best of congres sional intentions is often perverted by fed eral grantors and activist grantees. For in stance, in the name of preventing alcohol abuse the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), has used public funds to promote media and political cam paigns for higher alcohol excise taxes, re strictions on advertising, and destruction of private billboards. At times officials appear to have skirted the ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying, violating the spirit if not the letter of existing law.

According to CSAP, its programs "are 652 designed to help eliminate or reduce alco hol, tobacco, and other drug problems in our society. " Few could disagree with such a goal in theory. In practice, however, CSAP is interested in far more than sub stance abuse. All too often the agency has interpreted its mission-through its grant process, research support, organizational activities, and public pronouncements-as organizing local groups to attack people's drinking preferences. For instance, CSAP has lavished federal largesse on the Marin Institute. The Insti tute does far more than discourage problem drinking. The organization explains that "effective prevention must incorporate principles of social justice and a special focus on populations that have been tradi tionally disenfranchised" and emphasizes that it develops "new resources and strat egies that are on the forefront of the pre vention field and that do not shrink from controversy. " Similarly, Institute Senior Fellow James Mosher has written that' 'the new alcohol policy movement offers the entire public health field the opportunity to reach new constituencies." This approach, he adds, "provides the means to build a coalition for broad social change in regard to health policy. "

Politics is not merely a byproduct of CSAP grants to the Marin Institute, which promotes state and national networks of community activists and exhorts them to take political action. Politics often appears to be the agency's goal. CSAP provided nearly one million dollars between 1990and 1993for the Marin Institute' s Youth Alcohol Environment On-Line Information Project. This federally-subsidized "media advoca cy" project, explained the Institute's grant proposal, "tries to reframe health issues to focus on industry practices as a primary problem, exposing them as exploitive and unethical. " Indeed, the Institute stated that this project would have been useful in han dling past queries from local "alcohol con trol activists" about such issues as the industry's response to activists' positions, industrial ownership patterns, the back ground of industry spokesmen, industry 653 promotional expenditures, and likely indus try arguments. These sorts of questions have nothing to do with health concerns or substance abuse; rather, they involve polit ical attacks on the alcohol industry and the very idea of social drinking.

The University Research Corporation (URC) of Bethesda, Maryland, another agency grantee, put together a set of' 'media advocacy case studies" at CSAP's behest. The report highlighted activists' use of the media in "reducing the presence of alcohol and tobacco advertising and sales in their neighborhoods." CSAP's underlying polit ical agenda was clear: local activists' 'had to take on government and business. In some cases, they changed or created city and local ordinances. In other cases, they changed the policies and practices of advertising com panies, stores, and even manufacturers." Among the examples compiled at tax payer expense was a San Diego campaign, involving ACT UP, among other gay groups, to link alcohol with the transmission of AIDS, increase alcohol excise taxes, expand condom availability, and eliminate advertising tying alcohol to sex. The report quotes one local activist who explained that: "We need sex, kids, gays, motion, emotion, and real university researchers." CSAP has also promoted a group of so-called guerrilla artists with an unprintable name who deface private billboards that feature alcohol ad vertising. The group, reported CSAP, "did not fear taking on corporate America."

Since 1989 the group has illegally altered 41 billboards, painting their own messages. CSAP went on to list the' 'lessons learned," including that "sensationalism makes news" and "even with a sensational event, careful planning is necessary." Local groups are free to attack the alcohol industry, of course. But why is the federal government using tax money to promote such activities? In the name of restraining substance abuse, political activists, aided by the federal government, are lobbying local officials to interfere with responsible drink ing by the vast majority of Americans-and taxpayers. CSAP also touts the importance of media 654 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1995 advocacy training for its own staffers and local activists. The agency assists political activists in other ways. For instance, CSAP helped develop and promote the National Prevention League (recently renamed the National Drug Prevention League). Federal money has also been used to assist activists in attending NDPL functions, even though the League considers itself to be a "super group" advocacy organization that, among other things, lobbies Congress on CSAP's behalf. According to Dr. Michael Dana, CSAP's Director of the Office of Intergov ernmental and External Affairs, the NDPL "will create mechanisms to discuss ways to educate the appropriate individuals, to make the case that prevention is the way to have an effect on drug use over the long haul." Among the "appropriate individu als" are congressmen and congresswomen.