Stay up-to-date on the companies, people and issues that impact businesses in Syracuse, Central New York and beyond.
MV Heart Institute marks 15th year
UTICA — The Mohawk Valley Heart Institute (MVHI) is celebrating its 15th anniversary of cardiac services. The first open-heart surgery was performed at the institute
Dominick Carbone nominated for national auto award
UTICA — Dominick Carbone, director of the Carbone Auto Group, is a nominee for the 2013 TIME Dealer of the Year award. Carbone is one
Leadership Mohawk Valley program expands staff, offerings
MARCY — Over the past several years, Leadership Mohawk Valley (LMV) has grown its class sizes, its staff size, and now, it hopes to expand
Career day highlights manufacturing jobs in Central New York
DeWITT — The third annual Manufacturing Careers Day aimed to provide awareness of manufacturing job opportunities in Central New York to young people, organizers say. The event was held Oct. 5 at Inficon’s DeWitt location and featured a tour of the company’s facilities and a roundtable discussion with a representative from the National Association for
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DeWITT — The third annual Manufacturing Careers Day aimed to provide awareness of manufacturing job opportunities in Central New York to young people, organizers say.
The event was held Oct. 5 at Inficon’s DeWitt location and featured a tour of the company’s facilities and a roundtable discussion with a representative from the National Association for Manufacturing (NAM), according to a news release. Partners for Education and Business, Inc. (PEB), an affiliate of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY), organized the event.
More than 100 area high school and community college students attended.
“We as a region have a plethora of talent, opportunity, and potential workforce that can remain here in Central New York and add to our economic development,” MACNY President Randy Wolken said in a news release.
Inficon, based in Switzerland, produces high-tech instrumentation, sensors, and process-control software. The firm’s products are used in manufacturing devices like smartphones, flat-screen TVs, and even solar cells.
The company serves the environmental protection and emergency-response markets as well. Its systems can monitor and analyze air and water, for example, and detect contaminants and dangerous substances.
The firm’s largest facility is in DeWitt, where it employs 250 people, according to the company. Worldwide, Inficon employs 850, including 320 in the United States.
“There are 600,000 manufacturing jobs going unfilled today because of a skills gap between employers’ needs and the skills available in the applicant pool,” Brent Weil, NAM senior vice president, said in the release.
Weil spoke during the career day event.
PEB aims to address workforce-preparation issues and improve career education and skill development.
Contact Imbert at news@tmvbj.com
Benefit corporations: Redefining success in business
ITHACA — “I want to be the Patagonia of the technology industry,” says Elisa Miller-Out, CEO of Singlebrook Technology, Inc. in Ithaca. Patagonia makes outdoor clothing and gear and is a long-term supporter of the environmental movement. Singlebrook Technology is a Web and mobile-development firm with 13 employees located at 119 S. Cayuga St. in
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ITHACA — “I want to be the Patagonia of the technology industry,” says Elisa Miller-Out, CEO of Singlebrook Technology, Inc. in Ithaca.
Patagonia makes outdoor clothing and gear and is a long-term supporter of the environmental movement. Singlebrook Technology is a Web and mobile-development firm with 13 employees located at 119 S. Cayuga St. in Ithaca.
This year, Miller-Out registered her company as a benefit corporation, a hybrid that bridges the legal gap that separates for-profit companies from not-for-profit companies. According to Allen Bromberger, a partner in the New York City law firm of Perlman + Perlman, LLP and a specialist in hybrid legal transactions, “… a benefit corporation is a legally distinct type of business corporation that is committed to accomplishing one or more social or public purposes.” (Stanford Social Innovation/Spring 2011.)
“Benefit corporations are the same as traditional corporations, except for three things,” says Miller-Out. They must [first] create a material and positive impact on society and the environment … [Second], the corporation is accountable to a variety of stakeholders, including stockholders, employees, vendors, and their employees, customers, the community, and the environment… [And third], benefit companies must ensure transparency by reporting annually on their social and environmental performance.” Miller-Out adds that her company is taxed the same as any for-profit entity.
Evolution of the benefit corporation
The first benefit-corporation law was passed in Maryland in April 2010 and already 11 states have adopted legislation authorizing the legal structure. Another 16 states are currently considering legislation. The New York State legislature passed the benefit-corporation law on Oct. 13, 2011, and the legislative act became law on Feb. 2 of this year. Cabot Creamery, Patagonia, Dansko, Cascade Engineering, and Seventh Generation are just a few of the 640-plus benefit companies representing 60 industries in 15 countries. Total annual sales of these benefit corporations is $4.2 billion, according to the B Lab website (www.bcorporation.net). B Lab describes itself as “a nonprofit organization dedicated to using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.” Election of benefit-corporation status is voluntary, and states incur no expense in offering the option.
