The Dean Of Deception
By Michael P. Tremoglie (12/12/03)
Howard Dean once said, "The biggest lie a politician like me can tell you is that I'm going to solve all your problems...[1]"
Yet solving all the problems is exactly what Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean now says he will do as president. However, deceptive statements by Dean are not unusual. In October 2002, before he became the liberal icon he is now, he addressed the Iowa Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner.
Dean recited his accomplishments to those assembled. He claimed to have fixed healthcare in Vermont, he claimed he cut taxes, and he claimed he cut crime rates.
However, a critical examination of Dean’s claims made to the Iowa audience - something the mainstream media has not done - reveals that he was disingenuous. For example, Dean said he reduced crime rates by increasing the budget for education not the budget for prisons. This theory of crime prevention - build more classrooms than prison cells is a liberal canard.[2] The thesis appeals to liberals who zealously oppose imprisoning criminals - and it appeals to teachers’ unions that benefit from increased spending for education. These are two constituents he wants to which he wants to appeal.
Despite its allure to liberals the correlation between education and criminal behavior is just a theory - one of many criminogenic theories. It is a fallacy to suggest that increased state spending for education decreases crime rates. While there is a correlation between lack of education and convicted criminals, there is no cause and effect relationship. (The arrest of Dean’s highly educated son for burglary attests to that.)
Vermont’s crime rates did decrease during the nineties. However, so did the crime rates in the rest of the United States. The improvement was a function of sentencing reforms, not educational policies. In fact, according to Vermont Public Radio (VPR), it was not Dean’s educational programs that reduced crime at all; it was his law and order policies.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel stated, “In his first years as Governor, Dean was …critical of judges who … did not (issue) tough enough sentences… during his tenure as governor the average sentence handed down in Vermont has doubled - a situation that has led to an overcrowding of the state's prison system.[3]”
Kinzel was not the only one claiming that Dean’s philosophy of crime prevention is not one of education versus incarceration. A website promoting Dean’s candidacy states, “Working with lawmakers, prosecutors, judges and law enforcement, Gov. Dean has cracked down on violent crime in Vermont and ensured that violent felons spend time behind bars.” [4]
Dean’s educational largesse is not what he claims it to be either. In 2002, he proposed rejecting $26 million of federal funds because he felt the educational reforms proposed by President Bush and passed by Congress, were too intrusive.
Among other things, what Dean objected to was that the legislation required the state periodically examine students.[5] Dean said that might cost the state $50 million. Despite his professed love of education, the governor was ready to reject funding for education because he did not like the accountability provisions required for the funding. Even though such provisions improve education by ensuring that students are progressing and that teachers are teaching. This is an anathema to the teachers’ unions - a major Democratic Party special interest group.
If Dean’s declarations about how his policies to reduce crime and increase education are mendacious, his statements about how his policies dramatically improved healthcare are sheer sophistry.
According to Montpelier, Vermont, family practitioner Deborah Richter, president of Vermont Healthcare for All, Vermont’s healthcare system was in a state of crisis because of Dean’s policies.
Richter was not the only critic. In December 2001, Dean’s own commission issued the, Final Report by the Governor’s Bipartisan Commission on Healthcare Availability and Affordability, which said,” Healthcare in Vermont is near a state of crisis -- some of us would say it is already in crisis. Health care costs in Vermont… are increasing at a sufficient rate to place state government itself in jeopardy. ...We are rapidly approaching the point at which these costs will directly conflict with our ability to do such things as to maintain roads and bridges…or to provide cost-effective services to our infants and children.[6]”
During his tenure Dean instructed the legislature to cut Medicaid benefits because of increased costs. He said recipients would have to make sacrifices. This is a very different scenario from the one Dean portrayed to the Iowans.
Dean is the favorite of the Democrat lunatic liberals. Yet, a poll of Vermonters in October 2002 revealed that 56% rated Dean’s governorship as fair to poor, 49% disapprove of his candidacy for president, and only 34% would vote for him.
Vermonters must know something the rest of us do not.
[1] http://www.stowereporter.com/community/2303-dean.shtml ret 8-5-03
[2] http://ohio.fordean.org/OH/Docs/ICDLetter.doc ret fm w/s 8-6-03
[3] http://www.vpr.net/vt_news/stories/sharedlegacy/shared3.shtml
[4] http://www.fundforahealthyamerica.com/HowardDean.asp
[5] http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/Story/45527.html
[6] http://www.state.vt.us/health/commission/docs/report/finalreport.htm#text3
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