LP Allegheny County Statement on the April 22 Pittsburgh Democrat Mayoral Debate

As candidates Ed Gainey and Michael Lamb sparred on stage, the people of Allegheny County were once again subjected to the tragicomedy that is Pittsburgh politics: a performative tug-of-war over how best to spend your money on programs that perpetuate the very misery they claim to solve.

Let’s get one thing straight—the obsession with public housing for a permanent underclass is not compassion. It is strategy layered with a willful ignorance of the economic reality that socialism disguised as charity worsens the very problems it claims to solve. Not coincidentally, it ALSO sustains a self-interested bureaucracy whose livelihood depends on never actually resolving the issue.

There are two clear beneficiaries: Those who receive the handouts, and the political class—operators, union workers, and contractors—who profit handsomely from the system while bearing none of the cost of its failures. The permanent dependent class—housed, fed, and subsidized by forcibly redistributed private wealth— functionally partner with the Professional Social Work complex to become a reliable voting and donation bloc for the Democratic political machine.

Meanwhile, the productive taxpayer not only foots the bill, they are regularly scolded for not surrendering even more when the programs predictably not only fail to solve the problems, they make them worse. More crime. More violence. More youth mired in generations-deep poverty. 

Just as we're now learning about our broken healthcare system and the massive costs of chronic disease on taxpayers, this is not about solving the problem. This is about managing it for political utility and profit. Otherwise  the $ trillions American Taxpayers already spent on the LBJ's War on Poverty would have already made a dent in the problem. 

And what did this Gainey vs Lamb debate predicably amount to? Competing blueprints for rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship. Lamb insisted Gainey wasn’t “doing enough” to address the housing crisis. Gainey countered with a laundry list of tax-funded interventions.

Neither stopped to question the premise: Why does local government assume the right to confiscate private earnings to create artificial housing markets that frequently subsidizes personal choices that guarantee poverty, devalue adjacent property and neighborhoods, and drive productive citizens and businesses out of the city?

They never mention the real crisis: the exponential legacy of a local and regional tax structures and regulatory regimes so bloated, so parasitic, that they actively destroy the organic wealth creation that could lift people out of poverty.

Sure, they will, like Gainey, always point to how all the redistributed hundreds of $ millions builds new low- and no-income housing (usually with political crony contractors at an offensive cost-per-unit that is multiples above what even private middle-class working families could ever afford!!). But few bother to acknowledge the crater such plundering leaves behind in private wealth.

No. Socialists NEVER account for how that wealth, left in private hands, would have boosted consumer and business spending, instead growing the economy organically -- providing jobs, supporting entrepreneurship. Combined with an economic environment without its arteries clogged by government intervention, cronyism, and special-interest-captured regulations, all economic boats would rise. (But that would mean the "votes for handouts" crowd would have to get real jobs!!)

Indeed -- The solution isn't more programs. It’s less political plundering, less reallocation.  Less government.

Self-Perpetuating System of Plunder

So in this debate, while we may generously concede that both Gainey and Lamb are, like so many Americans, a bit illiterate on basic economics and the fallacies of socialism. Maybe these two just don't know any better? 

On the other hand, this is nothing new. This is the Democrat Machine with a lock on Allegheny County and City politics -- our regulations and taxpayer wealth. It's always the same. More redistribution.  More taxes. More political cronyism with unions and special interests. 

(Worse yet, while we are witnessing this ritual of political theater between democrat primary candidates, we remain under a bipartisan religion that believes government is the first mover of prosperity. Harrisburg is barely better with Republicans sharing power with Democrats in the state legislature.)

Nevertheless, both Gainey and Lamb agreed on this fundamental delusion. They only differed on which set of political cronies and bureaucrats should be trusted to divvy up the spoils of confiscation.

It’s all a performance to make the public forget that the reason Pittsburgh needs “solutions” is because of the very policies implemented over the past 90-years by the same class of politicians now promising to fix them.

Let’s ask several forbidden questions:

• Why is housing unaffordable? Because socialism undermines organic economy and subsidizes behaviors, personal choices, and crony business models and services that are themselves unsustainable and would otherwise not be funded if the citizens were not plundered of their wealth by political henchmen wielding the violence of the State to threaten taxpayers with compliance.  Add to that broken zoning laws, local govt land ownership, and rent controls that distort the market.

• Why are neighborhoods unsafe? Because state had subsidized the breakdown of the family and disincentivized the discipline of personal accountability and success. Government control has neutered civil society’s natural economic mechanisms of order and accountability.

• Why do productive families and growing businesses flee the city? Because the costs of supporting a government-dependent class, through rising taxes and crime, are too high to justify staying.  Remaining voters intent on electing politicians with more blatant socialist agendas only portend the looming economic bankruptcy that befalls all socialist efforts. Indeed, promises and handouts always sound splendid during election time and make for great PR yellow-ribbon-cutting stunts -- until they run out of other people's money and our crumbling bridges start collapsing!

No. Pittsburgh doesn’t need a “better housing plan.” It needs Economic Liberation.

The Libertarian Party of Allegheny County believes we must:

• End taxpayer-funded dependency housing.

• Eliminate corporate welfare masked as “public-private partnerships”.

• Return charity to the private sector where accountability and effectiveness will be restored.

• Get government and cronyism out of the way of small businesses and productive, hard working people; and...

• Return power, liberty, and responsibility to individuals, communities, and free markets. 

We need Western PA to become an economic free market zone that defies socialism and is instead a catalyst to thriving productivity among families, businesses, entrepreneurs, and private community organizations.

The real choice before Pittsburgh is not between Gainey and Lamb. It’s between a future built on personal liberty and economic sovereignty—or one defined by permanent fiscal insolvency and managerial rule.

The Libertarian Party of Allegheny County stands alone in rejecting the status quo. We refuse to argue over how best to manage dependence. We demand a return to liberty, responsibility, and voluntary association -- and productive, organic economic growth and improving living standards.

No more treating taxpayers as livestock for political harvest. It’s time to stop feeding the beast.

— Libertarian Party of Allegheny County

“Free the Market. Free the People.”

Allegheny County has over 2000 registered libertarian voters. Contact us to learn more about how you can help us make a difference.