Bromberger writes that the dilemma for social entrepreneurs is that “… under traditional corporate jurisprudence, a [for-profit] corporation is formed to benefit its shareholders by producing profits … what is sometimes referred to as ‘shareholder primacy’… Courts have historically viewed the interests of shareholders in primarily economic terms … [T]he rule is almost completely the opposite for nonprofit corporations … [which] are formed for the purpose of accomplishing a ‘mission.’”
For those companies that want to redefine business success, the benefit corporation changes the fiduciary responsibility of the firm’s board of directors, who may now consider non-financial interests when making decisions. The legal innovation protects the company’s officers and directors against lawsuits by shareholders focused only on maximizing profit or the sale price.
Benefits of B Corps
Is there a motivation to establish a benefit corporation other than a commitment to the sustainable-business movement or the environment? “Yes,” says Miller-Out. “Because of my corporate status, I am able to buy supplies from certain vendors at special prices only offered to nonprofits. I also have access to ‘social-capital’ funds, as a potential source of future investment. (It is estimated that 10 percent of all U.S. assets under management are in socially responsible funds.) [Further], by establishing ourselves as a socially responsible company, we are branding our image both in the minds of our customers and of our employees who care deeply about society and the environment. [Finally,] benefit corporations readily network with each other to share ideas and values that help to strengthen their companies and benchmark performance.”
Other advantages not mentioned by the Singlebrook Technology CEO are consideration by universities such as Yale, which forgive student loans to their MBAs who work for benefit corporations after graduation. Also, some benefit corporations find that they generate favorable publicity through their incorporation.
Singlebrook Technology not only incorporated as a benefit corporation but also went on to acquire a certification by B Lab, which is based in the Philadelphia area. While benefit corporations are not required by statute to be certified, B Lab, as early as 2007, initiated a certification process for companies which wanted to distinguish themselves in the marketplace by establishing third-party standards for social and environmental performance. B Lab’s designation as a B-Corp is similar in concept to products certified as fair trade, organic, and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
In 2011, B Lab launched a new service that grades companies not on their risk/return but on their social and environmental impact. According to the B Lab website, the Global Impact Investing Ratings System (GIIRS) uses a ratings-and-analytics approach analogous to Morningstar investment rankings and the S&P credit-risk ratings. The tool is designed to help change investor behavior by creating ratings in 15 sub-categories and key-performance indicators relevant to the company’s industry, geography, size, and social mission. The methodology is governed by an independent standards board.
For those corporate officers and directors traditionally stymied by the legal options either to make money or to make a difference, the benefit corporation combines profit and mission to create a third option designed to harness the power of the private sector in order to create public benefit.
Miller-Out, a self-described serial entrepreneur who has already created three businesses in her young career, says that “… the benefit corporation is a grass-roots movement capable of changing the business world.” She sees “… accelerating consumer and investor demand for companies that put purpose, not profit, at the center of their business model.”
Only time will tell whether benefit corporations are a fad or the new model for redefining business success.
Contact Poltenson at
npoltenson@cnybj.com
Netti Consulting Services launches privacy and security division
DeWITT — A consulting firm based in DeWitt has formed a new division to help physicians shore up their privacy and security practices. Netti Consulting Services, headquartered at 6443 Ridings Road, is calling its new division the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group. The division will specialize in security assessments, privacy assessments, and breach assessments for medical
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DeWITT — A consulting firm based in DeWitt has formed a new division to help physicians shore up their privacy and security practices.
Netti Consulting Services, headquartered at 6443 Ridings Road, is calling its new division the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group. The division will specialize in security assessments, privacy assessments, and breach assessments for medical practices and hospitals as they adopt and use electronic health records.
The new group spawned from Netti Consulting’s original line of business, which is helping physicians adopt electronic health records and utilize them in a way that qualifies for federal reimbursements. In order to qualify for reimbursements under an initiative known as the Medicare EHR Incentive Program, for example, practices have to meet certain “meaningful use” measurements.
“What kept sticking out is the fact that this particular security-risk analysis, measure 15, was not particularly understood by the practices,” says John Netti, who founded his consulting firm in October 2011. “And then, as we started looking at larger organizations, we realized it really wasn’t a function just of the smaller practices.”
