Fair Winds and Following Seas, But Get the Facts Straight

Chuck Baldwin is the pastor of Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, and was the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. I've always found his columns interesting if not accurate. In several recent columns, he announced and tried to explain why he and his extended family ("5 households and 17 people ranging in ages from 3 months to the upper 70s") decided to move from "the beautiful Gulf Coast beaches . . . to the majestic Rocky Mountains: the Flathead Valley of Montana."

One important reason he offers for moving to the Mountain States is "due to the distance separating them from the great regions of the country in which the tables are truly stacked against any growth and extension of the principles of federalism or limited government, namely, the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest (with my apologies to freedomists in those areas). Big-city liberalism dominates most of the states in these regions. The federal government has invested billions of dollars and thousands of personnel establishing and oiling the Orwellian machine in these areas."

But by one objective measure, Federal Expenditures by State per Dollar Sent, Montana hardly qualifies as a bastion of self-sufficiency and liberty. For every dollar sent to Washington D.C., the federal government spends $1.58 in Montana.

Nevertheless, I bid him fair winds and following seas (and best wishes for factual accuracy in the future).