Would You Give Away Your Fortune...To Be Remembered As A Patriot?
A dozen or so American men have a net worth approaching $50 billion; several have even more. With one act of generosity, one of them could begin to erase the three original sins of American history.
These three wrongs, lingering in the background, remind us of how far from ideal our history is: our broken treaties with native Americans, the enslavement of African Americans, and the necessary, anti-democratic compromise made when founding our nation. All three could be addressed, in good faith, with $50 billion.
To begin with, the third major wrong we mention, the anti-democratic compromise at our nation's founding, is a bit hard to grasp, but can be summed up this way: Wyoming's 580,000-odd residents send two of their number to the US Senate, as do California's 40,000,000-odd voters. This means our 'democracy' sees one person's vote having as much power as 74 voters in a different state.
The suffering of Native and African Americans, by contrast, is easily understood.
With those three wrongs in mind, a mega-billionaire could spend his $50 billion on retirement housing for Native and African Americans. If placed strategically, this housing would attract Native and African American voters to relocate to states where a hundred thousand or so new voters would turn a reliably one-sided politics into something more competitive. This would not only address the need for housing and old age comfort in general (a minor step, yet a step nonetheless), but would change the political makeup of the relevant states, effectively moving them from being reliably Republican senate seats to instead being toss-up contests.
This, alone, wouldn't remove the stain of a 74-to-1 vote difference, but it would be a practical way to patch the effect of that disparity. This is because, at present, our country's large state/small state differential tends to favor the Republican party, and affects not only the Senate, but the Presidency as well, since our electoral college system awards electors based on a state's total (House plus Senate) delegation. Though there are large Republican states (Texas) and small Democratic states (Vermont), they tend to be the exception. This imbalance can be easily grasped if one looks at a list of states with less than 3 million inhabitants:
Population
Listed in descending population order, our country's smaller states and their traditional lean:
Mississippi (R)
Arkansas (R)
Utah (R)
Kansas (R)
Nevada (Mix)
New Mexico (D)
Nebraska (R)
West Virginia (R)
Idaho (R)
Hawaii (D)
Maine (Mix)
New Hampshire (Mix)
Rhode Island (D)
Montana (R)
Delaware (D)
South Dakota (R)
Alaska (R)
North Dakota (R)
Vermont (D)
Wyoming (R)
This built-in edge means Republicans start with something like a 10-seat advantage in the Senate. In general terms, all it would take to fix this imbalance is for two or three states to change from R to D, or for five reliably Republican states to become toss ups. And in a limited way, that's what we're describing here.
But would an additional 100,000 voters in states like South Dakota and Mississippi really do the trick? It might. Both groups tend to vote Democratic, so a population increase of 150,000 might see an additional net 100,000 Democratic voters. Here are recent numbers for party strength in both SD and MS:
* Registration by Party:
SD: R: 251,468; D: 156,316 Neither: 121,844
MS: R: 44%; D: 42% (estimate)
* 2016 Presidential election results:
SD: R: 227,721; D: 117,458; Libertarian: 20,845
MS: R: 700,714; D: 485,131
* Recent Senate election results:
SD: D: 237,835 R: 142,766 (2008)
SD: R: 140,741 D: 82,456 Independent: 47,741 (2014)
MS: R: 709,626; D: 503,467 (2012)
MS: R: 683,409 D: 560,064 (2008)
It would appear that South Dakota represents a much easier lift than does Mississippi. Not only is party registration only about 100,000 apart, but the 2016 presidential election saw a mere 110,000 gap. And, as recently as 2008, South Dakota overwhelmingly elected a middle-of-the-road Democrat to the Senate.
Mississippi, meanwhile, saw a 215,000 vote difference in the 2016 presidential election. In addition, the most recent senate contest saw a gap of 206,000. But, in 2012, the presidential election saw a difference of only 148,000, and the 2008 contest saw a margin of only 123,000.
Now that we've seen the effect on party balance, let's look at location, then cost, then we'll describe our plan's specifics.
Location
Because we're addressing three major failings in our past, there are bound to be compromises among our objectives. We aren't suggesting that all $50 billion be spent on one or another community, nor that all our focus be on ameliorating the small state / large state imbalance; after all, there are aggrieved communities in traditionally Democratic states, too.
A prime example: Native Hawaiians. Their monarchy was overthrown by American business interests in the late 19th century. They are aggrieved; but, Hawaii is an overwhelmingly Democratic state.
There are also large African American populations in traditionally Democratic urban areas in states like Michigan, Illinois, New York, Maryland, etc.
A reasonable compromise might involve 100,000 housing units, each, for South Dakota and Mississippi, plus another 5,000 each for Native Americans in Arizona and Hawaii, and 5,000 each in cities like Detroit, New Orleans, Baltimore, Atlanta, Memphis and Milwaukee.
Cost
If we're assuming that our senior housing would be provided free of charge, and that modest, single-family condos be built for this purpose, we can note that most smaller new homes in SD and MS are in the $150-250,000 range (in some urban areas like Detroit and New Orleans existing housing could possibly be used). And, since we're buying materials in bulk, clustering units, and building only modestly sized structures, let's say the average price would be $150,000. With about half the relocating population married, let's say, and with some having grown children and/or parents living with them, that would mean spending about $15 billion per 100,000 units. For all 240,000 units, our price would be about $36 billion.