The consulting firm found that many medical practices and hospitals were concerned about meeting the privacy and security requirements. Only large hospitals, which often employ their own security officers, don’t seem very interested in outside help, according to Netti. It’s an important issue, as medical providers could be audited by the federal government, he adds.
That led the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group to target a wider range of medical organizations than Netti Consulting does in its other line of business. The new division will consult for large practices and smaller hospitals, while Netti Consulting launched last year with a goal of serving medical practices with about five doctors. Regardless of its focus, Netti Consulting and its new division will work with medical groups and hospitals of all sizes, Netti says.
The Mountain Creek HIPAA Group could also help Netti Consulting branch out beyond the upstate New York market. Most of the consulting firm’s work to date has taken place Upstate, and the new group will probably follow that footprint when it launches, Netti says. But he sees concern about electronic health records’ security and privacy as a national trend.
“This is not going to be limited,” Netti says. “We are going to go wherever it takes us. As a small business, you have to look at everything.”
The small business has grown from a one-man consulting firm at its founding last year to a firm with nine consultants, including Netti. All of the firm’s new consultants work as independent contractors.
The firm could double its revenue in its second year if the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group gains traction in the market, Netti says. He declined to share specific revenue totals, though. He also wouldn’t offer hiring projections, saying only that he hopes to continue to add consultants.
Netti Consulting is headquartered in suite 130 at 6443 Ridings Road in DeWitt. E.F. Thresh, Inc. owns that building, according to Onondaga County Office of Real Property Tax Services records. Netti Consulting leases about 320 square feet in the building.
Its new division meets a need that’s springing up as electronic medical records increase the amount of information and availability of information, according to Regina Blakeslee, a consultant in the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group. For instance, a health-care worker might want to take home a laptop carrying patient data in order to finish a report, she says.
“That’s a vulnerability,” Blakeslee says. “We need to go in there and give them a shot in the arm and say that you need to start taking this seriously and start training your staff. You need to have a policy that you shouldn’t be taking that laptop home. If you do want to work from home, set up a VPN and sign in remotely and go through the proper channels.”
Few firms of Netti Consulting’s size have set up divisions dealing explicitly with privacy and security, according to Keith Gutchess, another consultant in the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group.
“There’s maybe a couple dozen small shops out there, or maybe the big guys, accounting firms like KPMG,” he says. “For Syracuse, this is a pretty cool service that’s sprouting up.”
Blakeslee, Gutchess, and Netti work in the Mountain Creek HIPAA Group. And Netti Consulting has another consultant focused on privacy and security in smaller medical practices.
The new group’s services include physical walk-throughs of health-care organizations, checks of technical safeguards, and reviews of management, policy, procedure, privacy, and security.
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
Watertown Audiology, P.C. listens to rising patient demand
WATERTOWN — Watertown Audiology, P. C. has cranked up its efforts to meet rising patient demand in the last year. The hearing-care provider invested in both equipment and a second audiologist. It added a new sound booth at its office at 53-59 Public Square in Watertown, purchased new videonystagmography equipment, and acquired otoacoustic-emissions equipment. The
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WATERTOWN — Watertown Audiology, P. C. has cranked up its efforts to meet rising patient demand in the last year.
The hearing-care provider invested in both equipment and a second audiologist. It added a new sound booth at its office at 53-59 Public Square in Watertown, purchased new videonystagmography equipment, and acquired otoacoustic-emissions equipment.
The practice added the new sound booth and otoacoustic-emissions equipment in June. It added the videonystagmography equipment in January 2012.
Otoacoustic-emissions equipment uses a small microphone to measure whether the outer hair cells in the inner ear function. Providers mostly use it in tests for infants and children.
Videonystagmography testing evaluates a patient’s balance system. It determines whether vertigo, dizziness, and balance problems stem from inner-ear problems.
The new equipment was necessary because of rising patient demand, according to Watertown Audiology’s president and owner, Sarah Grimshaw-Sugden. Few providers offer hearing and hearing-aid care in Watertown Audiology’s coverage areas of Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, and Oswego counties, she adds.
“There are a lot of people with vertigo,” she says. “There aren’t a lot of audiologists up in this area.”
Watertown Audiology spent about $50,000 to acquire the sound booth (its second) and equipment, Grimshaw-Sugden says. The sound booth and otoacoustic-emissions equipment totaled $30,000, and the videonystagmography equipment tallied $20,000. The practice funded the acquisitions with financing from Watertown Savings Bank.
Installing the new sound booth required expanding the practice’s footprint by about 150 square feet. It leases about 2,000 square feet from the Woodruff Professional Group, according to Grimshaw-Sugden.
The second sound booth was necessary because Watertown Audiology hired a new audiologist, Sarah Fritz Brady, in July. Brady has experience in adult hearing testing, pediatric hearing testing, hearing-aid fitting, hearing-aid management, vestibular testing, and newborn hearing screening, along with tinnitus evaluations, dizziness testing, and balance testing. She previously worked in Columbus, Ga.
Brady’s addition to Watertown Audiology will help the practice serve its growing patient base and serve them quickly, according to Grimshaw-Sugden. It increased the number of patients the practice can see to 24 or more per day.
“When I was by myself, I was seeing 12 to 16 patients a day, which was difficult,” Grimshaw-Sugden says. “This has been needed for a long time. It’s just hard to find someone.”
Grimshaw-Sugden declined to share revenue totals for Watertown Audiology. She hopes the practice grows its revenue by 10 percent in 2012, which she says would be on par with recent years’ increases.
Watertown Audiology employs six people full time and two people part time. In the past year, it has added two new full-time positions, including Brady’s, as well as a part-time position.
Grimshaw-Sugden would eventually like to build a standalone facility to hold her practice. Owning its own building would give the practice more space and offer it more freedom to expand as needed, she says.
“I’m on the second floor of the Woodruff Professional Building, which has been a great place, and everybody in the building has been wonderful,” she says. “But sometime I’d probably like to expand. There’s no firm plan, but we’ve definitely been talking about it.”
The new building would likely be between 2,500 square feet and 3,000 square feet, Grimshaw-Sugden says, declining to disclose possible locations for the facility or a target date for construction. She wants to stay in Watertown, she adds.
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
Robert Wood Johnson grant to fuel spread of joint nurse-training model
SYRACUSE — A joint nurse-training program pioneered by Syracuse’s St. Joseph’s College of Nursing and Le Moyne College is becoming a model for institutions across the state because of a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The program, known as the Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing program, will be spread to other nursing schools
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SYRACUSE — A joint nurse-training program pioneered by Syracuse’s St. Joseph’s College of Nursing and Le Moyne College is becoming a model for institutions across the state because of a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The program, known as the Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing program, will be spread to other nursing schools using funding from the Princeton, N.J.–based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation granted $300,000 over two years to the cause and could renew its funding for an additional two years and $300,000.
The Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing program has students earn both associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing in four years. It also lets students sit for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses after three years.
St. Joseph’s and Le Moyne launched the program in 2005.
“It really came about because we wanted youth,” says Marianne Markowitz, dean of St. Joseph’s College of Nursing, which is located at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center and offers associate degrees in nursing.
“The youth were having difficulty doing my program in two years,” Markowitz continues. “They were taking three. We realized they needed that first year to get acclimated to college.”
St. Joseph’s and Le Moyne structured the joint nurse-training program to have students live on Le Moyne’s campus for four years. Students spend their first year at Le Moyne taking classes, then commute to St. Joseph’s for their middle two years to earn their associate degrees. They can take the National Council Licensure Examination after their third year, before returning to class at Le Moyne in their fourth year to earn their bachelor’s degrees.
That program model has helped retain students and boosted their success on the National Council Licensure Examination, according to Markowitz. In 2011, 96 percent of Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing program students passed the exam on their first attempt, she says. That compares to a statewide average of 84.7 percent of students coming out of associate-degree programs who passed the test on their first try that year.
All of the Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing students passed the test on their second try in 2011, Markowitz adds. About 50 students enter the joint program between St. Joseph’s and Le Moyne each year, she says.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant will help spread the joint nurse-training program’s model by funding coordination between schools that are already working to follow it. And the grant will give those schools a stipend for expenses like marketing, according to Susan Bastable, chair of the Department of Nursing at Le Moyne.
“[Markowitz] and I are going to serve as consultants and travel around the state, individually visiting programs,” Bastable says. “The purpose in doing so is to give them best practices. We didn’t struggle when starting the program, but we learned as we went along. Why not share that knowledge? We learned a lot of really good things to make sure that the student is really successful.”
Currently, 18 institutions are following the joint nurse-training model, including St. Joseph’s and Le Moyne. But that number could be on the rise.