There'd be site planning costs, plus dining, social, and recreation facilities, that would involve support and maintenance workers, and would eat up the remaining $14 billion endowment. In South Dakota, the biggest additional cost would likely be water (perhaps water recycling plants would be needed). In Mississippi, land would likely be more expensive.
Additional Details
Normally, housing is put up for sale, and there's no requirement that the buyer be of one race or another. Since housing is not being sold in our case, this becomes less of a problem. But how to equitably distribute a free commodity? One solution would be to turn distribution over to a tribal council, in the case of SD, and possibly traditionally black churches, in the case of Mississippi. These organizations would be asked to recruit modern-day 'pioneers' from around the country, who could both prove the relevant ancestry (the genealogical details could be left up to the organizations in question) and play a part in redeeming American history.
Community size would have to be thought through. Too large, and the load on local roads, for example, might be too much. Too small, and the aggregate need for support/maintenance might be too great. Of course available acreage would tend to keep size in check, but perhaps 5,000 per site, the size of a small town, might be possible. If land were available, sites could be clustered, 2-3 per location, so as to minimize support/maintenance. So, perhaps a dozen locations, with several sites of approximately 5,000 population (about 3,000 homes) within 5-10 minutes of each other.
Perhaps a fleet of electric buses could provide on-demand shuttle service to shops and nearby towns.
If there were monies available, investments in wind--for SD, and solar--for MS, could provide residents their power needs (with batteries for backup storage).
For those relying solely on Social Security, not having bills for housing, food, transportation, and electricity would mean an affordable early retirement.
Would there be 360,000 'pioneers' wanting this deal? Almost certainly, even if the relevant organization retained actual ownership, and passed on the property to new residents once a pioneer moved on.
Would the host states agree to the population influx? Because our pioneers would be settling in states with large Native and Black populations (9% and 38%, respectively), nearby communities would likely welcome the inevitable economic boom, not to mention the cultural kinship. The states' residents outside the impacted areas would be a different matter. Additional services would be required for such large increases in population, and although taxes (especially the initial revenues generated during construction) would pay for some of these, there would likely be a gap, as many, though perhaps not most, of those choosing to be pioneers would be of limited means. But, the promise of thousands of jobs in the impacted areas (areas of chronically high unemployment--over 10% in places) would probably win out.
Would our plan achieve its objectives? Here are three possible scenarios:
Pessimistic: No donor steps forward.
Likely: Assuming a donor does appear, and our plan does play out, the practical political effect would be something like a split senate delegation for each state (not all pioneers would vote, let alone vote for a single party, though Native and African Americans, nationally, voted Democratic at 76% and 89% rates, respectively, in 2016), meaning each state would merely be a 'toss-up', rather than seats being reliably Republican. That's like changing the Senate's small-state imbalance of seats from 24-10 to perhaps 22-12. Not bad.
Optimistic: Addressing our nation's original sins would result in a snowball effect:
* corporate sponsorships would add to project quality
* South Dakota and Mississippi would experience dramatic economic booms
* unemployment would be significantly reduced in nearby locations
* an additional influx of job seekers, family members and cultural affiliates would nearly triple the original population increase, with a total population boost of 400,000 per state (perhaps a net swing of 250,000 votes), meaning the Senate's small-state seat imbalance is instead 20-14.
Actually, our pessimistic case may be the most likely to achieve our objectives. That's because our plan could instead be part of a bi-partisan economic stimulus package. It has the obvious appeal of righting national wrongs in a tentative and preliminary way; and, it also has the practical appeal of perhaps halving the unemployment rate in Republican-led, rural states with shockingly high joblessness. And because it's always hard to separate men from their money, there may be no other way to effect what we might call Inspired Retirement.
Update (8/8/18): Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones magazine has something of a pet peeve regarding the neediest generations. Here he compares income growth over the past few decades with age group. The elderly have gained the most. And here he debunks an article in the New York Times that focused on elderly bankruptcies (he shows that there has been no rise over the past decade or so).
Point taken. So, perhaps instead of senior housing, our donor would instead do well to build houses for young families. Except, of course, for the jobs problem. Those who've retired don't need jobs. Instead, they require workers to care for their needs = jobs. Young families would love to move into a new home, but they'd need a job in order to even think of moving.
Update (11/7/18): Our latest election was a splash of cold water to the face--in terms of our Inspired Retirement proposal. That's because a house of representatives and senate will likely be needed in order for the federal government to finance our project. So, for the foreseeable future, it's up to individual billionaires.
It would take puzzled news reports of a major land purchase in South Dakota and/or Mississippi to signal a green light for this project. We'd, of course, know what was happening.
Update: 1/20/21: I revise this idea:
* A pilot program for Alaska, where R/D vote difference in 2020 was just 36K
* New housing in existing towns/cities, rather than new towns
* Gradual expenditures (pilot program in Alaska), rather than lump sum (smaller price tag)
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