That’s because some of the grant funding is earmarked for outreach to nursing schools that do not take part in a joint-training program. Bastable has identified about eight more schools that would be good candidates to establish their own dual-degree partnership programs, she says.
Data collection will also be funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant. The Foundation of New York State Nurses, a not-for-profit organization that attempts to increase public knowledge of nursing, is slated to set up a data repository to collect information from schools with joint nurse-training programs.
The Foundation of New York State Nurses is administering the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding. Money will be channeled through the New York State Future of Nursing Action Coalition.
Bastable says that although schools are modeling their programs after the one set up between St. Joseph’s and Le Moyne, they aren’t going to duplicate it.
“The partners, the institutions, they may encounter things we haven’t,” she says. “We felt that others could replicate, not necessarily duplicate like a cookie cutter.”
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
Highfield answers energy company’s call with expansion
SYRACUSE — A Syracuse–based call-center firm is lined up for growth over the next several months thanks to a new contract with an energy company. Highfield Call Centers, based at 807 N. Salina St. in Syracuse, has signed a contract with a Canadian firm, Superior Plus Corp. (TSX: SPB), and its upstate New York arm,
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SYRACUSE — A Syracuse–based call-center firm is lined up for growth over the next several months thanks to a new contract with an energy company.
Highfield Call Centers, based at 807 N. Salina St. in Syracuse, has signed a contract with a Canadian firm, Superior Plus Corp. (TSX: SPB), and its upstate New York arm, Griffith Energy, which is based in Brighton, outside Rochester. The Syracuse company will handle after-hours call-center services for customers in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states as well as crisis overflow on weekends. Highfield will also probably take on daytime support services in the future.
“We’re in the early conversion, starting to fulfill the responsibilities of the contract now,” says Joseph Bonacci, president and CEO of Highfield Call Centers. “We’re really in a growth period, and that’s a good thing.”
Highfield won the contract in June and has already hired eight full-time employees to work on it. The company plans to hire eight to 10 more people in the next month. And it expects to continue to hire until it has added a total of about 50 people to work on its new contract, according to Bonacci. Those employees will come on board by early 2013, he says.
They will be in addition to 65 people who already work for Highfield. The company has other call-center contracts, including one with the pharmaceutical giant Merck (NYSE: MRK).
The new employees working on the contract with Superior Plus and Griffith Energy will be in 3,500 square feet of newly leased space at 5990 Drott Drive in DeWitt. Highfield leased that location from Gregory Rinaldi, who owns it, according to records from Onondaga County’s Office of Real Property Tax Services.
Highfield spent about $50,000 of its operating cash to ready the new space to hold a call center. Kingsfort Builders, Inc. of DeWitt performed the work, according to Bonacci.
“You have to retrofit it for technology,” he says. “Phone systems, servers, wireless, televisions, computers, and then you also have a lot of electrical work that needs to be done. And you also have the interior-type work, workstations.”
In addition to the new location on Drott Drive, Highfield houses call-center operations for its other contracts at 7222 Fly Road in DeWitt. It leases 6,400 square feet of space there from Frank Magari, Bonacci says.
Most of Highfield’s employees currently work at Fly Road. It also has four employees in its headquarters of 807 N. Salina St., a building Bonacci owns. About 1,500 square feet of the building space is dedicated to the call-center company’s headquarters, he says.
Highfield will cast a wide net as it tries to nearly double in size over the next several months to meet the demands of its Superior Plus and Griffith Energy contract, according to Bonacci. The call-center firm will try to find new employees through classified advertisements in print, online advertising, and word-of-mouth.
“We’re in a business that’s a ramp-up business,” Bonacci says. “All of a sudden, you win another contract, and you have responsibilities. You have to find people, and you have to find people quickly. And you have to find talented people.”
Highfield may need to find even more talented people soon, he adds. The company is attempting to win two more contracts. Bonacci says he can’t be specific about the potential contracts, only divulging that one would be with a local firm and the other would be with a national company.
He does estimate that Highfield would probably need to double its labor force if it lands both deals. That doubling would occur after the Superior Plus and Griffith Energy-related hiring is complete, meaning Highfield’s employment rolls would swell to exceed 200 people.
Bonacci projects 2012 revenue at Highfield will total about $5 million. That’s up from $4.6 million in 2011 and $3.5 million in 2010.
It is too early to predict revenue for 2013, Bonacci adds. But he says the upstate New York area is a perfect place to expand a call-center business.
“This is a reasonable and realistic place to run,” he says. “There is a very good labor force with the universities.”
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
A democracy … can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that point on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy … The American Republic
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A democracy … can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that point on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy … The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s [own] money. — Alexis de Tocqueville (1830s)
There are 47 percent of the [American] people … who are dependent on government, … who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing … That’s an entitlement … These are people who pay no income tax. — Mitt Romney (2012)
Alexis de Tocqueville was clearly prescient, although he didn’t anticipate Congress’s ability to bribe the public with other people’s money. Gov. Romney, who incorrectly conflated those who don’t pay federal-income tax with “dependency,” nevertheless is warning us correctly that America is now approaching a tipping point where government responsibility for funding our national defense, education, interest expense, infrastructure investments, foreign policy, many anti-poverty programs, and other operational concerns will be funded by a minority of the populace. The clear inference is that those who have no skin in the game — soon to be the majority — are inclined to vote for more largesse because they aren’t paying for it.
The dirty secret of dependency that nobody mentions is that we are talking about entitlements for the middle class, which first got hooked on government largesse back in 1935 with the introduction of Social Security. The middle class later benefitted from the introduction of Medicare in 1965. Entitlement was granted to all citizens with workers supporting the programs through mandatory contributions. After eight decades of government distribution to millions of the elderly, Americans are quite comfortable with the concept of government disbursing funds to them as individuals.
What is less apparent is the growth of other entitlement programs for the middle class, which are funded by taxes and not by direct contributions. One that may surprise you is the group of anti-poverty programs. The official definition of poverty is established by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, which determines an annual income figure. In 2010, a single person making less than $11,344 or a family of four with two children making less than $22,113 was considered poor. Congress allows some latitude in its guidelines to account for the differences in incomes and living costs: up to 130 percent of the poverty level for those not disabled and up to 200 percent for those with disabilities.
Government is quietly redefining poverty up? In 2010, the federal government spent $666 billion on anti-poverty programs, an increase in three years of 40 percent after accounting for inflation. The programs cost as much as the defense budget or Social Security, and more than Medicare. (If you add in the states’ contribution, the total U.S. anti-poverty programs consumed nearly $1 trillion of our taxes.) A review of the federal food, health-care, housing, and income-redistribution programs all show a dramatic increase in spending, especially since 2007. Some of it is attributable to the recession and the subsequent stimulus program as well as to modest inflationary pressures. Most, however, is directly attributable to increased enrollment, with more than half of the new enrollees living above the official definition of poverty.
David J. Armor and Sonia Sousa, writing in the Fall 2012 issue of National Affairs, conclude that if the government enforced its own anti-poverty guidelines, federal taxpayers could save nearly $170 billion annually. Of course, another option is to stop calling these programs “anti-poverty” and redefine them as entitlements of the middle class.
Government continues to take a larger portion of our economic output, crowding out the free-enterprise marketplace and those civic, fraternal, charitable, cultural, and religious institutions that build both society and individual character. Our concern should be about the growing numbers of our citizens who are not and need not be dependent concluding that they nevertheless are entitled to government benefits.
Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs, suggests that dependence is pernicious and enervating. “Because not only the poor but the great mass of citizens becomes recipients of benefits in our welfare state, too many people in the middle class come to approach their government as claimants, not as self-governing citizens.”
That brings me to the presidential election on Nov. 6, which will have a profound impact on whether this dependence continues to grow. I absolutely agree with President Obama that this election is about two different visions of America. He sees an ever larger government filling the space between the individual and government, the space we call civil society. In his worldview, individuals should turn increasingly to government for protection against the vagaries of life, and big government should be the driver of the marketplace, replacing the “Social Darwinism” of the private sector. Our citizens should trade their radical individualism for an understanding that things are only built because the preconditions for success were created by the greater society. Ergo, the government must continue to play a bigger role, according to the president’s vision.
In de Tocqueville’s words, the president’s plan is a prescription for the end of the Republic. It denies private initiative and achievement. His view degrades the importance of the family, our religious congregations, civic and fraternal groups, and private charities. Government may be capable of redistributing funds, but it cannot replace a family’s love, friendship, personal ambition, mutual support of your neighbors, love of country, or a desire to give your children and grandchildren more than you have. In short, what we need is a government that protects the space between the individual and the government, not a government that crowds it out through bloat.
This election is about putting limits on government and about a strong middle class that sees itself as self-reliant and not as claimants. The choice couldn’t be clearer.
Norman Poltenson is publisher of The Central New York Business Journal. Contact him at npoltenson@cnybj.com
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